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Expect daughter to live overseas for a year?
pointless2
Posts: 9 Forumite
(previous poster but new username for privacy reasons)
Opinions sought please. Am I being unreasonable? Apologies for length.
My husband is from New Zealand, but has lived here for 15 years and has UK citizenship (got before he met me). We have always planned our future in the UK. He has parents, siblings and extended family in NZ, and we see them approximately once per year, and we speak to his parents on the phone / FaceTime most weeks. They are close without being _that_ close - I mean he did choose to move to the other side of the world in his early 20s, and not because of a partner or specific job or anything.
We now have a baby daughter. She will have dual citizenship, but we see ourselves staying put in the UK. I am close to my family, and have always been clear that I wouldn't want to move overseas permanently (though I would consider it for a few years if he asked - which he hasn't). It would upset my parents a lot if I moved, especially if I took their only grandchild with me. They see her most weeks.
We have written wills, and named my (UK based) cousin as the person to have parental responsibility should my husband and I both pass away. Husband's siblings would be awesome, but they are on the other side of the world and would be near complete strangers, so it would mean taking her away from everything she knows, including my parents.
Husband is absolutely cool with this, and we have included in our 'letter of wishes' that we do want her to maintain good relationship with Kiwi relatives, do lots of FaceTime, go on regular (annual?) visits etc. And leaving funds to do this. Fine.
But husband also wants us to write that we would like her go and live in NZ with his family for a year in her teens. I think that this is a terrible idea.
- I think that if we write it she will feel obliged to do it to honour our wishes, even if she doesn't want to
- so she'd have to move away from her whole support network to live with people she barely knows
- and then back a year later when she might just be getting settled
- and on the back of both her parents having died already, so relationship with my cousin and his wife as parents already not as secure as most others
(let alone the impact on education etc).
Obviously when she is 18 she can go wherever she wants. I really do want her to stay connected with her NZ side, but not at the expense of a secure upbringing. Husband very clear that he doesn't want her to go to NZ for a year if we are alive, just if we aren't...
Husband is more adventurous than me, sure. I went off travelling etc independently when I was university-aged, but would have hated to be apart from my family when I was 13, even if I did argue with them like all teenagers do. He says I can't know that she will feel the same, and he can't remember what he would have wanted at that age.
I should add that we are in perfect health and this is all theoretical. But it is upsetting me to think that he values her living there for a year over maintaining stability and security at a vulnerable time in her life, when her upbringing will already have been disrupted.
Thoughts?
Thank you
Opinions sought please. Am I being unreasonable? Apologies for length.
My husband is from New Zealand, but has lived here for 15 years and has UK citizenship (got before he met me). We have always planned our future in the UK. He has parents, siblings and extended family in NZ, and we see them approximately once per year, and we speak to his parents on the phone / FaceTime most weeks. They are close without being _that_ close - I mean he did choose to move to the other side of the world in his early 20s, and not because of a partner or specific job or anything.
We now have a baby daughter. She will have dual citizenship, but we see ourselves staying put in the UK. I am close to my family, and have always been clear that I wouldn't want to move overseas permanently (though I would consider it for a few years if he asked - which he hasn't). It would upset my parents a lot if I moved, especially if I took their only grandchild with me. They see her most weeks.
We have written wills, and named my (UK based) cousin as the person to have parental responsibility should my husband and I both pass away. Husband's siblings would be awesome, but they are on the other side of the world and would be near complete strangers, so it would mean taking her away from everything she knows, including my parents.
Husband is absolutely cool with this, and we have included in our 'letter of wishes' that we do want her to maintain good relationship with Kiwi relatives, do lots of FaceTime, go on regular (annual?) visits etc. And leaving funds to do this. Fine.
But husband also wants us to write that we would like her go and live in NZ with his family for a year in her teens. I think that this is a terrible idea.
- I think that if we write it she will feel obliged to do it to honour our wishes, even if she doesn't want to
- so she'd have to move away from her whole support network to live with people she barely knows
- and then back a year later when she might just be getting settled
- and on the back of both her parents having died already, so relationship with my cousin and his wife as parents already not as secure as most others
(let alone the impact on education etc).
Obviously when she is 18 she can go wherever she wants. I really do want her to stay connected with her NZ side, but not at the expense of a secure upbringing. Husband very clear that he doesn't want her to go to NZ for a year if we are alive, just if we aren't...
Husband is more adventurous than me, sure. I went off travelling etc independently when I was university-aged, but would have hated to be apart from my family when I was 13, even if I did argue with them like all teenagers do. He says I can't know that she will feel the same, and he can't remember what he would have wanted at that age.
I should add that we are in perfect health and this is all theoretical. But it is upsetting me to think that he values her living there for a year over maintaining stability and security at a vulnerable time in her life, when her upbringing will already have been disrupted.
Thoughts?
Thank you
0
Comments
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What an odd thing to put in a will. A will is about what you leave behind, not what you expect your recipients to do in years to come. Surely by then it would her and her guardian's decision as to what she would do.
It sounds like a very strange detail to be discussing, let alone to get upset about.0 -
That idea is going to seriously disrupt her academic studies and GCSEs.
The only possible option that would not be to her detriment that I can see is going for a gap year before Uni0 -
I think you should respect your husbands wishes, as he does yours.0
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unforeseen wrote: »That idea is going to seriously disrupt her academic studies and GCSEs.
The only possible option that would not be to her detriment that I can see is going for a gap year before Uni
This.
No school would hold a place for her for a year so she would come back to a school that had places - likely to be less desirable otherwise why has it got spaces, decent ones are commonly over-subscribed and with waiting lists. If you are in a Grammar school area and she is bright they definitely wouldn't hold a place for her so she would have to give that up.
Terrible idea.I’m a Senior Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning, Loans
& Credit Cards boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.
All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.0 -
Are you both planning on dying before she reaches teenage years? If not, why are you getting upset by this? By the time she is a teenager, she will have her own mind, and might decide that she will go and live in NZ!0
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unforeseen wrote: »That idea is going to seriously disrupt her academic studies and GCSEs.
The only possible option that would not be to her detriment that I can see is going for a gap year before Uni
I agree with this but.....I think you should respect your husbands wishes, as he does yours.
........from a practical point of view I agree with this.
The chances of it actually happening are sufficiently small that I would agree in order to keep the peace.You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friend's nose.0 -
Thanks everyone so far.
Re the will - this isn't to go in the will, it's a letter of wishes to go alongside it. Our solicitor advised us to write one, mainly to guide her guardian / trustees about anything we think important. It basically just says that we do want her to keep in touch with the NZ family (and that we welcome my cousin spending money from daughter's trust fund to facilitate this, including for cousin's other kids to travel there etc).
I am all in favour of her spending a gap year there. But what I'm really in favour of is her doing what she wants, and I think that if we put it in the letter of wishes she will feel obliged to do it even if she doesn't want to...0 -
we have no plans to die!0
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pointless2 wrote: »
I am all in favour of her spending a gap year there. But what I'm really in favour of is her doing what she wants, and I think that if we put it in the letter of wishes she will feel obliged to do it even if she doesn't want to...
I think you are overthinking a scenario which is extremely unlikely to materialise.You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friend's nose.0 -
Would such a request mean anything anyway, in the unlikely event that you both died?. . .I did not speak out
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me..
Martin Niemoller0
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