Milly

I hope things work out well for you Tilly. Hope you and the animals have a good trip back and get settled in soon. Good luck with the job hunting. Best wishes, Milly.

Hi Tilly. Despite the late call, it's good he has found his voice on the subject. And, if these types of conversations don't come easy it means the more. However, at some level knowing him as well as you do you already knew how he felt - he wants you to stay but he really doesn't want to go. So I suppose you now have to work on what is going to change/be different such that you can continue to spend your lives together. My advice would be go and have your holiday but make up your mind to return to your husband and pets before you go. Use the break for some thinking time, to refresh your mind and spirit, catch up with loved ones. Look at it fresh when you return. This is such a huge decision, to rush into it would be a mistake. Flying back and forth is not cheap. But if your husband is earning well and you are working, the extra money spent is worth it and pales into insignificance when you look at the financial cost of divorce - which this may end up becoming if you continue on this path. Not to mention the emotional cost. How will you feel if after you separate your husband takes up with another. My best wishes to you. I know how it feels to have the heartache that pulls you 'home'. And I put home in commas because, for many of us though not all, once we become migrants home is in two places. It is the hidden cost of migration that we can't fully realise until it becomes part of our very being. Milly

That sounds like a great idea to me Katie. But I doubt my 16 y.o. would want to be seen with a backpack and his mother in tow, not a cool look ! LOL.

I don't understand how it can go pear shaped. It can go any shape it likes as far as I am concerned. Fact is, at the grand old age of 00 I am jolly well having a 'gap year' or longer if it suits me LOL, whether the teenager likes it or not. Yep, I am donning my back pack (figuratively speaking) and going. I may well don my back pack again and come back and if I do - what of it. I don't think it has to be that black and white - the world is so fluid these days why should I not take time out over there and come back if I choose. It's all about attitude, and my attitude is stay healthy, keep active, stay doing. I shall crack open the bubbly when I arrive, and crack it open again when I arrive back if that is how it turns out. I don't get this tail between the legs, told you so attitude at all.

I have had similar reaction but hey, so I am a bit of an off the wall English eccentric ! But if I don't see the Lake District before I pass it will kill me ! Hah. You know what, it's only now that the boy is in Year 11 that I can formulate any real plans around it without it seeming like wishful thinking. My son doesn't have the same attachment to England of course, given he was born here. We have talked about it, at present he seems keen to go to University after he finishes school. I have suggested a gap year in Europe seeing as I will (hopefully) be in England as a fall back for him (not that I want to cramp his style !). I originate from the South though it would not really matter where I go given I have been away so long. The cheaper the better ! However, I will need to work and my line of work in Banking and Financial Services means I will need to be within travelling distance of a city, so possibly that may be London. Sometimes I find the thought terrifying, sometimes exhilarating. Yes, it is lovely finding this site, I only joined today when I saw your posting. Hope I am not breaching the rules and hogging the OP's thread.

Often, as life moves along and changes, different things seem right. Katie22 I am in a similar position to you, am waiting for my son to finish school at the end of next year before I return to the UK - whilst I have a few working years left (hopefully) to see if it is where I want to be. At present I am currently wanting a foot in both countries so I may rent the house. I have spent many years in Australia and my son was born here. I feel I want to go back and visit so much of the history and places I have not seen, and to revisit those that have a special place in my heart. Unless I do that I think I will regret it when I am in my rocking chair.