Redelliot

I hope someone might be able to help or had a similar situation they can share.

My partner (35M) and I (30F) went to Melbourne on a work holiday visa in 2019 and loved it. After our work finished we travelled around and got to see a lot of different parts of Australia.

I'm desperate to move back and we can on skilled visa. Since we returned home we were priced out of London and bought a run down house we've had to do up. Partners struggling to find consistent work as a solid plasterer where we have moved to so commutes to London everyday. We hate winter here and both convinced we get Seasonal depression each year, he is closer to his family but since lock down everyone has their own independent lives, we really don't see family that much these days even when they are down the road.

My partner knows all the pros and cons of living in Australia and even started talking and asking questions about it but as soon as I start the visa process and it gets a bit real he bottles it. I can't keep having the same conversations and getting my hopes up as its driving me mad and feel if we don't go the resent and regret of not going will tear us apart.

I just want to give it a go. We have no kids. Our parents are healthy and in their 50s and 60s. There really is no reason for us not to try.

Am I in the wrong to keep on about it? Any advice will be much appreciated 👍

Moses2013

Not in Australia now but to me it sounds like you just need people to agree with you and say you are young, just go with it. Of course that would be the easiest thing to say. At the end of the day you know the pros and cons yourself and say you are desperate, so it's either convince your partner or break up. Then again there are always plenty of other options to seek sun closer to home, but the past has always shown us that you can't stop desperate people focused on one country.

Redelliot

Thanks, yeah I think you're right. I've got my heart set on Australia only because we've done most of the leg work. We know the places we like and don't like, we know we can find work as we've already done it. We have contacts there...

spouse of scouse

Which visa/s are you eligible to apply for?

Pulaski

My parents went through the same thing, almost, researching, Australia, NZ, and South Africa, though not reaching the stage of visiting any of them, but apparently (I was only a child at the time), once they reached the stage of actually applying for visas, my father refused to go any further with the process.

Realistically, I believe that your alternatives are an either/or choice between your relationship and emigration. I don't know your partner, but I suspect that he is unlikely to change his mind, and worse, that attempts to change his mind are having the opposite effect.

There is a similar risk whether you remain together in the UK, or you succeed in pressuring your partner to go to Australia with you - that one of you is going to get resentful (you: that your partner wouldn't go, and him: that he got dragged to Australia when he didn't really want to go) and your relationship fails anyway.

Redelliot

We can get the 189 or 190 visa.

My plan, as I know he is hesitant, is to go for a minimum of 2 years and really give it a go and if it's not right for either of us at least we tried and we can come back.

We'll keep the house in the UK and rent it so we still have a base here.

The issue is just getting to that point. im doing all the work for the visas and wish he was on the same page.

He was also like this with the work holiday visa. Very unsure at the start but once we were there he loved it. He constantly talks about how great it was and it gets my hopes up as we can have that if we really make a go of it.

I 100% won't go without him. I'm not complete A hole. We've been together 8 years and have a great relationship. So if i have to put this dream to bed I will just hate the back and forth.

Moses2013

Good point and the same resent/regret can happen when it doesn't work out there. It can be like the holiday you both enjoyed at the time but deep down he might know it's not going to be the same again. Moves abroad have always been about timing and sometimes I feel it's a lot easier when both don't have that desperate desire to move to that one country. You just take things as they come is my motto and life is so much easier that way.

Redelliot

Thanks, yeah, we had a really good chat earlier about it. We're taking it one step at a time not putting too much pressure on it.

Rainydaze

I relate a little to your dilemma, OP. My partner Is Australian and lived with me in the UK (NI) for almost a decade. He wanted to move home to take up a fantastic career opportunity and also to be close to his aging parents.

We made the decision to go based on these pull and also some push factors. The UK was diving into a recession and both our jobs were at a dead end.

I moved in a spirit of ‘my turn to give it a go.’ And also, very crucially, the knowledge that nothing is permanent and I would go home if it really didn’t work out.

It worked out.

I won’t lie. I’m a home bird, very close to my family and I do miss the nature and culture at home. But the circumstances in the UK are dismal over the past several years and in my head I know that we have a better life here.

However the door is never shut and I know that one day I will likely go back.

Sorry this is wishy washy. I suppose I would just reassure your partner that no decision is irrevocable. Give it a shot, or commit to 5 years and see where it takes you. In the understanding that you could call it quits if it really wasn’t working for your partner.

I know many other British, Irish and American people who moved here to Australia. Over half of them have decided to stay, because you can’t argue with the better quality of life (despite the cost of living bite being felt globally now). The others went home, often within a couple of years. I think it boils down to how adaptable you are as much as anything else.

I think there are a lot more push factors then when I left, and it’s an easier sell to say ‘let’s go for 5 years.’ Plus there are lots of opportunities for skilled tradespeople here.

It wasn’t tacitly expressed, but I agree with the inferences above that if one person is drawn overseas (or back home) it usually comes to a head sooner rather than later that you have to make a decision to go/return, alone or together. It comes down to the binary you talked about, going together or separating and going on your own.

I hope you can persuade your partner to give it a go. The biggest regrets in life are what we didn’t do, not what we did.

Good luck!

quoll

If he doesnt want to go, dont force him. If you want to go then go.

Being on holiday is a very different scenario to uprooting and living somewhere permanently. I would be hesitant about the "lets give it 2 years" thing because what we have seen on this and other forums so often is that the "2 years" goalposts get changed when one of you loves it and the other really wants to return to their roots and the resentment can really kick in. Then you get all sorts of financial and other barriers to moving on -eg kids come along and you dont want to disrupt their education, then they start having relationships and before you know it you still have one "out of place" person in the relationship who cannot move on without doing a whole lot more damage to a larger family and they spend the rest of their lives living in the wrong place which is not a happy place to live.

Bottom line, if you are desperate to go, can get a visa then call quits on your relationship and get on with it. But dont try and force/blackmail/persuade him into going with you - the resentment will never be far from the surface if you do. Oh and make sure you have a lot of cash because trying to buy anywhere in Australia at the moment requires big bucks, you think London was bad LOL

Rainydaze

Fair point Quoll. This scenario describes my husband’s English GGF to a tee. He never truly settled and he never felt “home,” but the hourglass turned and all his life and family was in this hemisphere. That said, their reasons for coming here in the first place were very consciously about closing a painful chapter in England.

I suppose OP only you know what is the likelier outcome, and whether you should set off alone on the journey.

scrubbedexpat143

As a personal viewpoint, I entirely agree with Rainydaze and quoll. Both have written well on this very real dilemma.

You may have reached a point in your relationship where you've decided it's time for big changes. In your lives or your life. He is unsure, maybe insecure or fearful of change.

From what you wrote, I sense that you are ready to make this decision and take this big step in our life. But you are hesitant to do it for fear of hurting him.

You have resolve this situation. Whatever you both or only you decide, there may be resentment on one side. If you go and he tags along, more or less unwillingly, he will resent it and he may blame you for having messed up his life. If you decide to not go, then you will be resentful.

To me it boils down to a possibly or even probably difficult decision, whichever way. A lose-lose now/possible win-win later (for you both), or a lose-win-?? later (for you).

My situation dates back a longer way, but it was similar. In 1970 I was in Canada. I disliked my life in Toronto, my job, the horrible winters, the conservatism of life in Canada. I had a reasonable relationship with my then partner, but my unhappiness causedr tensions at home, which I dealt with by traveling a lot, short-term trips.

In 1970 and again in 1972 and 1974 I went to Australia, for a month each time. I hated the long air haul across the Pacific, but after my second visit I knew I had found MY place. Sydney in the '70s was vastly different from what it is now, but 48 years later I'm still there (not in Sydney, but close to Melbourne) and I love it, faults and all. I tell my friends I would stay even if at the end of my life I have to live in a tent under a tree in Royal Park, Melbourne. And I would...

My then partner lived in Sydney in the '60s, with another partner. That relationship failed, mostly due to the same reasons now causing you problems at home. They moved back to Toronto but broke up six months later, not happily. We met a year later and moved in together after a month. We had a few basic things in common, but we were culturally and temperamentally incompatible, a 'mix' of a calm, serious half-French half-Irish academic type and a fiery Latin live-for-fun disco bunny. I now realize that we were too immature to realize this, but anyway, there we were. I wanted to move, my SO wanted to stay. Problem. BIG problem. .

(I am in no way saying this is your situation. It's merely how things were in my life at that long ago time.)

I had decided to live in Australia but my partner didn't want to return. Discussions based on what I saw as intelligent applied logic quickly deteriorated into arguments and a final stand-off with threats of legal action. We had just bought a house together, but I had the best job and credit rating, so the mortgage and the house title were in my name. I had also put up all the deposit (down payment). You can see the picture here.

I sold the house. Lawyers were consulted and briefed, I made a reasonable settlement offer I could afford. Which was refused, but my partner's legal counsel wisely understood the situation and pushed an agreement. I made the payout and left Canada for Sydney and a new life. We have not had any direct contact since, tho' my ex still complains to this day about what a louse I was. I know I wasn't. Nothing itches on my back. But life can be like that.

Like you and your partner, I planned to live in Sydney two or three years. In 1979 and again in 1982 I went back to Toronto to see how things were, also to visit my family in New Brunswick and (maybe) plan a new life for myself, with time in two continents. That would not have worked for me and I returned to Australia.

That was me. You are you and your partner is also someone. Yu've tried to negotiate with him, but he stonewalls you, and you give in to keep the peace and to please him. You want to do something that truly inspires you, and he doesn't. That's what I'm reading in your posts.

Making promises of "let's try it for a few years and see" is really giving in to him. In doing so you are giving him the ammunition he can use later to bully you with. Okay, if you both don't like it, then you can return home. If you like it and he doesn't, you may have to deal with the difficult part in Australia. Either way the end result will be the same, but it will have been dragged on and on, needlessly. Don't put yourself in that position. Lay your deck of cards on the dining table now and let him choose his cards, without any ifs, ands or buts.

In the end you will have to decide for you.

I am not saying you should separate from or even divorce your partner if you are married, sell up, and go. Nor am I saying you should stay where you are to keep the peace. All such final decisions are entirely yours to make. But in the end, as you've tried to talk it through with him on the basis of what you thought both of you want, and it seems that isn't the true situation. You are not on the same page in your lives together. At some point you will have to decide what's best for you.

Difficult, yes. but we all have to deal with such situations, and life in the real world is no bed of roses.

brits1

Excellent advice, the amount of people I know who have been in this situation for some it worked out a lot though it did not, sometimes we think that we have a “life partner” but a lot of the times life changes and so do we and that “life partner” was wonderful for that period of your life but you have to move on sometimes on your own, I really hope it works out for the both of you but but Quoll has made some really valid points. Good luck

Moses2013

In fairness, the OP did reply that they had a really good chat and are now taking it one step at a time. I do agree with Quoll that plenty of cash is required and probably not always great starting at the bottom again when you are 37 (which would be the case for her partner after 2 years on a Visa). There are many things we want, getting it is the other challenge. It's the same when people go to a restaurant and want that specific dish and the waiter says it's not available. Some will fall into depression and others will see it as a chance to try another dish.

Chocolate eclair

We emigrated to NZ and it's the biggest regret of my life. Financially it has proved to be a disaster. I hated working as a midwife here and gave my career up after a couple of years. Ive been unable to find any paid work since that has fulfilled me. So I turned to voluntary work, this was okay for a while but then was spoilt by a toxic, bullying person who made it most unpleasant to be involved. As time has gone on, I've lost my confidence and I've lost me somewhere along the way. Both my physical and mental health have deteriorated over the past 16 years.
If this is your dream then go with it but don’t drag your other half along if he's reluctant.