Howefamily

I addition to my sell or go issue with our house, I also dont know when to tell my dad.

Everyone else knows that we are hoping to move to Nova Scotia but my dad and stepmum are still completely in the dark.
I just dont know when would be good to tell them and if I am honest, am waiting for the first answer from Nova Scotia, in case they say no, and therefore theres no reason to tell my dad.

My dad has clinical depression that comes in cycles and hes had this one for 18 months, my stepmum is fighting breast cancer and is about to embark on radio and chemo therapy. They are both in their late sixties, in fact my dad may be 70 now.

My dad is also (when well) a difficult character, hes an absolute authority on everything he knows nothing about and I am sure that if he considers Canada to be the same as the US ( yes I know, they are not the same) then he will be completely unsupportive although he did once say that he would pay for us to move to Oz as he lived there as a young man.

We are also taking away his two grandchildren.
I just dont know if I tell him we are just goign for a couple of years and make up some fictitious job that we are moving for, and then say "hey we arent moving back" or be completely honest. It feels like a huge weight over me.

Either way I feel like we are about to just add to their problems with our news, I just cant see that they are going to be happy about this. I couldnt bear to be responsible for making their lives harder right now.

or4ngecrush

it's a tough one but I guess you got to tell him at some point? its your life and I just hope you find the right answer.

Sorry I feel I want to help but not sure what t say to you?

My family are very supportive, maybe someone will be along that has been in a similar situation.

Alberta_Rose

Only you know your family and your relationship with them.
There are pros and cons to telling straight away or waiting til last minute (depending on who you talk to!).

We knew MIL would be devastated, and she was, but we also felt that we shouldn't "keep it from her" that we were planning to leave. That smacks of underhandedness, and anyway, we didn't think it fair on the kids to try to keep a secret from their grandparents with whom they had close relationships.

We also felt it would give everyone time to come to terms with what we were doing, and work through their reactions, rather than leave them in a state of shock and abandonment.

However, some people on here have been plagued with emotional blackmail and histrionics from the time of telling, (sometimes years, back in our day) and obviously wish they could have left it all behind and just gone!!

Sometimes we think family will react a certain way and they surprise us! (To the good or to the bad!)
Other times their feelings will blow hot and cold at different times throughout the process..... you pays yer money and takes yer choice really.

DandNHill

Well after what my 5 year old said yesterday I would actually suggest the sooner rather than later policy.

Yesterday we met up with one of my colleagues and her other half for a drink and took the 5 year old along.
Out of the blue he started telling her that he didn't want to live in Canada as he didn't want to change schools. My colleague is totally unaware of our plans as I am not telling anybody at work for the moment as I would rather my boss didn't know.
Anyway when junior said this I froze, thinking about what I should say and decided not to react so that my colleague would think it was just some random thing a 5 year old had come out with.

HOWEVER if my son had been a little older he might have explained in more detail and let the cat out of the bag and our plans would no longer have been secret!

So after all that basically what I was trying to say was tell them before anybody else does

izzi81

It really depends on your relationship with your family, and how your dad might react, but to me, if it might be problematic, then one possible advantage of telling them sooner is you might have time to persuade them? If the reaction is negative, you have time to win them over. If you wait, and tell them right before you go, and the reaction is negative, then that is what you leave with. Of course, as someone else already said, some people have found it to be all negative and so not good at all.

We have been up front with my family, but currently my mum does not want to talk about it at all. I suspect she is hoping our application is refused, even though I know she wants me to be happy. If we are approved I know the countdown to leaving is not going to be pretty... but unfortunately that's just the way it goes

TheThornes

We told just about everyone about our wishes to move here as soon as we had made the decision to try and come over. Virtually everyone was really supportive. My mum was the one who found the idea hard to come to terms with which did make things a bit awkward at times but, having now been over to visit us twice, she loves it and totally understands why we wanted to do it.

You mention the possibility of telling people it's just for two years and then later telling them you that now intend to stay. Personally, I don't like this idea. This is what my mother-in-law told her mother (my husband's grandmother) about our move over. I was always against the idea but she insisted it was for the better. His grandmother is not stupid; if we had only intended to stay for 2 years, would we have gone to the trouble of actually selling our UK house and buying one in Canada? Probably not. I always felt it was unfair not to be straight with her as she probably, quite rightly, felt lied to.

For better or worse, you need to be straight with people. Like I said, we told people from the start so we could be open about our plans and so that people didn't feel they had been kept in the dark and had the news sprung on them at the last minute. It's true that only you can judge when is the right time to tell your family but, for us, we're glad we told them early on.

Kokanee

One thing that we have found, is it was important to have people visit very early on.(within our first year)

Most of our family had been supportive, we didnt have anyone against the move but some family members just did not warm to the idea of us moving. As soon as they visited and saw what we had as well as seeing Canada and the Canadian way of life every family member now understands why we moved.

ninaDGBCA

We just showed everybody pics and told them that we could not give our children the life in the UK that we can give them here. And just said that "obviously grandparents/aunts/uncles want the best for their grandchildren/nieces they would certainly understand that we have to go" everybody agreed, although they said it would be hard to see especially the kids go, it's for their best. And everybody was happy.
Good luck you have to do what you think is best. Maybe just start slowly with telling them you saw some documentary on NS and it seemed to be beautiful and so different to the US and loads of job opportunities and see what they say .... sorry can't help more

Howefamily

thanks all, I know you are right and I have to tell them soon... especially as my 6 year old talks about it constantly and will struggle to not let something slip.....
Big sigh

nikki dreaming

Its a hard one, but I think if you have kids and are openly discussing it with them then there will always be a good chance they will discuss it in front of people you may not want them to, you have no control over this though!

We told everyone right at the start, for the most part it was fine, some other members of the family did not take the news aswell, in some ways I wish we could have left telling them till later, but in other ways they had time to get used to the idea.

Like others have said, since visiting they feel a lot more at ease and have seen where we are etc and whilst they still miss the kids etc, I think have come to terms with it better.

Sorry cant offer any more advice, really down to deciding what "you" feel is best for your situation, make a decision and go with it.

Good luck

rufus2000

Hey

I totally feel for you. We too had similar issues with people accepting it.
However, with us, we told pretty much everybody of our intention before we even applied for visa. My family were extremelly supportive unlike my inlaws. They chose to think for the first couple of years that it was just an idea we had pulled out of the sky. Every time we mentioned Canada (news, weather or anything) the subject was changed. I think it was their way of coping by thinking if we don't talk about it, it's not real. Anyway, we then applied we decided not to tell them in case we got rejected. But we got accepted so we knew we'd have to tell them sooner or later. it got so difficult when we got to the point of having to tell them that it made us so stressed and upset. To make matters worse I had given birth to their first and only grandchild a few months before, so i knew the reaction would not be great. And it wasn't. There was no shouting just "thats not what I want to hear". Then it went back to not mentioning Canada again for quite some time and my Mother in law in particular spent months acting all depressed and moaning to everyone (except us) about us going. It was a really hard time for us as we could see it was upsetting people but you know what it was worth it in the end because the huge weight was lifted off our shoulders and we felt we could just get on with sorting out our lives. Since then, they have still not made it very easy to tell them of any updates on our move, even to the point when we told them we had booked our one way flights for this October. But, they are getting better slightly as time goes on. I have been able to slowly get my MIL talking about visiting us etc.
It won't be easy but you don't need to add this stress to yourselves. Just tell your dad the truth- you have applied and are awaiting acceptance. They are grown adults and although it's not what they want to hear they will come to terms with it in the end, hopefully.
You're doing this to give your family a better life and as people have mentioned, once they start visiting they will understand why you did it!!


Keep Strong. This emigration process is here to test the best of us xx

Helen xxxx

ann m

I agree with this approach. You are already anticipating a negative viewpoint so I would tell them in a calm, understated way - that you had considered moving and done a "little" research about jobs and opportunities.

Then leave it a while.

A few weeks later, "happen" to mention it again. Sow those seeds.

I think dumping it on them fairly last minute, with a month to go, or something like that, will exacerbate any ill feeling, then it's hard to come back from that if you are not actually there!

Good luck.

engineer80

As pp have said, it is a tough one. You will have to tell them sooner or later but if you do want to waiti until after you get your nomination, it'll give you a few weeks grace at least. After that though I think you will definitely have to say something as it will give them time to get used to the idea which is much better than shocking them with the news with only a few months to go with your move! As aways, here if you need to chat

Oink

I don't mean to sound unsupportive but why are you even thinking of trying to move to Canada when you have already mentioned it may create such a lot of emotional pain to your family? And to Nova Scotia? Surely there are better options within the UK?

el_richo

I was speaking to the receptionist at my Dentist, a scottish expat, in Vancouver the other week and she was telling me how devastated she is that her daughter has decided to live and work in the UK, and how she's trying to persuade her not to go.

Brilliant