I Don’t Want A Second Home Abroad
QMy husband and I are retired and quite comfortably off. He would love for us to split our time between our home in a lovely English village and a villa in Portugal or Spain. He’s even booked a holiday for us to start looking at properties. I just do not want to go. I love my house, plus I’d desperately miss my daughter and grandchildren who live nearby. I have tried telling him. It’s never been an easy marriage, but will we end up going our separate ways over this?
AOh dear! We are all hoping for, and expecting, a long retirement and that means maybe 20-30 years of being together! No wonder it throws up all sorts of issues – especially as we all have individual needs and goals.
Why not go on a starter holiday and see if you enjoy it? You could talk to ex-pat residents and ask how they manage their relationships with family back home. If you can stay for a month or more, you could really see how it
works. Being on holiday in a place and living there are very different. How you spend day after day is crucial. I suspect you hope your husband might tire of constant sun/sea/golf – and miss his grandchildren too much – if you stay away for long, but if he loves it all and you don’t, you have decisions to make.
Your daughter may suggest a way of spending time together and apart. Perhaps small bouts of separation and/or overlap is the way forward? She may encourage you to spend more time there, with the promise of regular visits. Or it could be that you develop separate interests, but enjoy life together when you choose to overlap. Or you may stay put. Keep your options open but don’t be persuaded to make changes you don’t want. An honest conversation is the only way forward.
I suspect you hope he may tire of constant sun/sea/golf after a while, but he may not