....too be a bit annoyed?

You obviously need to discuss it all with your bloke, and determine whether or not you've got a real future together. If it turns out that you want different things, then it'd be better to perhaps end it and cut your losses.

Awh Urmstomgran so sorry to hear your your mum died last year but very heartwarming that she had a second chance at happiness.
Flaxseed put your cards on the table and listen and talk. Good luck

dannie I will

Farnorth Sorry but I don’t ever want to move abroad. I love being around my DD’s and DGS. I also have parents still here (late 70’s)
I will compromise with a holiday home.
I also would’nt want to be in a country where neither of us can speak the language!

lynne 5 years

How long have you and he been seeing each other?

long-held*

What is the matter with autocorrect? Long-headed isn't even a normal expression!

I think it's unfair of you to say you would never be willing to live abroad.
Not living abroad can't be said to be a dream of yours, while doing so is a long-headed dream for your DP.
You have to find out how much he still wants to do this and if there is a way to compromise.

As for DD, I wonder if she saw her mother abandon a dream of hers because of her partner, who has now left her.
If so, it's understandable if she wants her dad to avoid doing the same.

The two of you need to work it out together.

Ok Flaxseed, taking on board that there is more of a commitment than I had understood when I first posted, well what would a cohabiting couple do in these circumstances? They'd make the decision between them. It often takes ages, which is probably quite right when it's a big decision. But if you really do have more of a commitment than was apparent to me - and maybe more than was apparent to the daughter - then there is no problem. He and you will decide together and her input will be politely ignored by both of you.

Not all adult children are keeping an eye on their inheritance! I don’t live with my partner but my ex husband has remarried. My four children are not worried at all about their inheritance. They have all had some money from us to help them buy their own homes, for which they were very grateful, and are quite happy- in fact encouraging- for me to spend my savings on myself. They don’t want to think of either of us dying.

His daughter may well be trying to drive a wedge between you and your partner, getting him away from you, although you are not married now you may well do in the future in her eyes. ( my sister married hers after 26 yrs)
As he is considering moving abroad I guess there is money in the kitty to do it, she has her eye on inheritance and if you marry that changes it.
Encouraging him to move away from you would suit her quite well, second time relationships ALWAYS have this issue to deal with.

Good luck, just talk to him when you can and ask for the truth. With you still working I can see it would be impossible for you to do a 6 month trial stay somewhere, you could stress that side rather than a point blank refusal to go anywhere. How about a holiday if he wants to look round. I do wonder if as he has just retired his daughter thinks its now or never for him but I also wonder if his ex has been putting feelers out to daughter it does sound as if there has been some talk between them.

I’ve been out and just caught up.
Such lovely messages and so much to think about!

readymeals we are certainly more than close friends.
I can see why people may think we are not as serious as other couples just because we don’t live together, but I feel that we are. It just suits us both. Especially as I still work full time and live near my place of work.

I do feel the inheritance issue comes into this to a certain degree

I would actually be surprised if he does say he still wants to live abroad as he’s spoken about it to me less and less over the last couple of years.
I really wanted to talk about this when I go to his tomorrow evening but he reminded me to today that he’s picking his friend up from the airport who will be staying overnight! Damn!!
Hopefully friend will be sufficiently jet lagged to go to bed early

Having read all of this thread I have nothing to add except to say "Please come back on here and let us know the outcome and Good Luck!"

Agree with SaraC.

My first thought after reading your post was she may have seen a chink of light shining through that her parents could get back together. Especially as she's been polite and quiet previously and has nothing to gain by her father moving abroad.

As others have said, a heart to heart with your partner is advisable. He may have to be cajoled into telling you what he really thinks but it's upsetting you and worthy of an honest open discussion.

A lot of people, especially after retirement when you realise your options are running out, talk about things they would like to do. The dreams they have or had. Actually going ahead and doing that and moving away from family and friends is often difficult to do. He may have realised since meeting you that those dreams aren't so important anymore and he would rather have your company than move abroad and be lonely and missing you. Your compromise of a holiday home sounds ideal.

Could the cause be that your partner's daughter is worried that you two are getting very close and that she is worried that if you decided to marry, it could affect any inheritance she would get at a later date?

I do not mean that she is being greedy or grasping, but most of us who have had parents who are house owners, have always known, underneath, that barring the need to pay for care, we will one day inherit a sum of money. It is not just money it is often family items of sentimental value and there have been stories enough of children being cut out completely as the result of a second marriage, and not just loosing the money from their parent's estate but not even being able to retrieve family photographs or minor items of sentimental value.

If you really love and want to be with this man, you must be willing to compromise. Saying it’s you way or no way (not meant nastily) really is only considering your feelings. Perhaps if you could get some extended leave you could at least try his suggestion. Or he could go over there himself for a year and you could occasionally visit. The separation might make you both realise what really matters and could help you both in deciding the way forward.
However, if you agree to try something like this, please go into it with an open mind and not pre-conceived ideals.

Taking a practical approach, is it possible /viable to trial living there for 6 month so both of you can get a feel for it & establish what your true feelings are, good luck

I think, as others have already said, that the important thing is to talk to each other about it; just the two if you, You are bottling it up and it will only get worse. Bringing it out into the open is the only way forward.

I don't think you are overthinking it. She obviously meant you to take it the way that you have.
You have to speak to him about it. Sometimes people want the dream but not necessarily the reality and you need to know which it is.
My cousins were always talking about going to Australia (where the wife's father was from so she has dual nationality). Their marriage went through a really bad patch of over a year and it was quite difficult to be around them as they would moan about each other to me. Then he told me that he had told her that he didn't want to go to Australia. His mother and his life is here. Next time I saw them, they were like a totally different couple and were getting along perfectly. She accepted it really easily but he spent all that time worrying about telling her.
He probably does still talk about the place he wants to go to but it doesn't mean that he wants to give everything up for it.
It may be that the daughter is getting a bit jealousy as your relationship with her father lasts and gets stronger. He also probably still talks about his dream to her so she may genuinely feel that you are killing it. He's the only one that can resolve it and hopefully he will be clear with her too.

Or, you could let him move there and join him for holidays? After a couple of weeks actually under the same roof you might be relieved you didn't move together!

Just talk to him & ask him outright if he feels that you are stopping him from moving?
It sounds as though you are still working so a holiday home in said country would make a good compromise if funds allow it

Me too saraC

There is only one way to find out what is really going on and that's to sit down with him and talk it through. Forget what his daughter is saying and try not to bring that into the conversation. Only you and he know what you each want individually and what you would like to have in the future as a couple.

Not saying anyone's unreasonable or anything - I mean you're all entitled to want different things with no blame attached. But the way I see it purely objectively, is that for one reason or another a commitment has not ever been made and you're actually nothing more than very close dear friends who by virtue of your opposite gender coupled with (presumably) heterosexuality, have also a sexual element to your relationship. Now I have a very dear friend, best friend from schooldays, who I bear in mind when making life decisions and also was a reason I didn't move once when all else was equal, and it didn't affect anyone else. However it is very much tacitly understood that because we have never committed to being anything other than dear friends, our families have first dibs on us. In this situation, hurtful as it must have felt at the time, the daughter was perfectly in order to read the situation as she did. Had you actually become a full domestic unit then she would have been out of order to suggest something that would only suit one of you.

It sounds to me that " living abroad " isn't what he really and truthfully wants. Because he's being influenced/encouraged to do so by his daughter it's setting up a confusion within him that is going against the true feelings he has for you and feels he also has to appease his daughter . The poor man feels obligated towards the two of you.
If the truth be known, he'd much rather stay put where he is and he'd be quite happy to do so if he had the courage to stand on his own two feet and tell his daughter straight to butt out as it's now his life and his future to do what he likes with and spend it with the woman he now loves.