Husband wants us to go to live in Portugal

Rents increase all of the time, so selling up and renting is really not a good idea. If you DO decide to go, you could rent out your UK home for more than renting in Portugal at the moment.
Portuguese is not such an easy language to learn as Spanish, and far fewer people speak English.
You would find things to do as a resident, and perhaps if your DGCs are older they might all want to come for the Summer too, so your relationship would change from daily to visiting.

I have neighbours who moved back last year, they are in 70s and as you get older it gets harder to be away from home NHS etc…please think thoroughly

As you are working find Portuguese language classes and enroll him. Say you will go when you have retired but someone needs to be fairly fluent for all the reasons already given. Give him that list to work through. When you go over for a holiday get selfcatering and send him out with a shopping list. Finally, you dont know about the Irish passports 😉

Be wary of geographical " cures".

Both of you need to go not just one of you. There are always stress and complications with buying abroad and bureaucracy , tax etc to deal with. We have had a holiday home in Crete for nearly thirty years and just sold it. We did enjoy it but would never have lived there full time especially as we got older. There is the language to deal with and if you get ill it is difficult unless you are fluent.

The best idea would be to rent for six months and let your home in England at the same time to pay for it. You will both have a much better idea then if you want to move permanently. Not sure how old you are or if you are in good health but think about what happens if one of you is left on their own.

I live in France and the scenario that you must prepare for if you live abroad is your husband being left in Portugal alone if you predecease him. Because house prices rise much more slowly in Europe he would not necessarily be able to sell up and move back to the U.K., How could he negotiate all of the bureaucracy and needing healthcare or being admitted to hospital if he was on his own and didn’t speak Portuguese?
I speak fairly good French so I sometimes end up volunteering and accompanying some of these widowed men and women on their hospital stays and medical consultations and helping with their admin. Without the language skills and often limited mobility they live lonely lives cut off from local society, Your 70s and 80s will come around so fast and whilst not inevitable many older folks experience rapidly declining health in those decades.
I agree with the just keep stalling suggestions. Also it takes time to adjust to retirement. Your husband will find his balance in the end.

Trust your gut feeling and don’t go!

My first question is "Do you speak and understand Portuguese"

You both have to be committed to moving, or it just won’t work. You’d end up feeling homesick and resentful, and he might just get bored with kicking back and doing nothing all day, every day.

A compromise, I suppose, could be renting in Portugal for the winter, and coming home for the summer. You’d need to keep your house though, or you’d have nowhere to live. My cousin rents an apartment in Spain from the beginning of January until the end of March. It seems to be a good thing as she saves on utility bills.

PinkCosmos - surely the number one priority is what you actually want to do with these later years of your life and you are clear that you don't want to live in Portugal. That's it.

You have a job, you have a home, you have children and grandchildren that are not shared with your DH so he can't possibly empathise with your sense of loss or distance. You also like where you live. I can't imagine why you are even contemplating selling your home where you feel comfortable to rent somewhere in a country that has a different language that you would be required to learn if you were not to be treated for ever as an intrusive expat.

Put your foot down - tell DH that if he likes the balcony existence so much he can work out how to finance a small apartment that you're willing to spend a couple of months a year in, and to do that without burning your bridges and selling your lovely UK home.

No. Bad idea. Do you speak Portugese? If not, an even worse idea. Just say no.

In France I have to pay tax on my UK pension. I also pay extra for health care.

I have 2 friends who moved there 1 from the US and 1 from the UK. They both love it and wish they'd done it sooner. One of them has had some language lessons the other hasn't and they both say there's no need to speak Portuguese as the ex pat community out there is huge and there are plenty of English speaking workmen. They both have private healthcare and I don't know if this is required or not. My DH was taken ill out there once on holiday and we were told there were 2 classes of hospital he could go to, we chose the one where we had to pay something, the doc we saw was great but the premises were not.
However none of this matters to you as you don't want to go and I can understand why with children and grandchildren but your DH doesn't have that tie. I would just say an outright 'no' to your DH and say you're happy to go out there for several weeks at a time (if you are) and that's your limit. If your DH wants to stay longer then you can leave him there and come back home on your own.

Goldencity

Nannan2

I dont see why folk get a pension paid from Britain,if they live in an EU country? Not if our Gov't keep saying its a BENEFIT,not something they have earned🤔surely Benefits are only allowed to be applied for/ paid if you live here.Or is that just private pensions from work etc?

You get your pension from the UK (it’s a contributory benefit) if you have paid your NI to qualify.
EU citizens who live in the UK also get their pensions from their home country in the same way.
There are UK immigrants living all over the world who claim their UK pension (based on their NI contributions). Some countries do not qualify for the regular increases, something to do with their reciprocal agreements I think.
What would you rather? That all UK immigrants have their pension entitlement taken away? All that would do is lead to a massive increase in pensioners returning to the UK , all needing housing and medical services which we all know are in short supply!

Absolutely, Goldencity!

PinkCosmos

Tenko

Do either he or you have an Irish passport?
If so , great, you’re good to go . If you have a British one, you’re subject to the 90 days rule . Unless you get residency which is expensive.
Ideally you need to spend some time over there exploring the areas you want to move to. And when you find somewhere, rent first before buying .
Never plow all your money into a property overseas . Buy a smaller property in the uk or wherever you live . I know a number of retirees who’ve wanted to move back if one of them is seriously ill or has died .
OP you obviously don’t want to move , but could you rent for 3-4 months . Your AC could come out to visit , also friends.
A friend of mine has spent 3 months in Spain during the winter, to get a feel for the area she likes . This is with a view to moving there.

Both our grandparents were Irish so I don't know whether we would qualify for an Irish passport.

Many years ago it seemed to be a thing for British older people to go to stay in Spain for the winter. I think hotels did special deals. An uncle of mine did this. It was 40-odd years ago though.

There is no way I would buy overseas. It is too complicated.

I would also worry about our health as we got older. Fortunately, we are both in good health at the moment, but who knows what is round the corner

I would consider renting an apartment for 4-6 weeks twice a year.

Yes your husband would qualify for an Irish passport.

I think your husband is being very selfish. He knows you don’t want to sell up and live in Portugal and why should you.

Suggest that takes up golf. He could then go on nice long golfing holidays while you could stay home and do all the things you can’t do with him around. You could invite your family for nice long stays.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

OP what is his hobby??

My first husband was half Peruvian/half Spanish. He was estranged from his sister and decided to make up. We drove there in my e-type Jag. Vigo in Galicia. He didn’t want me to learn Spanish but his sister had other ideas. I think the first word I learned was galleta otherwise nothing with my morning coffee from over the border in Portugal. In two weeks I had the correct Spanish accent. Grammar? Not so good. When I took my second husband to the village of Albir on the Costa Blanca. He fell in love. We had a property for 20 years. I worked for two newspapers and we had a cat hotel. Son went to the local school, a real struggle for him but he is fluent in Spanish as is his fiancé who worked in Barcelona before they met. Once he got a grip on the language we put him in an English school. We’re all back in the UK at the moment but longing to return. I had full medical care as I paid National Insurance there. I could go on but won’t except to say it is a struggle if you don’t speak the language. Winter’s are cold and heating is expensive. Brexit has changed much.
I would advise a few weeks there with your base here. Good luck.

Has he asked you how you feel about this ?

Longer holidays there seems to tick all the boxes. I think a lot of things will become clear to him during a longer spell - the weather, the language barrier, the reality of doing nothing all day. One thing though. For some of us, it's important to dream. Since I retired, I find myself having to battle with a creeping sense of 'is that all there is'. My cure for this is to be preparing and talking about our next house move. It's several years away, but dreaming about it is making my life feel less stagnant. Maybe your husband needs to dream too?

One thing though. For some of us, it's important to dream.
I think that's lovely and very true! Dreaming of a change really does enrich the present .... even if it never actually happens!

Alarm bells ringing on your behalf “- worried about you selling your home and feeling bored , lonely and missing your family over there and it can be difficult to return too . Be strong on this !

This is just to show you the plus points of living abroad but it’s not for everyone. Each persons circumstances are different.
We live in Spain just south of Alicante and love it. I’m 76 and dh is 79. We took residency under the withdrawal agreement following Brexit and have been here 5 years. The Spanish healthcare is very good and we’re covered by a reciprocal health agreement so the NHS pay for our healthcare just as they would had we still lived in the uk.
We have made so many friends here and socialise far more than we would had we stayed the uk because of the outdoor lifestyle. Waking up to sunshine most days is very good for your mental health.
I started a book club which now has 9 members. It has also morphed into a walking group. I’ve learned to play padel and play twice a week with a group of friends. We also have a ladies lunch group and meet up once a month at different local restaurants.
My dh enjoys looking after our Spanish garden and doing ‘jobs’ round the house. We also go to a weekly quiz night together. We eat out far more than we would in the uk as it’s so much cheaper. We have 2 adult children and grandchildren who live in Amsterdam and Melbourne. This fact made it easier for us to come and live in Spain. It’s easy for us to fly from Alicante to Amsterdam and we also fly to Melbourne via Madrid.
We have learned to speak some Spanish but are not fluent. We have English, Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish friends and neighbours so manage to get by quite well. English and Spanish are also spoken at our doctors and local hospital.
We did keep an apartment in the uk but I can’t honestly think we’ll ever return as Spain is now our home.
I think that in the past 50 years peoples lives have changed so much. Most families lived close to one another and your children lived and worked in the UK but for many that scenario has changed. It’s up to you to decide what’s best for your situation.

That's a positive post Suzyb. Sounds a great life. Good to have kept a foothold in the UK in case it didnt work out. And as you say with no DC in the UK that must have made a big decision easier..

We usually get an illness in our " old " age ... I was very happy to live near the Marsden Cancer hospital when I got ill...

Dont move !

Graphite, similar story - friends of a relative of dh moved to rural France in IIRC their early 60s. All fine and dandy for several years, but then the husband died suddenly - and he’d been the only one who could both drive and speak French!
She was seriously stuck.

They weren’t close to us so I never did really hear what happened, but it must have been a nightmare.