Relationship Thread V4

[Tafdolphin]

Same. Holiday was $$$ but actual wedding was the cost of a translator and some balls at the batting cage after. Granted we celebrated a couple days later in a fancy ass hotel and lobster for dinner. But aye, low key shindig.

I have not and will never understand those who spend literally £10000s on one day. I hate traditional weddings and knew Marie was the one for me when I suggested eloping to Vegas and she agreed.

We ended up not even bothering with that and getting hitched in the local town hall. It was a fun day, but the part I enjoyed most, and will remember, is when everyone finally left and we got to just be with each other.

NB: This isn't an attack on those who enjoy large weddings. If you have the money and inclination, all power to you. I just don't get it. Also, your wedding sounded amazing Bunni.

[Moggy]

I eloped to Vegas and it was the best thing we could have done. No stress, cheap (even if you add in the cost of the Vegas holiday!) and zero fuss.

My brother is getting married soon, he’s having a cheap registry office wedding but strawberry float me it is a lot of hassle. Bollocks to that!

[Errkal]

We went registry office and then did the reception at home, way less ball ache and cost.

[Moggy]

way less ball ache

You didn’t go for the S&M honeymoon in the end then?

[Errkal]

way less ball ache

You didn’t go for the S&M honeymoon in the end then?

naa decided against it in the end.

[Victor Mildew]

Last time Errkal tried to get in to S&M he forgot they close early for Sunday trading.

[Moggy]

Last time Errkal tried to get in to S&M he forgot they close early for Sunday trading.

[Tafdolphin]

I eloped to Vegas and it was the best thing we could have done. No stress, cheap (even if you add in the cost of the Vegas holiday!) and zero fuss.

jelly

[Victor Mildew]

I sleep in a big bed with my wife.

[Bunni]

Is this the next thing millennials are going to put out of business? Since we can’t afford houses anymore let alone big fancy weddings.

[Moggy]

I eloped to Vegas and it was the best thing we could have done. No stress, cheap (even if you add in the cost of the Vegas holiday!) and zero fuss.

jelly

Nope it was cheap, we didn't even bother buying jelly for the wedding guests (which was just my now sister-in-law)

[Moggy]

Is this the next thing millennials are going to put out of business? Since we can’t afford houses anymore let alone big fancy weddings.

Cut out the avocado toast and you'll get houses and big weddings. It's the avocados that are ruining your finances!

[Rightey]

this might be the sobering moment of real life that he needs to turn his life around!

This is true! We have considered the fact that this might actually be good for him. Our problem accepting this comes down to the practical aspects. He works in a badly paid shift-based job he has had since he left school with very few qualifications. He took a sabbatical in 2016 to go and live with his wife* in Australia but that all fell through and he returned to the job earlier this year. His boss hates him for leaving so refuses to give him shifts. He is living hand to mouth and has had to sell a lot of stuff/rely on his parents for enough money to survive.

His wife to be does not speak French and they live in a rural village in the middle of nowhere. For the next two years at least, he will likely be the sole breadwinner for a family of three.

Knowing him as we do, we cannot see any way this ends well.

Ok, first, wtf you can go on sabbatical in France while working at some crappy shift job? I'm normally all for workers rights, but that seems like something that is seriously unfair for the employer.

Second of all, as someone who has married a girl from a different country (albeit under pretty different circumstances) the speed with which things develop is kind of normal. With me and my wife, we were already talking about marriage within 6 months of us meeting, and that's just because her Visa was only for a year so she really needed to know if I was serious so we could decide what to do in regards to getting her an extended Visa. I would imagine that if your brothers girlfriend is just visiting, her visa is probably even shorter.

There are some red flags there as others have mentioned but again as those same people have mentioned there could be explanations for those as well. I'm sure you're just overly paranoid because you pulled this scam to get a passport yourself.

Regarding how you and your wife are treating her brother, what you are saying doesn't totally add up. You call him some man baby but he lives by himself, and has his own job that he's managed to keep for at least a number of years. You say he's irresponsible but he's at least acting like a man and saying he will get married to this girl and take care of the baby.

Speaking of the baby, if Frances social services for kids are anything like their labour laws I doubt he will have many problems. Even here in Canada we get subsidies for children, about $400 per month per child. If France has anything like that then it should go a long way to helping them. The job situation again is something that's pretty easy to solve, if the village he's in has no jobs, then just find work somewhere else, and once he finds a job he can move.

[That]

Ok, first, wtf you can go on sabbatical in France while working at some crappy shift job? I'm normally all for workers rights, but that seems like something that is seriously unfair for the employer.

worlds_tiniest_violin.gif

[Rightey]

I mean I understand it if he's working for a mega corporation, or going to get medical treatment, but the way he phrased it is that he's working at some small store and he told his boss, yeah I'm just going to leave for a few years. Imagine being an employer and not being able to hire a permanent replacement.

[Tafdolphin]

Regarding how you and your wife are treating her brother, what you are saying doesn't totally add up. You call him some man baby but he lives by himself, and has his own job that he's managed to keep for at least a number of years. You say he's irresponsible but he's at least acting like a man and saying he will get married to this girl and take care of the baby.

This is a hard one to try and present through this medium. The two items you mention there, having a job and living by himself, are not, IMO, markers of responsibility. He doesn't live well (eats mainly ready meals, has put on a gooseberry fool load of weight recently) and his job is the only one he's had since highschool (it's a government job).

And regarding the rest, as you say I was in a situation where I was pursuing a relationship with a foreigner. But she lived an hour away by plane in a country with a free movement agreement not 8000 miles away and in a country where it took two weeks just to get a tourist visa.

One more addendum to all this: he went for an MRI yesterday. They found a 4cm mass on a nerve ending in his brain.

Been quite the week.

[Mafro]

I mean I understand it if he's working for a mega corporation, or going to get medical treatment, but the way he phrased it is that he's working at some small store and he told his boss, yeah I'm just going to leave for a few years. Imagine being an employer and not being able to hire a permanent replacement.

You are aware it is possible for employers to hire on a temporary basis to cover things like that, yeah?

[That]

Imagine hearing about a country where you have a right to a bit of extended leave once in a while and thinking "oh no what about the poor boss who will have to get a temp in"

[Rightey]

I mean I understand it if he's working for a mega corporation, or going to get medical treatment, but the way he phrased it is that he's working at some small store and he told his boss, yeah I'm just going to leave for a few years. Imagine being an employer and not being able to hire a permanent replacement.

You are aware it is possible for employers to hire on a temporary basis to cover things like that, yeah?

Yeah, and it would be terrible for productivity, and a fairly large cost to train the replacement.

Taf has now cleared up his brother in laws job, something in government, which means it should take a while to get up to speed on how to do. Assuming it's some clerical work, it could take months before the replacement is proficient.

Again maybe it's just how it's being presented. Maybe he didn't just tell his boss he wanted to go on sabbatical with no reason given, or to go live in Australia for a while or whatever. I worked at a place where someone went on leave to start their own business and I know damn well that's not what they told the boss.

Assuming they just let you take sabbatical for whatever reason though, it seems like a pretty unfair system for the employer, as well as the replacement who gets let go when the person returns. Again if it's for something like going back to school, or extended medical leave that's fair but just taking a leave with no real reason seems like a bad system.

This is a hard one to try and present through this medium. The two items you mention there, having a job and living by himself, are not, IMO, markers of responsibility. He doesn't live well (eats mainly ready meals, has put on a gooseberry fool load of weight recently) and his job is the only one he's had since highschool (it's a government job).

And regarding the rest, as you say I was in a situation where I was pursuing a relationship with a foreigner. But she lived an hour away by plane in a country with a free movement agreement not 8000 miles away and in a country where it took two weeks just to get a tourist visa.

One more addendum to all this: he went for an MRI yesterday. They found a 4cm mass on a nerve ending in his brain.

Been quite the week.

Well that whole mass thing basically changes everything. Is there a chance he knew or suspected something? If so then that would really explain the whole rushed nature of everything.

It makes everything below kind of irrelevant but I still want to say it as I think it's important to think about.

Again, could this just be your sister being judging him, thinking he's helpless because she's measuring him against her standards? Your wife sounds like she's achieved a lot and it could just be he's just not fussed with doing those same sorts of things. There are people who are just content with things as they are, it doesn't necessarily mean he's irresponsible.

Going back to the job, again kind of pointless now with him finding a lump but, if he is working for the government could he not possibly change his position to somewhere else like a larger city? I know from when I worked for the government about 90% of the open jobs we had were only ever posted on internal job boards. I know from experience with my wife, having simple reminders of home, like being able to go to a restaurant that serves food your familiar with, or getting ingredients you know from grocery stores can really help to alleviate home sickness. I'm guessing she probably won't be able to do that in a small village.

At the very least it may be something to think about once he gets better.

[Tafdolphin]

Government job = working on the rail tracks for the national rail company. He's tried multiple times to get transferred to the city, but they won't take him.

And my wife is extremely close to him. They were raised in a house where she was the favourite and was treated as such (hyuuuuge parental issues going on behind all this). She knows he has different goals from her but she knows he has the potential to make more of his life; he hates his job, hates where he's living and has desperately been searching for a quick fix ever since he returned from Australia. He's an excellent photographer and dallied with doing it for a job but in the end he refused to give up his current position and returned to the life he knew was safe. Now with this child, any chance he had of breaking free from his self doubt cycle is gone, and that's heartbreaking to Marie.

I understand what you're saying but we've come at this from all the angles you mentioned. This is a guy who is immature in the most literal sense of the word, who has great potential but who refused to rise to it due to crippling self confidence issues. Now he's made some rushed decisions, possibly under manipulation, and that potential is gone.

I find the whole thing incredibly sad.