What do you do when your husband works overseas, but you have difficulties and are not happy living there? I really want the whole family to be together, but I just don’t feel happy there. I have no friends, can’t bring baby out freely, and the language barrier gives an additional challenge as well. As a result, I end up depending excessively on my husband, which is not good. I’m happier here at home, and I have an easier time with baby, but it means that I won’t get to see my husband for extended periods of time, and he doesn’t get to see me and baby.

Some people think that I should give myself a few more months until baby is older, and then suck it up and move over. But can I force myself to make things work even if I’m unhappy? Does my happiness not matter at all? Am I not valued equally as an individual? I don’t want to feel miserable and let it affect the mood of the family.

Others think that the overall happiness of the family is more important, and if it were them, they would find a job back home so that the family stays together. But there are opportunities there that don’t exist here at home, and my husband is happy working there. It’s unfair for me to ask him to get a job here at home because he wouldn’t be happy. But at the same time, it isn’t fair for my husband to not have me and baby around too.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, but there just doesn’t seem to be a happy medium for my problem. The best way, I think, is for us to be based in Singapore and for my husband to travel to and fro. But that’s not possible right now, and I don’t see any chance of this being possible until at least 1.5 years from now. What do we do until then? Can we endure our current arrangement until then?

Thinking about this makes me feel sad and frustrated. I feel really bad that I can’t manage being there, but I’ve tried to push myself and I really had a hard time. Do my feelings not matter at all? Should they not matter at all? Where do we go from here? Will we arrive at a good solution? The future seems so uncertain and bleak right now.

How do families with babies or young children deal with having one parent work far away?

I just want my family to be together and for everyone to be happy, but at the moment, it just seems so hard. It doesn’t matter if we’re not rich. If we’re “normal”. I just want all of us to be happy together.