Look at it this way. Here's a guide as to whether or not you have a good reason / excuse to dread an agreement that you may or may not have made.

--If you're a young female in 2007 and you have an outstanding commitment to go to Germany, then you probably don't have a very good excuse/reason to dread it or contemplate a way out.

--If you're a young male in 1944 and you have an outstanding commitment to go to Germany, then you probably do have a very good excuse/reason to dread it or contemplate a way out.

Whatever your situation is, evaluate it and decide if its closer to the former or latter. That should serve as a general guide as to whether or not you have a valid reason to get out of something you agreed to.

I think this girl has already decided that her mother, the house and her girl friends are more important to her than her integrity or her husband.

How can she even claim to be happily married if she is dreading this move that she promised to make?

And then to blame everything on a glass of wine five years previous?

Moving to a new country without having a support system outside her husband, no job lined up, an imperfect grasp of the language, and a newborn would be terrifying. Honestly, would that be something you could EVER see yourself doing? Give the girl a break.

That said, I do think she should take some of her maternity leave down-time, buy a Rosetta Stone program, and ask her husband if they can revisit this idea in a couple of years, when her kid is a little older and she's a little more sure in her relationship.

Please consider. everything in the girls letter was about her. her friends her mom her, her' her. Its even possible she decided a baby just before moving was the ticket to stay home.

Its the entire tone of the letter.

To be really cliche about it...things change. People change. Something that might have sounded really exciting to her five or six years ago might be extremely overwhelming now. She sounds very extroverted, and he sounds rather introverted. She's going to have a child, she has a home, she has a career...all things that didn't exist for her not so long ago.

Prudie is right. They really, really should have talked about this in depth once the merlot wore off, but they didn't. This is obviously a huge issue in their relationship, and the solution is not as simple as saying, "But you SAID we could, so we will!" I was in a similar situation a while ago. I moved to the Northwest for work, and my (now ex) boyfriend came with me. He's from the desert, and the cooler, wetter climate up here didn't agree with him. After we'd been here a while, he said that to be fair, in a few years, we should move back to the desert; I responded vaguely that I'd look into a transfer in a couple of years. Fast forward two years...he brought it up again, mentioned that I had "promised" to go back to the deset with him, and said that I should start thinking about a transfer. In those two years, I had gone from having a job to having a career, made a great network of friends, and had completely fallen in love with my new hometown. So I told my ex that nope, I was staying put, and he had the choice to stay or to leave. He chose to leave, and I don't blame him or hold that against him. We should all find a place on Earth where we're happy, and I hope he finds his.

Falling in love with another person doesn't mean that everything else in your life fades away. It might seem like that at first, but some of the key elements to a happy relationship (like the one I have now) are having a good base of support...a loving family, close friends, a job you enjoy, and a home that you look forward to coming home to. Love means sacrifice, yes, and I think that she SHOULD make this move (she does sound young and it would be an incredible, character-building life experience) but not just right now. If it's early in her pregnancy, she and hubby should take a month long "babymoon" so that she can experience her husband's country and culture. She might even find herself excited to go! When her baby is big enough to travel, she should take the little one over for a few months to visit his family. By then, she might be ready to make that final step and make the move. I don't think it's an unreasonable idea, and for her husband to coerce her into doing this while pregnant based on a promise she made five years ago while tipsy is a little insensitive.

Rainbirds this woman knew what she was getting into, and the issue is a deal breaker, which is why he wanted to make the issue clear to her. She is the one who agreed, therefore the onus falls upon her to keep her word. I always feel sorry for women who get trapped in marriages with men who have made false promises that have really let them down, so my feelings are no different for the man in question who has been let down and disrespected by a self absorbed liar. She can go cry a river in divorce court, and marry someone from NY who enjoys being run rough shod through life.

...Because an interational custody battle is going to be a cakewalk, right?

Okay, she doesn't say here if this was a constant point in their marriage, or something that her husband only mentioned once or twice after she made the initial promise. If he leapt out of bed each and every day saying, "Only 694 days until the move!" that's one thing. If they're four years and five months into their marriage, and he said, "Hey, you once said that after we were married five years, we'd move to Germany. Time to start house-hunting!" that's something else. The truth is probably somewhere between those extremes, and really, it's not a competition or a battle. It's a BIG DEAL, it will have a huge effect on their lives (positive or negative), and just because they compromised at the beginning of their relationship shouldn't mean that they can't make a more adult compromise now.

Like I said, things have clearly changed from their initial expectations of life together. Doesn't mean they don't love each other deeply, or that she shouldn't follow through on her end of the bargain. They need to take a little time and make an actual plan. She needs to learn the language, research work opportunities (at no point in her letter does she say that he'll be 100% financially supporting her), TRAVEL there, and get excited about this. Right now, she probably feels like she's being dragged there against her will.

Honour those you trust and love. Walk from those you don't. Earn enough to eat, save and invest enough to eat in the future. Then don't work. You might be able to earn by not working, but by having fun.

I'm 24, male, and was miserable for 22 years. School sucked. Life was inferred to have sucked. Uni wasn't fun. I dropped out and bummed. I undropped out. Now I have a double degree in physics and geology. I'm completely unemployable with this, but whatev.

Someone should have told me sooner, hopefully I got you in time. Nothing else now is important. Take a Xanax and ponder.

Just a small wording point. She says 'we are about to start a family'.

To me, this means that they are about to start trying to conceive a baby. Because if the baby is already in there, there is no 'about' about it. Either the person believes life starts at conception and the family is already begun or the person believes life starts at birth and there is 6 months (or whatever) left to go.

I don't think that a custody battle would be an issue here if they decided to pause those plans for a while.

NickD:

And then to blame everything on a glass of wine five years previous?

She didn't say how long the engagement was. It could have been 6 or more years since the night she got inebriated and agreed to get married. She doesn't sound like the type who would elope to Las Vegas for a quickie wedding.

Rainbirds:

Moving to a new country without having a support system outside her husband, no job lined up, an imperfect grasp of the language, and a newborn would be terrifying. Honestly, would that be something you could EVER see yourself doing? Give the girl a break.

Been there; did that. I'd agreed we'd go live there as a condition of getting married. He got a girlfriend while there (breaking HIS end of the bargain), so I came back.

Different situation. He wasn't your husband. YOU didn't see it as a promise - she does. And she was tipsy ever since that night, through the engagement, wedding, honeymoon, and 5 years of marriage? I don't think so.

SusanM, things got a whole lot more complicated now. If there's a child, you probably shouldn't split up. You NEED his financial support. Try to make whatever you have work. If he's a poor father, try at the best possible time to get out. Otherwise, deal.

This is no longer about you.

...funny thing about fear, it's always about the individual feeling it.

quite frankly, i dont understand the husband. he should know that a woman in a family way, or with small kids, is instinctively and naturally drawn to her mother and the people of her comfort zone. it would be the rare woman that isn't.

they will have problems anyway. now her friends take up the slack of social communication for hubby, but once over there, she will not have a replacement for her friends in quite some time. making close friends takes time. and theres no replacement for your own mother, if she's a good one. i think hubby fullfilled the checklist and her hormonal urges, and of course a foreigner is alway a conversation piece and a rare acquisition that may be of some social value among her cal pals, but unless a foreigner is outgoing, and a lot of europeans just aren't, there will always be that void to fill.

to emmigrate you need to be strong, independent, fuck'em all person. the ones with heartstrings tied to home, go back, or, as you can see in NYC every day, build their own little replica of home in the new land. it's still ersatz.

...wanting a baby, so she can stay home. a replacement for an anchor.

if there's no kids, and he needs to go back to berlin, the couple needs to divorce. today.