The dark side of questions

[Zephii]

Don't be fooled by the unhappy face on the title of this post. Things are really great here in my world, but I'm a thinker, and I've had something heavy on my mind lately that might even benefit you.

Asking questions is a huge part of long distance relationships. It staves off the boredom and (especially for people who met online) is how we get to know each other. It's the cornerstone of dates. And there have been many threads about what questions people can ask or how to make conversations more interesting. Well I have a couple of questions that I'm facing now that I'd have asked when we were dating if it'd occurred to me (Though chances are the answers wouldn't have stayed the same).

Question one - What happens if we get divorced?

Now Obi always said "If you ever have my children I will never leave you" and that's nice and all but I responded "I don't believe is staying together for the kids, we'll need to make it work for us or it's over".
I suppose if it had come down to divorce before we had a baby, it'd be a case of saving for plane tickets and going our separate ways. But what happens if you buy a house with them in a country that isn't your home country? Where do you stay while everything gets sorted out? Has anyone looked into the laws of what happens with property or children if one of the parties is out of the country?

I honest to God can't imagine Obi could do something that would make me divorce him. Yes even if he was unfaithful. Unless he hurt our children, which he wouldn't but it's hypothetical. And if he did hurt them, well he'd be in a grave and I'd be in jail, so no problem there! But I've bought the subject up to him and put some thought into it myself, because it's not a perfect world. I feel more secure knowing that if we didn't make our relationship last into old age, that we could agree on the cleanest, least painful way to end it.

Question two - What happens if we both die?

This is the big one. This is the one we're struggling with right now. It's open on our imaginary table of discussion but we don't have answers.
We have assets now, but more importantly - we have a child.

If we both die in a freak accident, who do we write in our wills should become the guardian of that child and any subsequent children? We have assets in two countries, do we need an executor of this will in both countries? Do I need to make my will here in Australia and he makes his in Canada? Are our wills legally binding if, say, we both made them in Australia but were living in Canada when we died? All these questions I know I need to answer... so I bet there's other people here in similar situations who need to think about it and talk it over with their SOs too.

It might be a little depressing, but it's probably far more important that the usual "Where would you like to get married?" questions you see in those books.

Feel free to add any big heavy depressing questions onto this thread, or share your experiences!

[snow_girl]

I think those are some really good questions to ask. It is always good to be prepared for the unexpected. I don't have any to add at the moment, but I will probably be thinking about it through the day.

[lademoiselle]

This is the most thought-provoking topic I've come across in a while. Although such outcomes are never pleasant to dwell upon, I too think it's very important to talk about them - just in case.

I know you weren't asking for a response to your questions as such, but I hope you don't mind me throwing in my two cents. The divorce issue is one which I can't comment on; my SO and I are so far away from getting married and having children that should we reach that stage and things turn sour afterwards, here and now I can't say what I'd do. The subject of death, however, is something I think about at length from time to time (often triggered by a tragic story of some sort in the news!). I struggled with the fear of dying for years, but in recent months I feel I've reached a point of peace at last. Life is unpredictable. We can do our best to stay safe and well, but unfortunately that isn't always enough. That's one of the reasons why many people pray I guess, because once you've done all you can on a mortal level, if you believe in a power beyond yourself, an appeal to on high gives you that feeling of added protection! But, taking that out of the equation completely, even as a human being I think there's nothing you can do but make every day of your life worthwhile in some way.

I know it sounds cliché, but I try to live every day as if it really is my last. That doesn't necessarily mean trying to tick off every crazy thing on my bucket list as quickly as I can, it can be as simple as letting a stranger with two items of shopping go before me in the checkout queue when I have a full basket. Or taking advantage of a sunny day to walk instead of taking the tube, and feel the light on my face. Or reminding my loved ones how much they mean to me - ignoring the cynical "what are you after?" look which that sometimes elicits Most of all though, on the rare occasions that the thought of dying brings me down, I try to think of one reason why I can't go yet. Perhaps it sounds weird, making a case for why you can't die, but it's brought me a lot of comfort - and who knows, something might be out there listening...! Once I've thought of something which feels right, I write it down, affirm it, then let it go and life carries on as normal. Try it and see if it helps you at all

Remember, there's no reason why anything should happen to you or Obi. You're young, you're in good health (as far as I know <3), and as you yourself said, most importantly you have a child. Think about it, once you become parents, it's nature's will that you should stay around for long enough until your little one(s) becomes an independent adult and can take care of her/himself. Nature is on your side, so while it's an unfortunate fact that sometimes life has other plans, you mustn't forget about the force which is behind you. Nothing is set in stone. You have common sense, the best intentions... and you have love. Put them together and I'd say you have a pretty strong shield right there

I'd better stop rambling now, haha. My SO and I have talked about a few heavy things like this, but for now we've decided to let those worries be and cross those bridges should we ever - hope we never! - come to them. There's no use in focusing on the negative, but I know you know that very well Discuss every eventuality, yes, but don't let them weigh you down. We're all alive, we're all beautiful, and so is life, so hold on to every moment and don't let go.

[digitalfever]

Question two - What happens if we both die?

This is the big one. This is the one we're struggling with right now. It's open on our imaginary table of discussion but we don't have answers.
We have assets now, but more importantly - we have a child.

If we both die in a freak accident, who do we write in our wills should become the guardian of that child and any subsequent children? We have assets in two countries, do we need an executor of this will in both countries? Do I need to make my will here in Australia and he makes his in Canada? Are our wills legally binding if, say, we both made them in Australia but were living in Canada when we died? All these questions I know I need to answer... so I bet there's other people here in similar situations who need to think about it and talk it over with their SOs too.

It might be a little depressing, but it's probably far more important that the usual "Where would you like to get married?" questions you see in those books.

Feel free to add any big heavy depressing questions onto this thread, or share your experiences!

I remember as a child always asking my mom "If you die.., where do I go?" I was little but I still knew that she was a single mother. I think this is an important question to answer now because if you do die and there are no wills the repercussion are actually devastating to those left behind. My best friend in HS experienced this when her dad died suddenly after falling from a roof backwards. There supposedly was a will but none was ever found and the children were literally left with nothing. They do have a mother but she was a low income earning, no assets and really struggling at the time while the father had a good job, a house and a car with a bunch of other assets. Anyways, the fathers accounts were frozen (if you don't have a co-signer or Will you will be locked out of the account.) My aunt also saw countless women that never got involved in the household finance be frozen out of accounts for years because there was no will and they didn't know what to do.

I think the second question is very profound. My own mother only drafted her Will once she found out she was terminal and it really helped with the process. However, I will say that I believe everyone should be prepared for the event of their death when children are involved. I don't think you should assumed that you will die but you should live knowing your not immortal and when you gone you DONT know how people will react and trusting that they are good, kind and honest people is naive because when assets, money and custody are involved things just get ugly fast. You want to know now that in the even of your death they'll have something to help them. From my perspective my mother set me up to avoid financial hardship, she protected me, enabled me and gave me the gift of freedom and peace of mind. I wont face the shame hardships as many of my graduating peers and I was also protect from family members coming forth and claiming what is mine.

[Zephii]

lademoiselle thanks, that's very positive For the record, I'm not really afraid of death and I don't think any thing is going to happen to us soon. I'm not depressed, and being religious, I'm fairly comfortable in where I'll go once I'm done with this body.

I just want to protect my family and having an international baby with dead parents would start a shit storm if anything would. My own mum (a single mum like Digital's) didn't write her will until a month before she died and was high on morphine, and she botched the crap out of it. My sister and I are still dealing with her mistakes. I don't want that for my babies, that's all.

Digital, my baby's crying so I can't write anything decent, but thanks for sharing your experience.

[Catface]

When I opened this thread I didn't find what I expected. I thought it would be someone who had asked questions about their SO's past and didn't like the answers. Instead I found something much more sincere and beautiful. My SO and I have only been together six months and some change, so we haven't gotten to this level of discussion yet. We have had to talk about some heavy stuff from time to time, and I'm very lucky that he's a very supportive partner. I think it's beautiful that you can discuss these heavy but necessary topics with the man in your life. Thank you for sharing something this. I'm sure there are a lot of people here who will benefit from reading this.

The heavy question we've had to discuss is "If something happens to my mother, will you be okay with having my sister live with us?" I have a 15 year old sister (I'm 23). My dad has always been in poor health, refuses to take care of himself and has no interest in being a parent. I've always known that if something were to happen to my Mom, I would have to take my sister to live with me. We may never be in the position, but it was something I felt he should know up front. His answer: "No matter where we live, we will always have a spare bed for her." <3

[lucybelle]

Although we haven't discussed it, I think this would be our answer.

If we got divorced- my SO would probably stay in the USA. I know CR is his home, but standard of living is so much better in the USA. I don't know that he'd want to move back to an expensive country where he works too much and makes jack shit. If he did want to move back, I'd want to keep the potential kids in the USA and send them to CR every summer to hang out with my SO. That's actually my plan regardless of whether we get divorced or not. Get the potential kids out of my hair for 3 months, and they need to learn Spanish!

If we both died- I think if my parents were still alive, the potential kids would stay with them. My SO's family is very poor and his mom is in poor health. My parents are doing just fine and are quite healthy. My mom loves traveling so I know she would be good about taking the potential kids down to visit my SO's family. Or just sending them down every summer! (I'm all about this summer plan!)

My heavy question:

What would you do if your parents or your SO's parents fell to poor health and needed to be taken care of?

I wonder about this one a lot because my SO's mom is in terrible health. And we're moving to the USA. I'm worried in 5 years or so we might have to uproot and move back to CR to take care of his mom.

[summerkid]

Good questions which I think are important to ask and have a backup plan for, just in case. It's better to have made arrangements than for it to *knock on wood* ever happen and have your children suffer from it.
The though of divorce is a really tough one for me.. even though I am far away from marrying. But I am fully aware that odds are I will be part of the majority and divorce at least once. And I try not to start something thinking like that, but I can't really help it. I am very skeptical of "love that lasts forever", and especially of healthy happy marriages that last forever. So, in that sense, I can't really let myself enjoy things because I am always aware of the possibility of it ending and so I am preparing myself for the worst. That is the downside of asking yourself too many questions :P
Lucybelle's question is the hardest one for me right now. Having chosen an international career path, it's always tough to look behind and see how much time I am missing out on with my parents. they're only getting older .. and skype is nice, but i wish I could spend more in.person time with them . And looking into the future.. that's an even harder question. How will I be able to leave them behind in old age, when they need me the most? If I ever have kids, I want them to get to know my parents and fort them not to think of my mom and dad as these strangers they see once a year. I hope that somehow I will be able to uproot my parents and bring them close to me at some point. But the chances of that happening aren't too bright.

Death - I haven't come to terms with that one. Once it becomes necessary, I will make my will, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings or that nothing is left up to legal interpretations. It's very important to have things settled, just in case. However slim the chances, better not leave something that people depend on ( children, spouse maybe, etc. ) up to chance. My SO has a very practical apporach to this. He is okay with death. It is actually slightly creepy how okay he is with it and from time to time will mention an "in case I die, I love you and this is my friend's phone no.. or email address.. " because right now, if one of us dies, the other wouldn't have a way to know. So he gave me in case of emergency contacts, and I did the same.

Other questions:
1) This is a far stretch but, if I ever have kids, I don't want my kids to be strangers to my culture. I want them to speak the language fluently and identify with as much of my culture as possible. But I am aware that might not go as smoothly, especially if I move on a different continent. It's a very important aspect for me and I am worried about the possibilities. So, when it comes to children, how do you make sure you pass on as much of your cultural heritage and identity as possible ? I am not being nationalistic here, it's their choice how much they get from it, but it's important to me that they are not strangers to the culture like many others I have seen who don't even speak the language of their parents.

2) If something happens to either you or your SO, do you have a plan set up? Is there anything one can really do if they're a continent away? what's the best thing to do in that case? For me, that scenario is very difficult.. because even travelling to his country would take forever because I need a ton of paperwork and nobody guarantees taht I'll get a visa to enter the country. Plus, right now.. I am pretty much nobody in his life.. I love him, sure .. and he loves me.. but we haven't even met. So.. I feel like I have no right to "intrude" in his real life so to say.

[kacie]

We don't have kids yet, but have briefly talked about death, and I've told him how I want to be buried. Divorce is a last option for us, if that happened I would stay over there, especially if we have kids.

We're staying close to his family, has his mother isn't in good health, and he tends to be the one who takes care of her.

[lucybelle]

1) This is a far stretch but, if I ever have kids, I don't want my kids to be strangers to my culture. I want them to speak the language fluently and identify with as much of my culture as possible. But I am aware that might not go as smoothly, especially if I move on a different continent. It's a very important aspect for me and I am worried about the possibilities. So, when it comes to children, how do you make sure you pass on as much of your cultural heritage and identity as possible ? I am not being nationalistic here, it's their choice how much they get from it, but it's important to me that they are not strangers to the culture like many others I have seen who don't even speak the language of their parents.

I mentioned this in my above post, but if we end up living in the USA (my home country) I hands down am sending any potential children to Costa Rica every summer. They will know their family, they will learn the language, and they will learn their culture. If end up living in CR, I will do the same thing, just reversed! School breaks are a fabulous time to send kids away!

No matter where they live, potential children will be forced to learn both Spanish and English. They will also be forced to take a different language in school (French, German, etc) And one day, they will realize how damn lucky they were to grow up bilingual!

[summerkid]

I mentioned this in my above post, but if we end up living in the USA (my home country) I hands down am sending any potential children to Costa Rica every summer. They will know their family, they will learn the language, and they will learn their culture. If end up living in CR, I will do the same thing, just reversed! School breaks are a fabulous time to send kids away!

No matter where they live, potential children will be forced to learn both Spanish and English. They will also be forced to take a different language in school (French, German, etc) And one day, they will realize how damn lucky they were to grow up bilingual!

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you and it's also my plan... but I know a few multi-cultural kids and a quite a lot of adults who are half-half.. and some are fine with this, but some absolutely refused anything to do with one of the cultures and there is only so much you can force on a kid before you give up and let him make his own choices. And since for me cultural identity is very tied-up with language, it would be hard if my potential children didn't pick up my language well enough.

This is just to say that I have high hopes that it will work out like you are saying, but am aware that reality will oftentimes ruin long-term plans and I am worried about that possibility and considering what I can do to avoid it or minimize the chances.

That being said.. yay for bilingual children haha .. they definitely get a head start

[mllebamako]

Great topic and also a really difficult one to think about.

The question that worries me the most is if something happened to my SO. I wouldn't want to stay living in Mali for the rest of my life, but at the same time I have no legal rights over my (step)daughter. I can become her guardian but that wouldn't make it possible for me to bring her to the States. I don't want to adopt her here because adoption visas for the US are nearly impossible if one of the parents is still living. Our plan is that I adopt her once we move to the States, which is much more feasible.

I think if it happened, I would end up staying here until I could work something out (if that were even possible). I couldn't leave her though. I just couldn't.

I do have a will but I need to revise it now that I'm a married lady.

[Tooki]

What happens if we both die?
Any kids would either go to my parents or my GF's sister. Her dad is in no state to handle any more kids. Any assets will probably get split up among both parties.

What happens if we get divorced?
I would let my GF take the kids. If we were living in Europe, I would probably keep my job and we would share custody. If we were living in Australia, I wouldn't be surprised if my GF moved back to Europe or wherever her sister in living. If that happened, I would let her keep the kids and I could have them for x days per year. I would be in a better financial situation to provide child support as well. I know my GF well enough to know that if we were to break up with kids, we would do what's best for the kids.

If something happens to my mother, will you be okay with having my sister live with us?
Ironically enough, my GF lives with her sister because this scenario actually happened to her family. Her sister loves having my GF around her. If something happened to my mother, I probably wouldn't have either of my sisters live with me but if so, I could handle it temporarily. I would not be able to handle my (older) younger sister for any extended period of time.

If we have kids, how we will handle the cultural aspect?
My GF and I have already spoken about this in detail. We have very contrasting cultures (Estonian vs. Australian/Maori) and I want my kids to have a taste of both worlds. My GF is INSISTENT that they learn Estonian and that they learn about Estonian culture. I want them to learn Estonian as well, in part to 'preserve the culture' and in part because I regret not learning a second language when I was younger. I am disappointed that the Australian Government doesn't push the study of foreign languages (especially like the Europeans), but it makes sense.
The kids will (logically) be raised bilingually and they will probably learn another language in their school years. They probably won't identify that much with the Maori culture but I'll make sure that they at least know about it. They also better like Rugby . I will try to make as many trips back to Estonia as I can as well.

My own question: Where will you live long-term and why?

I would not surprised if I am living in Europe in the long-term. I can't see my GF wanting to live in Australia for the rest of her life because she will miss Europe too much. If she ever wants to study, she will have to do it in Europe as well.

[Schlafmütze]

My heavy question:

What would you do if your parents or your SO's parents fell to poor health and needed to be taken care of?

I wonder about this one a lot because my SO's mom is in terrible health. And we're moving to the USA. I'm worried in 5 years or so we might have to uproot and move back to CR to take care of his mom.

This is exactly the same thing that has been bugging me for a while now.

My boyfriend and I have discussed marriage, jobs, children/parenting, housing, education, where to live, etc; and we have looked into the pros and cons on each of them. We have not discussed divorce yet and how would we deal with it, specially if there are children involved.

In regards of our parents, he said he doesn't want his parents to be the main weight for his or our decisions. Is not that he doesn't love them, is selfish, ungrateful or that he will not be sad if something bad happen to them. He is just more realistic than myself, more independent and his parents remain married. Unlike me/mine.

That said, we agreed that, granted we both have stable and well paid jobs (which at the moment he has, not me), a portion of our money will go into a money jar/saving account, so that every year our trip to Colombia or Germany is guaranteed, and if we can not travel, that we can pay a percentage of the price of the flight for our parents. Or the money will be just saved to be used in the event of sudden illness or death of one of our loved ones.

I like the idea and hope things go as planned. However, what worries me the most is what would we do if one or both of our parents fell to poor health and need to be taken care of?
I think in the US (please correct me if I am wrong), when you are granted the american nationality or become a legal US citizen, by law and after certain number of years, you can file for petition for your parents. This is not possible in Germany , so my mom, for example, will never be able to live closer to us. Not in the same house, but at least in the same city, a nearby town or same country.

She is OK with traveling to Germany for some months every year, but there will come a time in which she will not longer be able to travel comfortably.
Also, there are aspects like place attachment, life time friends, relatives, memories, etc., which -psychologically speaking- play an important role, especially as we age, as they have an impact in our health and wellbeing. I wouldn't like my mom's health to be affected by my will of having her close to me in a country she is not familiar with, she doesn't speak the language and so on....

Anyways, I keep thinking about this. It's my main concern at the moment. I admit I have cried sometimes while thinking about it, I hope we are able to plan this better with the time.

P.s: Something I find a bit weird is: Why do I only worry about my mom? Is not that my dad hasn't been part of my life, because he has and still is. I am just closer to my mom, but sometimes I feel bad about considering just my mom in things like this, for example.

[Moon]

My main concern is if one of us becomes ill, or incapacitated, how will that work from 4000+ miles away? If something, like a spinal injury for example, happened to me, I wouldn't want him to feel obligated to me in any way, yet letting him go would be so horrible, I can't even imagine it. Or an illness like cancer, how can you give the needed support and care from across an ocean, and is that too much to even hope for, in an LDR?

Also, this is a weird one, if you close the distance internationally and you kick the bucket, where are you buried? Would you want to go "home", or wait in the foreign dirt for your SO to join the party?