Husband wants us to go to live in Portugal

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.

With all respect I get irritated by people who do nothing to help themselves and then expect to be bailed out by others. if you go abroad you learn the laguage and learn to drive there.

It is the same with people who let another household member do all the driving and then cannot cope and expect to be bailed out when for some reason they have to do the driving.

My best friend has lived in the South of Portugal with her husband for over 20 years and had time shares for a few years before that. I have visited them quite a few times and it doesn't impress me. I have felt bored at times even in a short visit. If you play golf and bridge you can fill your time.

My friends now have considerable severe medical conditions and receive excellent medical treatment, but this has to be paid for by expensive medical insurance. They are well off so money is not a problem.

The language is difficult. My friend is bilangual in French and we both did Latin at school so the romantic languages do not pose too much of a problem. She is still having lessons on Portuguese and finds it not easy. I speak French and Italian, I could probably manage a bit of Spanish but Portuguese totally defeats me!

My friends husband is now in a care home due to dementia. The care is good but the carers don't speak English. It's clean, but not full of home comforts as you would expect in a pricey home in England. And it's expensive.

My friend has made the best of what she has been delivered and has an OK life given her severe mobility and other problems. She can afford a lot of care. However she would move back to England to be near her daughter and family, but would have to wait for husband and dog to pop their clogs. She is very brave and I constantly worry about her.I

The climate is changing. She used to tell me how desperate they were for rain. It used to be dry for about 9 months a year. Now she is constantly having rain, and last week she had heating on. When I visited in October it rained every day and wasn't particularly warm. I wasn't tempted to go in the pool.

Compared to my life in France profonde, well, it doesn't compare!!!

I hope this has been helpful OP. Personally I wouldn't consider a move there and only go for my friend. Keep us all posted on how you fare. Good luck.

yogagran

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

Definitely my 1st question

Second question. Have he thought about maybe renting for 6 months then buying a tiny holiday property there? €150k £130k

The crux of the matter surely is that PinkCosmos has stated that she most definitely doesn’t want to move to Portugal.

For this big move to have any chance of being successful, both of them have to be equally enthusiastic, which is clearly not the case.

I hope you have managed to make your feelings quite clear to your husband OP.

Clearly you do not want to go and I completely understand that. I think your husband needs to understand that moving to Portugal will not solve any issues he may have. Lots of sound advice has been given here and clearly most people are backing you. You have told your husband you are happy to visit Portugal for 4 or 5 weeks a year - surely that's good enough !?
You have responsibilities here and family. Stick to your guns and stay put. He would expect you to do the necessary paper- so provaricate! Good luck.

Oh dear !
Life becomes difficult when you aren't in accord .
Can you spend some of your time in Portugal with your husband and take long breaks with your family. ?
If the house is being sold then it relies on you staying with your family or friends and that doesn't always work out .

If it's not what you want then you'll have to tell him .

Last night, by chance I met my long term friend's husband .
He's self employed and increasingly unhappy Their marriage has been on the rocks for years . She is a nag and prefers to spend her time with her friends. He has begun to feel tired as his work us physically demanding
He wants to live abroad.
His only problem is learning a language. He's not academic and lacks confidence with languages .
He's secretly learning Italian .
It's obvious to me that over the next four years that he'll want to leave.

I'm sad for you and I hope that you can resolve the situation.
Good luck .

You need to say 'No' and mean it. At this stage most people who really WANT to move abroad are having doubts, you don't want to go even at the making plans stage, that's not going to change and I can already feel panic and upset radiating from you at uprooting your life. You deserve happiness too, and once you've burned your boats here, if you need to come back , it's hard to start again with nothing.

Hard to live in another country without being fluent in the language. Mad to live somewhere you don't want to

Just don’t make any efforts to move. If your husband leaves it to you to organise - there is the answer! He needs something to do - volunteer for something that he may be interested in. Sounds like he has too much time to think about Portugal. Best of luck!

It's clear that you don't want to move and you need to stick to that. Your husband is equating going on holiday to Portugal with actually living there, which is a very different thing.

Could he cope with visits to a doctor, a dentist, a hospital where finding an English speaker is not guaranteed?

Does he realize the financial implications of a move? Could he even cope with buying a property there?

All this points to his pipe dream, which you don't share. Put your foot down and tell him you are not moving.

My husband and myself have lived in Spain for 18 years. Husband took early retirement and we had just bought a small 2 bed villa before he retired. We had a very good social life with friends who had moved as well to Spain. We moved back to the UK 7 years ago and my husband didn’t want to return.
I missed the family and grandchildren and he was having medical difficulties. I love being back - I am near my son and daughter, live in a village where I have made new friends. My husband has got many medical issues and is getting excellent treatment. I must admit, it would be a strain in Spain, despite people speaking English. I was never fluent in Spanish despite lessons. We paid for translators and the family are expected to look after their poorly ones in hospital. He has now developed dementia but I have support.

Things have changed since Brexit. I think if you don't have a visa you can only stay for 90 days but obviously this all needs to be researched before making any plans. And health care is very important

We moved to the Algarve 5 years ago and we are very happy but in your position I wouldn’t.

I think with major changes like emigration/ conception/ adoption/ getting a pet, - the person arguing for maintaining the status quo has right of veto unless they are reneging on a joint plan agreed at the outset of the relationship.

We got Residency before the Brexit rules came into effect and it is much harder now. Friends with property here who don’t have Residency have to be very careful with the 90 days rule.

Costs of eating out and alcohol are much cheaper here than in the U.K. but costs of motoring and Utilities are surprisingly expensive. Houses here are surprisingly cold in winter so outside of a few weeks in Spring or Autumn you are running heaters or air-conditioning and lots of houses and flats are woefully insulated.

You need to be careful of your Tax position so even though DH is an able accountant we pay for a local accountant to take care of local obligations and a U.K. accountant who specialises in international clients to ensure we comply with obligations there.

I have learned Portuguese to a good level but my husband tried and failed. If neither of you speak Portuguese you will need to employ people to help you navigate the labyrinthine bureaucracy here, public employees often don’t or won’t speak English, even on the Algarve, we wouldn’t expect the reverse in the U.K. In Portugal it is more common to have to attend offices to get things done than it is in the U.K. where more is done online. If you don’t have good Portuguese you will also rely upon plumbers, builders and trades who cater to the immigrant, anglophone population and they tend to be relatively expensive and not always the best.

Year round rental is very expensive here, - reasonably priced rentals will require you and your belongings to disappear for the 2 highest season months of the year and renting elsewhere those months and paying for storage will cost as much as you have paid for the previous 10 months.

Property prices are expensive within 10km of the coast. Unless you are moving from London or the Home Counties you will be disappointed with how far your money goes.

The SNS, the public health service is similar or worse than the NHS in terms of waiting lists so we have Private Medical Insurance which whilst cheaper than in the U.K., still costs us nearly €5,000 per year as a couple and we are only mid 60s and mid 50s respectively. It will increase significantly as we age.

We owned a holiday home here for two years before making the move so it wasn’t such a leap of faith, we are also in the fortunate position of having invested savings and a commercial property in the U.K. that hedge against us wishing to return to the U.K. in the future. If we did decide to do so we would be very comfortable even should the U.K. property market outperform the local property market.

If your husband’s hobby is golf then he will be aware the choice and quality of courses here is fantastic, however it is VERY expensive because there is not only domestic demand but plane-loads of golfers on trips from Northern Europe so courses can charges high prices for tees and for membership. They aren’t competing for members as they have been in recent years in the U.K.

I think you are right that your husband will bring his depression or dissatisfaction with him but that you will both be in a much more vulnerable position.

A winter or shoulder season rental for a month on a regular basis would be a much better idea.

We love Portugal and we are very happy here as are the immigrant friends from different countries we have met here. We all share financial security in common though.

I have found Portugal to be a very friendly place and that continues but as in the U.K., there is increasing resentment of immigrants putting pressure on public services and pushing up property prices beyond the reach of locals. This is reflected in the growing popularity of Chega, a political party a little like the U.K. Reform party. Recently we and our friends have increasingly been challenged to speak Portuguese at security when entering and exiting the country and those that have to say they don’t speak Portuguese or who don’t understand when they are addressed in Portuguese get told off.

I hope that if your husband doesn’t plan to learn Portuguese he is supportive of immigrants to the U.K. who don’t learn the language and who live within their own cultural communities according to the norms of their countries of origin.

It’s scarcely believable but I have heard the odd British immigrant over here give immigration to the U.K. and not even recognising the country these days as one their reasons for moving to Portugal, - without any sense of irony!