When the Problem Looked Like Money
The shift probably started long before I realised it. Looking back, the story of moving abroad with children didn’t begin with Germany at all. It began months earlier, while I was still standing in my kitchen in Kerry convinced that money was the problem.
Like many modern crises, it started with money. Or at least that’s what I thought at the time. There simply wasn’t enough coming in and, being a practical sort of person, I assumed the solution was obvious: earn more.
So I got busy trying to fix things, because that is what I am – a fixer.
Around the same time, I started meditating and listening to hypnosis recordings. Looking back, I suspect I was searching for more than money, but I wasn’t ready to admit that yet. At the time, I thought I was solving a financial problem. In reality, I was beginning to question much bigger things.
A better waitressing job came up and I took it. The money improved and, for a while, it felt like progress. The funny thing about progress is that sometimes it arrives dressed as a solution when it’s actually pointing towards a completely different problem.
The more focused I became, the more opportunities seemed to appear. Or perhaps they had always been there and I was finally paying attention. Either way, after one particularly tense week, the job in Germany appeared.
Before anyone imagines secret plans and dramatic betrayals, there weren’t any. I didn’t do anything behind Gar’s back. We talked through all of it. The feeling that something needed to change wasn’t mine alone. The idea of leaving and rebuilding had been discussed many times before.
The disagreement wasn’t really about whether we should stay or go.
It was about where.
When you’re uprooting children, certainty matters. I wasn’t interested in vague possibilities or plans that might work out someday. I wanted something solid: a real job, a real apartment and something concrete to move towards.
Eventually, he agreed.
Germany it was.
The Comfort of Being Busy
Then everything happened very quickly. Being busy is wonderful when you’re trying not to feel things. Every form completed, every phone call made and every box packed feels productive. There is a strange kind of optimism that comes from crossing things off a list.
In hindsight, some of it was genuine positivity. Some of it was avoidance with a clipboard. As long as there was something to organise, there wasn’t much room left for panic. Or guilt.
The girls thought Germany sounded brilliant.
To be fair, I made sure it did. We talked about swimming pools, ice cream and summer barbecues. We talked about castles and forests and adventures. Strangely enough, children are remarkably enthusiastic about international relocation when you leave out discussions about bureaucracy, uncertainty and emotional upheaval.
In their defence, ignorance really was bliss.
Their entire understanding of Germany came from a week-long summer holiday. They had a picture in their heads and it was a good one. Sunshine. Fun. Adventure. Looking back, I think that innocence helped them enormously.
I wasn’t afforded the same luxury.
Knowing What Moving Really Means
I knew what moving meant.
Even moving to the next town as a child had changed my world. This wasn’t moving to the next town. This was leaving a country. Leaving friends, routines, familiar roads, familiar faces and all the tiny things you don’t notice until they’re gone.
People talk about starting over as though it’s one long inspirational montage. New beginnings. New opportunities. Reinventing yourself.
What they don’t mention is that somebody still has to figure out where the nearest dentist is. Or how the recycling works. Or why a simple letter from a government office suddenly feels like an advanced language exam.
Starting over is exciting. It’s also exhausting.
The girls were excited because they saw an adventure.
I was excited too, but I could also see the bill that would eventually arrive for that adventure.
The Many Faces of Guilt
And that, I think, was where the guilt lived.
Not because I thought I was doing the wrong thing, but because I knew exactly how much I was asking of them.
The guilt was always there, like a bad taste in my mouth. It just changed faces every now and then.
Some days it appeared as anger towards Gar’s family. Other days it looked more like grief for everything we had lost. Occasionally it disguised itself as irritation about something completely unrelated because apparently guilt enjoys a good costume change.
Most of the time I managed to keep it busy. I had lists to write. Schools to organise. Paperwork to complete. Children to reassure.
There wasn’t much spare time available for emotional reflection.
But guilt is patient. It waits.
The first time it popped up was on the plane. Then nothing until a week later in the middle of the night when my brain woke up hours before the rest of me. It arrived in those quiet moments when there was nothing left to organise and nowhere left to hide.
That was when the questions started.
Was I doing the right thing?
Was I taking my daughters towards something better or was I just running away from conflict?
Or was I taking them away from everything they had ever known?
The girls, meanwhile, were largely concerned with whether Germany had enough ice cream. In many ways, they handled the move far better than I did. I carried the responsibility. They carried their colouring books.
Perhaps that was exactly how it should be and what I was aiming for.
The strange thing is that the guilt didn’t disappear when we arrived. It unpacked itself right alongside the suitcases and settled in for the long haul.
Rebuilding a Life
Over time something else appeared too. Evidence. The girls settled into school. They made friends. They learned the language.
Life slowly stopped feeling like a temporary experiment and started feeling like real life again.
Not the life we had before. A different one.
Was it worth it?
And slowly, without me really noticing, the guilt started losing ground.
I still wonder sometimes what would have happened if we’d stayed. I suspect every parent who makes a life-changing decision asks themselves the same question. There is no alternate timeline to compare notes with. Well, at least we can’t visit it just yet. There is only the path you chose and the life you build from there.
What I know now is that I wasn’t carrying guilt because I had done something wrong.
I was carrying it because I understood the magnitude of what I was asking of my children. I was asking them to trust me completely. To leave behind the only home they had ever known and follow me into a future neither of us could fully imagine.
That is a heavy responsibility. Even when it turns out to be the right decision.
And perhaps that’s the uncomfortable truth about parenthood. Half the time you’re making enormous decisions with incomplete information and hope your children won’t one day require therapy because of them.
So far, we’re doing alright.
The girls are happy.
I’m not so far yet, but I’m at peace with the decision I have made for us all.
And these days, when the guilt occasionally shows up for a visit, I mostly treat it like an old travelling companion. One that came all the way from Ireland to Germany without ever contributing towards petrol money.
