the short story is, should i stay or should i go? after five and half
years of marriage my australian wife has decided she wants to live in
australia. we planned in advance and purchased tickets last march with
the intention of visiting during the holiday season with the notion of
"trying it out" so to speak. in october she decided it better to not
come back. but as i had no residency visa i had to return and wait out
my life here while she (and our daughter) began making a life for
herself there. it's now nearly june and i'm here. in the meantime i've
come to realize different ways in which my life had been dictatetd by
our relationship. i miss my daughter greatly, but i'm not sure if i
can reconcile with living on the other side of the world in a lack
luster relationship.

Tough question, Unsureboy.  Dear Abby always asks, "Are you better off
with her or without her?"

Just my opinion, but you won't get the answer by trying to add up
points in the plus and minus columns.  It's more likely to come from
the gut.  From your gut and no one else's.

The other thought is, if you wait a little, you can always make your
move later.  But if you make your move before you're sure, you may not
be able to undo it.  Either way, in your case, you're going to be
burning bridges.  What do you really want, and is it even possible to
get it?

Apteryx
(not a researcher)

This may seem harsh, so please make sure you're sitting down before
you read this...

Your wife doesn't care about you.  She's selfish, and she's
destructively putting your daughter's welfare behind her self-centred
attitude by moving her away from you -- children need both parents in
their lives when growing up.

What is the real reason she doesn't want to come back with you?  She
must've known that you wouldn't have been able to stay in Australia,
and the fact that she didn't keep her promise with regards to the plan
you described (to just visit) is a clear indication that she doesn't
respect you and may even be trying to hide something from you (for
example, with you out of the picture, she'd be free to have an
affair).

It may also be a good idea for you to consult with a lawyer to find
out what your rights are as a parent in this type of situation.  If
you filed for divorce and asked for custody of your daughter, you'll
want to know if what she's done could be viewed as "kidnapping" by the
law if she didn't have your consent to keep your daughter there with
her (the age of your daughter will likely also have an impact on
this).

Now, if you managed to get a citizenship status in the other country,
could you truly believe that she would never do this again?  She's
done it once already.

Good luck, and I hope that you are able to find a solution that's most
beneficial to your daugther first and foremost.

I tend to agree somewhat with ramblingdiatribe-ga, but I think it a
bit harsh.  Isolation in a foreign country can be tough for some
people, maybe more so for a woman with a "dependant personality type".

Also an interesting comment you  made "in the meantime i've come to
realize different ways in which my life had been dictatetd by our
relationship".

My brother is married to a woman where you dont even have to ponder
the question, it is so "in your face" how much she "wears the pants". 
But he puts up with in even though it drives him nuts.  So dont think
you have it too bad

Personally I think you should simply ask if your wife wants you to
come to Australia.  If she is not that enthusiastic, then I think your
marriage is not going anywhere

Sorry mareinfinitus-ga, although I appreciate your response to my
comments, I simply can't agree with what you've contributed...

The phrase "dependant personality type" is just psycho-babble -- it's
a bunch of nonsense.  There is no such thing as a "dependant
personality type" in my books since people who would probably fit such
a category are, to put it simply, just weak because they lack the
self-confidence needed to make the truly tough decisions in life for
themselves.  Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of life is that we
often faced with choosing between right and wrong, and what's right is
almost always the more difficult choice to make at first glance (true
power from within comes from seeing that the right choice is actually
easier for everyone in the long run; e.g., to confront that nasty
mother-in-law while the marriage is new as opposed to waiting for
years or decades to pass and letting her practically destroy the
marriage slowly one step at a time -- this example is a lot more
common of a scenario than I think most people realize, especially
since most people choose not to do anything about it until it gets
almost totally unbearable).

Once someone realizes how easy it is to make the correct choice (by
making a concerted effort to decide to do what's right), then they
begin to grow up and truly begin to enjoy the personal freedoms that
are a part of normal living.

"Isolation in a foreign country" is just a form of scape-goating. 
It's a common selfish attempt by dysfunctional people to manipulate
the situation with the usual "poor me, I'm not familiar with this
place, so please feel sorry for me and put up with my crap."  If
anything, this indicates a serious self-confidence problem on the part
of the perpetrator since they obviously feel a need to exert control
indirectly (because they probably don't feel that they can just do it
normally and when appropriate; sometimes they don't know when it is
appropriate).

When you write "... he puts up with in even though it drives him nuts.
 So dont think you have it too bad" you are actually asking the
original poster to lower his standards.  This is very bad because it's
leading him down the wrong path -- he's doing quite well already by
recognizing a problem, but if he starts thinking this way then he's
going to waste a lot more time and effort on resolving this problem
and then it will be too late because his daughter should have grown up
and left home by then.  I think it's very sad that people feel a need
to lower their standards to accomodate dysfunctional behaviour, and I
believe it's clearly the wrong kind of role-modelling for children
(because approximately 80% of what we learn is from copying others;
it's no wonder progress is so slow!).  If he does what's right, today,
even if his daughter is biased now she will come to realize some day
that her father really cares for her.  If he does what's wrong, today,
then his daughter may get the impression that he's easy to push
around, and these types of people usually aren't respected by anyone.