EXPAT LIFE

Should I stay or should I go now?

You move lock, stock, and two smoking barrels to France. Maybe you are of retirement age or retiring early. You start to tick all the boxes in becoming ‘at one’ with France and living your best life as a married couple or committed partnership, it’s all good, but have you spoken about what would happen, if one of you became critically ill or suddenly died?

I have had many conversations about this recently. One, because I had a breast cancer scare last year and suddenly found myself thinking the worst and two, France hasn’t quite become my home and we are still very much a work-in-progress, France and I.

Anyway, thinking I was staring death in the face, I immediately said that despite the health care in France being absolutely amazing, I wouldn’t want to die in France. I was very sure of that, but then we still haven’t found our forever home, nor are we of full-time, settled status in France.

For the purpose of this editorial, say your other half, love of your life suddenly passed away. Ask yourself, would you stay in France?

Got you thinking hasn’t it?

We never really want to think about it, do we? Death is horribly final, no coming back from that. However, discussing death and illness is a grown-up thing to do, we can only ignore it for so long. My husband and

Lifestyle

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I guess my feelings could change over time. Luckily, I quickly got the all clear but it did make us look at putting our house in order.

Another reason we discussed dying in France lately was because we were updating our wills, trying to find new life insurance post Brexit and investigating changing our marital regime with the Notaire.

Inheritance laws are rather complex in France and should you want your other half to inherit absolutely, then you should get advice on how to make that happen. Even the regime under how you bought or own your joint home will affect who inherits what, so make sure you both know what’s what, don’t bury your head in the sand until its too late to change the outcome.

I still don’t know at 53 whether I would stay in France, if my husband died. I do know that he feels very much at home in France and would more than likely stay in France happily with or without me. I guess it also depends on whose dream it was to live in France?

I, like many women, feel a constant pull back to my family and I can only imagine that pull would win, if I were facing life on my own in France? Who knows, but we do discuss these sensitive subjects openly now.

We are almost both in our mid fifties, middle aged if you like, no longer young but not old yet! That said, it’s only ten years give or take a few to 65 and we will definitely be at least semi-retired by then. There’s a lot to think about and plan.

Recently, I’ve met several couples where the male partners have already been critically ill and this fast-forwarded their escape to France. When talking to the ladies, I got the distinct feeling that they would both return to the UK should the worst happen. These ladies have already had to deal with the real possibility of loosing their life partners and they are more realistic than most. They both felt they would definitely be drawn back to their families in the UK, whatever that looked like, absolutely no doubts.

My advice? Talk it out, look at all the options, plan and don’t leave these decisions on the back burner for too long, because ‘time flies whilst you are having fun’ wherever you are in the world!

Donna Xx