I guess I was lucky in that my partner and I each had our own properties when we decided to move to Goa. So we sold my cottage and invested the money and we kept his small apartment on. We dont rent it out as we are back in UK for 2/3 mths each year. Paying the rates on it is far cheaper than us than having to go to an hotel and the nice to travel without luggage (in theory-like to bring loads of goodies back)!! Heaven forbid having to stay with family/friends which would be the alternative!

We sold ours, kind of a burn your boats thing. It made us really try hard to settle down here and buying our own place over here, setting 'roots' really helped. Probably a minor point for most people but we also wanted/needed to bring our dogs over and in a rental thats a no-no.

Mind you the staying with rellies shuffle that we have to do when we go back for a visit is hell. His parents seem to count the hours we will be spending with them and then comparing them with my side. AARRRRGHHH

When I got married out parents did the same thing. After a hellish weekend we told them that if it happened again, if they showed any signs of keeping track (we were told we were spending too much time with his parents when we got caught in a traffic jam!) we would simply stop coming home. We meant it, too. We also revised what we were doing. We used to try and see both sets every day, but changed to splitting it down the middle, staying at one and visiting only with them, then moving to the other. That was moderately better. Later we switched to alternating trips.

It's horrible, and they don't seem to realize that they are making the visits miserable for you. I began to wonder if they cared about seeing us at all, since scoring over the other (something important always came to mind just as we were out the door) set of in-laws seemed more important than actually, say, talking to us.

I wouldnt mind the attention quite so much if we hadnt had both sets of olds over to visit us in the previous 2 years. My brother and his brood who I hadnt seen since we left the uk and who were the ones we WANTED to spend time with were the least demanding!

We had both sets of inlaws over for christmas this year, made them travel together too so there was NO POSSIBLITY OF JEALOUSY. Then they just fought over who got to do what with the grandkids. Luckily one set only seem to be able to relate to toddlers and the other seem to only relate to kids once they get past 5 - having a 9 year and an 18month old was stunningly good planning on our part......