hey ! i got a similar problem! I am a PR holder living in Dubai with my wife who is a Canadian citizen! she is a house wife and i am the one working! we have two kids together who are both canadian citizens, in this case is time spent abroad counted as time lived in canada in order to renew my Pr? thanks! Am kinda panicking here now
Well my story is my wife sponsored me while we were both living in Dubai to become a PR , we flew together with our child to collect the PR once it was ready in Canada and then returned back to Dubai.
There is a RISK you could run into either RO compliance problems OR misrepresentation issues.
The latter relates to the process in which you obtained PR status, since it was conditioned on a plan to move to Canada. Sure, people's plans change. And this happens a lot. And it is NOT likely that Canada strictly screens new PRs sponsored by a citizen spouse abroad to determine whether they followed through with their plan to move to Canada. So this risk, alone, may not be much of a problem.
But there is a risk it will be fairly obvious to any officer screening you. That could trigger elevated screening generally and in particular trigger a closer look at your compliance with the Residency Obligation.
Appears rather obvious that your citizen spouse has been accompanying you, not you accompanying your Canadian citizen spouse.
Whether or not who-accompanied-whom is looked at in your case is very difficult to forecast.
Here is a topic where this issue is discussed at length: "Who-accompanied-whom can matter for PRs living with citizen spouse abroad: UPDATE"
see
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/who-accompanied-whom-can-matter-for-prs-living-with-citizen-spouse-abroad-update.579860/
