Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Want to move back to UK

78 replies

TooMuchCaffeineNotEnoughSpice · 02/11/2024 11:51

Nearly three years ago we moved abroad to a rural location having lived in London for 20 years. My two kids (9 and 12 now) have settled in really well and have friends, enjoy school, enjoy their hobbies and generally have an idyllic childhood out and about walking dogs and biking round the village. We are also only 20 mins from the beach. My husband likes it too. He says he has a good work-life balance and he enjoys the space (much bigger house here than in London). He works from home but travels abroad a lot for work - this week he’s away Friday to Thursday. I am the only one who really doesn’t like it here. I think it is boring, we have made no friends (we have one friend but don’t see him much and his wife has made it clear to me she doesn’t need a friend), I miss being able to walk to shops, go for a coffee with friends, go to the cinema and the theatre and restaurants without driving for half an hour. There are no facilities in our village. I miss friends and family back in the UK. Our work is flexible so it doesn’t matter where we are based. Am I being unreasonable/selfish to want to move everyone back to the UK when the rest of my family are happy here?

OP posts:
Loopytiles · 02/11/2024 12:00

Sounds hard but I think it’d be U to uproot your DC a second time: too risky for them. Would instead do things to help yourself now, and think again when the DC are young adults.

cheezncrackers · 02/11/2024 12:00

YANBU and actually, at 9 and 12, your kids are on the cusp of wanting much more than a small village with no amenities has to offer.

When my kids were that age they'd have been perfectly happy in the place you describe, but now they're older they want much more. My 17-year-old is constantly out with friends, going to the gym, catching trains, buses, taxis to parties or hang out with friends. If we lived in a village it would be awful! I know not all kids are the same, but when he was 12 his favourite places were Northumberland and the Lake District.

But more than that, you have a right to be happy too and your happiness shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of the rest of your family's current happiness. A compromise needs to be found. But you sound lonely and isolated where you are - most people would find that utterly miserable. Why did you move there?

Pandasnacks · 02/11/2024 11:57

Possibly a bit yes! The kids have already been uprooted and started again and it's gone well, reversing it seems mean. There must be reasons you left London? Can you move less rurally in the country you are in without disrupting the kids too much?