Is it supposed to be like this when you move away?

[TawnyLarue]

I moved away from my home city about 10 years ago. Moved in with my boyfriend (now husband) and we now have two small children (one in school).

We live about 3 hours from my mum, dad and sister (who has a baby).

we have a happy life here. We both work full time. It’s hard, working and looking after the kids and house but we do our best. We really don’t have much in terms of support/childcare (husbands parents live abroad now, although they didn’t when i first moved here) so we never really get out but that’s just the way it is right now. Kids are happy and settled in school and nursery and our house is being renovated.

My family have not visited us in something like 3 or 4 years. Have not even seen our new house, which we have been in for a year now. It all falls to me, every single time, to go and see them with the kids. I don’t know when they would ever see the kids if I didn’t take them through (although I should say they absolutely love the kids and are so good and kind to them when we do go through, spend lots of time with them etc. the kids love them).

I take the kids through as much as I can, because I am desperate for them to have a good relationship with my family, but to be honest I am tired and I am losing the notion. It’s hurtful. My husband gets quite annoyed about it as well, feels like we make all the effort. If we invite them, they sort of vaguely say “yes we’ll need to come soon” but won’t ever commit or be tied to a date. They clearly don’t want to come. There is definitely an element of “well you moved away so…🤷🏻‍♀️” They are with my sister almost every day, by the way. She lives locally to them.

I am a bit lonely. I accept it was my choice to move away - I suspect my mums nose is out of joint over it, to be honest - but is this what it is meant to be like? Really?

I think you’ve accidentally stumbled on the issue - both you and your parents view their home as “home”. You go home when you visit them, you agree with them that you live away from home.

But the OP sees her house and her town as “home”, and her parents have no interest in her home or the life she has built.

That's just how I speak @LimeCheesecake - i very much view where i live as home and have openly said there's nowhere else in England Id rather live.

I also did live abroad after living here & spoke of where i live as going home. Plus when i go back to where I lived abroad, I call that going home too.

Anyway, i still stand by the view that if you move away from your life / family / friends, the effort is on you to return (whatever you call it) - hence me also going back to the place I lived abroad on a semi-regular basis (every few years).

Ha, yes sorry i missed that important bit!
Maybe they don’t enjoy being house guests? The older I get the more i enjoy my home comforts.

No, to be fair they are not keen on being houseguests. But neither am I, if I’m honest. But that doesn’t matter.

I think it’s extremely sad to see that sort of relationship (with close family or very good friends) reduced to nothing because one has moved away. Or to thi;k that everything is on the shoulders of the one ‘who moved away’.

It certainly doesn’t have to be like this.
Im still close to my parents despite moving away. I’m still close to my cousins too. The people I’m not close to are people I wouldnt be close to even i lived near them!
My two best friends are still my best friends 25 years after I moved away. We’ve seen having dcs, then going away to Uni, divorce, marriage etc… and still we all make the effort to see each other on a regular basis.

Problem I feel start when you expect the one ‘who moved’ to make all the effort. Simply because it will always be impossible to keep a relationship going Wo both parties wanting to do and yes making an effort to keep it going. That’s true true regardless of how far from each other you are tbh.

I will never understand these weird games that families play. You are allowed to move away from your family OP. Lots of people do. Yes, maybe you should travel and see them more than they do. However they could visit you too. You really haven't done anything wrong. It's this weird, small-minded attitude that some patents have towards their grown up.children that I will never understand!

Well I don't know if it's what it's supposed to be like but it's also my experience! It sucks. However, I also think you can learn to suck it up and make it work for you.

There are many good things about being away from your family!

Do you have other family near your parents? Because that's often what tips the balance i think. One journey to see more than one set of relations.
Also plenty of people don't like being house guests.
I can completely understand why you feel hurt, but it's not that surprising to me that situations like yours occur.

@TawnyLarue - what would happen if you didn’t visit do you think? If you breezily said something like “oh it’s definitely your turn to visit us, you’ve not even seen this house and we’ve been in for over a year!” And then didn’t visit them? Do you think they’d happily let the relationship go, or would they nag you to visit, or would they make the effort and then expect you to go back to all the visits?

I think they’d moan, come once and then the status quo would resume.

They wouldn’t just let it go