Would you live in your current location if you had no family?

[Seashells02]

I live in my rundown hometown, about a 5min drive from parents and 15mins from siblings. I was thinking if my parents passed away, there’s no way I’d choose to live here.

I’d probably try and move abroad or further south. Does family keep you close or have you moved anyway and if so, do you regret it? What puts me off is the guilt as they get older.

I wouldn’t. I live in a pretty rough area of South London. I’d like to move further into town to an area with less knife crime. However friends, family and new GC keep me here. I

Yes. I love in Yorkshire with my husband and kids. My geographically closest relative lives in London. My work,many of my friends, and a whole range of cafés, pubs, theatres, museums, libraries, restaurants and other things to do are within a 20 minute walk.

I moved out of London where all my family live once I got pregnant, so I could afford to buy a decent sized house in a nice slow safe town (west/north mids). I could never have stayed in ldn for the sake of my family, only to afford a 1 bed flat with no garden and a huge mortgage.

Yes I like where I live, it’s in the south west, close to the coast and luckily I’ve also got lots of friends and family here.

I got divorced and my kids all moved down south. I had no reason whatsoever to stay here apart from an elderly relative. He has now died and I’m looking for my forever house… somewhere!!

No fucking way.

Yes because we live in a good town close proximity (15 min drive) to a very good employer (me and DH) with good salary and work life balance as well as London for fun and major airports for travel. It’s also convenient for family so works all round.

We are child free so one day there may be no family ties. I could see us moving north to be closer to good friends and enjoy the national parks and outdoors but only if we were retiring/semi retiring- our employer is the kind of place people celebrate 30/40 year anniversary and we’ve got no desire to move!

I wouldn't. I would have stayed in the city, or another city. But unfortunately with a family we can't afford that. Instead we have a house in a suburb, where we live is very nice but very family orientated not much going on here for people without that commitment. It's near family too and on main commuter route.

DH and I lived in a beautiful house in a lovely city after downsizing when we retired but moved back to a riverside flat in greater London to be near my DD because she adopted two young children as a single parent. Other family and GC are also within an hour's drive.
We like it here and don't need a big house now we're getting on a bit, though I do miss the space and the garden.
I suppose in an ideal world we'd live in a small, easily maintained newbuild house with outside space and nice views, but they simply don't exist round here - and I'd rather be near my family. I much prefer living in a city and certainly wouldn't want to live in a rural location or in an old-age ghetto on the south cost, our area isn't particularly nice but has all the normal amenities that we need in our 70's.

I got out of my hometown and tbh the place I've moved to has gone downhill, while my hometown has improved. 🤣

Still don't regret it. It's given me freedom from the misery of childhood.

I hate where I live and it is destroying my mental health, but I’m trapped because my DC are in a good school and do not want to move. I wish I had moved away when they were babies.
In your shoes I wouldn’t stay for the extended family. Move to where you and your own family will be happy. And do it now before your DC put down roots.

I don’t think I’d ever move out of the area, but I’d leave the town where I currently live in a heartbeat.

No, I would be living on Islay.

Nope. In fact I have only my in laws and I don’t see them much. I’m ready to leave but the kids are in high school so it will be a while.

No although I’m not near my family, I couldn’t wait to leave that city when I went to uni as it’s a horrible place.

I’ve lived in a few different places since but am tied to my current city as it’s where DH is from, where in laws are and now we have kids settled in school.

If it was just me I’d love to live in the New Forest.

By “family”, you mean parents? I moved 250 miles away when I left university and have never moved back. Same with DH. We brought our children up in the new place.

I haven’t lived near my parents since going to university. Same for DH. In fact my parents decided to move to France once they retired so even further away. In laws live 2 hr drive away. We lived in London and then commutable to London and now live I. The cotswolds. We absolutely adore it! I love my family very much but it has never occurred to me to live so close to them.
one life and I’m living it!!

I'm another one who escaped the village where I grew up. The privacy and independence is a non-stop novelty when you've grown up in a place where you can't pop to the shop without bumping into a relation/someone who knows your entire family! The distance, and the gradual acceptance that I'll never move back, has cut down dramatically on the family pressure.

I do sometimes wish that I could see elderly/very young relatives, but I can drive there and back/stay overnight if necessary. However... it's REALLY nice that I can have my own life, and I have less responsibility in looking after other people on top of working full time/having my own house and pets/dealing with admin and just the time and space to wind down sometimes.

I think that I got out at the right time, though, because the village is being built on and swallowed up by the next town, and it's rapidly going downhill.

You have one life on this earth. Don't live it to suit other people, and don't spend your old age sitting in a home thinking, "I wish that I'd done XYZ, but I'm too old/infirm/unable to do that now". You deserve to be happy, too.

So we live 30 mins from my family and 20/30 mins from husbands. We left in the summer from the town where my MIL lives and that has caused friction however, alarm bells were was going off for me when my baby arrived that I didn't want them growing up in a deprived town. I didn't feel safe taking my baby out really, neither did my husband. there was alot of anti social behaviour, ofsted for schools were also disappointing. Husband went to private schools but we agreed that we wanted our DC to grow up in a safe town, lots of things going on in the community, good schools, train links, local friends, walk to school. I worry that my husband will regret it for some reason but 100% was in my DC interests.

I love where I live …..been here 26 years….it’s my DPs home town….moved here for support to raise our 3 children….my DD and DS1 still live here and 3GC….and my 2SILs

Oh I thought you meant family as in kids. My parents lived abroad so not really a factor, but if I didn’t have kids I’d live in central London in a two bed flat rather than the three/four bed terrace in Zone 3.

No, I'm in Midlands with DH, 2 foster DC and 1 adult DC lives 1 mile away. If my DH died I'd move down to Devon to be much closer to my sister's and DD and DGC would be closer too.

Neither my husband or I have lived within 4 hours of our families since moving to university aged 18 and we currently live on a different continent. Our base in the UK is SW London, which we chose as it close to my husband's London office in Surrey and I worked centrally so needed to remain in Oyster zones. I had zero interest in moving back to my ex mining community village, and my parents knew that although as this is not the "done" thing my mum gets lots of pity from people asking why she "let" me move away to which she replies that it was our choice, they support us and still see our child a lot regardless. None of my London based friends grew up in London, we all moved there in our 20s for work reasons.

You (ideally) need to decide over the next couple of years where you would like to be based for primary education. The childcare from your mum part is irrelevant as assuming she/you drives then 30 minutes is still really close. Obviously people do move schools all the time as things change, but doing in year/out of cycle admissions means you might get less choice.

What I would say is consider the offer of "free" childcare wisely - what happens if they want to go on holiday/are ill/want to do something else one day? What if one year in their circumstances change and then that leaves you stuck for childcare? What if you have more kids over the next 5+ years - this is one hell of a commitment from your mum's side particularly before the baby is even here.

There is SO much funding available now for younger kids that the "free" childcare from family argument no longer holds in the way it did even a few years ago. I struggle to understand how/why some families still choose this instead of grandparents
enjoying their time with the grandkids rather than feeling obligated to do it, which usually causes tension/resentment in the long run but this isn't really the point of your thread.

I wouldn't live here if I wasn't married to DH, but he won't move!

We moved a couple of hours drive away from where we grew up, because we wanted a better lifestyle for our children (who were under school age at the time of the move).We chose somewhere close enough to drive to visit family. Our children have a much better life here than they would have where we lived, and we can still visit family. My parents ended up moving closer as well, so it was fantastic for us.