Should we leave London after burnout, or stay for my husband's career?

[ChickenChitty]

Help me with my life dilemma.

DH and I have been together for 15 years, we are late 30s with 2 kids at primary school. I work in a stressful job in the City, requiring extremely long hours (60-70hr weeks, weekend work most weekends and most holidays too). DH is in a creative career - his passion. I earn c.6x what he does. He is self-employed so does more with the kids and more around the house (I’d say he does 60% of the childcare and maybe 70% of household tasks).

I nearly died earlier this year with a ruptured appendix that was missed and negligent medical care. It came off the back of a period of very intense work - about 9 months of hell. I’m mentally traumatised from that experience and burnt out generally, and the whole thing has made me reassess my life.

Ive suddenly got clarity that I don’t want to continue doing my job anymore and I don’t even know what I’m doing it for as London is so expensive our quality of life is not great. We have enough equity in our small London terraced house that we could move back to my home town (up north) and buy somewhere large and detached and lovely mortgage free, near much better schools for the kids and near my family. DH really doesn’t want to leave London as he loves it, and his work is here (his family is up north too but nowhere near mine). He would want to continue commuting to London if we moved, which would probably involve overnight stays and impact family life.

Im starting to feel a bit of resentment as I increasingly feel like I’m killing myself and sacrificing my quality of life so that DH can live his dreams. But I love him, am proud of what he does, and would feel awful to effectively force him to move (which we would need to do if I quit my job, as he could never pay the mortgage alone). I knew when we got married that this would be his career. I’ve thought of middle grounds like downsizing in London or moving to a commuter area if I took a pay cut, but that would feel like a much worse outcome for the kids, to leave everything they know for something materially worse, and/or both parents travelling more than we do now . I don’t know whether I’m being unfair in wanting to do this or not, or what the right balance is, so thoughts from other people would be welcome!

I thought the same - and I’m a die hard Londoner! It’s weird!

Have you done this detailed research in the areas of the north you are considering? What areas, schools and types of houses are you looking at there?

You currently work 70 hours a week. If you change to a 9-5 job 4 days a week you will free up around 40 hours a week to spend with your kids. It is simply not possible for a couple of extra hours a week on the train to mean you spend less time with your kids than you currently do. Leave work at 5 and you will still be home each day before you currently get home (you said 6.30-7pm).

What was wrong with Winchmore Hill or Sutton (Sutton has grammar schools but also excellent comprehensives)? You could also live in the catchment for Wembley High Technical College and get to Bank in less than an hour. What would be your preferred budget for a house, assuming that you take the 65% pay cut for the public sector?

@CocoButterNut I’ve explained already - just read my many posts. Majority of my extra hours are when the kids are asleep so don’t impact them; “9-5 4 days a week”
doesn’t exist for me - it will be 9.30-6 x 5 days a week really whatever I do, with 1 day from home. I do not want a long commute.

70 hours a week equates to 10 hours a day working 7 days a week. That would be 8 to 6 everyday with no lunch break. If op works reduced hours at the weekend (presumably would need to as she has young kids and DH works lots of saturdays), then there is a lot of working in the evenings and very early morning before the kids wake. I think she is also doing some drop offs or pick ups that would extend these additional hours even more.
To me that is a totally hideous situation. A short commute would not be much (if any) compensation if I was returning home simply to log back on to my computer. I really dont see much room for quality time with the kids even if you are home for 6:30. Your evenings and/or weekends must be totally dominated by work. A lower paid (but less all consuming job) would reduce the pressure even with a somewhat longer commute. Are lower paid less hours intense roles available in your sector? Where are the located? Only in central London? In towns and cities in the south east? In towns and cities in the north? Are wfh roles or very limited office time roles available? All this info is key in deciding what is plausible/possible?

It is weird. Maybe its like a house of cards situation. If people stop buying into the concept, it makes other people feel bad about their own decisions

Sorry cross posted. If the hours are after they are in bed you must be up half the night.

In the north are you looking at a similar working pattern once you return to work?

Does part-time or 9-5 not exist or does it only exist with a pay cut? I think that is what people are driving at. They are thinking something might be possible locally on that reduced money. If those roles arent available in London are they available in the north? If not what is the medium term plan there? I totally get the current situstion sucks. Im just more unsure on the details of how moving north solves everything in the medium term. Im not against it - i love the north. I am just looking at how/if you can make your ideals reality there.

I think in fairness people are worried by the fact that her DH and his job (which might be the family’s only source of income for a while) is very much in London and therefore if they move a long way away he’ll either have to spend long periods out of the family home in a miserable bedsit or hotel or give up his job. So you’d have the whole family in a new area, possibly everyone out of work, DH pissed off, OP just the other side of a breakdown potentially taking on a boring low level job. That’s a lot of pressure for one family.

That’s certainly my thought process- I’ve seen it go wrong too often when families live separately- and I suppose also if my partner gave me this sort of option (move 3/4 hours north and give your job (which you love) up, or spend days on end in a holiday inn/ on a train) I would absolutely hate it. I think the only way I would accept it is if I genuinely thought all other options had been explored and were out of the question.

Nothing to do with London or the London lifestyle being better, or a bubble! If the DH could get an equivalent job as well I think everyone would be saying go for it.

I hear you. The decision could drastically alter the relationship dynamic.
I think OP is used to having a lot of weight on her shoulders and so is trying to solve this singlehandedly. She should ask (and require) that her DP work with her to find the right solution. Im not sure he fully understands what state she's in. OP sounds like the type to put on an overly brave face

What about Chislehurst? Trains straight to Cannon Street, lovely area, excellent grammar schools nearby.

Yes @Owlbookend it‘s usually 8.30-midnight or thereabouts.

@Freinddilemma @minipie I agree and I find it bizarre that people can’t seem to see why this kind of life is not appealing at all. Honestly I don’t mean to offend but I find these suburbs of London really depressing. It’s fine if you’ve got a non-working partner or never actually want or need to travel into central London (though in that scenario, why are you paying London house prices), but if both of you need to be in central regularly than it’s just as bad living in Sutton or Bromley as living in say St Albans or Hitchin, and potentially worse if you’re trading one train with a table for a horrible bus-train-tube combination. The schools are good in some cases but the houses aren’t cheap enough.

London is an amazing city if you earn loads of money (and by that I mean way more than I do) but if you don’t then it’s really not, that’s what I’m realising.

This is all very let them eat cake. Lots of people have ties to London, and very, very few of them earn enough to prioritise “appealing”. It’s not bizarre that the masses have to make compromises because they can’t afford the world on a stick. It doesn’t matter that you had a few years as a high earner, you are now going to be financially average - you would do well to stop pouting about the rich lifestyle you no longer have access to and take the advice on the available compromises seriously. If you can put aside your sense of entitlement then you have lots of options.

Exactly.

The posters urging caution are potentially older and have seen this go wrong.

Without knowing what DH does it’s hard to say, but he’s unlikely to keep precisely the same working terms over 10 years.

If his job was fully transferable to the north everyone would just say gfi.

I wouldn’t say London suburbs are more depressing than the suburbs of Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield etc

So your current house is worth about 1m and you bought it 10 years ago and you have about a 600k mortgage. You earn many multiples of 100k a year yet you are somehow struggling? Your 400k equity is not going to buy you what you want up north i wouldn't think? You must be abysmal at budgetting or have absolutely massive savings that you could use to pay down the big mortgage.

I think you hit the nail on the head here regarding ties to London - at least OP has a couple areas “up north” where she could start looking. My family is all Hackney/Walthamstow/Chingford and I couldn’t afford those. I moved out to Hertford because it never occurred to me to strike out a lot further, I knew nobody any further north than M25. Brought my children up in a lovely Victorian villa (not massive though) as OP mentioned, Hampshire/Surrey border, I always describe it as the countryside! But they ain’t no bumpkins and now live Bishop’s Stortford, Manchester and York. I moved back to rent in Islington - easy for us all to get together.
As an aside I’d recommend not getting too big a house as you’ll rattle around one day, mine was classic 3-beds and lift conversion but any bigger I’d have moved sooner.

I think, to use your own words, you’re either abysmal at reading comprehension or at maths, or possibly both.

Ive never once said on this thread that I’m struggling financially, and the numbers you’ve put here are nearly all wrong.

What I have actually said (quite a few times now) is that I could afford to double our current mortgage on our current income, and I was planning to do this to move into a better school catchment, but I don’t want to as that will lock me into my job long term. What I am struggling with is the hours expectations and workload and the impact on my health, not money.

@CocoButterNut what do you get out of expressing yourself in this way?

I don’t have any ties to London - we have no friends or family here (other than more recent local friends). If I did, I would feel completely differently about it. I’m not commenting on why other people live in London, I am saying it is bizarre that people keep telling me to live in London when I’ve said again and again that I don’t want to.

I am not “pouting” about anything. I don’t have a “rich lifestyle” now, whatever that means, (as I’ve said again and again) and I don’t want this rich lifestyle in future. My dream is to move to near where I grew up and do a job that doesn’t suck me dry, somewhere near to my kids schools so that they can have local friends and I can be around for them, that’s it.

Iv not read the full thread just, ops. He earns 15% of family income. Swap this around if it was the guy earning, moving for best outcome to ensure good wage keeps coming in would be a no brainier, women have accommodated men's careers and earning potential for years. Op is reaching burnout health wise, if they don't change, and have to survive on his wages, they wont be able to keep living the lifestyle husband is blindly insisting he wants to keep living. If he's so world class and important, his employer might want to pay more to keep him? Or others will be desperate to employ him? Not belittling his job, my job is creative and big wow, but creativity is very unpaid for most, so I don't live in a big city, I live within my means so I can continue to do what I enjoy. Compromise, he needs to learn to listen and come to a joint agreement

Do you have any professional support in place currently for your emotional health @ChickenChitty? I think that this is your first priority - to address the physical and emotional burnout so you are in a stronger position to research and then make quick and accurate decisions to coordinate the very complex logistics of house sale, relocation, new schools, new job for you, part-time living in London for your DH etc - that’s a huge undertaking for anyone never mind someone who has just come though a very traumatic life-threatening health emergency. Do you have sufficient friends / family around you to support you through this time of crisis.

I would also seriously consider speaking to HR to say how you are physically and emotionally struggling post surgery and need time off to recover.

Honestly @Bredaa no. I’ve got no one around me - hardly any friends, as I say they’ve all left London and I barely have time to speak to anyone. Family far away and have their own issues. I was doing ok once I’d physically recovered from the surgery but now finding myself crying randomly throughout the day, having what I think are the beginnings of panic attacks (random chest pains/tightness breathing and feeling like I’m going to be sick). DH has been away a lot recently and the juggle with holiday childcare arrangements and work has been really tough. I had 3 weeks off after my surgery plus a couple wfh and that’s really the limit - any kind of further time off for mental illness related issues would mark my card at work. I’m in an extremely busy period now until the end of the year and have huge responsibilities and expecting a big promotion (which I don’t want but can’t say no to).

I am at least resolved that big changes are happening and DH open to it so just need to make a plan and execute it, but it is very overwhelming. I’ve got some AL booked in a couple of weeks which will help.

The numbers are based on your own posts, nothing more than that. If you aren't financially struggling then why don't you just get a lower paid job and stay where you are?

The OP said she had 600-700K equity in her own house.

@ChickenChitty - please look after yourself, it sounds extremely tough!
I also nearly burnt out after DC4 and going back to work doing the hours you do. I never took more than a few months mat leave either, because I felt I could not.
Now many years later I set my own hours far more. I still work a lot, but nothing like in those days. It is very typical to reach burnout with those kind of hours.
My work insisted on us all having a sort of external life coach as well! One thing I do remember is her telling me not to jack it all in, because I actually deserve the success and money. I think there was a point I was willing to just resign as well as just could not cope anymore. In my case, I took 3 months off unpaid leave and they were fine with that. I then went back with strong boundaries in place and eventually transferred to consultancy after much negotiation. It actually saves them money and I have my own hours and lots more flexibility in the holidays. In my case, they let me do it. They let a few other women do it as well. I guess I was lucky! If you do not ask, you don’t get. I was also quite close to a big promotion I did not want.