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!

What were your plans when you took on such a large mortgage that is entirely dependent on your very large salary (and the associated long, long hours)? 70hrs PLUS w/e work and during the holidays is crazy, even more so when you have children.

I agree with this. DC have a friend whose parents live in a dream home. They are really lovely people and exceptionally rich from their own hard work. After picking DS up from a party there once I asked him if he wished we lived like that and he said, "My friend never saw his dad throughout his childhood, ever. He was always at work and so was his mum most of the time.It's caused him problems. I wouldn't trade what we have for that."

Honestly OP I would move. We live in a northern city and our lifestyle is very similar (I’d say better) to that of our friends who live in the south east, despite them being on much higher salaries than we are. Our house is bigger, we can afford to be in a great suburb on the outskirts of the city whilst they are in tiny villages with long commutes into London. Our children go to great schools and we are considering private school for secondary whereas our southern friends can’t afford it. We pay less for day to day expenses and have a community around us - including extended family.
My DH commutes to London once a week - he gets the 7am to King’s Cross and is in the office before 9.30am.

@CypressMoon and @VanessaFence youve misunderstood I think.

At the moment we live somewhere small and cramped and I’m working all the hours god sends, stressed out of my mind.

If we move to where I’m from, I can afford to stop work completely for a while AND we get a lovely house.

But it’s a much less good set up for DH.

How does DH feel about you? Surely having a mega-stressed wife who he barely sees who had a massive health scare must concern him?

We needed to take on a large mortgage to get on the housing ladder because property prices are insane and we don’t have bank of mum and dad. We bought a wreck, lived in it half done for 6 years, did half of the refurb work (prices doubled) so had to extend the mortgage for that…we didn’t really have a choice and in the beginning I was enjoying work and it wasn’t too bad. I’ve had a really shocking 18 months, of which the last 9 were terrible, and then I nearly died in early April, so tbh I’ve reassessed everything now.

I would move and not spend all your equity so you can recover and spend time looking for a more balanced career. Pick somewhere like York where there’s direct train to London and he can commute to work. He may have to tweak his teaching timetable but fuck it.

all my art school tutors lived in London but taught in hull direct train back baby no need to live there

But hang on this isn’t what you need. You need somewhere around 1.5 hours away with decent property values and good state schools.

In fairness most areas 1-1.5 hours away from London will have decent schools and decent property prices. As long as you’re not looking at the 4-5 places like St Albans, Cobham etc which are more expensive than London.

If your DH does 1-2 days a week he can do pickup/ drop off. If you get a similar job with a bit more flexibility, or the sort of job you’d be looking at in Leeds you can do the same. You don’t need to move jobs completely at the moment if you try this, just get a bit more wriggle room in terms of the commute.

I agree with those who are saying that subconsciously you just want to live where your parents are. I’d be very wary of severing your ties with London, losing access to the job market and your DH either having to make a massive sacrifice or live away from home, just for that.

What would DH have done if he hadn't found a sugar mum to fund his creative lifestyle in central London? You can recover from burnout with time and rest, but what burnout often does is make people reappraise their life. If it's the industry rather than your own dynamics eg perfectionism then you need an alternative. A commute of one or two nights a week does not sound unreasonable to me. How is that more unreasonable than working until midnight?

Wow, that’s a tough one OP. As others have said, it is not fair that he pursues his dream off the back of a job that is making you ill.

So perhaps ask him the question. Make it about your health (he can’t argue with that as it is not reasonable to argue that the mother of your children jeopardizes her health.) And make it about the children - no child benefits from never seeing their mother because she is working all these hours. You are right to think about this now since as they get older this will become even more untenable.

Ask him to consider ideas of what would work for him if you take your job out of the family equation.( Do you know what you would like to do instead? Could you work in industry rather then financial services so it is less brutal?)

He might come up with something you hadn’t thought of. It needs to be a joint plan and decision though. We did similar and moved to the Midlands, it has been great.

@Heronwatcher as I said in my OP and elsewhere, the one thing I am sure of is that I am not going to move out of London and then commute in. Please believe me when I say that that will not improve things for me. I really value seeing my kids in the morning and evening, and it’s only possible with the short commute I have now.

Have you discussed this with your DH?

As far as I can see, your choices are:

1. you carry on as you are in a job you hate that will eventually affect your health to enable DH to pursue his dreams at the expense of yours
2. you compromise your standard of living to take a step back in London, you get the job you want, DH pursues his dream but you all make sacrifices
3. you move, you get a better quality of life but DH compromises on his goals

It feels like DH has had his turn and now it’s yours. But maybe he might have another option that works for everyone.

well look if it's the fact that you don't want to do your job anymore then you have to make that clear to your H. If he loves you, he won't expect you to kill yourself just so he can keep his dream job.

He has choices - if you move out of London, he can commute into London and do his role, in which case you may have to find somewhere that enables him to do this (and it doesn't need to be Surrey or somewhere in commuter-hell). But nor does it have to be near your parents. Plenty of people on lower salaries do commute into London.

I think you're wrong to focus on this dream of a 5 bedroom house. It's just bricks and mortar at the end of the day, and isn't the answer to anything really. There are plenty of places to live that aren't near your parents.

Why not move to the midlands. You’d be near family, easily commutable to London, and you could have a lovely house.

Where I live I can get to London in just over an hour on the train, there is an excellent walkable primary school, and 2 very good secondary schools 10 minutes drive away. You can get a huge house and garden for about £600k, and a good size semi with garden for about £300k.

At the end of the day, your DH has to work with you on this. Because he won’t be able to pursue his dream if you become unwell and can’t bankroll it any more.

Kent would be an area that would cover that for you OP.

but I think you need to move home near your family. You need to do this for you. You can be mortgage free and have a better life. A decent family home and time with your children.

your DH needs to prioritise you and your DC not a career that doesn’t pay enough. Plus creative work can be done from everywhere and anywhere.

I don’t think it’s healthy to be working like you are, you need something to change.

Eugh...that sounds horrendous. Despite working so hard and earning a massive salary, it's still not enough. I acknowledge that the refurb work stung you.

I wish you all the best. I don't think anyone ever regretting making a big change which improved their work/life balance.

You sound very burnt out and I don’t blame you. But before we run off to the sticks, have you carefully considered jobs you could do in London that have less stress/hours but still pay well? Or do you need to earn exactly what you do now in order to keep the mortgage and can’t afford any drop?

seriously OP this is a very common situation and more people make moves than you think.

I know someone who gave up a career in investment banking as she was so burned out and she lasted a week before begging for her job back! It can be hard if you are used to the lifestyle

I always say you think differently in your 20s in your 30s and on your 40s as your priorities change . You do whats best for your kids and your sanity . Your husband should be doing the same

Could you move to a cheaper part of London/outer zones and change jobs?

I think a long commute for your DH is absolutely fair. You have been funding him to live the dream while you deplete yourself to the point that your tap is empty.
Move to near your family.
He either pays to live his dream with a long commute or he changes/drops this dream. Because you killing yourself so he can be close to the ballet or musical theatre or opera or gymnastics or whatever it is school is not going to last, whether you stop before you burn out or when you burn out. And you should not have to get all the way to true burnout before a change.

Can DH stay involved with his existing job/institution but remotely? Depends on what he does of course.

Honestly, I can’t help but feel that most women in your DH’s position would put the family first and accept that their much lower earning career needed to take a downgrade (we’re not even talking about him stopping work, just a prestige hit) if that was in everyone else’s best interests. Especially if their partner’s health was at risk from the existing set up.

His proposal to keep his job and commute- why isn’t he bothered about not seeing the kids, whereas you clearly are? And would you be able to work in your existing career (albeit a lower pressure non London version) and be the breadwinner if he’s basically absent half the week?

The way you set it out it all seems quite...'all or nothing'?

Honestly, just change your employer to one that allows some hybrid working and look at commuter towns in a ring around London. It doesn't have to be that complicated. South and East is generally cheaper than West and North. A mainline train of about 45 minutes is the sweet spot in terms of commuting and will offer a far better lifestyle than what you can get in Zone 3.

What you are not adding into the equation is the lower stress-levels you will get from the quieter pace of life in the evenings and at weekends.

I was in London today, as was my DH, but we could also go for a walk at the weekend and be in proper woodland or countryside.

So he won’t do that for you? Commute? He doesn’t have to, he just has to change his job then though. I’d sit down and say to him what would you do if I’d died? I cannot keep on with this job, and I think you’re ignoring it because you don’t want to change anything and you just want me to keep staggering on because it suits you. So I’ve decided the only person keeping me alive is me, and it’s time to act like that - I have quit, and we can’t afford this house without my salary. I can’t get another job at the same salary, the whole point is I just cannot keep going at that pace. I am moving up to near my parents. You can move with us and do the commute or change jobs. If you think the commute is too long, please remember it’s a choice, but my job here if we stay is killing me, and that’s not a choice. I want our kids to have a mum whether that’s a priority for you or not.