to uproot my family because I hate the commute so much

[BeattieBow]

(please be a bit gentle - this is my first aibu!)

Anyway, I currently commute to work in London 3-4 times a week. it can take up to 2 hours each way. There is no option to move jobs to the town that I live as I work in a specialist field, and in any case there are no jobs in the town that I live so I couldn't do a career change. I can't cut down my hours (well maybe to 3 days a week, but not less than that. ).

I find it impossible to commute. I have to leave before breakfast and am back between 6-7. I am lucky in that I can leave my job at 5, but still it takes a couple of hours to get home. dh stays in the morning until 8, but he isn't home until after me often in the evenings. Leaving an au pair to do tea/bed/bath. Once a week I skive off work early and am home by 5.15. Once a week I leave late to work and get in at 10.30. although dh is here in the morning with the children, he isn't here for dinner, so we don't have a parent here to help them with homework/talk about school/sort out the house etc. When I first started working, dh said that he would be here twice a week at tea time. That didn't prove possible.

I hate commuting. It leaves me really really tired. I feel that I ought to be here with the children. I want to be here with the children for breakfast and at tea time. My job would allow me to do that if I was living in London too.

dh works closer to home, but is considering moving his job to London too. That would leave us both commuting.

Children are very settled in their schools, with friends etc. We have a biggish house with garden. State schools ok here, but not fantastic. Grandparents here too. dh is saying that I am being selfish uprooting our happy children to live in a tiny flat in central London (we would rent to start with to get in the catchment of a good school - and we could only rent a smallish flat, but this would be for a year). We need to move now because we would be applying for a secondary school place to dd1 in Sept so would need to be there by then.

I really don't feel I could continue commuting long term. and would quite work if I stayed living here. dh says I'm bribing him, but it just isn't sustainable. I still have responsibility for the children, and really feel that I am neglecting them if I'm not here/too tired. I have discussed this with the older children and they don't feel neglected needless to say!

They all love their friends and living here, and I am so scared of making a huge mistake. Then again, I can't see myself doing this forever. Am I being a selfish cow thinking of moving them all?

Sorry about the mammoth post!

I should say once a week I am back after 8 too. I should work longer in the office, but am always rushing off to get home.

I would say it is a crazy idea.

You will be sacrificing so many other important things in your life - your home, garden, the happy settled lives of your children - to knock an hour off your commute. It doesn't make sense.

It would make more sense to investigate ways you and your DH could reduce your working hours or at least introduce more felxibility - if not with your current employers, then by looking for a new job or by thinking about how you could do some sort of freelance or contract work. Wouldn't you rather change your career than uproot your whole family to a small, rented flat in central London? I know I would!

I live in London, btw, and am a Londoner. Great place, but expensive, you have to be minted to afford a nice home and the commuting can still be incredibly stressful.

Can you arrange your working week so that you are in London for just three days a week, which will mean that you're home for four days each week?

It almost sounds like you don't want to be working, rather than you have problems with the commute? That's a different conversation altogether.

I know it's hard - I only worked 25 miles away from home when my two were small, but that meant leaving home at 7.30 am and not returning until 6.30 ish, five days a well, but then the rest of my (our) time was focussed on the children. Bye bye social life!! But without a doubt, they shared the benefit of what we were able to do.

Difficult decision though.

I don't thnk yabu
your kids would rather see their mum in the evenings happy and relaxed too, than have a big garden

If you want to have time with your children you need to make sacrifices in your own lifestyle.

Move to a smaller house in the area where you live, give up your job and do something less well-paid locally instead.

Oh wow I don't think anyone could accuse you of being selfish for having a 4 hour daily commute and not liking it :( Don't know what the solution is though without hubbys support.

If you took a lower paid job close to home would the savings on the commute (train fare/diesel) and the au pair costs not maybe make it work? Even if you could do childminding or waitressing or cleaning?

I don't think it's about the children if they are happy and settled, with their needs being met by parents, au pair and grandparents,it's about you.
Partly the tiredness, and partly feeling that you are not parenting them as well as you think you should be. Despite the fact that the older ones say they are fine.
How many children are you talking about and how old?
I think to move them to a smaller place in London, away from where they are happy with friends and space and into an uncertain schooling set up would be selfish. It also sounds as if you are pressurising your partner with a quite serious threat.
You need to look at what you can do to improve your individual situation without impacting massively and negatively on the rest of the family. Some impact, fine. This is not a good plan IMO.
If you do force what you want to happen and it goes horribly wrong for everyone else, your guilt feelings at not being home as much as you'd like will be nothing in comparison.

I do feel for you as commuting is dreadful and it was a major factor for me in first going self employed and then eventually moving to live in france as it was the only way to afford to be a SAHM.

I think the first thing you should do is look at your finances and see how much you actually need to work. you don't mention that you love your job. I think your setup seems reasonable at the moment. if you can afford it, why don't you try the 3 days a week?

you also mention that you have grandparents nearby, could they not be around on the one day a week when there is no parent home before bedtime.

I think YABU wanting to make your children live in a tiny flat, when they have all the space where you live, what on earth do you expect them to do at evenings and weekends? there is no guarantee that you will gain much more time with them by being in london. moving back there to me sounds like a backwards step.

it sounds like you are the only one who is unhappy, presumably your husband tolerates his commute. i think you need to look at what you could do working from home or how the family would manage on less money if you became a SAHM.

unfortunately, that's the nature of family life, compromise somewhere....

Would you be able to move to very near where you work? I live in London and my commutes have been 1 - 1.5 hours. It may be that getting off the train and onto the tube won't actually save you much time.

The thing that I can't see in your post is quite a fundamental - do you enjoy your job? Do you like it?

A double commute is madness for couples with children. Move.

And all these posters saying it is mean and cruel to house children in a flat in the middle of a city: what utter, utter rubbish. Children can have a fantastic life living in a city - mine do - and parents can see so much more of their children when the distance between home, school and work is very reduced. My DP can do the morning school run, join DD and me for a picnic lunch in the park next to her school in summer and do school outings. And he has a BIG job.

There are fantastic schools in London...

London is a fantastic city with some Outstanding schools, I taught there for 12 years. Personally as I get older I prefer being out of the city so I would stay put and take commute on the chin, being as productive as poss on the journey.

This happened to me so I speak from bitter experience. We moved with work, we also had a long commute to London, albeit our kids were much younger so hadn't been at primary school long so probably more adaptable. I hated it. we moved away from family and friends and it was only when we'd gone that we realised that theres far more to life than work. It cost us alot of money and we moved back and will never, ever do it again. I'm sure some people make it work but it was the worst mistake we ever made.

I'm not denying that city life can be fantastic for children, I have family raising their children in London. The OP's children are happy where they are. I live in a commuter town with many parents trudging into London, and I teach their children. Often an adult's perspective and a child's are very different on the same subject.
That's why I wondered how old the children are.

Your commute sounds horrible, no wonder you are considering alternatives. I think Bonsoir makes sense. You sound utterly miserable and putting on a brave face because you feel obliged to. Family life is about compromise, but it isn't about a daily grind and hating a good chunk of your week. You are a long time dead. Good luck deciding what to do.

I suppose it depends what means more to you and them- feeling secure in a place they have been brought up and having other people around for them most of the time or living miles away and seeing mum and dad a little more -

I moved away at 11 and it was the hardest thing in the world to do but i had my mum home with me so i suppose looking back it was ok but i moved back home at 17 and settled here and eventually my mum has come back.

To me home is always home and no matter where you live i think you always return home. Will they be terribly unsettled and hate it causing you to feel so much guilt vs will they resent mum and dad being at work lots but feeling secure in the place they live?

As a parent no matter what we do we feel guilty ,i think stay ...is there anyway you can live in at work 3 days and work later so you can travel back for school finishing on day 4 and have 3 good days at home? Can you get a nanny so they at least have someone at home to greet them and help them with homework etc if your dh goes back to work with a long commute?

I worked for a family as a nanny for a little while who worked long hours due to a 2 hour commute daily ,they hated it and the children longed for their parents to be home even though they loved me...One parent gave up work and the other got a higher paid job further away and stays away all week so children have one parent at home all the time - Now they want both to be at work but a bit closer like before so both parents are home at the end of the day ...can't win i think is the word your doing your best and thats all that matters at the end of the day.

Good luck whatever you decide.

It is very hard to put your own needs and wants first with children because although they have friends settled bigger house etc they adapt within literally days to new things and they don't analyse things like an adult so have no concept of guilt/worry etc in terms of their parents. Most kids don't want to upset the apple cart because they are quite happy ambling along. Can you rent somewhere bigger in London so that at least it is not chaos in the initial stages which could trigger feelings of regret that might not arise if your home was really great from day one? How often do the grandparents see them? Would they help more if they knew you were thinking of moving? Try to look at the big picture of where you ultimately see your family and your career. You all need to be happy

I wouldn't personally.

What about moving closer into London but not actually London - I.e another commuter town? If you tell me where you work I will see if I can think of somewhere. There has got to be another town that is closer which might be a good compromise, less of a commute but still quite a nice house etc?

Your hours sound like mine in my last job. I was made redundant recently and my new job will be standard 9.30 to 5.30. I will have to drop Ds at school at 7.30am and someone (a mix of friends and grandma, yet to be arranged) will have to collect as I won't be home before 7.30pm. Not ideal but like you my job is very specialised.

I tried for three months to get a local job but there is nothing available that would even cover my outgoings - I worked out the minimum salary I'd need would be £24,000 so not that high. At the job centre they struggled to understand what I did for a living and weren't much help.

I've thought about moving closer to work but then I'd lose my entire support network and Ds would lose his friends. I think if I did move it would be a major relocation and change of life rather than a more local move nearer to work.

Good luck. It is a horrible dilemma to have.

A key point some others have made is that you can still end up with a long commute even if you move to London, depending where you go, of course. How flexible is your employer? Could you leave the office early and work on the train?

I would move.

Yes, move. Long commutes are incredibly draining and miserable. In fact, I read of a study of levels of happiness that found commuting to be one of the worst things for happiness, with a much bigger impact than size of house or garden etc.

A move is hard work but your kids will settle in and be fine. My family moved several times when I was a child and it didn't do us any harm.

I am freelance so obviously not experienced with commuting but those 4 hrs a day seem such a waste when you have a young family that you would prefer to be seeing rather than sitting on a train. Surely if your dh relocates his job to london too then you will both be around? Perfect!