Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

Original poster

To ever so slightly resent the life choices I've made.

13 replies

Essexmamma · 23/03/2013 01:10

Now, I love my dcs without question but there is no debate that we have moved from central London having a great life leaving our friends to buy a 3 bed house in Essex. Great for them but really feeling on my first proper night out without ds2 that I'm really homesick and a little but selfish wishing we'd stayed put. Aibu, is it always besg to put dcs first????

OP posts:

aldiwhore · 23/03/2013 01:18

So basically you resent yourself? For making choices that weren't all about you?

Not dismissing your feelings at all, I often miss running about the Devon countryside without telling anyone where I was for days on end.... I miss doing things just for me, I miss that time when there WAS no one but me. But I wouldn't swap it for the world because the choices I've made out of a responsibility to others are what has made me grow up and appreciate life a lot more.

What your op says to me is that you're not actually happy at all right now, which is making you look back with sorrow for what you think you lost. The way forward (at the risk of sounding like Yoda) is to accept fully that you made the right decisions at the time of making them, for the right reasons... it may not be working out enough for you to accept they were right now, so all you can do is move forward and try to restore balance between responsibility and your own needs and wants, and you can't go back to what you were or what you had, because it doesn't exist for you anymore. You are a grown up, and it's simply not all about you anymore.

That doesn't mean you should settle for something that makes you miserable, you're part of the family too and your well being is important, just not central.

Mosman · 23/03/2013 01:22

Regret the things you haven't done, not what you have.

And don't look backwards you are going forward. End of.

EMS23 · 23/03/2013 01:24

I live a very long way from family and friends because of my DSS. It was absolutely the right thing to do, to move here.
But I do hanker after my old life and everything I 'gave up'. Especially when I'm lonely, having a shit day with the DC's and could desperately use some support and help but have no one I can ask.

Chances are, you did the right thing but I think it's normal to look back and wonder.

chunkymonkeybaby · 23/03/2013 02:10

I too live a long way from my family. Had to move the other side of the country to be with DH. He was so worth it! But since DD was born I miss my family and friends lots and miss the town where I grew up. I often wonder if I'd be happier if DH could have moved to where I'm from but his work didn't allow this so no point thinking about it.

Einsty · 23/03/2013 02:22

Agree with Aldiwhore. Be kind to yourself and move forward. DH and I moved to Aus for family reasons and I desperately miss central London, so you have my sympathies

BusyHomemaker · 23/03/2013 07:26

What aldiwhore said ;)

hwjm1945 · 23/03/2013 07:33

To be brutal.you will get used to it and it will become normal and then u will get to like it.I know cos I did the same

Tryharder · 23/03/2013 07:45

Central London is a tube or train ride away isn't it?

You are talking as if you will never see Central London again.

I think you need to focus on the positives. I moved up North after having DS1 and miss London or aspects of it. But I like it here as well.

Montybojangles · 23/03/2013 07:46

Done same, hate it here, like the city. Have to suck it up for now due to life situation. Just accept this isn't my forever home. There's lots of good things about living here I keep trying to tell myself

WallyBantersJunkBox · 23/03/2013 08:42

Just think to yourself that you have the best of both worlds.

Easy access into London for shopping and the occasional big night out.

A bigger house, garden, less crowding and better opportunities for the kids.

A night out is so rare these days for me - I take it where I can find it!

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 23/03/2013 08:47

If you're not happy with the choices you've made - make different ones.

Your life is under your control. You aren't the victim of it. It hasn't been done to you.

You made a choice, at the time it felt like the best thing to do. With hindsight, it hasn't worked out like that. That's life. It happens.

Either shrug and look for the positive, or make the decision to change what's making you unhappy.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 23/03/2013 08:52

How long have you lived in your new home ? It can take a while to settle in.
How old are your DCs ?
With children it's an ever changing situation, even though that change happens quite slowly. So, for example in 5 or 10 years things will be different again.
I'm a Londoner and glad to have had that experience, especially in my twenties.
Also lived in Bristol.
Now live in smaller city, quite good for the DC's growing up.
Quite fancy a village one day actually ...

cory · 23/03/2013 09:18

Have a plan: think about how long you are going to give yourself to settle in, what you would like to happen if you don't start feeling more settled, what ways there are of making that happen, what else there is that might make you happy in your new home or somewhere else. PLAN!

It took me a couple of years to settle in my new town (but that involved a new country too), but couldn't be happier now.

My Mum otoh never settled: we lived most of our childhoods in a place which she resented and where she was unhappy, and we knew that when we left to go to uni she was still stuck there. It wasn't the best childhood experience tbh, though the place was fine to be a child in.

Give yourself a year or two- not twenty, like my mother did.

Flip

Swipe left for the next trending thread