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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is it unreasonable to move out when DCs are still at school/college?

108 replies

movingoutmovingon · 30/05/2017 23:09

Just wondering about this: would you move in with a new partner if your children were adults (18) but still living at home, doing A levels?

Obviously still continue to support them financially and drop in once a week?

OP posts:
RockPaperCut · 31/05/2017 03:41

My mum did this. I had just turned 18, a few weeks later I started uni, she moved to Devon with her new partner and my youngest brother. I moved from flatshare to flatshare. I subsequently made some really very bad choices, whilst she'd criticise me for not being able to look after myself. Hmm

It's an incredibly selfish thing to do IMO.

Original poster
movingoutmovingon · 31/05/2017 07:20

You lot have helped. As my life has gone a bit awry since and I always thought it was me at fault. I'm now thinking maybe it wasn't.

OP posts:
Kokusai · 31/05/2017 07:25

No no fucking no way. Am 18 year old doing A levels still needs a stable home life and a bit of support!

Middleagedmumoftwo · 31/05/2017 07:30

This is about to happen to someone we know, although the 18 year old has finished exams and is basically being told to sort her own place out or move in with the other parent who he doesn't get on with. Although he's 18 I do feel that it's very selfish on the part of the parent not to even discuss options.

StealthPolarBear · 31/05/2017 07:34

Yanbu op, how awful :(

QueenofLouisiana · 31/05/2017 07:37

Not the same but, My dad (with whom I lived) announced he and his wife were moving to Australia when I was in yr13. My A-Levels were taken while driving myself 30 miles each way to school and trying to re-settle into my mum's home which hadn't been mine for 2 years.

Dad told me that it was " too difficult" to arrange paperwork for me to go too (not sure I'd have wanted to, but the option would have been nice). Later on I was told he'd signed papers which meant he couldn't use his residency to support any application from me to move out and join him.

Stupidly, I still feel a bit abandoned and our relationship has never recovered. I see him every 3 years or so. He has met DS for 5 holidays over 12 years.

I think your feelings are very valid. You need help to finish becoming an adult at that time, you didn't get it- that sucks.

MumBod · 31/05/2017 07:39

All these stories are so sad. My dses are 17 and 19 and I cent imagine doing this to them in a million years.

I'm their mum. Their home is wherever I am, should they ever need it, until I'm not here/able any more.

Sorry that happened to you, OP, and all others on this thread. Flowers

lizzyj4 · 31/05/2017 07:46

No, I wouldn't. It's abdicating your responsibility.

I lived on my own at 17 too; of course, you can survive it, but you do much better if you have good support at home. Give them the support they need until they don't need it anymore - they'll be off on their own soon enough.

Middleoftheroad · 31/05/2017 07:47

OP.I was a bit older 19/20 my mom had left to run a pub and dad moved it with his new DP while O stayed in the family home which was being sold. yes I was older (and I know another poster was a single parent at 17 so I don't want to sound OTT) but I felt very sad and lonely at the time, so I do feel for you.

QODRestYeMerryGentlemen · 31/05/2017 07:48

No
And it's even less Normal to do it when your daughters are 13 and 15

Sorry mum but it is

HuckfromScandal · 31/05/2017 07:51

These are some sad stories and I am sorry that it happened to you.
My mum and dad split - my mum moved country and whilst I moved country with her - at that pony I was expected to fend for myself and moved into my own flat. I was19.
I didn't feel abandoned though.

Question - what age is it ok to leave your kids?
I have been a single parent since my son was tiny. And whilst he is my world - I want to have some kind of relationship etc.
He absolutely doesn't want someone else to move into our house - which given it's always been just the 2 of us - I totally get - but when do I get to have my life?! 18/19:20.......there isn't a magic number here.

Original poster
movingoutmovingon · 31/05/2017 07:52

I don't know Huck I guess that's what my dad would have said. He moved out gradually really, just slowly spent more and more time with his new partner until he was living there.

OP posts:
FathomsDeepAndFallingFurther · 31/05/2017 08:02

My grandparents did a similar thing to my mum. GF got a new job so he and GM moved to a new house across the country. They arranged for my mum to stay in digs so she wouldn't have to interrupt her A level courses. She lived my herself for 15 months. She had a landlady who kept an eye on her but I still always thought it was an odd thing to do.

Poor you OP. Flowers

alpacawhacker · 31/05/2017 08:09

I listened to an episode of Desert Island Discs recently, I'm pretty sure it was Mary Portas. Her father did this to her and her siblings after her mother died and he remaried. He then died unexpectedly and his second wife sold the family home out from under them. I thought the whole thing was heartbreaking.

JaceLancs · 31/05/2017 08:10

My DP was abandoned by his parents at 16 - when his Dad accepted a 5 year contract in Canada - they did take his younger brother with them
DP had just left school and started an apprenticeship so they left him
Their relationship never recovered and he's now totally nc

Reow · 31/05/2017 08:11

Teh fook?

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 31/05/2017 08:11

Huck, I reckon you move your new partner in in that case (or all move into a new property together). I think your DC would get over having someone move in much faster than having you move out.

BigSandyBalls2015 · 31/05/2017 08:17

Horribly selfishSad. My DD has a friend whose mum died last year when she was 15. Parents had split up years before, dad lived an hour away. She has basically fended for herself most of the time, with dad popping in now and then and throwing money at her to absolve his guilt. She's currently doing GCSEs with no support at home, it's heart breaking.

HuckfromScandal · 31/05/2017 08:20

I see what you are saying Cheese
But I don't think that moving another man into another "man's" house is the solution either....it certainly wounds be in my case.

I am not sure that there is a solution tbh.
As I said - I was effectively moved out of my home at 19, but I certainly don't have abandonment issues.
Fortunately I am not planning on doing this any time soon or in the future. But I do think that everyone is different _ and one persons abandonment is another persons growing up.

Treesinbloom · 31/05/2017 08:24

So sorry for everyone who has been abandonned like this.

I think there is a huge difference between a DC moving out of the home (to go to uni or whatever) through choice, and a DC being left behind when a parent moves out.

PlymouthMaid1 · 31/05/2017 08:30

Certainly not your fault Op. Bloody selfish thing to do. I gained a sixteen year old "lodger" like that once as her mum swanned off with bf four weeks before gcses. She could have gone but at a very bad time for her. Ended up living with me and my family for five years. The mums lack of thought for her daughter left me very puzzled.

BrutusMcDogface · 31/05/2017 08:40

Exactly, trees; you should always have that safe base to return to. I know I did.

I'm so sorry, moving. This should not have happened to you.

AhYerWill · 31/05/2017 08:40

I think in most cases, parents who would move away leaving school-age kids behind, are probably not the type of parents who've provided a secure and stable upbringing for their child, sadly. A child that has an insecure/unstable upbringing will likely have lower self-esteem and poorer coping mechanisms - so the pain of this abandonment will be much worse for them, than for those that are secure in themselves and ready to fly the nest.

Cantusethatname · 31/05/2017 08:43

Just asked DS18, he said he would LOVE it and the house would turn into party central every night.
But I think the reality would hit him very hard.

zen1 · 31/05/2017 08:49

Relatives of mine did this. Buggered off to work abroad for a couple of years when their DC were 15, 17 and 19. They came back every couple of months, but still...