To not want to move to Wales?

[dgarcia85]

My OH and I live in SE London and we are about to start TTC. We both agree we need to decide where we want to live as we want our kids to have a stable home and not move around. I work at a council and earn £35K. It’s a great place to work and I don’t want to leave. I also will be starting a second consulting job soon earning an additional £10K. My OH is studying p/t and earns £20K. I want to move closer to work most likely Purley renting first and then buying when we can afford too. OH doesn’t think we will ever be able to buy anything in Croydon/London and he wants to move to Wales where his parents are as it’s cheaper and they can help out with any kids. I’m from the Caribbean originally and I’ve been living in London for 15 years and made it my home and I don’t really want to start over in another new plus. Hi Plus I feel like our mixed race kids would fit in better in London and I love my job. I know Wales makes more sense financially but I can’t bring myself to agree to it and its now causing arguments....

It’s also one thing to “light a fire” under someone but fires need keeping going.

After a few years he wants to go home.

Did he ever understand that the pay off from long hours/high wages is earlier retirement ages? Better standard of living? More opportunities for children to excel?.

"I think imprisoned is a very good description of how she is likely to feel living in Abercarn"

A tiny village up a mountain I can get, but this is pretty close to Cardiff, where she's likely to be working. Can't see how she'll be stuck.

"I also went on to say that I was more concerned with him wanting to give up work when the DC arrive."

He presumably meant until the DC have free childcare or education so as to avoid paying for childcare, not doing it forever. This is something millions of women do.

I agree with the consensus ie...

• Cardiff is great.
• Bristol is great.
• Valleys towns have less to offer.
• You shouldn’t move in with his parents.

-You shouldn’t allow your career to suffer.

• He must pull his weight financially (unless you decide together that he’s a SAHP).

It seems that Cardiff is a sensible compromise here, therefore.

An Abercarn resident has left the thread after the snipey pics etc. Would you blame them?

Good thing the Londoners aren't flouncey

I agree with @JiltedJohnsJulie.

There's nothing wrong with doing an OU degree and lots of people who don't figure out what they want to do until a bit later in life do this and work at the same time. But these people are usually very motivated and trying hard to make up for lost time.

The OP's partner lived at home until be was nearly 30, then moved to London and started this OU degree, he isn't even close to finishing it and yet all he wants to do is move back to his hometown, away from where all the jobs are, and is already talking about taking a break from a career he hasn't even started yet to look after his and the OP's future children.

If he wants to be a stay at home dad, that's fine if it works for both of them. But usually in a couple where one is a stay at home parent, this is a choice they make to maximise the earning capacity of the working parent. That means that where they live is usually dictated by where the working parent can make a decent living.

He has already got the OP to significantly reduce her earnings by giving up a better paid job so she can spend more time with him. Personally I wouldn't be working until 11pm for £60k in London either. But now she has a less well paid job which still pays an OK salary, is probably quite secure, and which she likes. And yet he wants her to give up that job, move to his hometown where she has no job and very little chance of getting one as good as the one she currently has, find some other job which will almost certainly be less well paid and involve a commute, have a baby (and either lose earnings whilst on maternity leave or go back to work when her baby is quite small), and in the meantime, what is he offering? He's not planning to finish his OU degree any quicker. He's not planning to get a full time job in the field he wants to work in any quicker. He's suggesting that he might not work at all and be a stay at home dad for a while, which he could just as easily do if they stay in the south east near the OP's current job.

He doesn't seem to get that you can't make plans to stay at home with the kids and not work, and simultaneously ask the partner who is going to work and support the family to give up their job and move to an area where there aren't very many jobs. It doesn't make sense.

A tiny village up a mountain I can get, but this is pretty close to Cardiff, where she's likely to be working. Can't see how she'll be stuck.

I can't imagine it's going to be that easy to make friends and have a good social life in Cardiff when you live a 20 mile drive away and have to get back for your kids at evenings and weekends. She won't be free to go for drinks after work when someone suggests it at 5:30, or pop into town with her baby to socialise with some other mums.

Abercarn might only be 20 miles from Cardiff, but it might as well be halfway up a mountain for all the social opportunities it is likely to provide.

He presumably meant until the DC have free childcare or education so as to avoid paying for childcare, not doing it forever. This is something millions of women do

This is true and I've done it myself. What I didn't do though was insist that DH left his job to move somewhere he didn't want to go.

There's a lot of anti-Welsh prejudice on this thread.

There's a fuck of a lot more prejudice about Croydon. Which has more people than Cardiff BTW. There's the Mela, which is awesome. And the 'diabolical' West Croydon has great food shops. At the bottom of the borough there's Farthing Downs and Chaldon Church, started a thousand years ago. And get on a train and you've got the best city in the world right there. Buses run all night. I happen to like reliable public transport. I like the markets and the people and the shops. I love the food.

I loved living in Croydon. You don't have to slag it off to say you like Wales. As many people have chosen to live in Croydon as Cardiff. Many more in London. Can't be all bad.

Nothing wrong with wanting a career change a friend worked for a bank, did the OU in the evenings, weekends, while raising a child. She then did pgce, qualified as a teacher which she loves. But she did hold down a full time job then did holiday work whilst doing pgce. It can be done but it is not easy.

"move to an area where there aren't very many jobs"

There are lots of jobs in Cardiff, maybe not all the variety you have in London and if OP was doing something in the financial city or something or something very niche, I could see the problem, but council jobs exist in Cardiff too.

"She won't be free to go for drinks after work when someone suggests it at 5:30, or pop into town with her baby to socialise with some other mums."

Well, her in-laws will be on hand to babysit whereas if she stays in London they won't be.

council jobs exist in Cardiff too

And she'll be competing against not only people from Cardiff but also people from all the other depressing jobless towns within a 40 mile radius to get one of those jobs.

Oh stop it. Like there's no one else competing for jobs in London or anywhere else.

The OP has said she isn't moving without a job.

Just looking at places for sale in Abercarn, it doesn’t look all that inspiring.

Neither is the prospect of buying a one bed flat in Croydon like you were talking up as a possibility earlier, tbf.

There are lots of jobs in Cardiff, maybe not all the variety you have in London and if OP was doing something in the financial city or something or something very niche, I could see the problem, but council jobs exist in Cardiff too.

Plenty of civil service jobs in Cardiff, Newport and even Merthyr.

Plenty of civil service jobs in Cardiff, Newport and even Merthyr.

This is a really good point. The public sector's probably the biggest employer in SE wales. Companies House and the tax office in Cardiff, the Patent Office and Passport Office in Newport. DVLA's in Swansea.

The OP's job prospects would probably be better in Cardiff/Newport than in London.

The OP's job prospects would probably be better in Cardiff/Newport than in London.

Oh come on. This literally couldn't be further from the truth.

Hi guys,

I'd love to discuss this further but I have go out and fight off the jobless disenfranchised youths. They swarm the streets like locusts.

Also, as it's a bank holiday, the Welsh internet will be turned off at 4.30pm.

Take care, Diolch!

There's also the Welsh Government and the Senedd. And HMRC.

And before anyone asks, Swansea and Cardiff is about 45 mins drive.

Croydon and the Natural History Museum are more than 45 minutes apart.

Therefore, if Croydon is in London, Swansea is in Cardiff.

I lived in Wales for 7 years, 3 in west wales and 4 in Cardiff. I've lived in Croydon now for 12 years.

I really understand your concerns; I too would struggle to move away from busy city life. Cardiff is awesome though and l would move there in a heartbeat. If that's a compromise your dh is willing to make, then maybe you both could take a look? I def wouldn't move to anywhere smaller than Cardiff l, but that's largely cause I love city life.

There's also the Welsh Government and the Senedd. And HMRC.

Yep. my SIL works for the Welsh Government. My mum spent her whole career in the tax offices at Ty Glas.

BBC Cymru's a massive employer too.

No job opportunities in SE Wales at all for you OP. It's a barren wasteland, everyone lives in caves and eats ferns.

Not like that London, which has food shops outside West Croydon station.

My suggestion is that you both agree to not discuss this at all, whilst Covid is such a big problem. It's like trying to navigate a foreign country without a map or knowledge of the language.

There is no way either one of you can come to an informed decision at the moment, because there is no accurate information anyone can give you, beyond a few weeks and that is not going to change anytime soon.

Concentrate on the positives.

You enjoy your new job and have a better life work balance now, even though it pays less.

Your partner is/will hopefully get fulfilment from his OU course. I doubt he has the same feelings about his admin/call centre work, but it is hugely important that he also contributes financially.

No one really knows what is going to happen over the next 2 years, so enjoy living in the present for now.

To be honest I'd be wary of a man that wants to move so close to his mother regardless of where the mother lived.