...to think that most people live near family?

[ImplementingTheDennisSystem]

DH and I moved 4 years ago to a beautiful little town in an area we love, and have worked hard to establish a great social network here. We have no links to the area and our family are all scattered and hours away from us. There is no central family 'hub' for us to move to.

But I'm having a wobble having had the realisation that most people I know - both here and elsewhere - live near family. Family is the focus of activity for so many friends and forms a key part of their social lives (and obligations). I'm feeling a bit dislocated and worried that friendships are potentially a bit fleeting compared to the solidity of family. People will understandably always prioritise their family, so will that leave me feeling continually sidelined?

Have you successfully built a life nowhere near family? If so, how do you feel about this and does your situation feel 'solid'?

I don't and nor do most people I know. I am London/SE. Most people I know went to uni and never went back to their home town.

The variation by area within the UK is really significant here. So even if it were the case that the majority of people don't live near family, because you're in an area where that's not the case OP, of course you're going to feel different from the community you live in. You're going to get really different answers from people living in eg nappy valley London to people in eg Northern Ireland.

Fwiw I live near loads of mine, in a city, but I'm from an extended family culture.

We lived in a town near my parents and one brother when DD was young. DH and I moved there when we were in our 20s, then my brother followed us because SIL wanted to move there, and then my parents decided to retire there. I started a trend😂

But we then relocated 200 miles for work, although thankfully I am only 15 miles down the road from my other brother so he could always be on call for an emergency. It was a bit tough at first not having my parents around because my mum undertook some childcare, however we got on with it and built a great network of friends in the village we moved to. Life is all good. We would go stay with my parents at bank holidays, Christmas, Easter etc so still spent a lot of quality time with the,.

DH's family live abroad but he's not that close with them. He would hate to live in the same town as them, never mind the same county.

No, I don't live near family either side. It's not a problem until you find yourself alone through separation or loss etc, then childcare logistics can be more difficult and require a bit more planning!

We decided to move away as at the time we liked the independence and family not making unannounced visits (they still sometimes did though).

I do think many people, around here anyway, do have family near by. They have their mothers/MILs do childcare.

Err, no..... Never lived near relatives as a child, then moved away from parental home for university 40 years ago & stayed. None of my family or in-laws close by which, to me, is a very healthy way of living & encourages independence. Can't think of many of our friends who live near family either - education & careers mean that most people will move around.

It's a class/education level divide - if you go off to a competitive university course and then a fairly high paying profession, it will likely involve leaving home at 18 and then living in a city for several years as you climb the first rungs of the career ladder. It also might involve stints abroad.
It then also means you are more likely to meet a partner/spouse from another area or country while through work/city living/city friends. You are also more likely only to settle down in a relationship or marriage in your late 20s or early 30s by which time you have established a friendship group and life independent of your home town and family

If you leave education at 18 in a small town and get a job locally while living with your parents, you will likely date locally, marry locally and earlier and therefore be less likely to live further away from family.

If you are in a small town where a lot of people did that, then yes most people will live near their families. If you moved to a big city, it would be different

Our family is dotted all over the country and FIL spends half of his time in another country entirely so it isn’t the case for us at all. Our closest relative is MIL and she’s about a 20 min drive away.

We lived away from family for 15 years in the SE of England. Pandemic really put things into perspective with not being able to fly to see them etc. We moved back 18 months ago and it's the best decision we've ever made. Having family around is great. My dc has cousins and aunts/ uncles/ grandparents and is so much happier. We're an independent nuclear family as we never had support, but it's lovely dc being able to go to parties, christenings, weddings and other things we regularly missed out on. And my parents often gave the grandkids for sleepovers so dh and I have much more couple time.

We had made good friends where we were, and most of them didn't have local families. Now that we moved away we rarely keep in contact with those friends.

I have a massive family with lots of us in each generation, we are very close and the main form of socialising for our children is with their cousins.

My husband and I regularly discuss how much we'd like to live in other areas (although we both lived in in numerous other towns and cities when we were single and childless) but at the moment it would not be fair to remove our children from the close network of their cousins. My husband and I plan to relocate when our children have moved out and are settled but until then we enjoy having the big support network of our family (we probably won't end up moving as we'll realise that we love it just as much as our children!)

@MojoMoon This is spot on - especially for my family. Although I did break the mould and move back home to my family after living in the 'big city' for many years.

I live close to my family and do think it's important to, especially as they age and need support.

I grew up with parents who lived 200 miles from their own parents. The nearest aunt/uncles were 1.5hrs away.

It was fine, my parents have a great social network in our town, many other people were in similar position.

I also live a long way from parents and in laws. I do think its less common than it was when I was a child as many friends simply cant afford childcare and have had to live near family for financial support. We know a lot of people (south east so £££) who's parents have contributed to their house purchase, and as a result have slightly influenced where they live.

However.... it's fine. I'd like to live nearer my sister but we make the time to visit and we call a lot.

We live in a small market town and many people are from the area and have always lived here. We are not and chose this town as it was between DH and mine workplaces. It does mean people have established networks.

Our families are dotted all over the world. I’m the child of an immigrant and my Mother whilst born here lived overseas in Africa and also all over the UK. DH grandparents lived in India for a time, his sister lives in Spain and my brothers moved to America. A lot of my family live in Hong Kong.

@MojoMoon is right in that it is a class and education divide.

We have over 20 years established a network and I’m grateful for some great friends but it’s not quite the same as being near family. I saw three lots of friends over the jubilee weekend and it was great but it had to be arranged. When children were little I had no one I could write as local emergency contact.

I don't live near my family, we are in separate countries. My siblings who stayed in England are not geographically close to one another, nor my parents. My Grandparents live in another European country and my other Grandparents used to live in Ireland, they're now dead. I think it's incredibly naive to say that most people live near family, it's not been my experience at all.

We didn’t.

Then, we couldn’t afford to live where we were anymore and moved 3 hours to where PIL as it’s pretty much the only affordable to us place where dh could still get to his office twice a month.

Worst thing I ever did. Interfering, racist gits are making me miserable. Didn’t realise how bad they were when I only saw them once every couple of months for two days.

Ive never had any family other than my dad and he followed me wherever I moved to, it was horrendous.

It's interesting to read about your experience. I definitely felt incredibly lucky to be close to family during the pandemic and lockdown.

I live near family but I'm another one from an extended family culture so there are very few places in the world I won't find someone I'm related to within a reasonable distance. (That distance varies from country to country.)

It's actually annoying as you happily minding your own business then one of your cousins sees you and remembers you from the last extended family meet up you both went to. They say "Hello" then tell you where they live which is between 2-5 miles of where you do. If you are over about 60 or one of you has children under 10 then you both end up seeing each other more regularly, otherwise you don't tend to step on each other toes.

Yes I live in London and we are in the majority I think in not having family nearby.

I didn’t grow up near family either - my parents had both moved away from their parents so when we saw them we always had to spend a few nights. Even then (not London / SE and 30-40 years a go) I don’t think we were particularly unusual as a family in not having wider family living down the road. I was always surprised people who were born and lived their whole lives in the same place.

I live about 5 minutes from my parents and we like it that way as they see the kids a lot, but I don’t think everyone does.

Yes, to an extent. But Irish people of my generation emigrated in huge numbers regardless of social class, because unemployment was so high, so a situation like that of my family is pretty normal, with parents living where we grew up and me and all my siblings living overseas longterm in different countries. At one point I was living in France, with one sibling in Tokyo, one in Beijing, one in Istanbul and one in Poland.

When I lived in a village in the (English) Midlands, I did find it quite odd that virtually everyone was living in the immediate vicinity of their family — it seems to me like arbitrarily limiting your own life to where you happened to have been born.

We live within 20 miles of both my parents and the in-laws, and that seems fairly common around here (South Lincolnshire). We moved closer when I was pregnant with our eldest. We're not a 'close' family per se, certainly not living in each others pockets, but both sets of parents help out with childcare when needed and we meet up for days out once every few months. We could afford a bigger house further afield but I would feel incredibly selfish moving away now - the grandparents have a lovely relationship with their grandchildren, and I also worry about them getting older and us not being around to help out. Also (selfishly) life is much easier with people around you know you can depend on - my Dad can pop round to wait for the plumber if I'm stuck at work, my in-laws can give us lifts to the train station, etc. My husband regularly does little bits of DIY at my brother's house. I don't think you can rely on friends the same way you can rely on family. Blood is thicker than water and all that. My NDN is the only person I know who has no local family (through choice) and she seems to really struggle with no support network, constantly having to call on favours from other neighbours or co-workers. I couldn't live like that.

I haven't lived near family for 30+ years. As a child/teen I found their dynamic very weird as their lives revolved around each other. Between 8 siblings and grandparents they had a couple of friends outside their group. Always just walking into each other's houses, not making plans unless it included them and all is kids. Us kids forced to include cousins in our plans. Abhorred it and as soon as I had The chance I left and have never looked back.

once I left I was more in contact with mates from there than I was when I was there as they often left early/ didn't come as they didn't want to hang with my family. Didn't blame them, still don't want anything to do with the racist, sexist arseholes.

when my mum and step dad moved there years ago I told him how life was. As Lee mentioned fine in small doses but once in thei r clutches he realised the massive mistake he made and several months later returned. He fully understood why I would never go back not even for a day as this was weird as he's close to his family but not that close.

We don't live near family. Now we have small children it's been hard, not going to lie!

You have to find the others who have moved away from family. They will be the ones who understand the issues and are more willing to step up and help out with the logistical issues that family would normally cover.

Interestingly, those are the friendships that have remained solid, even where people have moved away agaub - I suppose in a corny way, we became family

We didn't live near family when we got married and had our first two children. DH and I met in the city we'd moved to for uni and nearest family were 3 hours away.
I grew up abroad and we visited family in the UK once per year as kids, so I hadn't experienced the extended family childhood thing.
When the kids came along we saw how involved our friends' families were in their children's lives and how positive those relationships were, and realised we wanted that for our kids too. We made the decision to move to near DHs parents when DCs were in primary school, moving from a thriving city to small rural town.
We have no regrets moving closer to family, we had a really strong support network of friends before we moved and we miss not seeing them as often but we've made new friends too and are happy to be near now MIL and FILs health is deteriorating.
My DPs have lived abroad (EU) my entire adult life, I have a very close relationship with my mum. When covid hit it was awful not seeing them, especially my Dad who was very ill with covid and battled on alone for 11 months before his organs finally gave up. Not being able to visit him in hospital, being unable to attend his cremation, it was just awful and I feel very guilty that he spent his last 6months alone.
We can't live for our families, and not everyone has a set up that would be improved by living closer to family, living far away doesn't mean you can't still have a close relationship or that you love them any less. Only you can decide what's going to work best for you.