We live in greater London - v settled here – dd (7) loves her primary school and friends, my job is local and works round the school term, dh works long but somewhat flexible hours in a career he loves. We own a 2 bed flat in a nice (expensive) area - small mortgage - flat is compact but works fine for us.
But the nature of dh’s career is that it's mainly short contracts - a year or two of funding at a time. He is now trying to apply for a permanent job – but these are very competitive. So we're now wondering whether he should look outside of London for such a job – including up north.
There’s lots of logical sense to moving north – I'm from the area he's looking at; we would be closer to both our parents; we could afford a bigger property; everyone tells me our quality of life will improve! But I can't help but be reluctant to upset the balance that we have in our life. The thought of pulling dd out of her school, finding a new one, have her start over with friends (she’s a shy child) really concerns me; I don’t know how long it would take me to find a job that works so well with school terms/hours again; we have a network of friends here. I do recognise that fear of the upheaval/change is generally not a good reason not to do something, and that all the things that we’d have to start over on are achievable, but on the other hand we are happy living where we live. So in that sense I guess we are considering something which we assume will make us happier and which makes logical sense.
The nature of dd’s field of work means that he shouldn’t really apply for anything that he wouldn’t seriously accept - everyone knows everyone. He could probably ultimately get something in/near London, but obviously casting the net wider would include more opportunities. Am I just being ridiculous being afraid to change things? Should we just do the obvious logical thing and try to relocate to the north?