To ask how you deal with guilt of moving away?

[Wiennetta]

Backstory is that DH and I moved away from the city we were living in (which was within a couple of hours of both sets of parents) a year ago. Basically moved from South England to Scotland, so not overseas, plenty of flights/transport options but still far enough that we’re not seeing family every few weeks.

Last year I ran myself ragged trying to visit DH’s family and my family and fit in the usual stuff we had (like travelling abroad to a wedding, going on holidays, a work trip etc). When you add it all up it feels like I was travelling every month.

In-laws are playing a real guilt trip at the mo that we haven’t visited for a while. We have now asked if they’re free on XYZ dates as we’d like to visit and instead of a positive response it’s all ‘That’s ages away, would you be able to visit sooner. We haven’t seen you for such a long time’. They’re retired and whilst it would be nice to see them more often, I don’t think they see the logistics of visiting - the time issue that we’re already very busy but we are paying approx £600 for flights to visit for a long weekend, plus £150 for dog boarding, I’ll have to take annual leave etc etc. For context they have two other children, one who lives in their town and they’re healthy and out and about a lot.

Last year DH went by himself but then he gets ‘Why didn’t Wife visit? We haven’t seen her for ages’. So I feel I have to go at some point.

I’m getting similar from my oldest friend who is always asking when I’m visiting home. Last time I visited I ran around London trying to catch up with three different friendship groups over a weekend.

So really generally seeking views on how to manage this/how others have dealt with this in the past? I’d love to get to the point of visiting once a year, maybe DH an additional visit by himself and them coming up once or more if they want to and leaving it at that.

It's crap tbh. We used to live 1.25 hours from in laws & would go about monthly to see them. Then we moved to near my family in NI & have spent almost every Holiday at their house. We didn't go last summer, I just wanted a restful week at home after a difficult year & they kept saying we haven't see you in ages....they are also very financially comfortable & retired & did come to us after not having been here for 4 years.

I'm desperately trying to find a sunny holiday that they can join us on so it feels less of a slog. A week at the in laws in summer is not how I want to spend my precious holidays. And yes it is so expensive also. I think weaning yourself down to once a year is a good plan & while they're able ask them to visit you if they miss you.

@buckeejit thanks for your post. I hope you manage to find a compromise/somewhere you can all go to. I like the idea of suggesting somewhere else we can visit together. Where they live is perfectly nice but not loads to do and like you say, annual leave is quite precious so it might be a good compromise to go away together.

I think if a parent to a child moves away then yes, it's down to them to make the effort to maintain the relationship, but once you hit adulthood the responsibility is shared surely.
You say 'if you dont visit when you can afford it...you're sending a clear message' .....but thecparents are in a better finacial situation but refuse to. Are they absolved of effirt simply because they stayed in their home town! How hypocritical is that! The responsibility should be shared and should take account of individuals circumstances.

The road goes both ways. Do you have children because it becomes much trickier when you do.
We were expected to go to DHs home town a lot, like all the time. Had lots of complains we couldn’t pop up mid-week etc (5 hour drive).
DHs parents would come maybe once every 2 years and complain about the distance and the time (they had plenty of time).
It was less the cost that bothered me but the time and the waste of my annual leave sitting on motorways.
We came to the conclusion that if we went constantly or went much less, we still got moaned at. So we went less.
The tricky bit was DH would want to go a few times a year for a long visit, but staying at PILs was intolerable. They also made no effort to do anything, we were just meant to be happy in their house doing nothing!
When you have children and every Saturday is tied to activities it changes when you can go. I was lucky as it meant DH often went on his own. That won’t be the same for you though.

They could come and make it a holiday at least.

Could you get the train and work during the journey? Travelling on a Fri afternoon and working at the same time has helped me to conserve annual leave. Might be cheaper than £600 w a railcard (use Tesco vouchers to pay).

We had this when we moved from London to Suffolk away from my family 🙄. It’s less than 2 hours journey. We’ve been here for nearly 8 years and it’s only recently that the comments about how ‘far away’ we live have reduced….but no one wants to visit us, so we still do all the travelling to visit family there. I think growing a thick skin is the only way to go and ignoring the comments.

No children yet, but yes can see it’ll become a lot more difficult to travel if we had kids.

It would be easier if there was a rail link! But they’re not in London so we’d have to change and it would take literally all day: 30 minutes to station. Train down to London 4.5 to 5 hours, tube across London, then another train from London to the nearest station to then is 3 hours. Then 30 minutes drive to theirs. We’d waste two days travelling so not really worth it unless we were going for a long time 😓

Who are the ones actually guilt tripping? The inlaws?

You just have to grow a bit of a thicker skin and, as pps have said, agree ti's expensive to travel and say it works both ways.

I moved away from family and got the guilt tripping. It wasn't nice but it wasn't unexpected. You have to keep thinking of the benefits of where you've moved to and deflect the guilt tripping shite.