Don’t want to relocate

[Supermomma17]

Hi,

my husband and I are have different opinions on this and I’m seeking others who perhaps been in the same situation.

he want to move us from Scotland to West Yorkshire and I’m said I will consider it which I will do and have been doing for weeks now but there is absolutely nothing there that makes me want to give up our lives and jobs here to live there. I’ve made a list of pros and cons and the cons for me are far outweighing the pros. For him the pros outweigh the cons but he’s looking at it from an emotional point of view not practical.

the reason he want to go is support woyh our 3 children which we don’t have here.. not consistent enough anyway ( ie help after school, in the mornings. When kids are sick etc when we need to work) his mum could provide that for us.

all his friends have lives and I think from an emotional point of view he thinks that will pick up where he left off 12 years ago but going from my experience of becoming a mum with all the good will in the world friendships are hard when you all have kids different ages and live in different places, life gets busy! I don’t think we will have the social network he thinks we will have.

which brings me to my side of things! I love where we live: I’m happy all be it lack of support for kids but he does put a lot of barriers in place re leaving them with people. 2 of the have additional needs so they are hard work but they are settled here, have friends and clubs and don’t cope with transitions well. We have special base placements for one already and the other is on the process of trying to get that. We have medication for them which our gp writes prescriptions for so we don’t need to pay privately for them. I’m scared to move them for the lack of asd /adhd support in England or so I’ve been researching/seeing!
also the area in which his mum lives just isn’t for me.. call me snobby, call me whatever you want but the area is grim. To make this work we need to be close enough for her to help and I get depressed just visiting the area.. the nicer parts are usually little villages which I just can’t live in. We live in a big town with nice amenities and a huge network of local facilities. The thought of village life isn’t for me at all. we have a beautiful home, in a beautiful safe , small quiet estate. I’ve been searching for properties for a month or so now and nothing is jumping out at me.. housing is more expensive and smaller or same size as we already have so we will need to up our mortgage to buy a bigger property. Again the thought of increasing our living costs just now to gain the same standard of home as we are in just now is filling me with dread. I know I’m looking for reasons not to move and I suspect there are issues here other than moving.. ie loss of control etc but in truth I don’t want to move! I’m willing to consider its which I feel I have and for me it’s made me clearer I don’t want to do this. To leave all our lives, jobs, schools etc to relocate with very little security in that being a good thing for us. I’d rather struggle with the kids then downgrade our lives for a bit of help.. I mean the kids will grow out of this stage! We’ve worked so hard to provide a good life for our kids to throw it’s away and move to a place I’m unhappy in… the cost of moving would be unrealistic to easily move home. Renting is impossible due to the kids school, it would tie us to that catchment area or not far out to find a property we love and I’m aware the house for me has to be better than what we have.
am I being totally unreasonable coz I’m putting barriers in the way? Has anyone been int he same situation where you both have differing opinions on moving? How will we even agree on this ?

Can his mum move to you?

My husband is from Yorkshire and we live in Scotland - he would love to move back to Yorkshire (waxes lyrical about it) and claims his mother would help endlessly with our kids. The truth is that she wouldn’t, and our lives would be worse in every way if we ever moved there. Whenever we are holidaying in Yorkshire DH realises this and goes through a period of being realistic until he starts getting nostalgic again. I suspect your DH gets nostalgic regularly and that is driving this. From everything you are saying I would not move if I was you. But commiserations on dealing with the Yorkshire-obsessed DH with rose tinted spectacles.

Tell him how much uni fees are if you live in England!!! £10000 per year per child....

I have a child in a special school with an EHCP in London. There is no way I would move in your circumstances. The reasons for moving aren't good enough, his mum might help? I bet she would find 3 kids, 2 with SEN completely overwhelming.

What you need is to throw a bit of money at the situation and look for a good local babysitter. It isn't easy, but in a bigget town, you have a better chance. Good luck and stay strong x

If you live in Scotland don't move. You have a better quality of life, better access to support in schools and better access to NHS than you'll get right now in West Yorkshire (we live in a similar place and it's a nice place to live for many reasons but I envy what my husband's relatives have!

yep I’ve laid all this out to him, I’ve said there is only one reason I see for us moving v 5/6 major reasons for not. I said I don’t know what it would to do our relationship if I moved as I would resent it all so much and I don’t want to move but he just said well I don’t know what it will do if we stay! I honestly don’t know what we are going to do.
we are mortgage free just now, I don’t want to out ourselves into a mortgage again when we have this financial freedom now. It’s just a no brainwrs to me to stay and put money into childcare and more trips to his mums. I can’t see me living in West Yorkshire it’s not home to me or our kids. The thought of having to learn a new locality over again, learn a new job and way of working, new schooling systems, new connections and groups/even things like trades/ garages/places you shop/kids groups etx the stress of that would end me I just know it would.

I guess you need to be firm that you aren't moving and if he wants to end your marriage over that, move away and rarely see the DC you can't stop him.

It sounds like emotional blackmail tbh.

I’m from the north of England, my husband is from Edinburgh, family now live near Aberdeen and we live near Liverpool. I would never leave Scotland to come down here if I lived up there. Really not sure why my husband did in the first place 🤣

Exactly this. He's not giving enough consideration to how this will affect firstly his children, secondly you. If he really wants to move back then he should do so, but in his own. Let him see, without the physical upheaval of the rest of you, the reality of what he's proposing. 🌹

I've seen people post on here saying this happened, that they were told they'd get heaps of support, moved and it didn't happen. Even higher risk of that happening with kids who have SEN as it can be a lot more exhausting looking after them. Even if you get some support good schools that support kids with SEN are hard to find. Id want a very good reason, which he doesn't have to move my kids away from their supportive school.

The status quo, so not moving, is the default position if you can't both agree. If he threatened to move without us or was getting really angry and trying to force/guilt me into there's no way Id even consider the idea because he's showing his true colours and if you move and the relationship end's you'll be trapped there unless he agrees to a move.

I did it, different areas but I've done the move.

Regretted it. Help didn't materialise

I'm moving back!

I wouldn’t move. Has he at all looked into the process you’d have to go to to get the dc assessed and that they would miss out on support for years while you do this? No grandparent trumps suitable special needs support.

My Dad lives nearby and was a regular help with my Autistic DC when they were younger. Then some things changed in his life and he was rarely around for 3 years and now he just doesn't have the energy he used to have but won't admit it even to himself. Five years ago my Dad was very active, now he's suddenly old. Your MIL might seem fine to care for them but the reality might be very different.

OP my husband was miserable living in a suburb in Scotland and desperately wanted to return to where he grew up (short distance away.) He had no friends there, but to him it was the centre of the Universe. Years he went on about it, even though our SEN child was experiencing excellent provision where we lived, the others were settled, we had a large four bed house with a small mortgage and I'd worked hard to make links/friends for them/us within the area. I worked full time. Eventually I caved in and we moved. To cut a long story short, we separated 18 months later. The move was my last ditch attempt at the marriage. My life became much more complicated and the children missed what they had had. He continued to be the 'bachelor boy' he had always been throughout the marriage. I had my epiphany and we divorced. I hope this doesn't happen to you OP, but if he is questioning the marriage, let him go. Put your children first, because despite dressing it up, his reason for moving is purely about him. In addition I work in SEN. I have experienced pupils being pulled from their established supports to relocate that have not been positive. The move had a big effect on my child, which I could counteract in part, due to the short distance they were away from what they 'knew.' I wish you all the best.

Is the support the only reason why he wants to move there? Is he ok? It's time to check his mental well-being I think.

It's the schools that seal it fir me. Finding a good Sen school that works for you child is like gold dust. There's no guarantee you will get a place similar if you move. Not all cahms work with Sen kids (ours doesn't and we are in Yorkshire) and you are right there's no guarantee meds will cont.

That's a lot to risk for a bit of babysitting.

Can you encourage your dh to make friends locally.

Once or twice a year could you visit his family and during the visit leave kids with his mum and sneak a night away. ?

Yes this is the only reason. That and stress.. he said the stress is killing us/him. Tbh his mental health has never been great. He doesn’t want to do anti anxiety pills though, there is also a good chance he is adhd/asd himself so he’s never really made any friends here in 10 years. He is pretty much a one man band. He has a handful of friends down there but tbh he could go down there whenever he wanted but doesn’t, I’m not soooing him going for a weekend or having his mates up here for a weekend. He thinks when we get a break from the kids our mental health is better and we are less stressed as are all parents. His mum takes them whenever we need her too though she is good. He thinks that by moving she would have them more snd wed get a regular break but my need to feel secure and be around people would suffer if we moved too… so I feel at least one of us is gonna end up mentally suffering. I’ve done my travelling, I did it before kids and settling to a new city took me 6 months plus before I started to feel ok and that me a single woman. I can’t see moving being less stressful at all.. infact quite the opposite. Both of us are Min wage workers so to be mortgage free in a beautiful home and area we are extreamly lucky.. to want to take that away and put us into a mortgage in a shite house in the middle of nowhere to have additional costs like travel etc is bananas to me. Maybe one of us was a high earner and could support the family until the other found work, or had a really good job to move to but to move for min wage jobs and both of us to have to go find work there is not making sence to me. But it boils down to his happiness or mine. He thinks the kids will be happier with grandparent support

@Supermomma17 I'm not reading it as his happiness or yours. I'm reading it as his happiness or the kids.

You matter too - I’d shut this down now you’ve had time to think about it and have made a decision.

It seems obvious from what you’ve said that you shouldn’t move. Make your case and stick to your decision.

If this disagreement is going to end your marriage you need to be sure to be in the location you want. I think it sounds pretty certain you shouldn't be moving for both you and your children's sake. I'm sorry for your husband as it's gutting to not be able to move closer to family but the hope it will happen is prolonging his frustration. I think you need to tell him, 'I've thought about this long and hard. I know how much it means to you, but I'm sorry, I just don't agree that it's in the best interest of our family. Ive decided to stay here.' Then when he starts blustering about you making decisions unilaterally you can either say that moving would be him making the decision unilaterally and at some point someone has to decide. You could say that you will review it in x years (3-5?), but you can't keep having this conversation and continual pressure.

He may be resentful, he may leave the marriage. You can't do anything about that. But the same could happen if you move to WY and then you'd be stuck there with all the negatives and zero positives. It's just too risky for you.

I went through a similar situation with my first husband. He was from liverpool but had moved to the south coast for work before I met him. I was born down here in the south and all my ties and history are here.
We used to vist his family and friends in Liverpool a few times a year and as time went on he began to want us to move up there. We had been together 9 years when his parents moved to Scotland and he really pushed me to move north. I very much did not want to go but eventually it seemed like I had no option.
Although we didn’t have children we had several pets and I knew I couldn’t afford a suitable home for them all if I split from him. My animals were/are a huge priority for me. I did love my husband but the constant pressure to move and leave my home really started a huge crack in our relationship. I loved my home, had renovated it all myself (he was useless and never got involved) and the area we lived in was very important to me and I had a job that had taken years to work up to and I very much enjoyed.
Anyway I gave in and we moved to Cumbria as this was part way between his friends in liverpool and his parents in scotland.
I had to take a lower level job as this was all I could find in the new location. He had got the exact same job and pay as he had down in the south.
I absolutely loathed my new job, the tiny hamlet we moved to was extremely unfriendly to us as “incomers”. My car got stolen at work (rough area) and I missed my old home and friends hugely.
We saw his friends and family but not that much more than we would have before moving.
After a year of it I told my husband I could not stand it anymore and he reluctantly agreed to move back to the south.
In that year the property market had risen by much more in the south than the north so we had to buy a much smaller property than we had before the move north and I couldn’t find a job back the same level I’d had pre cumbria.
It was the start of the end of our marriage. I felt he had forced me to move and lost me seniority in my career and a significant amount of money because the home we had sold to move up north had been predominantly bought by me.
We divorced two years later.

I really don't understand why you can't use

1. Money for more help with DC (cheaper than moving)
2. MIL visit more
3. You visit MIL more

If you move there will be more stress for the DC and you, no guarantee he will be less stressed as you will have financial worries.

I think he sees it that his life will be better etc so is closed to the reality. His friendships won't hook up where they left off and presumably MIL has her own life?

How stressed is he going to be when you have MIL to help out/care for as well as the DC?

It’s hard. My dp has been keen to relocate a couple of times, we’ve stayed put but I think he resents me for it. I’ve built a busy life and friendships where we live, and he hasn’t - he doesn’t feel any sense of attachment to where we live, and has never tried (never joined any clubs or activities, never engaged with other parents at school pick-up etc). He first wanted to move back near his parents who live in a city that I find really depressing, but obviously he is fond of it as he grew up there… his mum is quite full-on and much as I love them and like visiting, I know if we lived closer I’d have no privacy and she’d kind of take over everything. At the moment he keeps talking about moving to another country, where his company’s head office is (he could get transferred there) as he thinks the UK is rubbish and he imagines us having this amazing lifestyle in the new country.. I just see the kids (13 and 10) struggling with new schools - one is also autistic - not speaking the language, I’d lose my job and it would take a long time to learn enough of the new language to get another, we’d be long expensive flights away from all our families, I’d miss my friends and work and hobbies.
I feel really torn as I know my dp is unhappy/is probably depressed - but I’m honestly not convinced that moving would change that at all. I’m not sure what the solution is and I feel for you.

I wouldn’t move OP, there seems to be nothing good for you in his proposal apart from your MIL possibly doing some childcare and him doing even less?
would tell him that he’s welcome to go back and stay with his mother as frequently as he likes, he can take the children too so they spend time with their grandmother.
Don’t move, you and the DCs have too much to lose.