I have three young children, oldest is five and we live about an hour away from my hometown where my support network is.
We live very near to my husbands family who have zero interest in our children and I'm really struggling with how little they are involved. My husband has tried to speak to them and encourage them to see our kids more but they get defensive. As a bit of background my in laws spend a lot of time with my sister in law and her children, which my oldest child has started to pick up on.
We have discussed moving back to my hometown for years, it's a nicer area, I have my entire family there who are so helpful, but more importantly they love being involved in our children's lives. My family drive up to us as often as possible but it's not the same as having the support nearby.
The plan was always to move back once we had a family as it's a much more rural family friendly place than where we currently live, which is the outskirts of a city.
However, my husband has now decided the move is not for him, he is happy for me to take the children and move back to my hometown on my own. He thinks job opportunities are better where we, and ultimately he doesn't want to move away from his family even though he rarely sees them. He's a good dad, but we very rarely have time together as a family. We work opposite days to work around the children. The six weeks holidays have just ended and he didn't take a single day off for days out etc despite my constant asking.
He knows I am very unhappy where we currently live, with no support and I'm finding it very difficult with three little ones. We're also not happy in our relationship, we have definitely grown apart and his family have caused a huge divide between us.
I want my children to grow up with family and community around them but this just does not seem to be important to him.
Financially me and the kids would be fine on our own, my main concern is moving my five year old away from her dad/ school/ friends, however she's a very outgoing little girl and I know she would make friends.
Wondering if anyone is in the same boat?