To leave DH and kids to do this

[Youcannotbeseriou]

13 years ago I got married and I gave up my dream career to raise two DCs. DH was desperate for kids, I wasn’t hugely bothered. Fast fwd to now, everyone is happy apart from me.
However, I have been offered a place on a masters conversion course that would see me into a new career.
Trouble is all the universities that offer these courses are at least a 3 hour drive away. They are full time training courses 4/ 5 days a week. I already work part time in the field and love it and know I’ll love it as a qualified professional, but for 2 years it could mean living away from everyone mid week. I’m late 40s so time isn’t on my side to wait.

DH made clear he/ they are staying put. I don’t want to leave them, but I’m so unhappy at the moment as have no career and hate where we live. This would mean I can at least have a career I love again.

yabu- don’t be ridiculous, you have commitments and children. You can’t do this conversion course for 2 years away from them.
yanbu- they’ll be fine and adapt for 2 years. Go for it!

Yes, you are being dramatic. OP won't be away for months - if she gets it down to a 4 day week, she could be away for 3 nights per week for a portion of the year. She may be able to spend more quality time with her kids than if she were in full time work.

As others have siad.... Uni terms are short...

And it's likely you'd only need to be in a few days weekly.

Most uni research is done electronically now... So you don't constantly need academic libraries.

Are any parts of the courses which are taught online?

I'd contact each uni - find out which days you need to be in each week.
This then may show which is more workable.

Eg So Tues and Friday - more difficult

Tues and wed - more workable....

You just wouldn't need to be away all week.

I'd also post on any online uni forums to see if others have made it work 'commuting' long distances.

i think the family should move to enable this. DH works from home and you don’t like the area you live in anyway. You must be able to find somewhere suitable within an easy commute of Uni.

PS eg for undergraduate teaching - our final year there were several students commuting king distances /staying over... As we only were in 2 x 3 hours weekly... All the rest of the week was for research

It was completely doable but did require a lot of organisation!

If you can afford it, then do it. Your DH has done similar and your children were fine. Time for him to step up as a parent. It will strengthen his relationship with them.

Can you not do a masters via distance learning? Would YOU be happy to be away from your family?

Yes, if i was back with them every weekend, and they were safe and cared for by their other parent. As happens all the time when the father works away from the family home.

Plus, it is for a fixed period of time, not years on end.

DH currently works 5hrs away from our family home. He leaves Saturday night/Monday morning, home Thursday night usually. Sometimes he's on longer trips.

And while he's gone... everything just keeps on happening. DDs go to school, I work, they do extracurricular stuff... sometimes I'm on top of housework, sometimes I'm not. I do volunteering...

DH does all the family paperwork... finances, insurance, bills,tax etc as he can do that from wherever while I'm doing the hands on stuff. Hèdes the majority of the extracurricular stuff at weekends.

Lots of people’s jobs take them away for much of the time. I used to travel on business a lot, sometimes two or three weeks in a month, often Sunday lunchtime to very late on Friday. My husband was a hands-on dad and we had a ‘mother’s help’ who collected them from school and looked after them until he got home.

You’ll be away 4-5 nights a week for approximately half the year. Assuming your husband is on board, they’ll cope. Go for it!

Can your employer help with costs?
Is any of the course doable online so you aren't away as much as you think?

Figure out the financial stuff and the logistics and take it from there.

I probably wouldn’t. My ex has been away for years working overseas and the kids (young adults now) do still have a good relationship with him. For me the mother’s guilt would stop me, but I certainly wouldn’t judge someone else who did this. Depends on their father I guess, and ability to cope with any emotional dramas etc.

i think the family should move to enable this.

The dc have to change schools and what happens at the end of the uni course?

Id definitely do it! Your kids will be totally fine. It’s only 2 years & you will always regret not going for it. It may seem selfish but I’d want to secure MY future for me. My DD is at uni doing a “full time” 5 day course but she’s only actually at uni all day for two days. One day off & the rest of the week is just an hour lecture.

No worse than being shipped off to boarding school at 8 when your parents live in a different country! At least in OPs scenario she will see the DC every week and a minimum of 15 weeks holiday a year!

I don't understand people comparing it to work, for me that's quite different to choosing to study. Is the course available as distance learning?

That's a little different though, especially if only ad hoc. Male or female, there hasn't been much mention of how it would actually work, financially, emotionally, logistically. I get you're feeling stuck and never wanted kids, but they're here now and as an equal instigator of the family it is equally your responsibility to provide for it in all of the above ways.

Have you worked out where you would live, how much it would cost, if the family can afford to sustain 2 homes on one salary and 'bursaries', if the kids will have to make any sacrifices due to either less money or only having one parent at home the majority of the time etc.

Won't you miss them?

By all means go for it, but you sound very blasé about it, quite detached, as if life owes it to you because you resent having made the choices you made.

I wouldn't move children either for the sake of a 2 year Masters course, especially if you'll be returning to your current workplace at the end of it. That would be a much bigger transition for them to deal with than you being away midweek for part of the time.

Can you reach out to the uni and ask for some more info about the exact schedule before you make a final decision?

With a 3 hour drive I would be crossing my fingers that you could commute in on a Monday morning and back on a Friday afternoon.

Id also be crossing my fingers that there are a couple of reading weeks in the year without lessons which you could do from home.

So, realistically not too many weeks away and fully available when the kids are on holiday sounds ok for me at those ages.

Would DH consider having one night a week where he finishes work a bit early and you meet for dinner half way?

Do it. I assume it is ultimately more money and a more fulfilling career.

Dh is supportive. Money to do this is not a problem.

Stop being a martyr when no one requires you to be one. You will be away during the week for only half the year, and at home during the holidays and term breaks. And every weekend.

Put the guilt away - it's not helping anyone. Not your dc, your dh or you. Make your decision and throw all your positivity and energy behind it. Go, go, go.

My dad did similar when I was around that age. I didn't really think much about it at the time just accepted it. In the long term it led to a much better career for my dad and life for us all. In the very long term, now I'm an adult and mum I am incredibly proud of him for doing it. It can't have been easy for him or my mum but it had a massive positive impact on us all.

It’s no different to having a job that means you travel part of the week. As you said your dh did it. Why shouldn’t you? You can face time every night and come home ideally Thursday night- Sunday. Try to do you work in the week so you can be with your family when home

Do it. You only get one life and you've got a lot of it left to live. If you were a man, you probably wouldn't even think about it. Two years is such a short time in the long run and university terms are relatively short.

Just make sure you are fully present for the kids and DH at the weekend.

As a child of a mother who didn’t bother with a career and just had kids … do it.

Are you children girls or boys?

If girls, how will you deal with the firsts? Periods, boys, social media/cyber bullying, general anxiety and early adolescence? 12-14 and even 10-12 can be difficult to navigate phases for girls in 2025 - much more so than when we were growing up.

It's challenging to address these on a weekends only basis, but doable depending on their character.

If boys, your husband can handle most of the challenges around behaviour, self-confidence, social media, and not falling prey to toxic masculinity.

The words that jumped out at me from your post are ‘unhappy’ ‘no career’ ‘hate’ and ‘leave’. Also a sentence where you say you were not ‘bothered’ about children but DH was. And something of a pervasive sense of low level bitterness towards the DH who carried on with his life while you gave up your career.

I think it would be worth trying to investigate- maybe a few sessions with a therapist of some sort?- whether the real issue here is that at some unacknowledged level - despite saying the opposite!- you just want to leave your family. Whether you see this as a chance to start again, a kind of rebirth as a student, without being burdened by children & responsibilities. If so, how realistic is this?

Even if this is not what is going on, how do you see this working out in practice? For instance: where will you live? Alone, or in university accommodation? Or a house share or with extended family? Will you socialise in the evenings? Will you cook for yourself in the evenings? Will you decorate your home (it will be a home)? Will you in fact want to come back every weekend? Might you find yourself saying ‘well spending time with coursemates is important; I should stay in [insert place name] this weekend’? Will your children come to stay with you in the university town sometimes? How will you feel if DH makes new friends in your absence? Will you keep in touch with the mothers’ school WhatsApp group? Will you try to be aware of your children’s daily timetables, homework, etc? Will you go to parents’ evenings?

Have you thought through in detail what your experience will be like and how it will affect your relationship with your children?

Women are allowed to decide to leave their families! But I think it would be worth probing a little more into at some level this is what’s going on here - or if it is what is going to happen after a year or so if you go down this route.

(Incidentally I would ask the same questions of a man in this position. I think we all know that in many cases - not all- where the man lives away from home for a proportion of the time, he’s opting out & the relationship suffers as a result.)