to want to move 'home' / how important is family?

[Swan2019]

Husband and I live in a lovely place with our four kids. We both work. Life is chaotic and I carry the entire mental load. I am stressed and tired all the time. Husband commutes in and out of London or is away for work. Neither of us are tied to the place we live in for work. It is also an extremely expensive part of the London commuter belt.
We have no family here, but we do have nice friends. The kids have all grown up with our friends' children.

My whole family live together in another part of the country. I like them and it's a lovely place with good schools, good transport links to london and lots to do.
My parents are young enough to help and to want to be involved. They come to stay, but it's such a long way that this is quite infrequent. (Think Edinburgh to Birmingham) I have siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles, aunties, friends.. My kids have cousins and friends.

Husband is happy where we are. I'd like to move and feel the kids are young enough at primary age to manage it.

I suppose my question is - how important is having a supportive family around? How much will it benefit my children to have their grandparents nearby? It was SO important for me and I really miss my family. I'm aware that i don't have forever with my parents and I hate being so far away and watching time go by.

WWYD and AIBU to push for a move seeing as we are relatively happy where we are?
Please bare in mind that my husband is basically away / absent monday - friday but likes his weekends here. I have no weekends because I have young children and no help..!

Ya maybe I let him off lol, he could stay in London for work 😅

You can make nice friends again elsewhere. You only get one family. And it’s not just GP’s there or a sibling, your whole family live there so you’d have a whole network and life ready to fall into.

Thanks for all the responses.
I should add - my husband doesn't really have any family. His sister is estranged and lives abroad and both of his parents have passed away.
He gets on well with my family.
It's more uprooting the children from everything they know that makes me wobble. They are all primary aged and we wont be affected by secondary school places.

The problem here is your husband. I was going to call him “lazy” but that’s probably unfair from what you’ve said about his work ethic. But he can’t be allowed to abdicate all domestic responsibilities to you! Very poor behaviour. What did he think would happen when he impregnated you four times?

It’s not your parents’ responsibility to pick up his slack, and it’s not fair to move your children from their schools and friends to cover up your husband's shortcomings.

So is the idea that your DH would work away Mon-Friday and then come back to you weekends, so commuting on a weekly basis? It sounds like that's almost what is happening anyway?

Personally I've never put great value on being very close to family (same country is good, but not too worried beyoned that). But in your situation where you have a large geographically concentrated family that you are close to and believe would help, and a very busy life with four very young children, then I would definitely go for it if I could make jobs work. Are you planning to move your job?

Also, just because you have 4 children, you should still get a weekend if DH is around! They are school age, not babies? Sounds like he isn't pulling his weight...

If he really objects to moving than would you be happy to stay if he changed the way he behaves?

I think at primary age it will still be OK. They might object, but they will get over it, and they have the compensation of your wider family to be close to. As they get older friends get relatively more important relative to family and school becomes more of an issue, so you do need to decide soon.

Moving when your children are primary-age will be fine.

No one can really tell you whether it’s the right decision for your family as we all have different experiences. If both you and your DH love your home area and want to live there, it’ll work out.

I wouldn’t want to move to my DH’s home area, not because of his family who are nice, but because I don’t much care for the place, DH says it’s boring too! Whereas we both like where I grew up and wouldn’t mind living there.

No point in asking us. Ask your husband how he'd feel about moving. You can then decide if it's an option.

It's up to you really, would your husband notice/miss you if you moved? As he's never around and doesn't parent/get involved in family life at all by the sounds of it. It sounds miserable for you.

My children were all born abroad (we were there with DH's job) and we returned to UK when they were 11, 14 and 16.. Yes, it was a bit of a wrench for them but they coped and adapted. Primary age would be easier, children are pretty adaptable on the whole