This is a long complex one. Please no judgement on being religious. I’ll try to keep it simple.
My husband and I were part of a church that basically turned out to be right on the line of being a cult. Members belittled for random things, lots of secrecy, inner circles, gossip, sidelined if you didn’t toe the line, scolded if you didn’t make all the meetings, stripped of ministry positions if you didn’t give enough, told you didn’t have enough faith or that you were doing things wrong if there were any challenges in your life. That’s just scratching at the surface as a lot of law breaking/bending started going on which was the line in the sand for my husband (I’d been trying to get him to leave for 6 years).
We decided to leave that church and move to a new area. Our kids were in a rough school and were miserable. Our house purchase fell through so we moved into a rental near where we wanted to buy, then after 6 months found a house the other side of the city, but it took 10 months to complete. In that time I completely fell in love with the area we rented in - great community spirit, loads on for the kids, just a lovely area. But we couldn’t afford anything but a very very basic house there so we went ahead with purchase.
We’ve been in the new house 8 months now and I deeply regret leaving the area we rented in - it was closer to everything we’d known before and the few friends we’d made there outside the church (and the friends we’d made who left it). Now I’m on the other side of the area in a city and feel lost. Kids still going to same secondary schools as their new friends so it’s a bit of a drive back but they are so happy. Their bedrooms are decent sizes and we’ve got so much space here - it’s a real dream home except for noisy neighbours which is really getting to me.
I lost my job after we moved due to some health problems (very physical job but well paid) and it’s crushed me. I’m working two basic part time office jobs, more than 40 hours a week, working through multiple health issues and earning no where near what I did - with no scope to return to earning what I did and a massive mortgage looming over my head. There’s no where cheaper we can go to and keep kids in same school unless we move back to the town with that church in. But I can’t help but feel like if we hadn’t moved there would be so much less pressure on me to work so many hours.
Before anyone asks it’s a very rural area with big distances between cities/towns, so secondary catchment areas are up to an hours drive across. We go to a lovely, normal, mainstream church now but I feel so disconnected and struggling to trust anyone.
So… AIBU to regret everything right now? Should I have stayed put and just moved the kids schools