Does anyone else live like this?

[lubellabee]

I have a wonderful husband and two sons who I adore (one a baby), a lovely cottage with a beautiful garden (we all love our gardening and live outdoors) and most importantly we are all so happy (when) together, I feel extremely lucky.

HOWEVER, my husband commutes 1hr 45mins to work each way, leaves at 7am and is back around 8:00-8:45, which mean he misses the kids (my three year old finds this very hard). We spend no time together as with young children, are in bed very soon after he arrives home. (His work colleagues are not chatty / don’t have much in common) so his days are lonely and long.

The second issue is that we struggle financially. I run my own business during the evenings (both my children are at home), which is another factor - when he does get home I am working (no quality time, time for sorting the house etc). I’ve done this for two years (with a two month break when DS2 was born). he earns fairly well and I bring in as much as I can - but after mortgage and bills we are left with around £500 a month for everything else, food, two cars, children - it is impossible. And therefore very stressful.

Very rarely do we have coffee trips, bottles of wine - everything we do is calculated. We don’t get much help from family with our children (not that it matters too much) - we we’ve never had a date night in three years (very different from the life we used to live).

is this normal? My husband is extremely stressed, tired and quite frankly lonely during the week. I am just tired!

what do we do?

From what you’ve said I would immediately see the two big issues to be:

• His insane commute - can’t he work any closer to home/wfh some of the week? 3.5 hours a day travelling is horrific, it would destroy my life to live like that, or have my husband doing it. Also it must cost a fortune???
• You trying to work without using any childcare. I understand why you want to, but the trade off is that you will always be in shifts around your husband with no downtime.

We also have two small kids but honestly no, my life isn’t anything like yours but I would largely put that down to the two things above.

Im not surprised you’re finding it hard.

@TiddleyWink thanks for your reply. He sadly can’t work from home due to the nature of his work. My eldest will go to nursery in September. It’s been a decision to keep them home which has been lovely for me (I did work in the city - a very full time job, with travel etc - pre covid, but wanted to spend time with the children as it flies hence setting up my own business) but in any case I don’t think financially nursery would have worked, especially with two.

If your DH can’t work at home or closer to home then you need to try and move closer to his work. His commute is not sustainable for either of you long term.

Do you own the cottage? If you are working from home I don't know why you don't live closer to your husbands work. That's an awful commute. It sounds miserable to be honest.

I agree with everyone saying you should shorten your DH’s commute. I would love to move out of London but for work we need to stay. We want to spend our spare time with DC, not on a train or wiped out from a long commute.

Keeping your family together and your husband’s mental health intact is going to have to come before the cottage with the lovely garden I personally think. Home is where your family is, happy and together as much as possible. Why on earth do you live so far from his work place? It sounds like this is quite a long term situation and that you don’t currently have plans in place to change it. You're trying to maintain a family on £500 per month while it’s probably costing at least that for him to get to work and back. Insanity!

It was the norm for us, but got better.

Sell the cottage and move closer to your H's work. That's an insane commute. You might enjoy the challenge of turning a bog standard back garden into a little slice of paradise.

Your H can look for a different job. There's more to work than work iykwim.

We used to have this length commute & it was very hard, even with both of us working partly from home (me part time). We moved a lot closer to London, lost our large garden and views and spacious house but have gained a family life in the week again. But I have to say we have a 4 year old & a 1 year old and it is just extremely tiring, and we don't have much time for our relationship. So that hasn’t really changed.
What do similar families in your area seem to do? It sounds very draining him working so hard and you all making sacrifices in relation to that, and then also having financial stress. I hope you can find a way to make things easier.

Why does your DH have such a long commute - is his work very specialised or do you live somewhere remote? Can he work from home part of the time? Or if not can he look for a new job closer by or would you need to move and would you consider doing that?
How much money does your business actually bring in - would part time employment make you more?

Thank you all for your replies. We moved out of London in lockdown, to Surrey. It would have been a good London commute but his job got relocated to an absurd part of London, which means a lengthy walk on top of the already horrid commute. And yes it’s expensive. We do own the cottage but I think we will have to put it on the market - I agree family is more important. Perhaps we need a new job and a new house - all within one town - the London commute is tough and I don’t think we could afford to move back to London.

@TuftyMarmoset his job is very specialised, it’s only in one area of london - or various different cities across the SE England - I think we will need a whole relocation.

Hmmm, I sympathise OP, I am in a similar position as regards the commute - I.5 hours drive each way, leaving home at 6.00am and not getting home till 7.00pm, all for a job paying little above National Living Wage. My fuel bill alone now consumes 20% of my net salary. And no, I cannot work from home, not every job is office based or administrative! I presume the OP's husband's job is similar? I, too, live in a lovely cottage with a beautiful big garden and there is no way I am prepared to give that up and uproot myself just for a job. But, yes, it has a huge impact on my work/life balance and I totally understand the OP's position - however, those saying that OP and her family should move nearer to her husband's place of work or that he should find alternative employment nearer to home are, I think, being very simplistic - it is rarely as easy as that. Would that it were!

I have no words of advice OP, just my absolute sympathy - good luck with whatever decision you take

You might be able to move back to London. People fed up of London still want to live in cottages in Surrey, and if your garden is lovely you may have a very attractive cottage to put on the market.

We did - when dh got his first job he didn't drive and had to get up at 4:30am to get public transport to work and we had a small baby. Then we moved closer and got a car but the journey was still an hour some days. We eventually left the UK and work / life balance is a lot better.

Can you rent the cottage for the mortgage?

we did that - moved for the job/commute but kept the house. We are very glad now that we did.

We managed to rent it so that it covered it’s costs. We rented closer to work.

I had to do that length commute for around 3 months, and it was absolutely soul destroying.

We moved and I got a local job which was amazing, but boring. I was incredibly lucky then to find a role in a global company that is remote.

Dh still has a commute of around 1 hr 30 door to door but only has to do it a few times a week.

He leaves the house around 6:30 am and gets home by about 7:30 pm. Our DC are older than yours so are still awake when he gets home.

In your shoes I'd either encourage dh to find a different role, or move closer to his job.

You have my sympathies though OP, because of dh's type of role we're tied to major cities and I'm bloody sick of it! We were in London for 10 years and have now moved to Aus, but still need to be near a city.

Is he actually earning 'London money' or is it just the cost of the mortgage and commute that's leaving little left for other living costs?

Is your business likely to grow and bring in more income? Perhaps when you get the free hours and it doesn't cost so much for DC to be in nursery?

You definitely need to move much closer do DH job but also consider whether he 'has' to do this job that requires living in an expensive area but doesn't seem to bring in the money after commuting and higher housing costs or is there something else he can do that will allow you to live in a cheaper part of the country where you can live closer to his work so you have more disposable income and he has a better work life balance.

Yes, move. He is missing out on seeing his little kids grow up. That's a shame when it is avoidable.

Obviously it is hard on you both but my main question would be what does your dh want to do, as it seems that he is suffering most right now.

If he could work in other cities than London, is there an option to move to/near one of those? He only needs one job - even if there aren't many of them. It sounds as if your job can be done from home, is that right? Could he talk to a headhunter/agency?

It may be that losing London weighting makes that unsustainable but reducing commuting costs might do it.

If his job is very specialised, it means he's very vulnerable. What happens if he is made redundant, the company goes bust or he loses the job for any reason? We relocated for my husband's job and 9 months later he was made redundant. Fortunately we had rented our house so could move back.

Before you move from your lovely cottage and garden, I'd be encouraging your DH to look for another job in an area that is not so specialist to avoid future, long term risk. Is he going to be doing that job for the next 30 years?

That sounds like my life. Husband works 1hr away (if no traffic) and leaves at 5.30am most days not getting back until 7.30pm, sometimes as late as 10pm if on longer shifts. I'm at home with our three children (all under school age). It's hard. The only thing that we have which makes it better is as it's shift work DH gets every other weekend off and a four day weekend once a month. My kids often go ages without seeing their dad, he's on a 9 day stretch at the moment so they are going a full 9 days without seeing him which they find hard. We have considered moving closer to his work but we live in a much cheaper area and we wouldn't be able to get a house like ours without taking on an absolutely ridiculous mortgage and our home is closer to family. Even if we did move he would still be doing the ridiculously long shifts but then I wouldn't have anyone around me. I think if you do have have the opportunity to move closer to your DH work then I would. I know what it's like to love your house and garden but this life is exhausting.

The thing about a long commute is it's not only time consuming, but also expensive. I'd seriously consider moving jobs and relocating. Doesn't sound like he enjoys his current employer anyway. Could you move north?

This must be so hard I couldn’t even imaging… my daughter misses her dad when he’s at work and he works 4 minutes down the road at our local scrap yard and comes home for dinner at 12 everyday :( good luck hun feel for you all but only you can change it xxx

Kind of, my husband leaves at 8am and takes our eldest to school and comes home about 7-7.30 so generally as they are going to bed

Mid week we do nothing due to him getting home at / after bedtime

Weekends just fly by