Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a moving dilemma and hope that your wisdom can help me along with my decision making.
My husband and I own a small house in my hometown in Hertfordshire - we now have a 2 year old daughter and are really needing to move to a bigger house as we have outgrown this one. The issue is, we live in a very expensive town and so can't afford a bigger house here - and the prospect of living in nearby cheaper towns does not excite us as there isn't much going on in them.
Therefore, we are considering a move away - possibly to Sussex to still be commutable to London for my husband's work (when commutes into London one day resume...) and near the coast and South Downs, and property is cheaper there than here.
But here's the thing - I have made so many friends here in my hometown since having a baby, all who have children the same age as my own, and although I don't have family in the town, some close family is about an hour away. If we move away, I'll be leaving all our friends and family behind and starting from scratch. My husband works so has a network of friends there so isn't worried about a move away. Making the wrong move scares me, and I can't work out what we should do.
I feel stuck - I keep to-ing and fro-ing in my mind between staying here in our small house in our easy familiar hometown near friends and family, and being desperate for more space and a change of scene and a move to somewhere more exciting/interesting.
So in summary:
- We want a bigger house and can't afford one in our hometown - and this would be our 15/20 year house so we don't want to settle for something not right;
- We feel we want a change of scene to a bigger town - somewhere vibrant with lots more to do - more areas to explore and adventures to go on as a family - I think we have fallen out of love with our hometown area as we are so familiar with it - it has become pretty uninspiring and boring to us and the thought of living here for another 20 years is a bit depressing;
BUT
- I'd miss all our friends here in our town;
- It saddens me at the thought of taking ourselves and my daughter away from our local friends and their young children (and further away family) - being realistic, with a move to the south, I don't think we'd see much of them;
- I'm scared of making a mistake moving away - can I fall back in love with my hometown and the local vicinity? Is 'boring familiarity' ever a good thing?!
Has anyone had any experience of making that decision to stay put in your hometown to raise a family, or to move away for a bigger house and a change of lifestyle/scene to something more than you had?
Thank you so much - I know this has been a very long post - I just hope that I get one reply to help move me along a bit in my thoughts about it all xx