I’ve never written a thread before but we have reached the point where we need some advice as we simply keep going round in circles.
my husband and I live in the NW England with our 2.5 year old. We have muddled through the past couple of years visiting both sides of our families who all live in different areas of the U.K.. My husband is a shift worker so there are times when I am solo parenting for 4-5 days / nights and also alone over weekends, with no family support. We agreed we would want another baby but can’t imagine how we would manage with 2 young kids in this situation. We decided to put our house on the market and relocate to the north east to be close his parents and extended family.
As things have progressed with offers on our house we have begun questioning if it’s the right move as there are huge pulling factors for both situations.
if we relocate, we can upgrade our house to a 4 bed new build for the same price as we sell our 3 bed for. Other pros: family support and general better balance of ‘us’ time and our kids growing up with family day to day. My sister and her kids would live 50 min away as opposed to 2.5 hours away.
cons - less job opportunities for my husband and he might end up on a worse shift pattern for a while (unless he got a day shift job which are hard to come by, and took a major pay cut)
Pros to staying put: love the area, good schools, better job opportunities (better possibility of hubby getting a days job on ok money to manage)
cons: no family support with 2 kids and we would have to max out our budget to get a bigger house as the area is expensive (which we would need if having another child / we need space for family to come and stay).
We are totally stuck as there are equally significant factors to stay out or relocate and we cannot work out which is the better option.
has anyone else had a similar experience and how did it go? It would be good to hear from others perspectives as we have hit a brick wall!
thanks ☺️