Relocating to South Wales, still working in London

[Avgee768]

...am I completely crazy for thinking this is possible?

My partner lives in Cwmbran. We met nearly two years ago. He has two children, a girl (10) & a boy (5). I have no kids & live and work in London. We are getting to the stage where the distance between us is becoming too much so I am considering all my options.

I have various options at the moment:

Stay put until a job comes up. That could be weeks, months or even years. Meanwhile we continue to see each other for a day once a month (my place is not practical for the kids to stay so OH has to come up when the kids are with their mum).

Move to Bristol & commute several times a week (roughly two hours door to door).

Live half the week in Wales & half in London - ie stay in London while I'm at work & then travel down to Wales for my days off, coming back the night before my next shift.

I guess what I'm asking is - does anybody else's OH live in the South West/Wales & work in London? Am I completely mad for considering moving to Wales without a job close by? Will I ever have a life or will I spend it knackered from such a long commute?

You could easily live in Wales and London if you don't work a full 5 day week. If you worked mon-thurs then you could have 3 days a week in Wales. London to edge of Wales is only 3 hrs by car

My dad used to do this. He stayed in London mon - fri then travelled home for the weekends. It is definitely doable. Traffic will be a bugger on friday afternoons though.

If you dont work 5 days a week - hard to tell from your post then the daily commute wouldn't be too bad. I used to do a 2.5 hour commute each way, 3 days a week and it was totally fine as I had the other 4 days to catch up on sleep.

I'd probably trial it for a few weeks before you make any long term decisions.

A friend's husband does this. I think he stays in London four nights a week.

I live in Bristol and commute 2, sometimes 3 days a week to London. Tough, expensive but doable.

Hi.

Thanks for the replies. To answer a few questions I work 7 on, 3 off. Shift work, so earlies, lates & nights.
If I commute it will be by train, and part of that will be paid by my company so it won't be too expensive.
If I live in Wales (probably Newport) & went to London for a week I would probably drive there and back.

Obviously the advantage of the train is I can sleep if I'm tired (not so easy in the car) but because of the nature of the shifts, trains may not be available at the times I need them.

I would say you need a place in London still, as 7 full days on you can't really travel in between that far. But you could go to Wales every 7 days, stay for 3, then return. Sk you see each other every week rather than once a month.

I would get a car though. As easier to finish work early or late and drive there.

Do you own a place in London?

My questions would be how long is the commute and where would you stay in London? Also why do you only see your DP once a month? Can you not stay at his? I can see this might be a Catch 22 situation, but do you know him well enough to want to uproot your life and move to Wales? (This might be an argument more for keeping your job in London and commuting rather than finding a job in Wales).

I commuted though not so far for a while and I hated it, e.g. not being able to get to the gym during the week. Plenty of other people found it fine and commuted for years though, I think it depends what's important to you and what it would stop you doing. It sounds like you have a job that you actually have to be somewhere specific for, using commuting time to work would have helped me (laptops had only just started to come in last time I commuted by train!) but might not be of any help to you.

I have my own flat in London but would need to sell it in order to buy somewhere in the South West.

Renting my place out & then renting somewhere in the SW is an option.

I could stay with my mum during the time I'm in London. My commute at the moment is an hour.

Using the commute to work isn't an option for me sadly. The commute from Bristol Parkway to work would be 2 hours in total.

As for the issue with my partner, there are various stumbling blocks at the moment but the main one is he is still living in the same house as his ex. I don't want to confuse the kids by staying over while their mum is still living in the house too.

I wouldn't be willing to move across the country and disrupt my life for someone who lives with their ex and I've only seen once a month.