Relocated and think I’ve made a huge mistake. Help!

[Gotanewname]

A year ago we (me, DH, DCs) relocated from a southern city to a very rural spot up north. We moved to be near family and it is nice being nearer them...but I’m very unhappy. The whole move up here was my idea. It was meant to be a big life change. I hate it. I feel isolated. I miss living in the city. I miss popping out for a meal or having access to great shops. I miss the culture. I miss my friends. I’ve met some lovely people but nobody I am or could see me becoming good friends with. I don’t feel I fit in. I feel I have made this massive mistake. I’ve felt like this basically from the start and it’s getting worse. I want to go home.

DH isn’t in the same place. He misses the buzz of the city and our friends there, but on balance is convinced it was the right thing. He is very frustrated with me that I pushed for this and now I’m not happy.

Kids are settled, eldest happy at a good school. I know the eldest misses some the things that used to be available - parks, clubs, etc - but they are settled here. Little one is a bit little to have a view!

What the heck do I do? This was supposed to be our forever home. It’s a beautiful house in a beautiful area. It’s just not for me. DH is pretty angry at me about it. I suspect if I pushed he’d eventually agree to go back. But I’d be uprooting them all for me. I think the kids would ultimately be better off there than here, mind you. (But of course I would say that!)

Can any relate? Any advice? It’s taking over my life and I feel trapped and sick.

I would say, and I personally have been through this a few times, it takes two years to fully feel settled somewhere new.

I know how much time and money goes into moves and would give another year.

Throw yourself into new things. Force yourself to stop looking at the past and enjoy the here and now. You never know if the friends you've made will actually turn into something more or you'll meet others more in tune.

Make a pact to not have a serious discussion about it with your husband until exactly the two year mark.

There's no "going back". The past doesn't exist anymore. Mostly when we look back we look through rose coloured glasses anyway.

Remember the reasons you wanted to move in the first place. Nowhere is perfect.

Wish you the best.

I'd say start planning to move. It might take months anyway.

We moved from London zone4 to Home Counties. I regretted it terribly. We stayed several years & made the best of our time there to our advantage. But the desire to move back into London never left us & at he first logical change we moved back to zone 3. Totally new place but very happy now.

I think your rural location is not going to grow on you if that's not what you moved for. Don't waste years, start planning & give yourself a year to get to the right location, jobs & satisfaction. It may be the best of your old & current location & needs time to be worked out.

Can you say where you are? I think its the fact you are so rural as that is a massive life adjustment. Is there an area closer you could try, which means dc are not uprooted.

However if dc are young then I would be less worried about a move.

But neither would moving back to your Southern City solve all your problems - your work/life balance seems to be better

Gotanewname has already said they could have done the same set up by just downsizing

The reason I say return now is because the longer you leave it the harder it will get.

After 20 years in London we upped and moved to a village. I hated it for a good year. Missed the buzz, friends etc. Kids adjusted to school. 8 years on I love it; it was the best move for the kids. I go back to where we used to live and hate how busy and unsafe it is! Totally changed my outlook. You need time to adjust. I made new friends through school and work....join things to get busy.

I would move back if I were you OP.

Some people’s comments here saying you should have thought about it before you moved - well you did; and obviously thought you would be ok. Now the reality has set in, your mind has changed and now you realise it’s possibly not what you wanted

Thins change

I would give it another year. You're still new to rural living and I'm not surprised you feel homesick for your old life. Explore all avenues for meeting people - having friends will make all the difference to you. We moved to the country and our DC had an idyllic childhood, camping out with friends, rock climbing, swimming and fishing in the river, canoeing, caving, hiking. That being said, they all chose universities in major cities and absolutely love city life now!

There's a line of a song that goes 'the strong give up and move on and the weak give up and stay'.
If you know in your heart it's wrong for you, move. We had a dalliance with a northern location to be near some real beauty spots. Fortunately we rented so it was easy to backtrack.
Another factor is that your kids will bugger off at 18. There's little to sustain their work aspirations and they're likely to gravitate towards a city.
If you're priced out of London, you can find a satellite commuter town. Personally I would rent temporarily to make sure the move is right for everyone.

Sounds like living so rurally is not for you. I wouldn’t like it either! I live as the last house not he edge of a town so 10 min walk into town but fields and great views around us. Maybe you could move to a different town near where you are now so the kids could stay in their school and you would have the best of both worlds. We moved about 10 miles from one house in a tiny village after two years as I hated the location and never felt at home there. We lost £10000 on the move but I was happy to pay the price and love the house we moved to.

We did this. Left London z1 and moved to a rural village to be nearer family. The doubts that I had before the move never went away - we sold and moved back within a year (to a different area, further out), and have never been happier! It almost took the move out to appreciate our quality of life here, and we’re not leaving again (though admittedly DC were not yet in school - I can see how this makes things a little more tricky). Good luck with your decision.

I’m with you OP. Moved back to Yorkshire 2.5 years ago after relationship ended, and I couldn’t afford to single parent a baby in London (was freelance and worried about job security + the rest).

Now DS is 3, I have a good job and a nice house- but I’ve made very few friends and am resigned to never feeling “at home”. I’m basically treating being here almost like “being at uni”- have been promoted several times, learnt lots of new skills, completed a couple of years of therapy- feel like I can go back to London in a couple of years when DS is ready to go to school, rather more experienced and able to charge significantly more for my work than I could when I left.

Sorry- I think life’s too short to be so miserable- yes you uprooted you’re family, but if this were one of your children or your husband- what would you do? You’d go back, I imagine. I know I would.

Crikey. Thank you all for differing views. I can’t say I’m any clearer but it has helped. If nothing else it’s great to know I’m not the only one who feels like/has done this. I just wish I could turn back the clock about 13 months and listen to my instincts.

I just wish I could turn back the clock about 13 months and listen to my instincts

Always listen to your instincts.

Hi Op, I do so sympathise. I did this once and never again.

The mindset of people was about 40 years behind. It’s not their fault. Its the bloody selfishness of those with the money and power who have not invested which creates the lack of opportunities & lack of diversity in everything, including food, people, shops, cultures, hobbies etc. Its not surprising that you find it difficult. The Church didn't help. The people were nice but so unable to engage with real warmth and openess.

It was depressing. I tried everything I could. I held parties and talked to everyone. It was awful. I also couldn’t stand the sheer ugliness of so much of it. Things like the town centre etc. The village had a ghastly pub and nothing else. I didn't want to go a to pub. Even thinking about it making me feel ill.

There was also a general negativity and a misunderstanding of Londoners. They didn’t know that there are lots of ordinary Londoners who do care about equality and the rest of the Country. It seemed full of Daily Mail readers who were very misled by their lack of interaction with people not like them. They seemed to believe the rubbish they read.

I don’t know if you have to pretend to be interested and feign enthusiasm for that which is just plain boring? I didn't’ realise how doing so, would affect my health until it was too late.

Your family will suffer if you are unhappy. I’m not sure what to suggest. The options seem limited. I think being honest and regularly unpacking it with your husband is important. You can’t carry this load on your own. I also suggest prayer. Pray for a miracle and maybe get a prayer group online to help you? Get out and abroad as often as you can? Do a house swap with someone in London or swap weekends in London?

Wishing you the best. Let us know how you get on. Thank you for being brave enough to post here.

InsideLondon

I moved to an area that was like moving to the 1950s

It had nothing to do with a lack of investment.

The people were really strange.

I have since met a few people who come from that area but got out and they all had the same reason for moving.

They loved their families but really didn’t belong and could never see themselves getting pregnant as a teenager and moving next door to his/her mother.

Even on here I have seen mention of the particular town and the odd people who live there.

At the time I lived there I didn’t have children. There were a few groups but

A) I am not into traditional women’s type groups like knitting circles or book groups

B) I wasn’t 99 years old

C) I am not Christian

And

D) I don’t drink.

Have you done this before, OP - made decisions and then it hasn't worked out? Because there are people who think that if everyone else changes something (location in this instance) that life will be perfect. Then when it is not an instant fix-all, shift the blame to another aspect of life which also involves upheaval for all.

This was your idea. It sounds like a massive move and you can't blame them for not wanting to go through it again.

Honestly, I would look into moving back. Life is too short to regret and be unhappy. Yes you’ve wasted some money by moving, but you’ve learnt what you really want.
We were a couple of weeks away from leaving London to move to Somerset and pulled out on Friday. You often hear all of the positives of moving to the countryside, but the need to change jobs, be 2 hours from friends, missing the buzz of London etc were too much. DH was keen to move so is disappointed but ultimately wants us both to be happy.
Good luck with whatever you decide!

Ahhh bless you op that must be difficult. I do agree on giving it longer. Are there any bigger towns you could move to?

Whilst the idea might have been Gotanewname her dh was very keen on the idea and didn’t object.

Moving to a different place is one of those things that you can research and research and make a few short trips to look around and in your head and on paper it seems perfect but until you make the move and are there permanently you cannot fully understand what places are like.

I think what happened for both of them is work was probably taking over their lives and moving seemed to be the only way out. Sometimes you can be in such a fog of tiredness and work and not really having the time to actually think clearly you make stupid decisions when in hindsight when you have had more sleep and you are not under pressure you realise a slight adjustment was all that was needed

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, oliversmumsarmy. We didn’t need to come all this way to improve our lives. And we both were certainly desperate - I was doing a commute that some days was six hours in total, then working once I got home. DH didn’t have such a grim commute but was in an incredibly toxic environment.

All the same, moving back would be uprooting the kids. They’re young - pre-school and reception, but it wouldn’t be easy. Although with hindsight I think there’s more for the them in our old city than here.

Of course, if we do decide to go there’s also the question of how we tell the family that we moved to be nearer that we’re off again..

We moved and relocated for my job when DC has just turned 1 and 2. As I didn't want a long commute for too long, we jumped into an almost complete new build on the edge of a village. Not a pretty village, an old industrial type with a concerted centre. Anyhow, although we made new friends in the new estate, the place was not very welcoming to outsiders and we just didn't settle or feel at home. We found ourselves gravitating to a nearby town more than anywhere else. So we upped and moved again. Luckily our DC hadn't started school yet but we've now been in the new place nearly 16 years. We were still able to keep our jobs etc though.

I know it's not the same as your situation, but is there a compromise location? How old are Dc? Is there a point at which a move would be better and fit in with a chance anyway?

most DC are adaptable, but try not to look at your old life through rose tinted specs, presumably you would not be going back to the exact same house so it will also mean a change from your old life.

Sorry you answered some of my questions while I was slowly typing.

Are you benefiting from the proximity to family or are you essentially just as distant but in a different way?

I was going to say the same as PP, you’ve gone from a bust city to very rural - is there nothing in between?
Youn don’t say where you are and that’s fair enough but if North West could you move closer to Manchester or Liverpool or North East Newcastle or Leeds ( these are just examples)
We live in The North with cheap housing, good schools, nice countryside on the doorstep but 20 minutes from Leeds and 40 minutes from Manchester. Feels like we’ve got the best of both worlds really

Since DC are so young, I wouldn't leave it another year to be honest, I'd either go back or look for something closer to a bigger town and where you could have more family contact which was essentially a big part of the move.

I agree with moving now as DC are so young. Do not wait 10 years - they won't want to go. I also agree that city life gives your DC way more options as they grow up.