I want to move again but DH doesn't

[thatssomyanxiety]

We did a council exchange 5 months ago from a flat to a house which was amazing luck. I told DH I didn't want to permanently settle in the new area and just moved so that we could find another exchange to another house. DH agreed that he was on board with this. We are far away from friends, family and everything we know in the new home and I suffer with bad postnatal depression. DS fell out with a friend at previous school before we moved over what we were told by teachers were petty arguments and nothing major. Other child's mum confronted me and said I'd be beaten up if it didn't stop. Thankfully we were moving anyway.

5 months on, I'm still wanting to move back now that we've fixed the house up to a standard we'd like to move into elsewhere. DH feels settled here and is reluctant to move now - especially not back to our old area, he says. It's a council estate but so is where we are now. We can't be overly picky in where we are wanting to go as long as it is back over that way as swaps from one side of the city to the other are few and far between. I want to be properly settled by senior school time for our eldest which is in 2 years. I've found 2 potential swaps and DH is picking fault with both of them. Luckily, we have a drive here and none of the 2 homes have one. But do have downstairs toilets, which is something DH has always wanted. I've told him there needs to be a compromise and nothing is ever perfect.

I feel really gutted because I never wanted to move away from our old area and hoped DH would stand by what he said. I guess I'm asking, WWYD? We lived in our old area for 5 years and loved it, apart from what happened with DS at school before we moved. The trouble is, I don't know where this other boy and his family live, so I would never know if we unintentionally moved nearby to them and if problems would carry on. Should this stop us from moving? My son wouldn't be going back to the same school as this boy anyway so I can't see why they would still be out for us. We have nice neighbours here and moving somewhere with bad neighbors we don't know about is my idea of a nightmare that truly scares me - we've had bad neighbors before and it ruins your life.

2/3 kids have settled into their new school but I wouldn't want to move them again anyway and would make the commute twice daily to their new school here.

Thanks for reading. Please try not to be mean, my current bad mental health is making me super fragile ATM :(

There is no right or wrong answer here, just different opinions. How far away are you? You are willing to commute to school. Can you therefore make the trip quite regularly to see friends and family? I do realise that's not the same, particularly when you had agreed to try and move back. What do your kids think?

There's a huge difference between agreeing not to settle permanently in the new area and having to move again after five months. Very, very few people would want to move again so quickly. I understand your MH issues, but that's a reason to not overreact as if the house is the issue, when it's more about what's going on inside of you, which of course needs proper help and support, but that doesn't necessarily mean giving into this urge to move again.

It doesn't sound like you've given the new place a chance and are literally just seeing it as a stopover before going through the whole moving process again, which is very stressful. It doesn't even sound like you're very far from the old area if the schools are commutable and it's just different sides of the same city, so this feeling that you've moved far from friends/family/everything you know does sound like the PND/MH talking and not so insurmountable in reality. Your old area sounds to have some big drawbacks whereas the main issue with the new one seems to be that it's less familiar to you, which will change.

People generally say to give it a couple of years in a new place to really bed in, which fits with your plan to be settled for secondary school for your eldest DC. Of course that could feel like a lifetime to you in your current state of mind, but try to take one day at a time, in the moment, not longing for the old place (which as I say, is hardly rose-tinted with all that conflict there) or hunting for new places to move to. It's all looking outward, casting around for solutions to the real issues which as you know, are more physical and psychological right now. I hope you're getting help from your GP and get through this tough time so that you can feel more balanced about everything.

hoped DH would stand by what he said - meant to add, did he really agree to move away so fast, or was he thinking more like another five year stint? It does seem very unusual to move twice in such quick succession by choice.

Thanks for your replies. Yes, we both agreed that we would move back once we'd found the right swap, I didn't want to move from our old area and was incredibly upset about leaving but did so for the sake of a house. With council exchange, lots of people in the city swap/move again quickly to get to where they want to be as it's nothing like looking on the market to buy your own home. I realise I might be being hasty but as soon as I stop looking for a new swap, I feel trapped, isolated and full of dread all over again. I think I just need to give it more time as we don't have any issues where we live and don't have any reason to need to move again so quickly. I wish my head would calm down.
I've got 2 viewings booked at this house over the next couple of weeks, I'm now not sure what to tell the other people? I don't want to mess anyone around or upset anyone.

I sometimes have bouts of thoughts of not wanting to go back to the area at all because of what happened before we moved but kids still have loads of friends there that they're still in touch with and I'm sad for them that those friendships might fizzle out. I guess I just don't feel comfortable here but I might in the future and kids will make more friends although eldest DS hasn't got off to a good start and fell out with his new best friend just before school ended for the summer. Which hasn't helped us at all.

I've been looking in the surrounding areas to where we used to live so we wouldn't have to worry about moving back to previous problems, but there is nothing coming up and nobody wanting to go from that side to this side. The only people interested in exchanging are right in the area we used to be.

I think it's telling that the only people who want to exchange are in the area you've got out of. Honestly, it sounds like you have a very sensible head on, beneath the swirl of emotions that are troubling you because of the PND etc. You totally get that the panic and dread is an abstract thing and not really about the house you've moved to, and need to listen to this wiser voice -

I think I just need to give it more time as we don't have any issues where we live and don't have any reason to need to move again so quickly. I wish my head would calm down.

I really hope your head calms down too and you can stop worrying about things like letting down people who you've arranged viewings with. They'll know such things are part of the rollercoaster ride of house moves - one of the stresses your DH is keen to avoid going through again so soon. And to be fair, the way you phrase what you agreed - that you'd move again when the right house came up - is very much open to interpretation by both sides. For you, right now, the right house could have many compromises as long as you get to move asap. For him, the right house has to be better and worth moving again for. So there isn't a hard and fast rule where one of you is reneging on the agreement by not going along with the other. It's a big deal to move and I think he's looking out for you by not giving into the panic, giving you time to adjust.

Take care of yourself and try to not feed the dread cycle by searching for homes and booking viewings. I understand as when I'm in unhappy periods of my life, I get fixated on moving house too and look at areas I used to live in, imagining a better existence there, but then things take a turn and get better here, with work or the kids or something else that absorbs me, and I completely forget about moving and am glad i stayed. Wherever you go, you're still yourself and the problems with that follow you. It might be different if the issue was really with your new property/location, but that isn't the case so I'd hang in there and give it more of a go.

I really am grateful for these replies, they're helping me to clear my head. I'm thankful everyone who has commented has been kind and not judgemental. You're all saying what I need to hear and what I need to keep reminding myself of.

I'm going to message the 2 people due to view the house and fingers crossed they are understanding and not mad at me.