Disastrous Move...

[clarie33]

Hi All
Really feeling we have made a wrong move...anyone else ever done this too?

We were living near my husbands work with our two daughters, one is 3 years old and the other is one. We decided to move house ten months ago, when my youngest was just 8 weeks old. We moved back to my hometown which is about approx 1 1/4 hour drive to husbands work. This was purely done to be nearer to my family as we had been promised support from my mum and we thought it would be nice to be back near the family for our girls. To cut a long story short, the support has been limited and nothing what we were promised, we had been told what we wanted to hear to get us to move back and then all the talk of help and time spent with the children has dried up, even after two discussions it hasnt changed. I really feel for my children as their grandparents just dont make the effort. That is their decision I know, just wish my mum had not lied to me making false promises etc, I am heartbroken.

Anyway the main reason I post on here is that I wish to move back nearer my husband's place of work again, with my husband now staying away 2-3 nights a week due to the travelling, I and the children miss him terribly and just want my family back together again. There is no real point in me staying back in my hometown when my husband is elsewhere and I dont have the contact and support of my other family members as I was promised. I constantly count the days down to when it can become a possibility for us to move again, I know I shouldnt but cant help it. My husband was really up for moving again initially when he saw this situation was harder for us than the last, but the longer we have been here I think he is getting settled and now talks of 'let's just see if we can stay here'. I really know I cant, I was giving it a year to settle in, but I feel nervous, empty and on edge all the time, wishing to be back in the other surroundings and my husband back with us again. Yes the houses in the other location are more expensive than where we live now so you dont get as much for your money, my husband's argument is that he wont compromise on the size of the property and will stay put if it means having a slightly smaller property. I tell him life is too short, and would he rather see me unhappy and unsettled for the rest of time or let us move back?
I really dont know what to do, I want to just put the house up for sale either the back end of this year or Spring next year, but feel I am not allowed to, but cant go on feeling the way I do...I cry a lot about it also
Thanks for listenting

poor you. you must move. life is far too short, you never know what is round the corner. the only over option would be for him to move jobs? is that an option?

Yup - what HerHonesty said!

I couldn't bear to go back to the days of DH's nearly two-hour commute, and I also have a lovely but somewhat flakey family. We've actually moved hundreds of miles away from them, and although it's a shame we don't see them so often, I much prefer the daily benefit of having DH around more.

Hiya thanks for your replies - he is in a successful job, been there over ten years and he is part of the fixtures and fittings!, so moving job is not an option, plus with me being a SAHM, a secure job is a must.
Yes I know what I need to do, it is just doing it and getting DH to see from my point of view..

claire33 - sadly, a lot of people have ended up in your situation and feeling like you do. Sometimes because the one parent (usually DH) has had to take a job a long way from home and rent a flat near where the new job is. Others have done what you did and one parent has had to remain behind and rent a flat near the old house.

A couple we know have been doing it for a year and the DH was talking to us on Saturday about it. He said he really misses his family in the evenings and they have just decided to move near to where he works. They also moved to be close the Grandparents, as you did, but separation is something that they feel is killing their family. Their son is very upset by his Dad going away every week.

We know another couple where the DW works in London and has left the DH and two DDs several hundred miles away all week and every week for the last 5 years. We feel it has affected the older DD quite badly but they have to do it out of sheer financial necessity so we are not judging them.

I think you are right to say: "I tell him life is too short, and would he rather see me unhappy and unsettled for the rest of time or let us move back?"

The problem, as you have rightly identified, is that the illiquid housing market and precarious job market is paralysing the country. I think it has been a major contributor to the destruction of family life for the last decade with longer and longer hours and firms demanding staff move to new locations at short notice with families strugling along behind with little assistance in finding accomodation, schools or career progression and continuity for the other partner.

You have my total sympathy. It is not good situation to be in and you are right to want to resolve the matter.

sorry, other.. derrr..

Hi ABetaDad
Thanks for your reply and support in understanding my situation..it is nice to know I am not alone in feeling how I do. I feel the same as your friends, being apart is really difficult and although people tell me that the older our children get the easier it becomes, (in the sense of looking after them, not so hard work etc, and that they are more company to me), this still doesnt detract from the fact that we won't sit down to have a family meal each night together, my eldest already asks me 'is Daddy home tonight?', when I say no she looks upset. He also rents a flat with a friend which is paying out money which we could be putting on our mortgate each year.

I really wish now we had thought of all these things before we made the move to be nearer to Grandparents, or spoke to a couple who were doing the same to tell us their experience of it and then I would have thought again about what we were doing.
I look most weeks on Rightmove and know I shouldnt but just keep wishing...

Why has your mum lied and made false promises? That's what I'm wondering. I live in the UK but my parents are in Italy and for years I had experienced emotional blackmail. I know my mum will help out but whenever I see her on yearly visits she drives me mad and I would go mad living in my small hometown (not everywhere in Italy is as exciting as people imagine), such a boring place with little going on. If she lied out of sheer manipulation you know that it's not worth staying on. I do envy people whose parents are at hand, but in your case you are paying a high price.

Yes I think she is a rather controlling person. I think she wanted to dominate the situation as she promised help for me with the children, ie she would have them for me once a week, or even more if I wanted to get a part time job. She has told me now since I have moved here that she has dreaded me getting a job as she doesnt want to have my children for me. Obviously I can get a childminder, but the hurt stays with me at the fact my mum has let me down and done it in such a hurtful way, she knows my husband was going to be away but said she would be there for me, something which hasnt happened. She has definitely been manipulative in saying what she knew I wanted to hear only to withdraw it on us arriving here.
I agree with you Goldenpeach there is no point staying on here when i feel the way I do.

claire33 - that is a rotten situation.

Must say, I feel my parents would be the same. They are always asking us to move to York nearer them but they have never visited us in 25 years and barely do anything with the DSs when we do go and visit them.

I guess your DH mainly feels that making another move inside 2 years is just something he cannot face at the moment.

Just wondering if you might start to feel better once DCs get a year or so older and start school/nursery so you could meet some other parents with DCs the same age and also perhaps go out to work part time and make new friends there.

To some extent it happened to DW when we moved out of London. It really took us a year to make any new friends and only took off once DSs were both at nursery.

Not to be cynical but as parents are aging and their health is deteriorating, they might be worried about being looked after. Where my parents live very few old people end up in homes, I know of lots of people who looked after senile or very ill parents to avoid the stigma attached to putting parents into a home and nearly having a nervous breakdown because of the strain. My mum is looking after my dad as he is older and has health problems and I think she feels trapped. I feel very guilty as my brother also lives far away from them but my parents are really stressful people, very keen on creating dramas, burying their head in the sand and then complain bitterly things are not going well. Every time I go there I feel very stressful and we always end up arguing despite all my efforts to bite my tongue. I fall in the trap all the time: I keep suggesting solutions to their problems and have to listens to buts and more complaining. The irony is that I like my inlaws more.

Claire33 I think it boils down to the fact that your dh isn't the one left stuck in that house with no help and you are a single parent for several days a week with no break.

It is sometimes a difficult dynamic as he earns the money while you stay home so it can seem that he has the final say in it all.

I am a sahm but have husband who understands my misery and we are about to move house (should have done it years ago as neither of us have never been entirely happy with the house but couldn't because the housing market was crazy)

You need to move now before the issue of school comes up. I agree that when they start school or preschool then it does open doors to make friends, this happened to me. But your dh would still be away for half the week so it doesn't solve that problem.

You could start by getting your house valued and then you can talk in concrete terms about moving.

Best of luck to you.

Hi Goldenpeach my parents are in fact both healthy and not what I would class as old parents, they still venture out together, think it is more they are stuck in their routines with each other. It is a shame as Grandparents, but they are the ones missing out.

Hi Fizzylemonade
That is exactly how I feel.

Yes my eldest is starting her preschool in September and then next year it will be her first year of primary school, so ideally I would love to move before then so not to cause her upheaval just as she is getting settled in.

Many thanks for your support and perhaps by the end of this next year or early next year I can start thinking more positively about making the next move - fingers crossed!!
C

If they are healthy and outgoing it's really a shame they don't make an effort for their grandchildren. They might perhaps be worrying for the future? Or they just like to keep all their brood nearby. I hope that putting the house on the market sends the right message to them.

Whatever you decide, try to come to a decision by the time your oldest starts school, it gets harder at that point.

My parents 'coerced' us back from Australia. Within 6 weeks DH was about to book airline tickets back, my mother drove us all so crazy!

Things has reached equilibrium now, SIX years later, mainly becasue tho I consider my now widowed mother's needs, I don't pander to them. She lives 9 miles away and can drive. Actually, when we made it clear we wouldn't be manipulated AND she saw DH was serious about returning to Oz, she did pull her horns in a bit!

My Oz PIL were a different kettle of fish- they loved the CONCEPT of the grandchildren but had no actual interest in them! We found loads of photos did the trick for them! Fortunately for our emigration to the UK plans, both predeceased our move as there's no way on gods earth they would have spoken to us again had we one, taking the grandchildren with us, even though they showed no day to day interest in them!

None of this is useful to you I know but as you can see there are lots of grandparents out there who do turn out to less than ideal once they get their way! I suspect they are thinking of their dotage and want you close to help them out!