Help me see both sides!

[Sarah2519]

Firstly I'm going to apologise as this will be long but I really want some advice and feel the whole story would be of benefit.

I turn 30 next year, and have been with my husband and father to my 16 month old daughter for 9 years (married 2 of them)
We met at university in the North West (where he is from) and after uni we decided we wanted to continue giving it a try so I took the plunge and moved up north permanently having grown up in the south. At the time I think I felt that he wasn't ready to take such a huge jump and move south for me and as I had already left home to go to uni it seemed to make more sense for me to be the one to move.

I always struggled with being far away and always wanted us to move but it never happened and as things got more serious we ended up putting more and more roots down here. It has caused a few issues in the relationship (including a long bout of depression that thankfully I made it through) but we have always moved past it and I know that he comes first for me so if I have to give up being close to family then I'll do it for him but it doesn't mean I'm going to be super happy about the situation and if he agreed to move I'd do it in a second.

Since having my daughter I have really struggled being far away, even more than previously. I miss my parents hugely and my sister too. I see my parents every month or so but only see my sister a few times a year.
We have to go down for long periods as it's impossible to go just for a day or 2 now we have a small child and my husband tends to isolate himself even though everyone tries to involve him.

I have a nephew as well who my daughter loves to pieces but she doesn't see him much at all.

For me there would be so many benefits to living near my family.....
We have his parents nearby but they don't help with childcare (they haven't even changed a nappy yet) and as my husband is a teacher I feel like a single parent a lot of the time.
My parents would be able to help with my daughter and they actually looked after my nephew until he went to school saving my sister thousands and when he is ill she doesn't have to take time off work to care for him as my parents do. We also wouldn't need to spend huge periods of time there so my husband wouldn't need to stay with his in laws as i could go on my own for lunch, the afternoon, a coffee etc.
I am really close to my sister so it would be like having another friend nearby. I feel closer to people I went to school with who I haven't seen in years (still in contact via social media) than to anyone who lives locally to me. In fact my best friend is probably closer to my family location wise.

I am aware that it is selfish wanting to uproot him from his home for me but I also feel like I have spent the past almost 10 years doing what made him happy so is it not my turn to choose.

I can see the negatives to moving don't get me wrong...
Leaving his parents and brother (although we don't see them lots), taking a grandchild away from his parents (and that would make me feel really bad but I feel like I have taken a grandchild away from my parents at the moment), having to find new jobs (although he isn't in a stable job and I would be happy enough getting a new one), we own a home and wouldn't be able to afford one closer to my parents, leaving his friends behind (who he has a games night with once a week and has done for the past 10-12yrs)
But I guess I can mainly focus on what I have gone through and that even after this long I still don't have many friends in the area and any I do have I see very little of as I am always looking after our daughter as my husband is so busy with teaching and marking work etc.

I feel isolated and am desperate to move to be near my family. I suggested moving half way between as then we could visit people in a day easily but he says it's all or nothing and when I ask to move south he always responds with "I don't know"

I can see your side of it. I think your case is stronger.

His job means it would be quite easy to move anywhere.

Have you asked him what his real concerns are?

I can't see that he will have a strong argument tbh

I do think we need our family more than ever once we have dc

I think he thinks about the owning a home and leaving his friends most of all which I completely understand. I do love our house and worry we wouldn't be able to afford something near my family but maybe we could spend the next year saving while we can. The friend thing is prob the hardest and I don't like the id a of making him lonely in a new place but that's how I've felt the last 10 years with him as one of my only friends.

I'd advise you to do whatever it takes to get back down to your family to be honest. I am also from the south and live in the midlands and am considering it very seriously. I had to make new friends and social life and was in the throes of moving back when I met my OH - his DD lives up here so we couldn't move away. Now she is older, I am definitely considering it. Also been together 11 years so same type of timeline.

I did originally move away myself though so it is slightly different. And no kids.

My chum had three kids [the second attempt was twins] so they moved back to her home town [from north to south] - the husband just had to make new friends and his mum moved down the next year so it is possible.

I keep saying that maybe his mum and dad could move south someday as his brother joined the navy a few years ago so isn't home much anymore, but his grandparents are still local so his parents would want to be near to look after them. Maybe once they have gone (sad though it is) his parents might not have many ties to the area (although his mum does have a lot of local friends) My parents would never move North due to my sister and nephew (who would in turn never move as her step kids are south)
I fear I'd be pushing him to do something he wouldn't like to do but know I would be happier there.

It feels like 2 options are:
Stay North with him having friends and family and our home but me not having much.
Or
Move south where i would have family (who I feel I am closer to than he is to his) and we would have better child care support.

I think I sometimes don't get why he doesn't feel bad us being up here and want to move to make me feel better, as I know I am struggling trying to think if it's fair for me to want us to move to my family knowing it might make him sad.

You said in your first post

At the time I think I felt that he wasn't ready to take such a huge jump and move south for me and as I had already left home to go to uni it seemed to make more sense for me to be the one to move
It was never on his agenda to move for you by the looks of it...

Now things have changed and you need your family. What if you decide to have more kids? Do you think he isolates himself down there on purpose as he knows you want to move back?

Honestly, if you split up would you be back down south like a shot? Or would you hang around up north?

You've been up there for 9 years. Why haven't you made any friends?

Coming back down south might not be what you imagine, you know.

I moved to be with my husband in Yorkshire in 2001. Lots of stuff happened, we separated, then he died, I was raising his son by his previous wife, blah blah. In 2014 I decided to move back down south to be closer to my family, son having now moved out on his own.

It's fucking awful and I desperately want to go back to Yorkshire!! I've gone from a 3-bed house to a 1-bed flat, I'm 42 and I'm living like a fucking student.

The prices are insane and I notice you buried in your very short list of negatives the fact that you couldn't afford to buy a house here!! Have you even looked at rental prices and compared them to the salary your H could potentially earn here? Or are you banking on your parents doing full time childcare so you can earn as well? What is your long term plan, just keep renting forever and ever?

Unless you are unhappy in your marriage I would stay where you are and make the best of things. Get out and meet new friends, look for PT work once your DD is old enough for nursery. Build up your social circles.

I moved from the southeast to the northwest four years ago and still struggle with it even though I have very few ties back "home". I always get a jolt when I get on the train back after visiting the south and suddenly start hearing all the northwest accents around me, for some reason it always makes me feel a sudden sense of isolation.

I think home ownership is an important factor but if you carry on as you are with unhappiness and resentment continuing to grow then your relationship might not survive and you may well end up coming off the property ladder anyway if you end up divorcing because of this.

No suggestions really but as I sympathise with how tough it can be.

Thanks for the thoughts. They are really helping me to look at both sides.
pocketsaviour I think my lack of friends stems from the initial thinking I'd have those uni friends I made (they all moved back to their homes) Then I suffered from depression which was very much linked to being away from family. I naturally struggle with self confidence and now I've had my daughter although I've made a couple of friends through an nct course I don't have time for much else.
I am back working full time and my daughter is in nursery full time.
Most weekends I am sole carer as husband is planning lessons and marking books then evenings I am prepping meals, doing housework.....
I think you've hit the nail on the head though as I worry that it won't be as good as I imagine it would and then my husband has given so much up for me to still be unhappy.

The house prices scare me too. My older sister has only recently been able to buy her first home after renting and then living with the parents for almost a year to save and pay off debts. Her house is over twice as much as ours so I know we would struggle, but we do spend £8k on nursery each year but if my parents looked after her we wouldn't have to pay at all. However my husbands wage is capped where ever he goes and I don't think I could earn much more.
I do want more kids within the next year or 2 though so am very conscious that a decision must be made soon.

I think I wish I'd pushed for a move when we first made the decision as that is a regret if mine as maybe things would be different. However I still would pick my husband over all else as I do love him a lot.

So the cost of living in the south is far higher and you'd like more children soon (thus more cost and presumably less income) and your ability to earn more in the long run is unlikely? That's before you think about the transaction cost (sale, purchase, stamp duty etc).

From a financial point of view, it sounds like suicide.

It really does feel that way sometimes yazoo but I don't think we'd know without fully investigating it and that would probably mean house valuations, lots of sums etc too so we could figure out what sort of deposit we could get.
I'm very aware that financially we would be worse off but I know people who live down there who earn less than we currently do and are happy so it's possible if we can get similar paid jobs.
Plus money doesn't buy happiness so I'm also aware that maybe I would be happier nearer family but with less money.

It's one of the reasons why I am really struggling at the moment to see what is the best option for us.
Like I said we spend a lot on nursery and this could be substantially reduced if my parents could take her even for 3 days (fees are currently about 9.5k a year after doing the sums)

are you sure you really want your parents looking after your kids, it is easier for nursery to respect your wishes, but family are far likely to go against it. like if your child have sweets, your family would think you are just overreacting and give it to them anyhow (this happens to me) or use outdated method like giving water to infants.
AND does your parent want to watch your kids for free? it does take up a lot of their time. SO this does mean they will take your kids anywhere cause they do not want to stuck at home, watching your kids for free. So I wouldn't move closer to your family because you need someone to watch your kids.

btw, my parents passed away, and I do not have any family nearby (they all are spread out from each other). So I know how it feels when you are missing your family, especially you have a little one. It does get lonely. For me, I had to learn to accept this is how it is. When we have birthdays or Christmas/Easter, it is always just been us - me, husband, son, and daughter. no one else (everyone else is too busy and too far)

To me it sounds like your relationship needs addressing: he spends his weekends planning and marking, you spend your evenings doing all the domestics..... I wonder whether it's your current domestic setup which lacks a feeling of teamwork, making you feel isolated and alone?? Maybe if you shared things more, you would feel like living in the NW was less of a sacrifice?

If you are thinking of a second child you need to seriously think about whether working fulltime going forwards is feasible, practically and financially.

Thanks everyone's thoughts are so useful to really get a grip on all the various options and things I would need to think about.
blueberry you are right that family can often go against your wishes and I don't know they would look after her, and I wouldn't want to ask unless we really decided to try as if they did want to it might raise their hopes of us moving closer for us then not to. It's one of my concerns too as my daughter loves nursery and I like it too so I worry about taking her away from it, but then I also think that it 6 months or so she'll move up a group at nursery and then in no time she'll be at school. I really want to get it sorted in my head first, then go through it all with husband before moving any further and seriously looking at it.
handy and truth I think the balance of responsibility has a large part to play. I often feel like I have little time for me or us and we do now have a chores list on the board for daily and weekly tasks that we are to be responsible for but he struggles to do his (probably due to both laziness and being busy with school)
I got a new job after mat leave and him taking more on was part of me agreeing to take it as I knew I'd need more help. However he still does his chores while I watch our daughter at the weekend and I seem to do most of mine in the eves once she is in bed and while she naps so it doesn't give me more time. I try to tell him to pull his weight a bit more but he gets rather grumpy about the school work he still has to do so we don't get anywhere.
I think because he is a teacher I feel like pulling him away from work means that other children will lose out or he will get in trouble not completing things (his school had a bad ofsted just before he started so they have a lot of extra work expectations of him)

I feel OK up here sometimes but then very low about it the next. It seems the longer I leave it, the more and more roots we will have out down and it will become impossible to do it (although I do worry we are too late already)

I moved from a southern town I loved to a northern town I hated for love.
I felt as though I was just some cardboard cutout of a person expected to slot neatly into someone else's life and friends. I had nor made any friends of my own there.
I live in a much nicer northern town now, made a few friends and I'm much happier but I still miss my family and my home town.
I'm also still resentful and regretful I ever left the town I loved. I wish and wish and wish I had put my foot down or walked away.

I'm pretty much the reverse of you.

My husband moved to my home city from a much cheaper area - we know we could afford either a huge house there or one of us to cut our hours. The flip side is there are better unis and job opportunities here and I'm thinking this will be really important to our kids as they won't HAVE to move away.

One set of grandparents was always going to miss out and it's an unsaid truth that my parents are better grandparents (interest, activity levels etc).

He hasn't made many friends since moving here over 15 years ago. He has friends he knows through me but no-one he'd call round on out of the blue. However, none of my best friends now are people I grew up with - they're people I met over the last 15,years and I don't really get why he hasn't been able to make new friends.

I'd really dig my heels in if he wanted to move but that's because all things considered, I think where we live now offers so much more for our family than his home town. The one thing that could improve for him is the number of friends he has and that's within his own power to do something about.

On balance, I'd say there are more reasons for you to move south but the move from home owning to rental and the subsequent hit on your financial security is massive - I don't know if that one thing cancels out all of your reasons to move.

I understand exactly what you mean. I live in Yorkshire and I miss the south like crazy. A bit of it is missing my family, but I also miss the landscape and the culture. It is a cliche where I live that it is really friendly, but compared to where I am from, it really isn't! If you start talking to people in shops in my home town, that is normal. If you do it here, they treat you like you have a drug problem or mental health issue. I don't have children, but I can imagine the prospect of free help with childcare would be very enticing.

However, DH's job is here, and he loves the place where he works. Also, we own our home outright because we made the financial choice to stay in a cheap area, rather than to move to an expensive one. This means that I can do something I love for a living, even though it doesn't pay much anything. So there is a massive trade-off for me. The agreement between is that when I start to make money on my new trajectory, it will go towards a bolthole near my parents, and we will then have the best of both worlds.

What I'm hearing in your post is that there isn't really a trade-off for you in the current scenario. You're basically doing a lot of childcare, you are feeling quite lonely because your DH is working so much, and you don't sound like someone who really loves their job and feels rewarded there. You have a DH who has a stressful and demanding job that means he's rarely 'present' even when you are having family time (and this is a recipe for disaster in the long run. The burn out rate amongst teachers is terrible).

I wonder if you can adjust the existing situation to make it work for you. For example, is there a financial workaround (moving to a cheaper postcode/buying a smaller house) that would free up money for childcare? Can your DH drop to part-time hours so that he can help more at home and longer weekends away? Basically, you have a right to your hopes and dreams too - and they shouldn't all be about the wider family, but about you fulfilling your potential and doing what you love for a living.

Sounds like you are projecting your unhappiness about your life onto your location. I have done that. I'll give you the advice my counsellor gave me that stopped me making a huge, expensive mistake and also made my life get a lot better in just a few months.

Stay put until you have identified and made a serious effort at solving the life problems first because those will go with you.

Your DH is not pulling his weight. You say he is lazy and tired. You are tired but not lazy so you do most of the work. Moving will create a lot more work. He will still be lazy. Lazy and resentful actually.

It seems that you want your family to step in and do some of his share of the work so you get a break. Interesting choice of solution.

You don't have friends because by your own admission you haven't really tried. So try. You might find that your old friends and you aren't so compatible after children and besides you are unlikely to live very close to all of them, right? You'll have to make new local friends if you move anyway.

euphemia it's good to know I'm not crazy with my concerns. I think it's expected that I'll fit in and I haven't felt that way properly for a long time. I think it's definitely the right thing to really weigh up all the options to settle my mind and put the whole idea out there whatever the outcome.

downwiththis I feel my parents have been the better support, just with their confidence after taking care of my nephew. My mum changes nappies, is confident to help when she's screaming, puts her down for naps and bedtime. When my daughter was 8 months old she even had her overnight when we were on holiday just so I could have a full nights sleep. Mother in law has said she'll only have her at night once she sleeps through. Don't get me wrong they are lovely and have been amazingly supportive but they're not my parents.
The housing hit would be huge and I still haven't figured out if it's a risk we can take.

shove you are right that there feels like there is no trade off. We live near to his family and friends yet I'm the one who takes charge of childcare and domestic things and have to nag him to get his arse in gear. He also goes out with friends every Thursday night until 11pm so does get some time for him even though he thinks he doesn't. I worry he would be very low if he lost this outlet as sometimes it seems one of the only things that gets him through his job as most people know how having a child is just extra work and not time off even though we both love it.
Husband can't reduce hours as with childcare costs and nursery hours we would end up losing money if either of us didn't work full time. Only a few thousand a year but at the time we needed the money as husband has lost his job the past few years and has been out if work for periods so we needed to recoup money we had lost. (he might be let go again from his current job within the next few weeks too)
I don't really like my job, it's just a job to earn money to do things but I don't feel we do things.
House size we are about right as husband needs office space for working at home.

melon you could be right that I am projecting my unhappiness. I will definitely be making a list of what I currently dislike about life and what could make it better. Maybe discussing this with my husband will not only help me by getting ideas of things to change and encouraging him to support me more, but also show him what I have put myself through and make him understand how hard the past 10 years have been.
Then once I have made more of an attempt to sort things up here, if it's not working I know that I have used up all the other options and there might be no other option than to take the financial hit and for him to take the risk for me.

I just wanted to say thankyou for everyone thoughts and ideas.
I had a long chat with dh over the weekend and after making a lot of notes of my issues and concerns I really felt able to put my side across and help him to understand where I am coming from.
Unfortunately the resounding answer was that he doesn't ever see us leaving where we currently are (which is sad but I do understand with the cost, his friends and family etc)
He is trying to help me move forward with finding a hobby in an attempt to make some friends locally that should have an impact on my outlook. He is willing to take on a bigger role at home to give me the time for this as well.
He has also suggested asking his parents to look after our daughter for a day every now and then so we have some time to get things done.
It has all come at a bad time really as my sister has revealed over the weekend that she is due a second child in November so its hitting home a lot more now as its another reason why I want to be so close to them.
But i love my husband a lot and one of us was always going to have to make a big sacrifice and its sad that its me but hopefully we are now putting things in place to move forward (including him looking into his job and the time he spends doing it)