Thinking of moving to London... is this crazy?

DH's department is in London, but he works for them remotely from the US. After a wonderful visit to his family in the UK recently, we are seriously considering moving there. DH is from Scotland and I lived there for a couple years with him, but London would be new territory for both of us.

I thought our life was pretty settled here in America. We have lived here together for 7 years now. DH got his US citizenship and I stay home with our toddler. We were even starting to look into buying a house.

But as good as we have it, DH has not been particularly happy here. He is disillusioned with the lifestyle and he has never stopped being homesick for his loving, closeknit family. My tiny, dysfunctional family can't compare. The UK feels like my second home. I love DH's family too and our toddler has a bunch of cousins over there.

If we moved to London, DH's family would only be an hour's train ride away, and it would be worth seeing him happier. For me, it would be an adventure of a lifetime. It seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up. We agreed we'd give it a year, just in case. (So much for thinking we were ready to settle down!!)

But is it crazy to give up 7 years of our life and start out fresh in a city we barely know, especially with a toddler?

And how would I deal with the guilt of taking away my parents' only grandchild? My mom has made it clear it would destroy her if we ever moved away. She cries even thinking about it. If she knew the way we were talking now, she'd have a meltdown.

Please help me see sense.

Take mother with you, she can help pay the rent.
Regretfully, maybe, DH comes first.

Hi,

It's a decision that only you and your husband can make ultimately and this forum will give you a chance to begin looking into the whole process. There's many positives for potentially moving over and there's also many negatives. You can only evaluate each of those with respect to your own personal situation.

For the most part, most responders on here will say go for it if you can, I'd say the same as well but with the caveat to ensuring you've discussed and evaluated a good exit strategy in case things here don't go the way you want - be that from external factors like job/income issues, or personal / family related ones etc.

The world is a smaller place nowadays and over the next generation, will continue to be smaller, so perhaps other opportunities may present themselves etc.

There's a wealth of information here on this forum, and I'd go as far to say that there's a post or thread about pretty much every aspect of 'moving here to the UK' !

I suspect there's plenty of reading and evaluations that's going to be happening with you in the near future!

Good luck whichever way you decide to go !

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Hi,

I second the notion that, of course, it's a decision that can only be made between you and your husband. No one, here, or anywhere can tell you what you should do, and that needs to go for your mother as well.

When we made the decision to move I went through many of the same feelings in regards to my father, we live close to him and we are the only family nearby so it was rough and he's had a rough time dealing with it, but in the end it is your life and ultimately all you can really take into account are your (and your husband's) feelings. Yes of course we need to consider those people that these things will affect but really, in the end you can't do something just to please someone else. If that were the case we would be staying here, close to my dad and I know that would only lead to resentment.

Your mom will just have to understand. Surely she wants you to live your own life and not do things just for her.

But that aside, it sounds to me like you and your husband both really want to do this, so why not? Your child is still young enough to make it very simple (trust me on this one, the older they get the more difficulties you encounter), aside from the fear of the unknown and your family holding you back what else would be a consideration to not do it? Now think of how you feel it would be an adventure of a lifetime. You seem so much more on board with doing it than not. When you said "But is it crazy to give up 7 years of our life and start out fresh in a city we barely know, especially with a toddler?", you're not giving up on 7 years of anything, you're increasing your family's memories, giving yourselves a great opportunity and the part about especially with a toddler, again, if I knew then what I know now I would have jumped at the chance to move my family abroad at my kids' younger ages, it would have made everything so very much less complicated. Do it now while you can still do things without battles.  

Thanks so much for your replies. Lots to think about!