How to deal with your family being angry with you for moving...

My family and I are pretty much as close as families can possibly be. We all live within a few minutes of each other. My parents are 6 minutes away, all 5 of my siblings are within 10 minutes and all of my nieces, nephews and also my children are close as well. I told my family about my engagement and then move a few days ago and to put it mildly, they were not happy. Specifically, my sister Ana, is terribly angry and won't even speak to me.

It's already stressful enough trying to plan everything out, and I could use the support of my family. However, I don't know what I can do to assure them I'm making the right decision and that we will keep in touch.

Has anybody else had this reaction with their family?

I'm sorry you had a negative reaction. It never helps making the difficult move.

Anger and hurt are very close emotions, and can easily be confused - by those feeling them as well as those receiving them. Your sister may not be angry, but very hurt and afraid of what will happen to your relationship. It's natural.

I think the only thing you can do is try to reassure them that it is possible to keep a healthy family relationship even with miles and oceans apart. My move has brought me closer to one of my sisters and we talk for hours most days. My mother and I also talk daily. I know more about what is happening in their lives than I did when I was in the States.

Give your sister a couple of days to process, and then talk to her, alone. No kids or anyone else. Explain why you are doing this and that you understand this is a big shock and not what she wants, but that you are doing it and the more support you get means the better your last few months will be.

Good luck.

I agree with pengi. It does sound like she is hurting. Maybe you can invite her out for lunch or coffee just to break the ice and then have a good talk. If she isn't interested maybe writing her a letter would be better. That way she can read it when she is ready and doesn't feel forced to talk about it?

Hope things work out and your family adjusts and accepts this.

I take a slightly different approach than most.

While I completely agree that your family is just shocked and hurt, I do not think you need to assure them that you are making the right decision.  This is your life and you are an adult, you don't need to justify yourself to your family.  I personally think all the overtures to reassure only gives the situation unnecessary attention, almost reflecting a lack of confidence in the decision. 

I would remember that the anger is coming from a good place and that your family is just hurt.  I would politely tell the family that you understand their hurt but you ARE doing this and you could use their support.  And then I would move on from it.  They either step up or they don't.  They either get on board or they don't.

I would remember that the anger is coming from a good place and that your family is just hurt.  I would politely tell the family that you understand their hurt but you ARE doing this and you could use their support.  And then I would move on from it.  They either step up or they don't.  They either get on board or they don't.

Very good advice! I wish someone had told me this when I was moving. My family is still trying to convince me to move back and it's been two years of me living here!

I totally agree with Sara.

I have not talked to my mom, step brothers, step father or grandfather (who raised me) in a year because of my path to build my relationship with my now husband when I moved to England temporarily last July.  I am completely removed from my whole family except for my father, his wife and my older brother.  It's a long story and not worth mentioning. 

But the point being that you are an adult who has earned your rights to make your own choices.  Just like you, I have earned my rights to make choices and if they turn up being mistakes, they are my mistakes to make. 

This is your life and your choice to make.  You can be firm that to them that you are happy with what you are doing and you know it's right for you.  Tell them you appreciate their support and the relationship will never change and then let it go with love.  Transplanting is stressful enough and you don't need anyone else's baggage along for the ride.

I have to agree with Sara, GibbyGab and emily28 on this as well.  It's your life.  One of the hardest things to do is allow yourself to do what you feel is best for you...not what you think you're family wants you to do.  Trust me, I know. 

I love to please others, so when my husband and I moved from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA my friends and family were completely mixed.  I had to get to the point of just putting my foot down and once they realized that I wasn't going to change my mind, most of them tended to accept it.  They weren't necessarily "on board," but they accepted that it was our decision and one that no matter how much they pushed for us to stay, we weren't staying.

Now, we're going to face the same when we make our move next year to the UK.  However, I've been mentioning it over the past few months to my parents with no actual dates in mind...just saying "eventually."  However, my friends are getting more detailed information because after our CA move, they're a bit more open...and excited that they'll have a completely different place to visit!   

As I mentioned, it's your life.  You do as you see fit with it...otherwise, you'll only have regrets and wondering "what if?".  All you can do is tell your family that you'll always be there for them...perhaps not physically, but emotionally (over phone, email, Skype, etc).  They'll either accept it or not, but either way, you have to move on...and so do they.

Things you can do to assure them you'll stay in touch:  ask them to help you get google voice/skype/gizmo5/whatever set up so you can talk online. If you have a microphone for your computer you can chat in google talk/gmail without setting up any of those other things. It helped my parents, hopefully it'll help yours :o)

I completely get it as well....my mother and I are too close to say the least...and I am not sure when it was...but I went over to see my hubby 6 times last year alone...and one of the times she told me...MATTHEW (you know your mothers use your whole name haha) your making the BIGGEST *bleep*ing MISTAKE OF YOUR LIFE....excuse the language...but she wont even attempt to come to England to see the good or the bad...So I hear ya...I wish I could offer advice but I am just telling you what has happend to me and hope your family goes the same direction...after several break ups heart aches and so fourth I have told my mom how much I love him and how I in general LOVE THE UK and want to be there with every fiber or as they say fibre  of my body! We dont really talk about much because she is so engative about it but has gotten much better and I think in time she will just accept it...I do see little signs every week about her accepting it....so give it time...and Just faith...Good luck! Enjoyed reading even though was sad b/c of the similarities

Well, the uncomfortable thing is that we were having our weekly family meal this evening, and my mother brought it up and I swear, the atmosphere changed dramatically. I actually left terribly early for once because it became so uncomfortable. I do not wish to bring unhappiness to my family but they are being much more dramatic than necessary. Plus, I want them to come visit me and not cut me off from the family.

My mother took the news very hard when my DH got his job offer here in the U.K. It honestly took her a few weeks (almost months) to be o.k. with it. And even now that we've just moved here, I can tell she's still not thrilled. We took away her only grandson who she was just getting to know after living 1500 miles away for the first year of his life. I can certainly understand her anger.

I knew I was never going to be all right with our move without my mother being "better" about it---but I also know that I can't go around living my life to please other people.

I decided to take the opportunity to highlight all of the good things that will come out of our move---interesting educational opportunities for our son, more career advancement for DH, an excellent place to spend a holiday, being closer to our family in Ireland, etc. She seemed to draw some comfort from that. And as long as I was o.k. with, she was too.

I can assure you that Skype is fantastic and you can get some decent mobile phone international rates in order to stay in touch. I've talked with my family every day since our move. It's been lovely.
Best of luck to you!

Well, the uncomfortable thing is that we were having our weekly family meal this evening, and my mother brought it up and I swear, the atmosphere changed dramatically. I actually left terribly early for once because it became so uncomfortable. I do not wish to bring unhappiness to my family but they are being much more dramatic than necessary. Plus, I want them to come visit me and not cut me off from the family.

I've had that EXACT thing happen. Met up with my mother, sister, and grandparents. We were having a good conversation about stuff, and then someone brought up my plans to move to the UK and just killed the move. I don't blame them completely, as I've not been t he most forthcoming with info.  Main reason is because our timeline thing was very fluid, and was constantly changing based on how the immigration app was going, and how the house was coming along over seas.

It didn't end well.  They were frustrated with me, and I with them. It HAS gotten easier, because they've had time to adjust to the idea, and things have started to come together a bit more where I can give them definitive information.

I can't say at the end of the day things will actually get much easier. We've done a few things like record a bit of the work that my fiance is doing to the house in the UK, as well as making a photo album of us to leave behind for my mum  (She does all sorts of the arts and crafts stuff, so she's really good at it).     

I think part of the deal is that my mind isn't really processing the concept of leaving, and it won't until I have that Visa in hand. On the other hand, the family has already started dealing with it.

Hope it gets better

Has anyone experienced tension with your UK partner's family? I also have a close knit family here in America, but they have all been very supportive of me, I suppose because more than anything else they want me to be happy. However, my fiancées family has been a totally different story.

We have known each other for over 3-1/2 years and for the last year I have been going over and visiting every few months. I had met all of her family and although they were curious about how she came to be involved with a yank, I got along fine with everyone and when we all went out together everyone had a great time. When we announced last January that we were engaged, they were all happy, or at least not unhappy, about it, and her sister and BIL told us we could live with them until we got settled (accomodation anyone?)

Well...when I was there in July to wrap everything up so I could come back and get the visa application in, everything suddenly changed. I brought up the subject of the accommodation letter to her Sister and BIL several times, and they avoided the topic up until the point that her BIL finally told me he had been advised not to do it. He said he couldn't 'sponsor' me because he didn't know me that well. He warned my fiancée that if she sponsored me she would lose all her benefits. In other words the misinformation started flying fast and furiously. My fiancée doesn't get along that well with her mum, but she was certain she would provide us an accommodation letter. Unfortunately, the BIL got to her first and warned her that I would be wanting her bank details and the deed to her house. All this misinformation would have been laughable to me if it weren't our LIFE they were talking about here.

I had all of the relevant information on my laptop and I was prepared to go over everything in detail with whomever wanted to know what was required, but they never offered to let me speak or present anything. My fiancées older brother finally stepped in and worked out a compromise wherein the mum did end up signing an accommodation letter, and we are actually going to live in his flat, but there are a lot of bitter feelings now from my future wife toward her family because they refused to support and help her.

To make matters worse her other brother, who has been a best friend to her all of their life, has virtually totally cut off from her over this wedding. He tells her how much her abusive ex-partner still 'loves' her and blah, blah, blah...

Anyway, enough waffling. The situation with her family there has made a stressful situation even worse, and sadly now it will be more or less just the two of us instead of having an extended family to enjoy.

Hi Tiri.  I'm going through the same thing.  My husband's US green card was denied and I've been without him for 7 months raising our baby daughter.
What's really hard for me is that I'm having to sell my home, cars, find a home for a pet, and deal with all of that.  And my family is wonderful but they definitely do not want us to go.  My daughter is their only grandbaby and I'm reminded of that a lot.
But then one day I asked myself why I felt so guilty about this.
I realized I was the one allowing the guilt to control not only my life, but my husband's and daughter's.  Remembering back, my parents moved away from home with their daughter (me) and started a new life.  Then I thought I owed it to all of us to try this too.
I think you owe it to yourself to be happy.  You're engaged to a wonderful guy who loves you.  Your parents had that chance, and you deserve one too.  Don't allow the guilt in.  You can love and sympathize with their position, but don't let it influence your choices. 
Good luck sweetie!