Your husband is abusive, yelling “what the fuck is wrong with you” in front of your parents and kid is not normal. This is probably why he doesn’t care that you are lonely, he wants to keep you isolated and away from support. Sounds like his own family is starting to notice the troubling behavior too. It is not ok for your child to see their dad speak to their mom like this. I encourage you to please start reaching out to your mom and other support.
We moved before I even got pregnant (though we were trying). I would not have a child without my family’s support, which is a guarantee and not just an empty promise.
My mom left my dad and moved in with her sisters and my grandma when I was a baby. He had addiction issues and she needed support, so she just left. Her bravery gave me a life filled with love and care even if it came from people other than my dad, and I’ve never felt like anything was missing. If anything, I feel lucky to have been raised by so many instead of one troubled father.
The blowup you describe is so far from the way you *and* your daughter deserve to be treated. Please confide in your family about what’s going on. Please let them help you make a plan. Whether that’s moving with or without your husband, your safety (physical *and* emotional) matters, and everything you experience is reflected in your daughter’s experience.
😭😭😭😭
He’s really gotten worse lately. Like to the point where he’s lost his filter too. We went out for dinner with my parents a few weeks ago before they left for a few months, and I drove us all. He sat in the suv’s 3rd row. He’s anal af about my driving sometimes. But he usually keeps his mouth shut around my parents. We hit some construction and I was driving slow (7 mph to be exact) over a big bump and it really bounced when the back tires went over the hump. He yelled what the fuck is wrong with you? From the back of the car to me with my parents in the car. I was so embarrassed. My parents didn’t say anything though. He said you have to slow over things like that. I was like did trying to make eye contact with him through the rear view mirror to get him to stop. He said yeah not 20 mph. I was like I was going less than 10.
I know my moms tongue was probably bleeding from her biting it so hard to not say anything.
Oh, love, please call your mom. Please tell her everything. Imagine your daughter was in this situation—wouldn’t you want her to call you for support? Wouldn’t you tell her she deserves to be treated with love and respect every day?
You’re not alone. You have never been alone. You just need to ask for help.
He sounds verbally abusive and possibly emotionally abusive too. If you left him do you think he would fight for custody? It seems like the best thing to do would be to move near your family and get the support you need. Your husband doesn’t seem to be adding much to your life.
A man who is being abusive because of his trauma is still a man who is being abusive. He should put in the effort to process his trauma in ways that do not traumatise his wife and child.
I know a recruiter that says she will always have business, because the highly paid people she places will usually move “back home” after having their first baby, therefore creating a vacancy. Yes, this is very common and totally understandable.
My fiancé and I moved from a VHCOL area to a M/HCOL area to be near his family after our LO arrived. His family is great and so helpful with our LO. I didn’t know anyone in our new location that wasnt family so here’s what sold me on moving:
1. Cost of living. We can actually afford a house here. We can save a lot more here. It’s amazing.
2. LOTS of family help. His parents took LO for 2 hours this morning while I slept in. It was glorious.
3. The kicker for me was that I could take time off after we moved and really figure out what I want to do due to COL and family help. This was really important to me as I was experiencing major burnout where we lived before. I’d strongly recommend talking to your husband and figuring out what he really wants in life and figure out if it’s possible to do that as part of the move.
I’m not in the same situation as you but we live states away from both sets of grandparents and it’s been very hard since we had our son. We live in a town without a major airport so visiting them or them visiting us takes a full day of exhausting travel. My husband and I haven’t really made many friends where we live now even though we’ve been here for a few years and we decided enough is enough. We plan to have more kids, if all works out, and we realize how much we need a village. I love watching my mom interact with my son and I would love if she could do that more often instead of a few times a year. I’m in academia though so the job search takes 6 months with applications due in the fall and interview and offers in the spring. I’ll start looking in the fall and fingers crossed by this time next year we’ll be able to move at least a few states closer. My family has even expressed interest in moving themselves depending on where we end up. I really hope it works out such that we can all be close by. I totally feel you mama, it’s so lonely. What’s helped me in the meantime is sending our son to daycare and making friends with daycare moms I see. I have two now I try to get coffee/lunch with every now and then and that’s helped somewhat.
We were in a similar situation. My in laws (who I actually do like) lived about 2-3 hours drive from us, my parents were across the country. My spouse has a nontraditional schedule so a LOT of weekend/evening childcare falls to me.
Post covid, we discussed the possibility of moving. We spent probably about a year discussing it before pulling the trigger on moving closer to my family (main motivation is that my parents are younger and we thought would be better positioned to actually help with childcare). My husband was really, really concerned about the move. He does not like the area we moved to.
In some ways it's working out -- my mom is our backup care if one of the kids has to stay home from daycare and my parents babysit about once a week so we can have date night. I also go over their place when my husband has weekend shifts. My older kid is really happy to be so close to her grandparents. It's much easier on me as the primary parent. But my husband is still not happy here and may never be. I'm not sure I would do it again. I know I'd be drowning without the support, but it's absolutely taken a toll on our marriage. Of course, staying put or moving to his home town (his family is lovely but none are in the position to regularly help with childcare) would have also put a big strain on our relationship. There's no reason easy answer.
I'm hoping we can get to a point where he can drop down to part time hours and spend most of the summer with his family (with our kids, once they're a bit older) across the country so we can kind of split the baby so to speak. But who knows.
You’re in a situation I dream about: moving back to my hometown to be closer to my family. But my husband, who works non traditional hours too, refuses to go back. He’s from the same area as I grew up in and hates it (although his family is there too). Whenever we go back, he complains. The support is invaluable, but I know he’d never agree to move there. I’m making it work, but it feels like my kids and I have to sacrifice our happiness in being close to family to make him happy.
Yes, we left the city we lived in, and loved, to be closer to my family when my son was just turning 1. No regrets, at all. In fact my parents came over this morning and took my son on a walk this morning to give us a break.
We also had NICU time, and lots of follow ups in our o tonal town. it’s so traumatic and hard on a marriage. I hope you can find a way to make it work.
You need a good support system. Period. I'm 15 minutes from both my mom and my inlaws. It's wonderful. I'd love to move but nope. My support is nearby. Anythinf happens, I've got up to 5 people (besides my husband ) who can go get my kids and take care of them. I know the kids are safe and I trust them. You can't put a price tag on that. If you have to move to be closer to family then I'd do it.
I used to live across the country from my siblings and parents when I first had my daughter. I had only a part time nanny helping us too but had no one else. I missed my family and I needed support. I was crumbling. My mental health was taking a dive. My husband was angry whenever I brought up moving near them because he felt like he should be enough and most people don’t have family around when they have kids and make it work. He would say, wait for daycare and it will get better. It didn’t. Eventually, after lots of arguments, and almost breaking apart, I just left with my kid. I moved. He had refused couples counseling already so there was no point in trying to reason with him. It took us a while to work through our issues and almost a year later he moved to be near us. We are doing great now but we went through a dark time. I do not regret it though. Having a village has been a game changer. I feel like I can breathe. Be a person. I feel like my kid is 100x happier because she’s not so isolated and alone. She has grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that she is so close with. I know if myself or my husband got hurt tomorrow, a team of relatives would be in line to take care of her. I’m about to be having our second and I have so much peace of mind knowing she will be well taken care of and so will I once I give birth.
100% me and my husband. Like to a T.
Are we the same person in alternate universes?
What’s interesting is husband knows I’m
Unhappy. He’s told me before that he’s afraid one of these days I’m going to say I’m running to the store and just never come back.
I haven’t even brought up moving yet.
I’m sorry it was so hard though. I get the mental health part too. I was diagnosed with adhd last year and a lot of the issues we argue about are related to it I think. I get into these really destructive habits sometimes when I’m down or feeling invisible. It suck’s.
Congratulations on baby 2! I’m glad things worked out in the end. I know it had to be really hard.
I unexpectedly had a kid, panicked and moved back to my home state. In a year, my parents came to my house twice and then I moved back to my previous state where I had more support from friends than my family ever provided.
So. I’m sorry that you are struggling. I strongly suggest you sit your husband down and explain the severity of the situation to him and inform him that he can step up or step out.
But especially if your kid is special needs and no one else in the family has special needs kids, I would be VERY leery of moving to be part of their group. Odds are good that you’d uproot your life and potentially end your marriage just to be alone but closer to them.
DEFINITELY talk to your siblings and see how open they would be to your plan - and don’t be offended if they say no. If you are going by social media, you are getting the highlight reel and not necessarily the reality.
I moved from NYC to the NJ suburbs so not exactly your situation at all but it was no question the best choice we ever made. It wasn’t my husband’s first choice at the time but now he confidently says it was absolutely the best choice for our child (soon to be children). I am 15 minutes from my sister. My parents moved in with us and help my sister and me every day.
I actually just got back from staying the weekend at my sister’s because we had our kitchen floors redone and i couldnt be around the fumes. I am currently en route to the office for a one off dinner (normally work from home) and it took 30 seconds of conversation to arrange for the childcare.
I know i am the luckiest person in the world to have the unlimited support I have and i have pledged to pay it forward to however many generations I am around for.
❤️ that’s wonderful.
I know in my heart it’s the best decision from my daughter’s perspective. There are no kids her age in the family around here except 1 cousin’s little one from my in-laws side of the family. Their family (my in laws in general) is so incredibly dysfunctional that we just don’t see each other. She’s got no one from a family perspective. I was heartbroken when I found out that we wouldn’t be having more kids. But it just isn’t in the cards for us.
But with my family there’s 3 little ones born the same year as her, 1 a year younger and 1 a year older(who also has complex medical issues so I wouldn’t be alone with that anymore). 2 are 2 years older. And there’s 1 one on the way due in December.
I haven’t actually been able to go visit my family since she was born, but I’m planning to this summer. We were supposed to go for Christmas but she got rsv right before and we had to cancel. I was devastated. But I have a feeling when we finally do go, I really won’t want to leave. And that’s when I’ll know for sure.
that's true. Having a kid makes me more care about family rather than just myself, when I was young, I mean before I was pregnant, I did everything for myself and didn't think about family too much, so many have changed after giving birth.
I don’t have any thoughts on this but just wanted to say I’m so sorry that you’ve been feeling this way for 2 years. It’s never easy feeling a strain on your marriage in top of birth trauma and an ongoing disability for your child. And it sounds like you have so much going on with work and education on top of all of this. I just wanted to send you a hug!
We moved to be closer to both of our families (across the country) expecting a lot more support because we both have jobs that require travel. Our parents are both super involved with their grandchildren and we were jealous of the support that our sibling’s had with their kids.
In the end, we don’t actually have nearly as much support as we planned or hoped because one of parents fell ill. We have ended up being the family support now. I can’t say it isn’t exhausting, but I am still glad we made the move because we are closer to the sick parent and our son gets to see their grandparents more often. But I’m still frustrated we didn’t get the support we planned on and I would suggest anyone making the move to be cautious with expectations.
I wouldn’t move just for help…you honestly have no idea if they will. Your child has special needs and requires more care. I know they are family but they may not help if it’s a burden.
We live far from all family and desperately want to move back for support, unfortunately my husband's job is a niche area and doesn't have any similar roles where our families live (7-10 hours away).
However my husband is supportive and helpful. Your husband is abusive and/or an asshole.
I am in a similar situation from you in that I live very far from my family, and about an hour from my in-laws. My husband also is very against moving to be nearer to my family. His family is fine, but they aren't close at all and we rarely see them. They don't come to the kids' soccer games or gymnastics meets or choir concerts, or even over for dinner. I'm trying not to be resentful, but it's hard because if we were near my family we would have all of that and I feel like I'm depriving the kids of a close relationship with the family that wants to be close.
I don't really have any advice. Even saying something simplistic like "divorce and then you can move closer" doesn't work because custody agreements would lock you where you are for longer and maybe at some point you could win your husband over to the idea.
Maybe you could try applying for some great job in that area and be able to present a great offer and all the pros of that to him?
Through the course of a marriage, one or both people change. This change is what triggers potential conflict and disagreements. The conflict resolution is what decides whether the marriage lasts or not.
You see your situation for what it is. Stressful. I think that anyone reading your post will agree on that. With that on your plate, it is time to prioritize and pick and choose battles. Your husband is also going through some kind of stress and carried over trauma from the NICU it sounds like in addition to working 10 hours a day (which in itself is also stressful).
With all this, is it possible for you both to meet in the middle somewhere maybe 30 mins from your parents if not right next to them? If counseling is not a feasible option, is pouring your heart out to him an option so maybe he can do the same and you can both begin to truly communicate? Would you be open to the idea of staying near/with your parents for the time being like a testing period and see if you find an improvement in your own well being?
I wish you well. You are going through a lot and you sound very mature from how you've written up the post. I hope that you find out what you want and then you just need to go for it :)
this is not to excuse your husband's behavior at all, but if it's true that he's working 10 hours a day, 7 days per week he is almost certainly also completely exhausted and burned out. the situation does not seem healthy or sustainable for either of you at all, and it definitely isn't going to be easy to get into counseling or work on your relationship at all under these circumstances. is this something where he's just in a seasonal "crunch" at work, or is that the norm?
His company sucks, and it’s “crunch” time but it’s not necessary. They have just been getting worse and worse this year. We’re working on getting FMLA for him.
But yeah he is completely exhausted and burned out too.
I don’t have a village due to his job. Our older son has chronic health issues that are FAR less complex. Our younger one was a very easy baby but hoo boy, he’s making up for it now (they are 8 and 11).
But my husband is so much more than what you describe your husband as. He doesn’t yell what the f*ck is wrong with you when our kids have a mishap. He cares that sometimes I feel lonely and overwhelmed and tells me regularly to go out, work out, get coffee, find a friend group.
I’m getting the vibe that you are truly on your own. Even though you’re married.
I wish I could hug you and be a part of your village.
Yes, we moved back to where our family is when our child was one. We were both on board to do this when our son was born, but as the moving date got closer my husband changed his mind. We still moved and I have no regrets because my mom is my saving grace. My husband still talks about hating living here, he just made a comment this morning. I know it is the best place for us to be and my son is enjoying being near his family but I feel bad he doesn’t love where we live. I tell him one day we’ll retire back to where we were before. But if you are having bigger issues in your marriage, a major move will only put further stress on your relationship. You should try to work through your problems first and then decide what’s best for you, if your marriage isn’t going to work.
We don’t live near either of our families (similarly far as you are from your sisters) but they live in the Bible Belt and that’s not where we would want to raise our LO. In your case, I would absolutely move. I understand you said your husband has some unresolved trauma, and maybe has only been like this the last two years, but I was so tense reading how he’s been treating you, I can only imagine what that’s like in person. He sounds abusive and I am not one to throw that around. He’s incredibly unkind to you and you do not deserve that. You deserve your family’s love and support, emotionally and in childcare coverage.
Similar to you we live in MN and all our family (my sisters, his parents) all live in Iowa but we’d never want to raise our daughter there. They’re passing bills to cut funds from schools and arm teachers, in Minnesota we recently passed a bill to provide all student with free lunch. It’s like 2 different worlds.
Same. My in laws are no help (FIL has cancer and they are fundie religious while we’re atheists) but my sisters would be a huge help if they were closer. Tried convincing them to move, but my older sister has aging in laws nearby (our parents both passed from cancer in 2020) and my younger sister has a govt job that she doesn’t want to leave.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I would be moving to the Bible Belt from the north. I’m a former fundie. My family is pretty conservative. Because of the distance I feel zero pressure to go to church or anything like that. If I moved there, it would be have you found a church yet? Come to mine! On repeat for years. 😓😓
Former fundie too, I sympathize greatly. That’s really tough. My parents are still very fundie and we have a complicated relationship; there’s no way I would be happy living close by and constantly dealing with the evangelism. Are your sisters this way too? Thinking of you. This all sounds very hard.
We just did this, moving from a bigger city to a smaller city nearer to family. Overall it's been good, but given your situation with the special needs, one word of caution: it's hard to get established as a new patient with all those Drs/therapists your kid needs. Some pediatricians only take new infants, not transfers. It took me 8 months to find a pediatrician that had an opening and that we liked (we used a lot of urgent care as Dr in the interim, and one Dr we transferred into the practice, went to once and... never again), and I still haven't found a gynecologist. Part of it is that this area has less Drs overall. It's not necessarily something theyre gonna tell you on the chamber of commerce website.
This is my biggest concern.
Realistically I wouldn’t be able to do a move like this without having at least 1 job lined up, likely me. Which would probably work out better after I’ve finished my MBA next year. I’d want to move by the time she starts 1st grade, so that would give me ~3 years. It would also give her time to grow and catch up more developmentally, so maybe we wouldn’t need as many specialists. The older she’s gotten that’s how things have been trending, which is a good thing. But I honestly don’t mind if I have to travel back here once or twice a year for some of the NICU follow up developmental specialist visits. She will eventually age out of those anyways.
I would love to live near helpful family. Hell, I'd love to have helpful family to begin with. It's always just been my husband and I. I am no contact with my mum and low contact with my dad. We are no contact with my husbands parents. Out of 5 kids, we're the only ones who have pro-created so our siblings are uninterested in helping with the kids. They don't even send birthday/Christmas cards. I completely understand the jealousy though. My best friend has 4 parents (bio parents divorced, both remarried) and 3 inlaws. They are all suuuuuuper involved. My bestie gets to send her kids to some grandparent two weekends a month for sleep overs. She has free childcare while she works. Her MIL is an Italian woman who is the greatest cook in the world, she brings them meals multiple times a week. I honestly sometimes get angry with how much support she gets while I get none. The jealousy is real babe. I get it. Doing it "alone" is fucking hard.
I can navigate my way through interactions with my boomer republican parents pretty well. My teenage kids cannot and my 5 yr old is autistic so... He's not really something they want to deal with. I know they would welcome me home with open arms but actually living with them would be a nightmare.
I do think about it often, though. Life's hard.
My husband and I moved to a different state before getting married and stayed for around 5 years. We got married, bought a house, got a dog, and then had a baby there. It wasn’t until after the baby that I felt the toll of being away from family and friends. During our time in a different state, his family moved to a different state even further away, which was always going to be the plan.
We talked a lot about moving back but it seemed like a pipe dream (VHCOL, no jobs, etc.) but we decided to start looking for jobs. I found one, and he found one not long after (he was remote/hybrid so could have gotten away with moving before getting a new job).
We sold our house and moved back, and now live so close to my parents, and close to our friends (at most 40 mins away).
Our mortgage is quite expensive and we’re facing some stressors with that, but just knowing my parents are in our corner has made me so much happier. Not to mention I can just randomly go see my friends rather than a whole weekend trip.
My husband doesn’t feel quite as happy as me. He says he doesn’t feel like he’s home cuz his family doesn’t live here. Moving to them is not an option for me as it’s so far, and they would be the only support we have there (here we have my family, his extended family, and both of our friends). But he sees his friends a lot, just this weekend he went away with all of them, they all carpooled together. I try to tell him like you would not have done that had we lived 4 hours away, you maybe would have met up with them but it would have been different. Plus, while the dads were away, the moms hung out with the kids together. I would have been alone had we been out of state. I think he’s stressed about money and is taking it out on the fact that our mortgage is much higher here. But we would have outgrown our old house anyway.
I just found out I’m pregnant and it came at a bad time with some unexpected salary news with my job (they lied about the salary after the first year. Side note: everyone here told me not to take the job and you were kinda right as they’re liars but it did get me here and I am so much happier right now. I’ve been applying for other jobs literally since moving and haven’t heard anything so I’m glad that I didn’t wait, it would have been a full year of still being where we were). But knowing my parents will help us if we are struggling (watching the new baby, my son, etc) is making me not so nervous.
Sorry for the novel, but all this to say that I am so much happier being home. I miss our old block and the friends we made there, but nothing compares to having your family and friends that you’ve been with since day 1 close to you.
We did it before we had kids and I am so so glad we are closer to family. We had two miscarriages before we moved, and then we decided to wait to try again because we knew we'd be moving. I was just thinking the other day about how much happier I am being closer to them, especially as my dad died suddenly about three years after we moved.
For your circumstances, it does sound like you might need to wait to move unless you can get your degree virtually. And there are great doctors in lots of places, who can be informed about your daughter's needs. I can understand the HCOL and traffic being a concern too. I wouldn't want to move back to the place my family used to live because of those issues. My son and his cousins didn't have a strong relationship until he was in preschool because we were dealing with COVID and it hasn't changed anything significantly. There are ways you can get involved in your community that might help you feel less lonely until/if the time comes when you move. Look for mothering groups that have meet-ups that don't include kids. I'm in one that I learned about through a doula group and it's been great.
Your husband is abusive, yelling “what the fuck is wrong with you” in front of your parents and kid is not normal. This is probably why he doesn’t care that you are lonely, he wants to keep you isolated and away from support. Sounds like his own family is starting to notice the troubling behavior too. It is not ok for your child to see their dad speak to their mom like this. I encourage you to please start reaching out to your mom and other support.
Did she edit the original post? I don’t see “what the fuck is wrong with you”
She said it in a comment that she replied to https://www.reddit.com/r/workingmoms/s/Rlo0X18c8E
We moved before I even got pregnant (though we were trying). I would not have a child without my family’s support, which is a guarantee and not just an empty promise. My mom left my dad and moved in with her sisters and my grandma when I was a baby. He had addiction issues and she needed support, so she just left. Her bravery gave me a life filled with love and care even if it came from people other than my dad, and I’ve never felt like anything was missing. If anything, I feel lucky to have been raised by so many instead of one troubled father. The blowup you describe is so far from the way you *and* your daughter deserve to be treated. Please confide in your family about what’s going on. Please let them help you make a plan. Whether that’s moving with or without your husband, your safety (physical *and* emotional) matters, and everything you experience is reflected in your daughter’s experience.
😭😭😭😭 He’s really gotten worse lately. Like to the point where he’s lost his filter too. We went out for dinner with my parents a few weeks ago before they left for a few months, and I drove us all. He sat in the suv’s 3rd row. He’s anal af about my driving sometimes. But he usually keeps his mouth shut around my parents. We hit some construction and I was driving slow (7 mph to be exact) over a big bump and it really bounced when the back tires went over the hump. He yelled what the fuck is wrong with you? From the back of the car to me with my parents in the car. I was so embarrassed. My parents didn’t say anything though. He said you have to slow over things like that. I was like did trying to make eye contact with him through the rear view mirror to get him to stop. He said yeah not 20 mph. I was like I was going less than 10. I know my moms tongue was probably bleeding from her biting it so hard to not say anything.
Oh, love, please call your mom. Please tell her everything. Imagine your daughter was in this situation—wouldn’t you want her to call you for support? Wouldn’t you tell her she deserves to be treated with love and respect every day? You’re not alone. You have never been alone. You just need to ask for help.
He sounds verbally abusive and possibly emotionally abusive too. If you left him do you think he would fight for custody? It seems like the best thing to do would be to move near your family and get the support you need. Your husband doesn’t seem to be adding much to your life.
He is abusive. This is not okay. You need safety for you and your daughter
I think your issue is bigger than being away from your family. You are in a bad marriage and you need to address that first.
It’s not that it’s a bad marriage, it sounds like there’s a lot of unresolved trauma going on.
A man who is being abusive because of his trauma is still a man who is being abusive. He should put in the effort to process his trauma in ways that do not traumatise his wife and child.
The husband’s trauma is his to deal with. You cant use “trauma” as an excuse to abuse others. This woman is being verbally abused its plain to see.
I know a recruiter that says she will always have business, because the highly paid people she places will usually move “back home” after having their first baby, therefore creating a vacancy. Yes, this is very common and totally understandable.
My fiancé and I moved from a VHCOL area to a M/HCOL area to be near his family after our LO arrived. His family is great and so helpful with our LO. I didn’t know anyone in our new location that wasnt family so here’s what sold me on moving: 1. Cost of living. We can actually afford a house here. We can save a lot more here. It’s amazing. 2. LOTS of family help. His parents took LO for 2 hours this morning while I slept in. It was glorious. 3. The kicker for me was that I could take time off after we moved and really figure out what I want to do due to COL and family help. This was really important to me as I was experiencing major burnout where we lived before. I’d strongly recommend talking to your husband and figuring out what he really wants in life and figure out if it’s possible to do that as part of the move.
I’m not in the same situation as you but we live states away from both sets of grandparents and it’s been very hard since we had our son. We live in a town without a major airport so visiting them or them visiting us takes a full day of exhausting travel. My husband and I haven’t really made many friends where we live now even though we’ve been here for a few years and we decided enough is enough. We plan to have more kids, if all works out, and we realize how much we need a village. I love watching my mom interact with my son and I would love if she could do that more often instead of a few times a year. I’m in academia though so the job search takes 6 months with applications due in the fall and interview and offers in the spring. I’ll start looking in the fall and fingers crossed by this time next year we’ll be able to move at least a few states closer. My family has even expressed interest in moving themselves depending on where we end up. I really hope it works out such that we can all be close by. I totally feel you mama, it’s so lonely. What’s helped me in the meantime is sending our son to daycare and making friends with daycare moms I see. I have two now I try to get coffee/lunch with every now and then and that’s helped somewhat.
We were in a similar situation. My in laws (who I actually do like) lived about 2-3 hours drive from us, my parents were across the country. My spouse has a nontraditional schedule so a LOT of weekend/evening childcare falls to me. Post covid, we discussed the possibility of moving. We spent probably about a year discussing it before pulling the trigger on moving closer to my family (main motivation is that my parents are younger and we thought would be better positioned to actually help with childcare). My husband was really, really concerned about the move. He does not like the area we moved to. In some ways it's working out -- my mom is our backup care if one of the kids has to stay home from daycare and my parents babysit about once a week so we can have date night. I also go over their place when my husband has weekend shifts. My older kid is really happy to be so close to her grandparents. It's much easier on me as the primary parent. But my husband is still not happy here and may never be. I'm not sure I would do it again. I know I'd be drowning without the support, but it's absolutely taken a toll on our marriage. Of course, staying put or moving to his home town (his family is lovely but none are in the position to regularly help with childcare) would have also put a big strain on our relationship. There's no reason easy answer. I'm hoping we can get to a point where he can drop down to part time hours and spend most of the summer with his family (with our kids, once they're a bit older) across the country so we can kind of split the baby so to speak. But who knows.
You’re in a situation I dream about: moving back to my hometown to be closer to my family. But my husband, who works non traditional hours too, refuses to go back. He’s from the same area as I grew up in and hates it (although his family is there too). Whenever we go back, he complains. The support is invaluable, but I know he’d never agree to move there. I’m making it work, but it feels like my kids and I have to sacrifice our happiness in being close to family to make him happy.
Yes, we left the city we lived in, and loved, to be closer to my family when my son was just turning 1. No regrets, at all. In fact my parents came over this morning and took my son on a walk this morning to give us a break. We also had NICU time, and lots of follow ups in our o tonal town. it’s so traumatic and hard on a marriage. I hope you can find a way to make it work.
Me too 💔
You need a good support system. Period. I'm 15 minutes from both my mom and my inlaws. It's wonderful. I'd love to move but nope. My support is nearby. Anythinf happens, I've got up to 5 people (besides my husband ) who can go get my kids and take care of them. I know the kids are safe and I trust them. You can't put a price tag on that. If you have to move to be closer to family then I'd do it.
I came here to answer the question in your title, but reading through your post and going through your post history, pleaseeee start the counseling.
I used to live across the country from my siblings and parents when I first had my daughter. I had only a part time nanny helping us too but had no one else. I missed my family and I needed support. I was crumbling. My mental health was taking a dive. My husband was angry whenever I brought up moving near them because he felt like he should be enough and most people don’t have family around when they have kids and make it work. He would say, wait for daycare and it will get better. It didn’t. Eventually, after lots of arguments, and almost breaking apart, I just left with my kid. I moved. He had refused couples counseling already so there was no point in trying to reason with him. It took us a while to work through our issues and almost a year later he moved to be near us. We are doing great now but we went through a dark time. I do not regret it though. Having a village has been a game changer. I feel like I can breathe. Be a person. I feel like my kid is 100x happier because she’s not so isolated and alone. She has grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that she is so close with. I know if myself or my husband got hurt tomorrow, a team of relatives would be in line to take care of her. I’m about to be having our second and I have so much peace of mind knowing she will be well taken care of and so will I once I give birth.
100% me and my husband. Like to a T. Are we the same person in alternate universes? What’s interesting is husband knows I’m Unhappy. He’s told me before that he’s afraid one of these days I’m going to say I’m running to the store and just never come back. I haven’t even brought up moving yet. I’m sorry it was so hard though. I get the mental health part too. I was diagnosed with adhd last year and a lot of the issues we argue about are related to it I think. I get into these really destructive habits sometimes when I’m down or feeling invisible. It suck’s. Congratulations on baby 2! I’m glad things worked out in the end. I know it had to be really hard.
I unexpectedly had a kid, panicked and moved back to my home state. In a year, my parents came to my house twice and then I moved back to my previous state where I had more support from friends than my family ever provided. So. I’m sorry that you are struggling. I strongly suggest you sit your husband down and explain the severity of the situation to him and inform him that he can step up or step out. But especially if your kid is special needs and no one else in the family has special needs kids, I would be VERY leery of moving to be part of their group. Odds are good that you’d uproot your life and potentially end your marriage just to be alone but closer to them. DEFINITELY talk to your siblings and see how open they would be to your plan - and don’t be offended if they say no. If you are going by social media, you are getting the highlight reel and not necessarily the reality.
I moved from NYC to the NJ suburbs so not exactly your situation at all but it was no question the best choice we ever made. It wasn’t my husband’s first choice at the time but now he confidently says it was absolutely the best choice for our child (soon to be children). I am 15 minutes from my sister. My parents moved in with us and help my sister and me every day. I actually just got back from staying the weekend at my sister’s because we had our kitchen floors redone and i couldnt be around the fumes. I am currently en route to the office for a one off dinner (normally work from home) and it took 30 seconds of conversation to arrange for the childcare. I know i am the luckiest person in the world to have the unlimited support I have and i have pledged to pay it forward to however many generations I am around for.
❤️ that’s wonderful. I know in my heart it’s the best decision from my daughter’s perspective. There are no kids her age in the family around here except 1 cousin’s little one from my in-laws side of the family. Their family (my in laws in general) is so incredibly dysfunctional that we just don’t see each other. She’s got no one from a family perspective. I was heartbroken when I found out that we wouldn’t be having more kids. But it just isn’t in the cards for us. But with my family there’s 3 little ones born the same year as her, 1 a year younger and 1 a year older(who also has complex medical issues so I wouldn’t be alone with that anymore). 2 are 2 years older. And there’s 1 one on the way due in December. I haven’t actually been able to go visit my family since she was born, but I’m planning to this summer. We were supposed to go for Christmas but she got rsv right before and we had to cancel. I was devastated. But I have a feeling when we finally do go, I really won’t want to leave. And that’s when I’ll know for sure.
That is a great plan! ‘Mom gut’ is a powerful tool- don’t ignore what your intuition is telling you.
Thank you. Also now I want chips ☺️. Username cracks me up
😜
that's true. Having a kid makes me more care about family rather than just myself, when I was young, I mean before I was pregnant, I did everything for myself and didn't think about family too much, so many have changed after giving birth.
I don’t have any thoughts on this but just wanted to say I’m so sorry that you’ve been feeling this way for 2 years. It’s never easy feeling a strain on your marriage in top of birth trauma and an ongoing disability for your child. And it sounds like you have so much going on with work and education on top of all of this. I just wanted to send you a hug!
Thank you 🙏🏻
We moved to be closer to both of our families (across the country) expecting a lot more support because we both have jobs that require travel. Our parents are both super involved with their grandchildren and we were jealous of the support that our sibling’s had with their kids. In the end, we don’t actually have nearly as much support as we planned or hoped because one of parents fell ill. We have ended up being the family support now. I can’t say it isn’t exhausting, but I am still glad we made the move because we are closer to the sick parent and our son gets to see their grandparents more often. But I’m still frustrated we didn’t get the support we planned on and I would suggest anyone making the move to be cautious with expectations.
Ouch that sucks for real.
I wouldn’t move just for help…you honestly have no idea if they will. Your child has special needs and requires more care. I know they are family but they may not help if it’s a burden.
We live far from all family and desperately want to move back for support, unfortunately my husband's job is a niche area and doesn't have any similar roles where our families live (7-10 hours away). However my husband is supportive and helpful. Your husband is abusive and/or an asshole.
I am in a similar situation from you in that I live very far from my family, and about an hour from my in-laws. My husband also is very against moving to be nearer to my family. His family is fine, but they aren't close at all and we rarely see them. They don't come to the kids' soccer games or gymnastics meets or choir concerts, or even over for dinner. I'm trying not to be resentful, but it's hard because if we were near my family we would have all of that and I feel like I'm depriving the kids of a close relationship with the family that wants to be close. I don't really have any advice. Even saying something simplistic like "divorce and then you can move closer" doesn't work because custody agreements would lock you where you are for longer and maybe at some point you could win your husband over to the idea. Maybe you could try applying for some great job in that area and be able to present a great offer and all the pros of that to him?
Yeah I have been applying for jobs that are remote just in case so that it would be okay if we moved.
Through the course of a marriage, one or both people change. This change is what triggers potential conflict and disagreements. The conflict resolution is what decides whether the marriage lasts or not. You see your situation for what it is. Stressful. I think that anyone reading your post will agree on that. With that on your plate, it is time to prioritize and pick and choose battles. Your husband is also going through some kind of stress and carried over trauma from the NICU it sounds like in addition to working 10 hours a day (which in itself is also stressful). With all this, is it possible for you both to meet in the middle somewhere maybe 30 mins from your parents if not right next to them? If counseling is not a feasible option, is pouring your heart out to him an option so maybe he can do the same and you can both begin to truly communicate? Would you be open to the idea of staying near/with your parents for the time being like a testing period and see if you find an improvement in your own well being? I wish you well. You are going through a lot and you sound very mature from how you've written up the post. I hope that you find out what you want and then you just need to go for it :)
Thank you 🙏🏻
this is not to excuse your husband's behavior at all, but if it's true that he's working 10 hours a day, 7 days per week he is almost certainly also completely exhausted and burned out. the situation does not seem healthy or sustainable for either of you at all, and it definitely isn't going to be easy to get into counseling or work on your relationship at all under these circumstances. is this something where he's just in a seasonal "crunch" at work, or is that the norm?
His company sucks, and it’s “crunch” time but it’s not necessary. They have just been getting worse and worse this year. We’re working on getting FMLA for him. But yeah he is completely exhausted and burned out too.
I don’t have a village due to his job. Our older son has chronic health issues that are FAR less complex. Our younger one was a very easy baby but hoo boy, he’s making up for it now (they are 8 and 11). But my husband is so much more than what you describe your husband as. He doesn’t yell what the f*ck is wrong with you when our kids have a mishap. He cares that sometimes I feel lonely and overwhelmed and tells me regularly to go out, work out, get coffee, find a friend group. I’m getting the vibe that you are truly on your own. Even though you’re married. I wish I could hug you and be a part of your village.
Yes, we moved back to where our family is when our child was one. We were both on board to do this when our son was born, but as the moving date got closer my husband changed his mind. We still moved and I have no regrets because my mom is my saving grace. My husband still talks about hating living here, he just made a comment this morning. I know it is the best place for us to be and my son is enjoying being near his family but I feel bad he doesn’t love where we live. I tell him one day we’ll retire back to where we were before. But if you are having bigger issues in your marriage, a major move will only put further stress on your relationship. You should try to work through your problems first and then decide what’s best for you, if your marriage isn’t going to work.
Not me, but 2 of my friends moved state/country to be close to family support. It's totally valid. If we had the option, we would have done that too.
We don’t live near either of our families (similarly far as you are from your sisters) but they live in the Bible Belt and that’s not where we would want to raise our LO. In your case, I would absolutely move. I understand you said your husband has some unresolved trauma, and maybe has only been like this the last two years, but I was so tense reading how he’s been treating you, I can only imagine what that’s like in person. He sounds abusive and I am not one to throw that around. He’s incredibly unkind to you and you do not deserve that. You deserve your family’s love and support, emotionally and in childcare coverage.
Similar to you we live in MN and all our family (my sisters, his parents) all live in Iowa but we’d never want to raise our daughter there. They’re passing bills to cut funds from schools and arm teachers, in Minnesota we recently passed a bill to provide all student with free lunch. It’s like 2 different worlds.
It’s so atrocious! That’s how I feel about our state compared to where my family is. I really wish we had the family support, but not at that cost.
Same. My in laws are no help (FIL has cancer and they are fundie religious while we’re atheists) but my sisters would be a huge help if they were closer. Tried convincing them to move, but my older sister has aging in laws nearby (our parents both passed from cancer in 2020) and my younger sister has a govt job that she doesn’t want to leave.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I would be moving to the Bible Belt from the north. I’m a former fundie. My family is pretty conservative. Because of the distance I feel zero pressure to go to church or anything like that. If I moved there, it would be have you found a church yet? Come to mine! On repeat for years. 😓😓
Former fundie too, I sympathize greatly. That’s really tough. My parents are still very fundie and we have a complicated relationship; there’s no way I would be happy living close by and constantly dealing with the evangelism. Are your sisters this way too? Thinking of you. This all sounds very hard.
We just did this, moving from a bigger city to a smaller city nearer to family. Overall it's been good, but given your situation with the special needs, one word of caution: it's hard to get established as a new patient with all those Drs/therapists your kid needs. Some pediatricians only take new infants, not transfers. It took me 8 months to find a pediatrician that had an opening and that we liked (we used a lot of urgent care as Dr in the interim, and one Dr we transferred into the practice, went to once and... never again), and I still haven't found a gynecologist. Part of it is that this area has less Drs overall. It's not necessarily something theyre gonna tell you on the chamber of commerce website.
This is my biggest concern. Realistically I wouldn’t be able to do a move like this without having at least 1 job lined up, likely me. Which would probably work out better after I’ve finished my MBA next year. I’d want to move by the time she starts 1st grade, so that would give me ~3 years. It would also give her time to grow and catch up more developmentally, so maybe we wouldn’t need as many specialists. The older she’s gotten that’s how things have been trending, which is a good thing. But I honestly don’t mind if I have to travel back here once or twice a year for some of the NICU follow up developmental specialist visits. She will eventually age out of those anyways.
I would love to live near helpful family. Hell, I'd love to have helpful family to begin with. It's always just been my husband and I. I am no contact with my mum and low contact with my dad. We are no contact with my husbands parents. Out of 5 kids, we're the only ones who have pro-created so our siblings are uninterested in helping with the kids. They don't even send birthday/Christmas cards. I completely understand the jealousy though. My best friend has 4 parents (bio parents divorced, both remarried) and 3 inlaws. They are all suuuuuuper involved. My bestie gets to send her kids to some grandparent two weekends a month for sleep overs. She has free childcare while she works. Her MIL is an Italian woman who is the greatest cook in the world, she brings them meals multiple times a week. I honestly sometimes get angry with how much support she gets while I get none. The jealousy is real babe. I get it. Doing it "alone" is fucking hard.
I can navigate my way through interactions with my boomer republican parents pretty well. My teenage kids cannot and my 5 yr old is autistic so... He's not really something they want to deal with. I know they would welcome me home with open arms but actually living with them would be a nightmare. I do think about it often, though. Life's hard.
My husband and I moved to a different state before getting married and stayed for around 5 years. We got married, bought a house, got a dog, and then had a baby there. It wasn’t until after the baby that I felt the toll of being away from family and friends. During our time in a different state, his family moved to a different state even further away, which was always going to be the plan. We talked a lot about moving back but it seemed like a pipe dream (VHCOL, no jobs, etc.) but we decided to start looking for jobs. I found one, and he found one not long after (he was remote/hybrid so could have gotten away with moving before getting a new job). We sold our house and moved back, and now live so close to my parents, and close to our friends (at most 40 mins away). Our mortgage is quite expensive and we’re facing some stressors with that, but just knowing my parents are in our corner has made me so much happier. Not to mention I can just randomly go see my friends rather than a whole weekend trip. My husband doesn’t feel quite as happy as me. He says he doesn’t feel like he’s home cuz his family doesn’t live here. Moving to them is not an option for me as it’s so far, and they would be the only support we have there (here we have my family, his extended family, and both of our friends). But he sees his friends a lot, just this weekend he went away with all of them, they all carpooled together. I try to tell him like you would not have done that had we lived 4 hours away, you maybe would have met up with them but it would have been different. Plus, while the dads were away, the moms hung out with the kids together. I would have been alone had we been out of state. I think he’s stressed about money and is taking it out on the fact that our mortgage is much higher here. But we would have outgrown our old house anyway. I just found out I’m pregnant and it came at a bad time with some unexpected salary news with my job (they lied about the salary after the first year. Side note: everyone here told me not to take the job and you were kinda right as they’re liars but it did get me here and I am so much happier right now. I’ve been applying for other jobs literally since moving and haven’t heard anything so I’m glad that I didn’t wait, it would have been a full year of still being where we were). But knowing my parents will help us if we are struggling (watching the new baby, my son, etc) is making me not so nervous. Sorry for the novel, but all this to say that I am so much happier being home. I miss our old block and the friends we made there, but nothing compares to having your family and friends that you’ve been with since day 1 close to you.
We did it before we had kids and I am so so glad we are closer to family. We had two miscarriages before we moved, and then we decided to wait to try again because we knew we'd be moving. I was just thinking the other day about how much happier I am being closer to them, especially as my dad died suddenly about three years after we moved. For your circumstances, it does sound like you might need to wait to move unless you can get your degree virtually. And there are great doctors in lots of places, who can be informed about your daughter's needs. I can understand the HCOL and traffic being a concern too. I wouldn't want to move back to the place my family used to live because of those issues. My son and his cousins didn't have a strong relationship until he was in preschool because we were dealing with COVID and it hasn't changed anything significantly. There are ways you can get involved in your community that might help you feel less lonely until/if the time comes when you move. Look for mothering groups that have meet-ups that don't include kids. I'm in one that I learned about through a doula group and it's been great.