My wife wants to move and I don't

[Anonymous]

We recently had our first child and my wife wants to move back to the Midwest to be near family. Her preference would be Ann Arbor or Columbus. She can get a job anywhere, for me it's a little more difficult. I'm currently job hunting due to not being happy in my current position, and she's really pushing me to look in Ohio or Michigan. Moving to the Midwest just feels like we've failed, and I really don't want my child to grow up there. Before we had our child she had no desire to move, but now she wants to be near her siblings and she wants our child to grow up knowing their cousins. They will most likely be an only child, so I do understand that, but I really don't want to move. My wife would also rather have a nanny instead of daycare, but we can't afford that here. We would most likely be able to if we moved though. How do we navigate this? It's causing a lot of issues between us, and I don't know what the solution is.

[Anonymous]

She seems to articulate her reasons for moving. The only thing I get from you is "I don't want to move."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She seems to articulate her reasons for moving. The only thing I get from you is "I don't want to move."

+1 He's not happy in his current job and job hunting but won't even look for one elsewhere? All because moving to the Midwest "feels like failure"? OP's wife is at least making sense.

[Anonymous]

Be careful, moving to a general area “near” family is nothing like moving to their city. My family lives an hour away and I see them every other month or so.

[Anonymous]

I would move 100% just for the cost savings.

[Anonymous]

"Feels like we've failed" is a dumb reason, frankly. We moved 2 hours from my job because my spouse felt like it would "feel like failing" to buy a house anywhere in the entire multi-metro area where they grew up, as if they weren't successful enough to leave. This was an emotional and ego-driven reason. My crushing commute is not emotional, it's concrete, and I've even had to change jobs to do it less often.

Wanting to be near family as you raise kids and your parents get older is a good reason. Ann Arbor is not a depressed small town where your kids won't have options. Honestly, I think you need to come up with some better reasons, or seriously think about moving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recently had our first child and my wife wants to move back to the Midwest to be near family. Her preference would be Ann Arbor or Columbus. She can get a job anywhere, for me it's a little more difficult. I'm currently job hunting due to not being happy in my current position, and she's really pushing me to look in Ohio or Michigan. Moving to the Midwest just feels like we've failed, and I really don't want my child to grow up there. Before we had our child she had no desire to move, but now she wants to be near her siblings and she wants our child to grow up knowing their cousins. They will most likely be an only child, so I do understand that, but I really don't want to move. My wife would also rather have a nanny instead of daycare, but we can't afford that here. We would most likely be able to if we moved though. How do we navigate this? It's causing a lot of issues between us, and I don't know what the solution is.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She seems to articulate her reasons for moving. The only thing I get from you is "I don't want to move."

I got the same feeling. Why is it a failure to move to the Midwest. There might be a good reason for the reluctance but OP hasn’t articulated it.

[Anonymous]

I’d move just to get out of this progressive shithole.

[Anonymous]

Where are you from? Where is your family?

[Anonymous]

Moving to be near family often does not work out like people think it will. People build it up
In their heads like it’s a hallmark movie, and it probably won’t go that way. At the very least, you will probably find family is less available than you assume. Parents and in laws often promise to help raise kids and then balk once presented with the opportunity. Sometimes the loss in economic opportunities in a smaller area means that lower cost of living doesn’t equal higher standard of living. I would urge your wife to slowly consider all options with you before forcing the family to commit to a new location. You both need to think long and hard about what you want from a new home and make this decision based on what you both want which should include long term job prospects and opportunities for your child.

[Anonymous]

You two are the perfect candidate for marriage counseling, to help you navigate this. Also, to help you sort out other big goals you have for. your marriage and to get on the same page. This is something you two should have talked about way before getting married. "When we have a kid, I'll want to move back to the Midwest near my family." "I will always be an East Coast person."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be careful, moving to a general area “near” family is nothing like moving to their city. My family lives an hour away and I see them every other month or so.

Agree that near family is a vague term and it’s confusing that she’s thinking about 2 different states in the same region, neither of which are too too far from DC. Does your wife have one sibling in each place and she wants to be in the same town as one of them? Is she trying to get within range of an easy weekend drive? What specifically does she want?

I visited my hometown this summer and I think I understand what you mean about feeling like failing by going back. My sibling is wildly successful financially, even by DC standards, but it seems kind of weird to me that their kids graduated from the same high school we went to, and I ran into several classmates at one of those HS graduations because their kids were also graduating from that school. This isn’t a small town, it’s a real city. 800 kids in the graduating class. But people like it there and they stay. I don’t and I left and I don’t want to go back.

That said, the thing I had to admit about myself this summer, in response to some very candid conversations with my partner about moving to be near family, is that I don’t want the responsibility of being near family. I don’t want to be tied to getting together for all of the birthday dinners and holidays. I don’t want to live near my parents or sibling and fit all the strings that comes with that into our already busy lives. It works very well for me for our visits to be special, occasional, snd relatively short. I love my parents and my sibling, but we all get along much better with me living here, in large part because I don't want to, and have never wanted to, do what’s expected of me with my family of origin. In that way I’ve come to realize I’m selfish. My sibling truly enjoys a lot of that stuff, and they’re also just a better sibling and child than I am.

Anyway I wrote all of that to say that feeling like a failure doesn’t seem like a very good reason, but you may want to do some self exploration to see if you can better understand your own concerns and use that to have a more open and honest conversation with your wife.

[Anonymous]

Sorry you + your wife are going through all of this right now. 🙁

I can see both sides of this issue.

Perhaps after having your child, your wife is seeing things from a different perspective which is normal.
She may be more inclined to be closer to her family so that your child will have the opportunity to get to know his cousins, Aunts, etc.

It may be very important to your wife considering your child will not be growing up w/siblings.
And I think a Nanny is a much better choice for childcare vs. daycare - especially when your child is very young.

Could you move for your child?
Because it may be in his best interest….

Would you be okay if your family spends your vacations/holidays possibly in the area that you prefer??

This one is a toughie, I am trying to put together a compromise that will work for you & your wife but most important would be best for your child.

Whatever you both decide to do > I wish you both the best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Op here and I will try to address a few things. Yes the cost of living will be lower there, but we would still be paying $500-$600 for a home and we would lose our low interest rate. We also just put a lot of money into home renovations. My wife would most likely be making more money, but I would probably make less and have less opportunities. She moved here for me though and says now it's time for me to move for her. I don't think life works like that and it isn't really a good argument. Yes we moved here for my job, but she was able to easily find a job as well and was 100% onboard with moving here.

I moved around a lot as a kid, but my parents are also in the Midwest but not close to her family, and we would probably still see them the same amount as we do now. Her mom has helped us a lot since the baby was born, but she has a part-time job and isn't able to take more time off at the moment. My wife just freaked out about 2 months going by without seeing any of her family and that rekindled her obsession with moving. Before the baby was born we saw her family maybe 3 times a year.