Has anyone started a completely new life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My work colleague did - requested a transfer to a new office my firm was opening in Chicago. To make this happen she divorced her abusive husband and left her three troubled teenage sons on the East Coast. Moved to Chicago with only her clothes and a bed in her early 40s - a few years later she met and married the love of her life, and almost 30 years later, they are still married and very much in love.

But she abandoned her kids, and left them with their abusive dad. That’s disgraceful. She sucks.

Just speculating here, but maybe the teenage sons favored their dad and also thus mistreated their mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My work colleague did - requested a transfer to a new office my firm was opening in Chicago. To make this happen she divorced her abusive husband and left her three troubled teenage sons on the East Coast. Moved to Chicago with only her clothes and a bed in her early 40s - a few years later she met and married the love of her life, and almost 30 years later, they are still married and very much in love.

But she abandoned her kids, and left them with their abusive dad. That’s disgraceful. She sucks.

Just speculating here, but maybe the teenage sons favored their dad and also thus mistreated their mom.

DP and this occurred to me as well. The many knee-jerk "She abandoned her children!" posts are without any idea of nuance, and we don't know the full situation that woman was living with, day to day, when she left. The assumption is always "The woman must stay For The Kids." But we don't know what "three troubled teenage sons" actually entailed for her. So easy to judge here on an anonymous forum, with zero context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to do this, but take my DH and kid with me. I just want to start over somewhere new. I hate where I live and the people I live around, and I think the stress of being here is literally making me sick.

+1
Me too! Except I don't hate the people, just hate the familiarity and I want a little anonymity. I know being here is bad for me but I have to stick it out for a while. I also am not sure where a good place to go would be.

PP here. I wish we could hang out and commiserate. I actually think a lot of the people around me are miserable but if you express any negativity about this place, people freak out and get very defensive, so I've learned to pretend I like it. But that defensiveness indicates to me that a lot of people are secretly quite unhappy and just don't want to admit it out loud.

I have a place picked out though. I've come up with a few ideas, but recently settled on one that feels really right. I've started looking at real estate there and recently my DH and I set a savings target so that when we are finally free to move, we should have enough between savings and proceeds from sale of our home here to buy in cash or with a very small mortgage. That will give us a lot of freedom in terms of how we set up our life.

Now I'm trying to figure out a way for us to do a couple trips there in the next year, then hopefully increase frequency of visits until we finally move. Hoping to acclimate DC to it there as much as we can, maybe even get some friendships going, so it's not an abrupt move.

Also just hoping that working toward this goal will help the time stuck here go faster. It won't be a sudden move with a brand new life, but it will hopefully get the momentum moving in that direction.

This is so great! Good for you for putting a plan in place. I feel the same way about the DMV but we’ll be here for at least another 8 years. It’s okay for now and I’ve made peace with it but I’m also starting to think about and plan for the “after” scenario. Lots of talks with DH, figuring out what’s important to us, etc. definitely someplace warm and preferably not too far from a beach. Luckily we both agree on that part!

[Anonymous]

I'm planning on it. 33yo and feel like I can't breathe raising 2 little kids in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm planning on it. 33yo and feel like I can't breathe raising 2 little kids in this area.

**Clarifying that I love my kids more than anything and it will absolutely be a family adventure.

[Anonymous]

I knew someone casually and then met him 15 years later again; he had a different last name. He explained that he'd changed his name and moved across the country to escape his mother, who was stalking him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm planning on it. 33yo and feel like I can't breathe raising 2 little kids in this area.

This. I lived in the DMV for a long time before having kids and was content. It wasn't perfect but I had a good life and made the most of the opportunities here.

Something about raising kids here feels wrong. I still make the best of it but there is this feeling in my heart like I have to get us out of here. I need to move before it's too late and my kids roots are here. I will not stay once they are grown so I don't want it to be "home" to them. I'm fine coming back to visit but I want our family home to be somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I grew up in Boston. I went to NYU for college. I changed my name, shook my previous accent, picked up a new one. I am a brand new woman.

[Anonymous]

Me, too. Left an abusive home environment and have never seen any of them again. Also went to law school (so weird that so many of us did that!), also shook an accent, also changed my name, and only my DH knows the truth. None of my friends do. It's been 30 years and I have no regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm planning on it. 33yo and feel like I can't breathe raising 2 little kids in this area.

This. I lived in the DMV for a long time before having kids and was content. It wasn't perfect but I had a good life and made the most of the opportunities here.

Something about raising kids here feels wrong. I still make the best of it but there is this feeling in my heart like I have to get us out of here. I need to move before it's too late and my kids roots are here. I will not stay once they are grown so I don't want it to be "home" to them. I'm fine coming back to visit but I want our family home to be somewhere else.

100%. I am so happy we raised kids in a nicer part of the world, with slow life and a lot of nature. I am pretty sure my kids would be in therapy if they grew up in NOVA. However, we all live happily in DC metro area now with adult kids nearby and enjoy this area very much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I grew up in Boston. I went to NYU for college. I changed my name, shook my previous accent, picked up a new one. I am a brand new woman.

How do you say, cucumber?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I knew someone casually and then met him 15 years later again; he had a different last name. He explained that he'd changed his name and moved across the country to escape his mother, who was stalking him.

Ugh. Unfortunately I can relate to this.

[Anonymous]

This is hard to do without money or a job lined up.

[Anonymous]

Back in the 70s I hijacked a plane and jumped out the back with the ransom. I landed in the forests of Oregon, ditched my parachute and moved to Mexico with the cash. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister! Her husband and son died in a car crash in 2017. She was left with my 22 month old niece. For about a year she tried to make it work in her/our hometown but she realized she would never get out from under the story. Our family is large and the accident had some criminal charges with another well known family and just anywhere she went or did the story followed her. She decided before putting my niece in preschool she was gonna completely start over. So she moved to a random city (literally just picked a medium size city 4 states over) and changed her last name and distanced herself from all of us for about 3 years. (We still communicated and saw eachother for Xmas but it was drastic as we all use to see eachother a few times a week). For her it was the only way she could make it. She needed to grieve in peace and just had to completely change everything about herself. She changed her hair, her personal style, everything. It was almost like that version of her died and she buried her and ran. It’s odd now because her new husband and youngest daughter know almost nothing about “her old life”. Even her oldest daughter, it’s more like a story she knows vs something she remembers. It’s hard for my mom and other siblings but we know it was the only way. For a long time we couldn’t really even visit her much. She would say “the black cloud follows you all and I am trying to breath.” It was incredibly difficult for everyone.

This is heartbreaking. So sorry for your sister.