Anonymous wrote:This is not your problem.

+1

MOVE. Change is scary so you're trying to talk yourself out of it. Change causes growth. Move and don't look back!

It's not part of our culture to be loyal to friends to such an extreme (and that's OK, there are a lot of trade-offs with that). In the moment, it's hard for your friends to be happy for you, because they are feeling emotional and unprepared. With some time, they may come to see that the move was the right thing for you.

It may turn out to be the wrong choice, but you have made it and now you do the best. Take your friend's feelings as a compliment: they are sad to see you go.

If the friendship is real, a one-hour drive is not a huge issue. If the friendship is situational, well, they will find someone else similarly conveniently located.

Unless you have recently assured your friend that you wouldn't move and they've made their own decisions accordingly? That's the only situation in which I'd say you are in the wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

OP you sound like a kind person but it's not your responsibility to manage their friendship. They are all adults. You need to do what's best for your family

This.

OP you sound like a kind person but it's not your responsibility to manage their friendship. They are all adults. You need to do what's best for your family

OP, if they were in your shoes, they wouldn’t stay put because you were sad they were leaving. What happens if you stay and they move? Don’t base your life’s decisions on the opinions of others.

Your friendships will change, and that’s ok. You’ll adapt. You’ll make new friends.

So you won’t be able to visit them ever again, or?

Also, you make life decisions based on the feelings of friends?

I think it’s just a lot of change happening at once, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Don't feel guilty. Just make a promise to yourself that you'll make an effort to maintain the relationships and keep it.

This is not your problem.

They will get over it. I would assume though this is the death knell of the friendships.

The move is good for you all but not good for them. It's ok. I'm assuming from your post that your kids are still young. If you stayed what you would discover as your kids age is that sometimes these family friendships become tricky once the kids start making their own friends and socializing independently of their parents. In a few years as you watched one family hosting a gathering your kid wasn't invited to, you'd be thinking "We stayed for this?"

It's ok.

The families will miss you a lot but maybe they will become closer when you move.

Bigger house and bigger yard can be pretty awesome, especially if you have kids.

Our family decided to make a big change - we are moving an hour away from a neighborhood where we assumed we would stay for years. We hadn’t planned on moving, hadn’t been looking, but this opportunity came up and we jumped at it in two days, as that was the offer deadline. It’s closer to several family members, it’s a bigger house, has a huge yard, etc.

The problem is we have two very good sets of families friends on the block and we are the family that ties them together. One of the families is out of town so we haven’t told them yet. We told the other and they were so disappointed- I feel a huge pit in the bottom of my stomach and feel so guilty. Plus I have weight of still telling then other family.

I need some perspective here. I really thought this was the right move but family 1 has me second guessing (and their reasons are good). But my bigger question is- why do I feel so guilty when I’ve done nothing wrong? I tend not to have anxiety but I am really struggling here.