Moving away from family and friends

Did anyone move away from family and friends? How is/was it? Do you still go back to visit them often?
TIA!

Message edited 8/23/2010 4:12:28 PM.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

I moved from France to the US when I was in my 20's. I moved from NC to LI years later.

DH and I have NO family on LI.

I can tell you that it is a challenge that grandma cannot help us babysit. Many people take for granted their family and the help they provide. If only for a backup plan.

I do miss my mom. I especially did after my son was born. I wish we would love so much closer. I miss her terribly. She lives overseas. DH's parents both passed away. DS only sees grandma every 2 years.

When it comes to friendship, while you try to stay in touch, it's just too hard. Things do change. So you try to make new friends and you do.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

We lived in So Cal until I got pregnant with my first child. I had this overwhelming sadness that my children would not grow up with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents around (something we knew living there before we had kids) and we moved back. It was a great decision - my parents have been such a help. My kids see their cousins all the time and can't wait to see them.


Before we moved back, what annoyed me was that every vacation we had we spent visiting people. MIL in Spain, family in NY and AZ and a family house in mexico. Being on the west coast, we should have done so much more.

But, I never regret moving there. we loved it and call it our first retirement. We plan to have our second retirement there as well.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

DH and I moved to FL 4 yrs ago. Although it was certainly a life style adjustment for a while, we have met some really great friends, and have such a great life down here, that we would never move back to NY.

But to answer you question... we used to fly back to NY quite often, every few mos after we moved. As of now, we havent been back to NY in 13 mos. Family and friends have visited us, but crazy as it sounds, this is our home now, not NY.

Also, there was alot of family/friend stressors in NY. And we really have lived such a better life here, away from alot of that. Now we can pick and choose when to go back and involve ourselves in it

Message edited 8/23/2010 5:42:29 PM.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

I grew up in Boston and moved down to NYC after i graduated college.
All my family and lots of friends are in Boston, so i used to go back every few months.
Now that i've been down here for 15 years and have my own home, husband etc i don't have as much time to go back as often as i'd like. My friends and family do come down here, and dh and i go up there a couple of times a year.

My one regret is not being as close to my half sister as i'd like to be - she's 16 now and i wish i had lived closer to be a bigger presence in her life.

Unfortunately, my closest girlfriends all live there as well, so it makes it hard sometimes not having my best female friends here.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

We moved from NY to FL about a year ago...

My Grandparents have lived in FL for as long as I can remember. My parents and sister moved down about 5 years ago - I stayed in NY at the time.

The rest of my family lives in NY - aunts, uncles, cousins, all of DH's family and our friends...

After my parents moved down we saw what kind of lifestyle we could have if we moved away from NY. We got engaged and then married in NY. During that time we were at the stage where we wanted to stop renting and buy a house and start a family - but we knew doing it in NY was going to be especially adding kids into the mix...

What was best for us was moving into a house that we could afford on 1 salary so that I could be a SAHM when we were ready for children - but that meant moving down south b/c doing it in NY would be a struggle. For us the sacrifice of leaving family and friends was worth the gain of being able to live comfortable, me being able to stay home and our quality of life increased (less stress, great weather, more things to do, laid back atmosphere, feels like living on vacation, etc).

1 year later we are happy that we made the move and we don't think we'd go back to NY.

We visited 3 times already (twice for funerals ) and we are going back next month for a wedding.

We had my in-laws down twice in a year. We had my SIL and her kids down once and they will be coming down again in a few weeks.

I think a lot of it depends on where you move. There are areas in FL that we would most likely have hated but we did our research before coming down and found an area that is a perfect fit for us.

Having a baby is the one thing that will be hard since my in-laws are up north - but being around in-laws and in-laws family can be a little bit stressful so my DH and I are okay with being down here when we start our own family. It's not something we are too concerned about.

So no regrets here

Re: Moving away from family and friends

Thanks for your experiences

Re: Moving away from family and friends

Message edited 4/20/2012 12:01:41 PM.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

We moved upstate (3 hours from my parents) 3+ years ago. My ILs used to be 1.5 hours away, but recently moved to Boston, so now they are 3 hours away as well.

I go back to visit my family/friends once every 4-6 weeks. My parents visit me about every other month. My friends come up here about 2x a year.

I like the area we live in, but I hate being so far away. I would love to be able to drive to my sister's house on a weekend and have a BBQ and then go home. I can do that now, but it winds up being a 6 hours drive round trip and usually requires us to spend the night.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

Moved to NC 3 years ago.

It's hard not being right around the corner from everyone, missing birthday parties and Sunday dinner and just being able to get together for lunch or coffee or to go to a movie with our nearest and dearest.

However, we still don't regret the move. We have 2 kids now, we have an affordable life, a lot less day to day stress. A nice home, a short commute to work for both of us. Affordable day care. We can afford a few of life's extras and save a lot-it just makes living so much less stressful for us.

We've made a few friends, always seem to have something going on the weekends. We go back up north a few times a year-it's tough fitting everyone into a vacation but we make it work somehow. Our parents come down fairly often and my really really close friend (and god parent's to my DD) and her family just moved around the corner, so that's even better.

You just have to really weigh what will make you happy. For us, we needed to reduce monetary stress and increase our time together by reducing our commute.

Re: Moving away from family and friends

Re: Moving away from family and friends

It's over 10 years we moved to GA from LI. While it's been a fantastic decision once you have children it becomes very difficult. We see some family more often than others. Lately we have made the decision to do what we want as a family rather than spending all our time (vacation time) on LI. I prefer to only visit a couple friends and a couple family members other than that we are good

Re: Moving away from family and friends

Posted by LisaI

It's over 10 years we moved to GA from LI. While it's been a fantastic decision once you have children it becomes very difficult. We see some family more often than others. Lately we have made the decision to do what we want as a family rather than spending all our time (vacation time) on LI. I prefer to only visit a couple friends and a couple family members other than that we are good