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Not sure if anyone else already suggested this... but if this is all just to live by the beach, have you considered moving to the Gulf Coast area of Louisiana or Mississippi? It doesn't sound as glamorous as Florida I guess, but if you're moving from, let's say, the central Missouri area to the coast of Louisiana or Mississippi, it's only ~750 miles away. But if you're moving to central Florida or SoFla it would be well over 1000 miles.
Hell, I bet moving to the Gulf Coast area of Texas is closer to Missouri than Florida. Idk, just a thought.
Why does it have to be Florida? Have you thought about moving to a lake house in Missouri? It may not be a beach, but it would allow you to live a waterfront lifestyle.
I've lived in a lot of different states, including Missouri and Florida! I preferred Missouri over Florida.
My dad moved us from NJ to Miami over thirty years ago, my grandparents and aunts, cousins all stayed behind. Now my mom visits NJ twice a year for over a month and my cousins and aunts always make at least two to three trips a year to visit us. I also make trips up north all the time to see my 103 year old grandma.
We actually use our guest room since we always have relatives from NJ and friends from DC and NC coming down in the winter months.
So while family is important your own happiness is as well.
Ok, so I need some good opinions from those outside of my family and friends on this subject.
What is more important, being near family and current friends, or living where you want to live for the happiness of yourself, spouse, and children? I have wrestled with this for quite some time now and it’s a very active debate within my own mind.
My wife and I absolutely LOVE being near the beach, and we currently live in Missouri… read: no beach. We really want to live in Florida again. We did for about 6 months in 2012 and it was agreeably the best 6 months of our life and relationship. We ended up moving back to Missouri for the sake of being close to family and truth be told I think the wife was a little home sick. That being said, tears rolled the first night we were back in Missouri, and Im not sure that we have ever left Florida in our hearts. Keeping that in mind, its nearly impossible to root yourself and feel like you are building on anything if you don’t feel like you are geographically where you want to be.
My question is, are we being selfish wanting to move away and live near the ocean, or should one do what feels best for their family’s overall happiness and worry less about what others may think? I feel there are significant pros and cons to this especially where a child is concerned. I am sure that we are not the first to travel this path emotionally when it comes to considering relocating. Id appreciate any input whatsoever on the subject.
Thanks
That's easy to answer (Family once you hit the age of 60 years young) , however in your Youth knock yourself out chasing Nirvanna. California and Florida are Hell On Earth without people that have Uncondictional LOVE FOR YOU.
I can vouch for that lol. We only lived here for 6 months and both our perents came and visited within that time. Say what you want, but MOST people would have no problem having a reason to visit Florida lol
When you first move, they tend to visit, but when everyone starts having kids involved in sports, school, church, lessons it gets harder for siiblings to come down or for you to go up to see them. Your parents age, get sick so it gets harder for them to come down. Even when you age priorities change.
In emergencies it gets expensive. My parents, husband's parents, 3 sibs, 6 in laws, aunts, uncles, several close friends have died in the 30 years I have lived her. Add in the trips to visit when they were dying in hospital, weddings, etc and you spend a lot of money "going home" . This took up our vacation time and vacation money a lot of years and some years we had to make trips without pay coming in while away. We have only been able to go on a few family vacations to other states just for fun and always reserve vacation days and personal days just in case. Many times I flew up by myself leaving my husband and kids here for a week or 2 alone because of school or my husband went up to his family leaving the kids and me here alone to hold down the fort. For a family of 4 figure flights costing $2400 at the last minute, winter clothes for 4, expenditures while gone(rental cars, some meals,gas, etc)
Then.....when my husband nearly died not 1 person came down for us. It was too hard for them to get here or someone too ill to travel. No one has ever been here for a birthday, Christmas, Easter, a graduation, to watch a game or a contest etc.. I never could drop the kids with family for free babysitting so always had to pay daycare fees even to just go out on a date with my husband or to the doctor etc.. LOL We thought we would have lots of company, and we did for the first 5 years. Then it changed. Can you, your spouse, and kids live with that possibility? It can hurt and make you wish family were closer. As my sibs aged and had children get married and have kids of their own, there is no way my sisters want to be away from their grandchildren for Christmas etc. You all have to be resilient. We adopted people here as family and spend important days with them, but it is different than real family because they don't know everything about you and give you unconditional lovd like family does.
After I quit teaching, I started working for a friend in her store for fun. What I noticed right away were the lonely retired folks. They moved down thinking it was retirement heaven. Within a year they missed the "homey feeling" of knowing the community, their church family, their children and grandchildren, and old friends. Sometimes their spouse died that first year. Then they came in just to talk. They would buy something and then return it the next day or two just to get out and talk to someone.
I guess what I am saying is everyone in the OPs family has to be in the same ball park and willing to be far from family. It can work and we made it through the tough times and have always loved living here, even if my husband insisted he was moving back to Tennessee a hundred times a year some years. Now he would never think of moving that far away from his grown sons who would never move-unless it was to an island with better waves.
Wow, awesome thread. I am beginning to have this same discussion with my wife about our situation. I'm fortunate enough that I could find another job in Florida and specifically in the Tampa/Palm Harbor area should we decide to actually move. I'm married 10 years, 40 years old, 2 boys 5&9. I married an only child Italian girl who lived at home till we were married. Her parents live a whole 15 minutes away with traffic! My in-laws are pretty involved in our lives, we see them 2-4x a week (wife is out shopping with her mom as I write this) and obviously the kids love having them so close. They don't know it any other way.
I've got no problem staying where we are now in the Philadelphia 'burbs should we decide to stay here. But I am getting to the point where I can't accept "just because." The weather pretty much sucks here. It's been 36 and rain here all day. There are no activities to be done from Nov-May because of the weather. I don't mind winter at all, infact LOVE it, if it's actually winter like 1996-2001 when I was in Salt Lake City. Phiily, this isn't winter, it's just torture.
I really have a desire to move. To make a conscious decision about where I live and why. We love the outdoors and warm weather. We even have a boat that we keep on the Chesapeake Bay and used it 8x last year. $4000 for a boat slip and had the chance to use it 8x. Boat is now shrink-wrapped till May. So I find myself thinking why am I here? I have no desire to be here, actually desire to be elsewhere but we are here "just because."
So do we move and take the kids away from grandparents and move? We have no family there (actually wife has a cousin in St. Pete) and no friends. But most of our friends now are from the kids friends parents at school. But the location, it would be a dream come true. Lots of sunshine, boating year round, waterfront restaurants, using the pool for more than 3 months, palm trees, lower cost of living (that should be seriously considered as wife is a stay at home), etc.
I find myself repeating "I'd rather do and regret than not do and always wonder what if...."
Could always move back, that's not the end of the world at all. And as for my situation, my in-laws could easily move.
Wow, awesome thread. I am beginning to have this same discussion with my wife about our situation. I'm fortunate enough that I could find another job in Florida and specifically in the Tampa/Palm Harbor area should we decide to actually move. I'm married 10 years, 40 years old, 2 boys 5&9. I married an only child Italian girl who lived at home till we were married. Her parents live a whole 15 minutes away with traffic! My in-laws are pretty involved in our lives, we see them 2-4x a week (wife is out shopping with her mom as I write this) and obviously the kids love having them so close. They don't know it any other way.
I've got no problem staying where we are now in the Philadelphia 'burbs should we decide to stay here. But I am getting to the point where I can't accept "just because." The weather pretty much sucks here. It's been 36 and rain here all day. There are no activities to be done from Nov-May because of the weather. I don't mind winter at all, infact LOVE it, if it's actually winter like 1996-2001 when I was in Salt Lake City. Phiily, this isn't winter, it's just torture.
I really have a desire to move. To make a conscious decision about where I live and why. We love the outdoors and warm weather. We even have a boat that we keep on the Chesapeake Bay and used it 8x last year. $4000 for a boat slip and had the chance to use it 8x. Boat is now shrink-wrapped till May. So I find myself thinking why am I here? I have no desire to be here, actually desire to be elsewhere but we are here "just because."
So do we move and take the kids away from grandparents and move? We have no family there (actually wife has a cousin in St. Pete) and no friends. But most of our friends now are from the kids friends parents at school. But the location, it would be a dream come true. Lots of sunshine, boating year round, waterfront restaurants, using the pool for more than 3 months, palm trees, lower cost of living (that should be seriously considered as wife is a stay at home), etc.
I find myself repeating "I'd rather do and regret than not do and always wonder what if...."
Could always move back, that's not the end of the world at all. And as for my situation, my in-laws could easily move.
I definitely understand where you are coming from. Where my situation may be different than most people with an opinion on the subject is that I made a move.... we fought with it and decided to move back.... and now I cant even express how much I wish we fought a little bit harder to push through the homesick etc. (Should have just taken a long weekend to visit "home"). What we learned when we came back to the things we "left behind", is that after about a month you are right back where you were, wishing you were gone.
If we move again we wont be coming back.
My final suggestion? Put it on paper... list ALL the reasons you want to stay where you are, and ALL the reasons you want to be at the relocation destination, and then stare at it. Hours, days, weeks, whatever. Just make sure you have a clear understanding of what you are moving to or away from all at once.
We were away from home for 6.5 years, with 3 great years in florida and headed back to NC and at that point we knew it was time to finally move back home, it helped that hubby went with a job...its great to be home as the grass isnt always greener on the other side...holidays were lonely, my kids wanted to go back to family as well....we suck up the higher cost of living for being home....family wasnt the only reason for coming home...our son is in college, our daughter 4 years till high school and then hopefully hubby and I will head to S Florida for the winters....
I would argue the grass isnt always greener at "home" either. That being said, you clearly have sound reasons to be back home. Hope it works out well for you.
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Whats more important? Location or Family ?
