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I do feel bad for your situation and your wife. I do not think it is location alone. Your wife said she did not really like the stay-at-home thing. Well, you said you make a good salary...you can put the younger child in a half-day program while the other one is at school and she could get a PT job. Or volunteer, like another poster suggested. There is something to be said about feeling lonely as a SAHM. I did it and it could be extremely isolating. There are many groups out there for this. Things that can make her feel like a useful adult and in turn will make her feel better at home. She may even be able to see if the Diabetes Assoc. in the area needs some help.
Feeling lonely as a SAHM doesn't matter where you live. I lived in my hometown my whole life with family all around me and still could feel isolated. I felt better when I got out a bit. I did move away to Vegas for my husband's job with my 14 yo daughter. Left behind all my family AND three other older children. Yes it was tough. I came back for a bunch of reasons, but 2 are my older daughter's pregnancies. My husband is still in Vegas. We just purchased a home there and we will commute until things settle here. It is tough, but we do what needs to be done. Regrets are useless, they take away from the present. Enjoy the present, make new memories no matter how long you are there and I know you will see that your wife gets the help she needs. She sounds like a smart, caring person.
I feel for you, being retired military, we have moved alot, and still not done, our kids are used to change, and as military brat myself, i know it aint always easy.
you need to be carefull now days, research online ALOT, you can almost visit a new place without ever leaving home now days with help of sites like city data!!!
but you already took the job and moved, so all i can say now, is given the times, unless you can get your old job back, or line one up back home BEFORE you give up where your at, id stay put and make due till things pick up job wise.
we all have lived somewhere we didnt like sometime in our lives, a lesson us military learn is home is where you hang your heart/uniform. you may not always like where your at, you may not always fit in, but until you can move on, you make the best of it, you search out things you like to do and enjoy them, you go out and make friends, dont hole up inside your home. you look at your "new" hometown with loving eyes, find the good and so on....you will be surprised on how many hated a area at first, only after few years there, grew to love it as if they was born and raised.
if you spend each day sad and depressed, the area will always be sad and depressing....you have to wake up tomarrow and tell yourself..."this is home now, i chooose to like it" and things will get better and come easier.
give it a chance with fresh eyes, Ive only been to TX a few times, and i hate big cities, but in todays times, with kids, if i had a good job, id learn to like it, and give it a chance.
as far as the being gone couple times a week, your family is strong, remind them military families are apart alot longer and being strong keeps you going. I know your worried about your wife, lots of people have to deal with stuff like that and without aide of their spouse, join a church, group, something, gain a support group, even from city data or other online groups, be sure to make friends, you will then be able to count on people to offer help when your away and cant be there, thats what we military do, we are always far from family, and we have to not only make nw friends, but new "families".
I hope it all works out, and we wish you the best for you and your family, in all you decide to do.
I LOVED TEXAS and lived in Irving TX and 100 times better than cleveland and my job. Very cold weather, high crime tons of of foreclosures and blight and hight drop out rate and a lot of suburbs are falling apart also.
Boy does it snow and get very windy and fridget up here for 5 months and one very ditry townand I hate looking at dirty snow and whao wants be stuck downtown late at night and flats our dieing out anyway and other places and most the time downtown is dead!!.
Crime , no jobs, weather, schools and all blight and empty places is not good. I know cleveland haing money problems an d what about the convention and medical mart what a joke all talk.
I am sorry that the adjustment is so rough, and having concerns about your wife's health surely only makes things harder. I will say, however, that you should really give it more time. In my experience, you are right in the worst of the bad adjustment phase. The first 18 months-2 years are the hardest. I have a friend who moved back to MI from North Carolina after being gone for a little over a year; I urged her to give it more time and she was just too homesick to stick it out, but now her husband at least is having a lot of doubts whether it was the right move to make. And I actually moved home to Michigan, from Texas, TWICE, because I was so homesick. I can say that both times were mistakes. The first time we only lasted back in MI for 6 months before returning to TX. The second time, we knew right away that we had made a mistake but 7 years later, we're still here in MI and still paying for that mistake.
We've been there with thinking that giving up all the money in the world would be worth it to be "home" and have family nearby. However, the reality of actually doing that is quite different from the idealized fantasy. In all honesty, after 7 years we have still never regained the standard of living we had when we left Texas. In fact, we're still about 30 percent below where we were there. When we left Texas to come back home to MI, we knew we'd take a dip in standard of living, but we didn't expect it to be so much nor did we expect it to last so long. While we have family nearby, what we have given up in exchange is the ability to take family vacations, for example, and build up the kids' college funds. Vacations and college funds impact a child's overall quality of life too.
The job market in the midwest is really bad right now. I'm guessing that your job and income are fairly prestigious if your company would pay you $40K just to move, and particularly if you feel it's a stable job, I would be very wary of walking away from that in this economy. While it seems like going back home would solve everything, moving is still one of the biggest life stressors and would put your wife and kids through additional stress in the process. You can't go back to your old life exactly as it was - wouldn't have the same house, kids might not go to the same schools, their old friends might be in new cliques, etc. - and isn't going back to the way things used to be the thing that you and your family want, more than just going back to OH per se? You asked what your kids are learning in all this, and they are learning something important: sometimes you have to go where the good opportunities are, and it's still worthwhile even if it might be hard to do. What if they got accepted into Harvard, or offered a Fulbright to study overseas? Would you agree with them if they wanted to turn down those opportunities just because they were too far away?
You do have my sympathy because I know adjusting is hard. But it will be hard whatever you do - some adjustment is inevitable whether you stay or go. Please give it some more time and try to find things you can enjoy where you are now.
I am sorry that the adjustment is so rough, and having concerns about your wife's health surely only makes things harder. I will say, however, that you should really give it more time. In my experience, you are right in the worst of the bad adjustment phase. The first 18 months-2 years are the hardest. I have a friend who moved back to MI from North Carolina after being gone for a little over a year; I urged her to give it more time and she was just too homesick to stick it out, but now her husband at least is having a lot of doubts whether it was the right move to make. And I actually moved home to Michigan, from Texas, TWICE, because I was so homesick. I can say that both times were mistakes. The first time we only lasted back in MI for 6 months before returning to TX. The second time, we knew right away that we had made a mistake but 7 years later, we're still here in MI and still paying for that mistake.
We've been there with thinking that giving up all the money in the world would be worth it to be "home" and have family nearby. However, the reality of actually doing that is quite different from the idealized fantasy. In all honesty, after 7 years we have still never regained the standard of living we had when we left Texas. In fact, we're still about 30 percent below where we were there. When we left Texas to come back home to MI, we knew we'd take a dip in standard of living, but we didn't expect it to be so much nor did we expect it to last so long. While we have family nearby, what we have given up in exchange is the ability to take family vacations, for example, and build up the kids' college funds. Vacations and college funds impact a child's overall quality of life too.
The job market in the midwest is really bad right now. I'm guessing that your job and income are fairly prestigious if your company would pay you $40K just to move, and particularly if you feel it's a stable job, I would be very wary of walking away from that in this economy. While it seems like going back home would solve everything, moving is still one of the biggest life stressors and would put your wife and kids through additional stress in the process. You can't go back to your old life exactly as it was - wouldn't have the same house, kids might not go to the same schools, their old friends might be in new cliques, etc. - and isn't going back to the way things used to be the thing that you and your family want, more than just going back to OH per se? You asked what your kids are learning in all this, and they are learning something important: sometimes you have to go where the good opportunities are, and it's still worthwhile even if it might be hard to do. What if they got accepted into Harvard, or offered a Fulbright to study overseas? Would you agree with them if they wanted to turn down those opportunities just because they were too far away?
You do have my sympathy because I know adjusting is hard. But it will be hard whatever you do - some adjustment is inevitable whether you stay or go. Please give it some more time and try to find things you can enjoy where you are now.
I think there is a lot of wisdom in the above post. Which is not to say to totally close the door on moving back. Ultimately, that might be right for you and your family. I would just echo what the above poster and others have stated about giving it time and the first couple of years being the most difficult.
When our son was a baby, my husband & I moved just across the state (Texas is a big state!) from Lubbock to my husband's hometown of Dallas. We were forced to move by job situation but at the time I had wanted to move, was excited about it. However, for the first 2 years, I really wanted to go "home." I knew that financially that was impossible due to the economy but it didn't stop me from wanting it, and wanting it intensely. And it was probably about a year and one half to two years before that intense longing to go back subsided.
Some people do move back and again, that ultimately may be best for you guys, but just saying...don't underestimate the power of the "adjustment period" either.
I am sorry that the adjustment is so rough, and having concerns about your wife's health surely only makes things harder. I will say, however, that you should really give it more time. In my experience, you are right in the worst of the bad adjustment phase. The first 18 months-2 years are the hardest. I have a friend who moved back to MI from North Carolina after being gone for a little over a year; I urged her to give it more time and she was just too homesick to stick it out, but now her husband at least is having a lot of doubts whether it was the right move to make. And I actually moved home to Michigan, from Texas, TWICE, because I was so homesick. I can say that both times were mistakes. The first time we only lasted back in MI for 6 months before returning to TX. The second time, we knew right away that we had made a mistake but 7 years later, we're still here in MI and still paying for that mistake.
We've been there with thinking that giving up all the money in the world would be worth it to be "home" and have family nearby. However, the reality of actually doing that is quite different from the idealized fantasy. In all honesty, after 7 years we have still never regained the standard of living we had when we left Texas. In fact, we're still about 30 percent below where we were there. When we left Texas to come back home to MI, we knew we'd take a dip in standard of living, but we didn't expect it to be so much nor did we expect it to last so long. While we have family nearby, what we have given up in exchange is the ability to take family vacations, for example, and build up the kids' college funds. Vacations and college funds impact a child's overall quality of life too.
The job market in the midwest is really bad right now. I'm guessing that your job and income are fairly prestigious if your company would pay you $40K just to move, and particularly if you feel it's a stable job, I would be very wary of walking away from that in this economy. While it seems like going back home would solve everything, moving is still one of the biggest life stressors and would put your wife and kids through additional stress in the process. You can't go back to your old life exactly as it was - wouldn't have the same house, kids might not go to the same schools, their old friends might be in new cliques, etc. - and isn't going back to the way things used to be the thing that you and your family want, more than just going back to OH per se? You asked what your kids are learning in all this, and they are learning something important: sometimes you have to go where the good opportunities are, and it's still worthwhile even if it might be hard to do. What if they got accepted into Harvard, or offered a Fulbright to study overseas? Would you agree with them if they wanted to turn down those opportunities just because they were too far away?
You do have my sympathy because I know adjusting is hard. But it will be hard whatever you do - some adjustment is inevitable whether you stay or go. Please give it some more time and try to find things you can enjoy where you are now.
Thanks for the advice. I will take this to heart. The "pull" to go back is just so intense right now!
AlthoughI didn't read all the postI do understand. We moved from Michigan last summer to NOrth Carolina. Michigan is really a place that you can't find work. It wasn't something we wanted to do we had to . JOB here for my husband and we have 4 children at home. I too became more depressed than i can remember ever in my life. My younger kids miss their 3 older sibs and home. We just don't feel like this is home. But we are starting to just except this being home for now. I do not like it here it isn't the right place for us. Ithinkbesides Michigan there might be another place but not here. I have started to exercise everyday which helps my state of mind. Two neighbors have come over to say hi and the kids are making some neighbor friends. I do not plan to stay here but for now this is where we are until we decide what to do. But I understand, some people can just move and make home anywhere and others can't. I have a facebook and My Space and it really helps me to stay connected to those I love and miss.
Also I understand missing things. I know people say that it doesn't matter but if you were raised around family it does. I can remember all kinds of things I did growing up with family around. It is those memories that to this day make me smile and know I belong to a bigger family. We have a 16,6,6 and 2 year old here and it hurts me that they miss those times. I hate having to think in your mind that if this person dies we won't go home and if this person does we will. It is insane. I pray everyday that people can once aggain live where they want and find a job there. All I ever wanted was to live my life where I was , have what I have and just be there living life. I never thought I would have to do that in another state away from everyone I love. I get what you are saying and I have posted things to and was told to suck it up. You have the right to feel what you feel. The problem is that if you can't change it right now you have to come to terms with it until you can, and pray that that comes sooner than later.
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i feel for you
