Anyone live far away from Family?

[Wnt2beAMom]

My DH has a job that requires us to potentially move across the Country. Our families will be very upset to see us move far away and require $1,000+ tickets to fly home for visits.

As it stands now, we live 2 hours away from family and they don't even come to visit us anyway. We are always the ones driving home for holidays.

Does anyone else live far away from their families with or without kids? How do you manage and do your families get upset about missing out on things going on in your life?

 

[spicyorange]

I'm 6-7 hours drive or an hour's flight from both mine and dh's parents. We go there 4/5 times a year, Mine visit once a year a and dh's come for a week three or four times (his are retired and mine still work). I suspect when I have kids I might find we get more visits but I grew up practically raised my my grandparents who lived a mile away, they did all the childcare and I just always figured that would happen for me but it won't. I worry about what will happen when my kid is sick or school holidays etc (I have no choice but going back to work although I'm going for part time). We always thought we would move back before kids but we settled and bought a house and moving just isn't right for us so we will deal with it.I feel sorry for them that they won't be able to see as much as I'm sure they would like but there's not much we can do

 

[Wnt2beAMom]

Ya, I worry about that too. My grandparents were around a lot growing up. But our kids will have a lot of things different than we did. Both of our parents are divorced and with different people so our children will have 4 sets of grandparents. Which makes it hard for us now when we do go for visits because each set expects a visit since we are in the area. However, time is limited and then they complain they didn't have enough time with us or someone had more time than them. I don't really want to subject a child to their fighting over us...So by us moving maybe they will have to just make their own effort to see us.

 

[spicyorange]

We get the "as your in the area" issue whenever we go back. Like in November it's dh's dad s birthday we are driving there on Friday night after work so well arrive at midnightish, Saturday is birthday party and Sunday we drive back and my parents are like "when are you coming to see us that weekend" - it's only 3 weeks before we go there for Christmas but they went stand for us not seeing then sui we have to squeeze it in on the Sunday before we drive home..

 

[Wnt2beAMom]

Oh yes, that's exactly it! haha Well we will find out if we have to move in February and will have to move by April which is our TTC date. I'm hoping the move doesn't affect TTC We will have to see...

 

[wombat1]

We're a 2 hour flight from my family (5 or 6 hours travel time total usually, god knows how long it would take to drive) and a 3 hour flight from my partner's family. Before living here I lived in Sydney and before that I lived in Scotland (they live in the south UK). We have skype and initially it was hard living far away, you can really feel the extra distance at first but then both sides get used to it and it's fine. It just means we tend to have specific things planned for when I visit now instead of just hanging around and I give my family a cheap holiday destination.

 

[LockandKey]

when we first had DD we lived in Hawaii because of DH's military career, while our families live in NY. I had to learn and do everything myself, no breaks or anything like that, she was with me 24/7. Eventually I got so used to it that her having a babysitter for just a few a few hours, or me going out with friends for the night was weird to me, and I actually felt guilty for it.

Now we live only a 6-7 hr drive from everyone, and just as OP said, we are the only ones to make the trip to see them during holidays. We now have 2, and again, I am doing everything myself with no help, no breaks, and having both with me 24/7. I do get breaks whenever we go up to visit family though, and they are more than happy to watch the kids while I go out with friends or a date night with DH, which is nice, but in between the holidays, we only get to see everyone a few times a year, and they miss everything. I do make a means to post everything on FB though, because that is the easiest way to keep everyone updated all at once.

They don't get upset for missing everything because they understand, it's difficult for both parties to visit often, if at all, it's expensive, and would mean missing work, that's not something everyone can afford these days

 

[MellyH]

Yes. I live in the US, and my family is all in Australia. I know I am going to miss the support of having family nearby, which is sad. And I know my parents will not get to see their grandchildren very often - at the moment I get back about once a year.

My husband's parents live about a 5 hour flight away, which is nice, we get to see them a couple of times a year (going there for Christmas!). But not really close enough for day to day support.

 

[Wnt2beAMom]

Thanks, I think it will be a big adjustment but will be nice to find a home and start our life. We've never felt that comfortable where we are now. We only moved here for University and now it is time to settle down in careers. We originally planned to actually move back close to our parents to find jobs after Uni but DH is limited to locations he can work. We also use Skype too so will definitely keep using it. I just looked and it's about a 10 hour flight away from our families! lol DH's uncle lives far away too so if he can do it, so can we! haha I feel kinda excited but worried at the same time.

 

[Mrs Eleflump]

My husband's family lives just down the road, but my parents are over 600 miles away and it takes a full day to get there even if we fly, because they're over 100 miles from the nearest airport. We use the phone and facebook to keep up to date, but I haven't seen them for just over a year. They haven't come to visit me for over six years. I dare say that'll change when we have a LO, at least I hope it will!

I know my parents were upset when I settled so far away, but my husband had already been settled here for a long time and I hated where I was living at the time (not near my parents, I hasten to add - I love it where they live but there's no work for me there). We'll just have to do the best we can to keep my folks included and involved as much as possible with our LOs, since they won't see them as often as they'd like - learning to use skype would be an idea, I think!

 

[itsnowmyturn]

I'm a two hour drive from family. It really gets to me that my kids won't have the same relationship that I had with my grandparents, we saw them every weekend, I have great memories. Also my brothers and their children live near my mum so they will get to see them more and I worry that my kids may feel left out, also my kids will be the only ones with a different surname as they will have their dads surname and I worry that that will also make them feel more left out. We don't have any family and only a few friends near us so holidays and sickness is going to be an issue as no one to help us out without the kids going to grandparents for a good few days. They never used to come and see us until I gave them all an ultimatum and said if u don't start coming to me I'm not coming to u unless its something important like Christmas or kids birthdays and then they started coming to see me a little more but ohs family don't really come to us.

 

[xsugarplumx]

I'm six hours away one way from my family and dh family is 12 hours away one way. I don't talk to my family, so it doesn't really matter to me. As for DH family we drive there for Christmas. It's not too bad.

 

[fides]

My mom's on the other side of the country, and so is my brother. my brother doesn't care two straws about us; my mom has her own life. Besides, my mom feels like she already went through the whole grandparent thing ten years ago when my sister & brother had their babies, so she's not too interested in my kiddos. In fact, her last visit out here was to visit my 10 year old niece for two weeks with like two short visits thrown in to meet her latest grandbaby.

 

[itsnowmyturn]

My mom's on the other side of the country, and so is my brother. my brother doesn't care two straws about us; my mom has her own life. Besides, my mom feels like she already went through the whole grandparent thing ten years ago when my sister & brother had their babies, so she's not too interested in my kiddos. In fact, her last visit out here was to visit my 10 year old niece for two weeks with like two short visits thrown in to meet her latest grandbaby.

That's awful ur kids should get the same as her other grandchildren poor kid, at least they have ur love x

 

[Lirpa11]

I live in Australia, and my family lives in the United States, roughly a 23-24 hour flight and travel time away. It sucks sometimes. DH is amazing, but his family is not very supportive at all. It would be easy to be near my family when a baby comes, but being on the other side of the world makes it a bit far to travel often.

 

[JT2013]

I live in Asia but mine and DH's family live in various parts of Europe (although mostly in the UK). Hopefully we'll be ok with a LO but I think we may consider moving back to the UK if it's not working for us. Even then, we still be between 200 and 2000 miles away from family!Skype is definitely a life saver and I'm used to keeping in touch that way so hopefully it'll still work and we'll have lots of visitors!