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We live in England, our families are in St. Louis, MO.
We've only been here 6 months, so I can't speak a ton to the challenges yet. The distance does get a little trying though. Knowing that my mom is a minimum of an $800, 10-11 hour trip from me does get old. You do find ways around it though.
I packed up and moved to another country for no reason, and I have a very close relationship with my family. I'd always wanted to live abroad for a while so I did my research and landed a job in London. I was 24 years old, in a serious relationship, and very attached to my hometown of Chicago. I was only going to stay there for 6 months but within a week of arriving, I knew there was no way I was going home in six months.
Long story short, I eventually ended the relationship (which turned out to be a very good thing!) and stayed in London for three years. I then moved to Australia for just over a year and met the love of my life on my way home; he just happens to be a British Aussie so I'm living in Oz again.
Whilst I was away, my parents came to visit several times and I went home about once per year. If you want to live in Europe, by all means do it. Lots of people move to a new country for the experience and because they want to, not because they have bad family relationships.
To answer your question, I'm a 29 hr flight from my family but will hopefully be moving back to the northern hemisphere by the end of the year. DH's family is in the UK so we'll always be a significant distance from one side of the family, much as we wish we could all live closer.
There was another similar thread about a month or so ago, and I'll share what I wrote then:
I live about...13 hours or so away from my family by plane - not including layovers. My whole family lives in Detroit where I grew up and my husband and I are currently living and working in Kabul, Afghanistan. I'm really close with my family. Generally, its a pretty tight group. I went to undergrad about an hour away, but moved to Egypt for two years for grad school. Then we spent a year in DC before we got married and moved here this fall 3 months after the wedding.
Honestly, when I first left for grad school I thought it was going to be really hard. I have little siblings (10 and 8 now) and I love them hugely. The thing is, I talk to my mom at least once a week and regularly video skype with the kids. Admittedly, with the time difference (9.5 hours ahead right now) its tricky and I don't get to video with the kids as much as I would like because I'm in bed when they get home from school and am at work before they wake up for school. I also talk to my dad about once a week, and regularly keep in contact with my grandparents and my favourite aunts and cousins. I honestly don't really feel like I "miss" my family because I'm pretty linked in.
Would I move closer? Yeah, I suppose so (I mean, right now we can't really get much farther away.) if the chance arose or if I needed to take care of my parents or something. But would I ever move back to Detroit to be near them? Absolutely not. I love to visit, and I love Michigan generally, but its not a place I want to live and its not a place I want to raise my kids. My family is wonderful and loving, but they also have serious limitations that I wouldn't necessarily want to over-expose my own family to. In a lot of ways, I've worked really hard to overcome their bad habits (for example, avoiding confrontation).
Also, I know that living too close to either my or my husband's family would put a lot of stress on our marriage in a way that we just don't have now. Even when we go visit (we'll usually spend like a week at each family in the midwest), the "married in" spouse has, depending on the length of the trip, one free, no questions asked "recess" from the broader family. It works for us. ; )
My parents live in Massachusetts, and my sister lives in New Mexico. We're in DC, so everyone is far away! FI's family is in South Florida, so coordinating family vacations becomes really hard regardless of who we're visiting.
I love living in DC, though, and have no intentions of moving. It's an expensive place to live, but there are jobs here in my field that don't exist in most other places.
Our parents live about 20 minutes from each other, and we live in a regional city 90 minutes drive away. Its pretty good, close enough to see them a few times a month, not so close that my dad drops around for coffee 5+ times a week (which he did when we lived 10 minutes away from him!)
Right after getting married, DH and I moved to London.
His parents are in NY and Maine, my parent's are in CA.
We lived in NY before getting married, so I think it's a harder adjustment for him then for me. I've lived on the other side of the country from my parents since I went away to college 10 years ago. So I was used to being at least a 6 hr flight from my parents. Now I'm an 11 hr flight away.
Thankfully we have unlimited calling to the US and have a US phone number that rings in our apartment. So that helps as far as making the world smaller.
The hardest part is the time difference, I went from a 3 hr time difference from my family to an 8 hour time difference. So it is really hard to figure out good times to talk with my parents.
I've only been here 4 months so I'm not sure how things will change. It was hard over Christmas because I'm so used to being with either DH's parents or my parents and this Christmas it was just DH, my sister, and I. So that took some adjusting.
It was also an adjustment to celebrate Thanksgiving in a country that doesn't celebrate it and it was only DH and I to share the big turkey and all the sides.
So, it's an adjustment, but it's also really really nice to have a new place with just DH and I to start our marriage.
We live 2 towns over from my parents. My dad works in the town where we live. I see them a lot.
My brother just moved out to northern California, but he used to live in town between my parents and me.
We live about an hour drive from our parents with no traffic. It's not so bad now, but it was hard at first cause we come from one of those cultures where yvou never leave your family, you stay and take care of them in their old age. We are here for 2.5 more years while I finish my residency, and then well probably move back home. It's not so much that we miss them, but more that we want to have kids and with our work schedules being so insane, it's nice to have our parents and siblings close by to help.
We live two towns over from my parents so it is about a 20 minute drive. And we live in the same neighborhood as my SO's parents, it is a 2 minute walk. We see them both once or twice a week.
We live in MD, my mom is in SC, my bio dad is in FL and FI's parents are in CO. I actually like it that way, but I would love to move back to SC. I can handle my mom because she's respectful of our space and time together. FI's mom is just intrusive.
During the school year we live about an hour away from both our parents and when we aren't in school (like in the summer or on breaks) we live with our parents. Once we graduate we'll hopefully buy a house no more than 20 minutes from either (: I'm very close with my family and even though he isn't close with his, they do live in the closest small city and we'd need to be close to it either way so that we don't have to spend a fortune on groceries at the small local grocery store ;) haha
We live in the midwest about 5 hours from my hometown. My parents split their time between my hometown and California. So I voted both the 2nd and 3rd options.
3000 miles away- both sets. We are in the Bay Area. Mine are in CT and his are in Boston.
I miss them terribly, but I adjusted when we moved 4 years ago. I would like to get back there and we could in a few years with DHs job, but it would also be tough to move from this area. We love it here. The culture, the weather, the things to do. Everything. We are torn between being within a 4 hour drive of our parents and living a place we may not love as much or living so far away its a long plane ride.
My parents come out about 2 times a year and his once. We make it home about 2 times a year so we do get to see them a alot, just not for all the fun little things.
An hour from the inlaws and 5 minutes from my family. I dont think we would ever be too far away from our families. We just couldn't do it.
I think different people deal with the distance in different ways. Be thankful for Skype now!!
We're in TX. And my parents are in FL, some family is in NY, TN and the rest in SC. His mom is in OK. So we're all over the map!
About 11 years ago my ex-husband and I moved from Los Angeles to Baltimore for his work. Both of our families were sad, but we really enjoyed the experience. Well, obviously the ex and I got divorced, but we both decided to still live here. Then several years later, my dad got a job offer back East and my parents moved to Maryland, about an hour away from me now. We made the move before we had a child, which I think makes a huge difference, I would not want to have to do it with kids involved if I didn't have to.
I live about 10 min away from my mom. When FI and I get married I would like to move somewhere in between the two of us so we can be near his kids and friends. Then I will still only be about 30 min away from my mom.
We live in PA, and are temporarily living with my SIL (my stepbrother's soon to be ex-wife), who is my BFF, but my mom, dad and stepmom, stepsister and her kids all live in TX, my brothers and their wives and kids live in MO. I'm not close with my dad or stepmom, or most of my siblings so the distance doesn't bother me. I rarely see or talk to them.
I do miss my mom like crazy, but we haven't lived in the same state since I was 11, so I'm used to it now. We have a set weekly Skype date. My ILs live about half an hour from us, which is super nice because I love my ILs.
We live about 30 minutes from DH's family, and about 2 hours from mine.
We live close to my parents, and about a 13 hour drive or 1-hour flight from his. We plan on moving away from my family as soon as we finish school, we love them but the distance would be really good for us. Not too far away, though--we're staying in the Western US, so we'll always be a reasonble driving distance close to both parents. :)
For us, the problem is money, not the distance. We live 1200 miles away from our families, so it's a 2 hour drive to the nearest airport and a 2 hour flight back home. Not bad, except we are broke grad students. Last year, right within a 3 month period, my high school best friend, my dad, and my FI's grandpa died. Sadly, my dad had cancer so that was one death we "predicted" and had saved money for flights home. When my BF died, we simply didn't have the money to get home. My dad died shortly thereafter and we did fly home for that. As soon as we got back to school, his grandpa died and we couldn't afford to fly home for that. It was a huge wakeup call for us that as long as we're in school, we need to be close to home because our families aren't getting any younger. When we are established and have jobs (money), it's no big deal to grab a flight.
Right now, we're just about 20 minutes from both my parents and my husband's parents. We like it that way, for now at least. :)
We live about 5 hours away from his family and 8 hours away from mine. We are considering a move to be either in the same city or within the same state as his family, though, which will be nice once we start having kids.
Our parents live about 45 mins from eachother. And we (for now) live 10 hours on a good day, drive away. We miss our parents like crazy.
2 hours from both... but we're thinking about moving TWELVE hours away. It's a short plane ride, but yeesh, it's gonna be a change.
I live about 90 minutes away . . . a decent buffering zone but we don't really need it. I wish we lived closer. :(
My FI and I are both really close with our families but we moved about 9-10 hours away because that's where work took us (our families are in Michigan and we are in Northern Virginia). My parents come to visit about twice a year and his maybe once, but we travel back to Michigan roughly 5 times a year. I think both my FI and I would rather have stayed in Michgian, but it's ok. I actually think it's a good experience to move away from home - even if it's just for a little while.
We’re right smack dab between both sets of parents. My mom lives about 20 miles north and my IL’s are about 10 miles west. It’s the perfect distance. Close enough to where we can see everyone as often as we want but far enough away to where they’re not just dropping by whenever they feel like it.
DH and I have discussed moving to the west coast (or briefly, Europe) which would be really hard on my mom. We’re very close and I’m an only child. She and her boyfriend of 15+ years just split so now she’s all alone. The rest of our family is local so it’s not like she wouldn’t have anyone but I know she’d be completely lost if I moved away.
I voted for the same state- even though the drive is 2.5 hours, and it's certaintly not neighboring citites =P
I live in North Jersey, and my father lives on the shore. My mom lives about 6 hours away in NY...
I live a province away from them - what amounts to about an 11-13 hour drive. We see each other about twice a year or so.
On the other hand, I live on the same street as the boy's mama, ha. He lives in the US now (we're all in Canada) but we're planning to move me down there soon so we'll both be in different countries than our parents.
I literally live not even 5 minutes from my parents!! DH's parents are only 45 minutes away as well as his brother, nephew, and grandparent. My brother lives about 30 minutes away, so needless to say we are pretty close to everyone!
I live about 15 minutes away from my dad and my mom lives in a different state.
My parents live in Florida. We live in Maryland. My parents were the ones who just up and moved from my childhood home. My dad still comes to Maryland on business regularly (he has an apartment/efficiency in DC) but my mom doesn't come up because of the remaining elderly dog. FI's parents live 30 minutes away and we wish it were more like 5 states away, they're so awful to us.
Do what's best for YOUR family. I was very excited when FI was looking at jobs in Cali. He ended up being in a lifer position in MD, but god, when we were talking about moving to Cali for work, his parents were talking about retiring out there. >.<
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My SO and I are begining considering several places to settle down in. We live in California, currently with parents/in school. Both our families are in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley which is a very expensive place to live. We're contemplating moving quite far away, where things are more affordable (maybe other states, maybe somewhere in europe which has better social policies) But I'm having a hard time of it because I'm convinced that nobody just up and moves half way across the world away from their family for no reason, and my parents would be very angry if I did (which is extrememly distressing to me). But now looking back, I recall anecdotally that lots of people have parents who are flying in to visit and such, because they live far away, and its more or less ok. So I just wanted to get a sense of both what's normal habits, and what's considered acceptable or what your problems are with the arrangement.
The poll is kind of based on US standards, I know a lot of other countries are smaller geographically.