Hi

I'm currently feeling a lot of guilt for taking my children away from family: grandparents, cousins, aunties, uncles etc.

This has been triggered by my mum's reaction to the news we are emigrating: she was very upset (naturally) and has used all sorts of subtle emotional blackmail on me to make me feel like c**p and terribly guilty for taking the kids away from them.

My children have also not reacted to the news of the move that well, saying they don't want to go etc. Of course, we will go(!), but this has also added to my feeling of guilt...

Would love to hear from any mums in particular who have faced a similar thing:
How did you handle these feelings of guilt?

Have you any advice on how to stop myself from feeling guilty?

Do these feelings lessen when you are out there?

many thanks and kind regards
roobush

You are not the first by a long stalk - do a search on the forum and you'll find plenty of people in this position.

There is however another side to this - one of the reasons we moved to Australia was to be nearer my wife's family who live in New Zealand. Now we are here, they visit us considerably less than they did when we lived in the UK!

You can't live your life for other people, you don't say how old your kids are but give them a few months here and they'll never want to leave!

BB

Dont think of it as forever and tell them that you are going for a trial 2 years. They will gradually get used to it and you wont have burned any bridges in the process. You may get here and hate it or you may not, you wont know that until you have done it. People can cope better with the prospect of a temporary separation and if it turns into a longer term one then it is done gradually and not so much of a shock to the system.

You do have to be very self sufficient and quite a bit selfish to be a successful migrant I'm afraid. Do those feelings of guilt go away - no not really but you do what you have to do to make it work. Dont expect those you are leaving behind or those you are wrenching from their familiar comfort zone to be jumping with joy at the prospect just dont burn any bridges, you never know when you might need to cross them again.

Your's maybe but trust me when I say that does NOT apply to all kids.

Fair enough - mine were both 2 when we emigrated so they didn't give a stuff!

I guess my point was that so many people on this forum have said their kids never wanted to leave the UK and now they are in Oz they don't want to return!

BB

Mine were teenagers or close to being, and it's a VERY different proposition. They were quite keen to move here but my youngest hates the place with a passion and has done almost from the start. He will almost certainly leave Australia as soon as he is financially independent.

My advice? Don't feel guilty. Would your mother, cousin, aunty, etc give up their opportunity for an adventure if you said you didn't want them to do it? When my sister said she wasn't happy that we were moving we told her to either get over it and be happy for us or get over it and be miserable. Either way, we were not going to be changing our minds because she wanted us to.

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Always niggles the mind