Safin

Me too

It's just hitting me now a year in...

Definately not alone and I think I do/did convince myself of this and still am not sure how true it is.

Don't need them to make me feel guilty - can do it all by myself ta.

But all said and done you pay your money and make your choice and hope its the right one. Without the crystal ball you'll never know how it would've been if.......

DEEDEE01

I'm with you on this one !

username 34

if we had left the UK for no other benefit than more sunshine I would say stick back in the UK. Giving up seeing family is harder than I ever thought ...... but nearly 5 years on its much less of an issue than I thought it would be at one point.

We left the UK as our life/lifestyle/finances/schooling etc have DRASTICALLY improved and my main concern is what we can provide for our kids and ourselves.

Having family around is fantastic and I miss that
(if you all get on), but as I've found when there is a member of the family causing grief and mayhem constantly to everyone around ..... its bloody lovely to be thousands of miles away uninvolved!

quoll

Yes it is selfish.

I came here as a young-ish mother with my parents' only grandson. I must admit I never gave it a thought and they, God bless them, never said a thing. They just got on with life and made sure that they were part of our sons' (we had another) lives by coming here for 6 months of every year for 15 years until they got too old.

On Sunday I was talking to my mum who was scheduled for an op yesterday and telling her about the weekend when we had our granddaughter to visit. Quite matter of factly and not guilting she said "we will never see her". To say that it wrenched my heart strings was an understatement and the realization of my selfishness smashed me in the face. However some kind soul on here (thank you thank you, whoever you are!!!) reminded us of the 2 for 1 offer that Qantas has going and so I offered to pay for the DS, DDIL and DGD to come with me in April and they accepted (they are poor self sufficient greenies so it was a bit of a surprise).

So, I booked and told the aged rellies - the absolute and utter joy of the prospect of seeing their gt granddaughter has made it all worth while - it's only money I guess!

So yes, it is selfish especially if, as one of the others said, what you are doing it for is the big house and the extra hours of sunshine. In my book the "better" life for kids comes from the people in it not the stuff they have around them. I didnt come here for the "dream" we had an opportunity which was too good to miss so we took it and now my Aussie DH wont go home to live. The aged rellies have one of our sons intermittently living with them so they are happy about that but the gt granddaughter was a whole new ball game!

asprilla

That's very kind of you! Well, this post has brightened up my day.

asprilla

I just tried to click on the karma button next to quoll's name and a prompt box appeared saying

"you must spread some reputation around before giving it to quoll again"

eh?! what's that all about....?

Cheetah7

We moved here because Mr PP and I wanted to.

I have never lived anywhere nice or had much for myself, our married life has been a struggle.

No matter how much we tried, we could never own anything or feel fulfilled back in London.

I realised that family gatherings always revolved around alcohol, I would get bladdered and think 'this is good fun' - this would happen every couple of months.

Most of my life I have had bad asthma - some days controlled, some days not so controlled - affected terribly by cold weather/smog/pollution.

Getting used to comments like 'Oh don't you look ill' - I accepted compromised health, a tough commute into work to bring money home - each morning I would do that journey and go off to work in a trance like state.

I love my family dearly and miss them but Mr PP and I realised that we needed to change our lives for ourselves and noone else.

Everything has fallen into place for us here, jobs/buying our own house - yes we are struggling a bit for money but we are paying our own mortgage instead of someone elses and thanks to the Aussie government, we had the financial help towards getting this house.

Our lives are different and because of that, they are better. My asthma is better and I rarely take my inhaler. Life seems worth the struggles - and yes there are still struggles, because you just seem to be rewarded for 'being a battler' here when in London we were made to feel mugs for not bucking the system, almost as though there is no room for honesty and integrity.

I don't believe I was selfish in moving here, my family knew how bad my asthma had got, the lives we had were evident.

It was merely a final and brave jump into what was a huge gamble - emigrating to another country.

We are half way through our lives and it was a case of now or never to try and make things better.

They are better, they are hard and 'people sickness' is painful however, my sister tells me Dad is always talking about what we have been up to and how proud he is of us and what we have achieved.

I know living here suits us and to me, the biggest trade off would be going back to compromised health just to be with my family and those alcohol fuelled parties in the pub.

It is definitely 'same shit, shinier bucket' but it is our bucket and I always did like shinier things - so to speak.

moneypenny20

I guess it depends on the children's relationship with their extended family now. If they spend most of their lives with cousins/uncles/aunts/grandparents now then yes it's selfish. If they see them no more than a few times a year then no it's not selfish.

When we told my mother we were moving, she called me selfish for taking 'her granddaughters' away from her. My eldest, who was 12 at the time reminded her that she'd taken sod all notice of them previously, why the big deal now. Out of the mouths of babes.........

Safin

Similar here but I guess even those negligant grandparents can live to bitterly regret their previous indifference/action now. As always you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Dorothy

And sometimes it takes moving away to see how indifferent your family really are.

moneypenny20

Maybe On the other hand some of those negligent grandparents can pretend to bitterly regret their previous indifference/action because it looks good to those who don't know the person very well.

northernbird

I find the term negligent grandparents a bit strange.

moneypenny20

I find the term grandparents to be strange at times Some of them should just be called selfish old people

Safin

why?

How many times have you heard someone say the grandparents don't show a lot of interest - or profess to but always have something else on, somewhere to be etc.

My mum loves my kids but her life very obviously came first - almost every time. Now she says she misses them like mad. I believe her. However we have offerred to pay for flight over here and there is always a reason not to do it......does she miss them? Or not?

northernbird

My MIL doesn't make a lot of time for her grandchildren. She has her own life, works full time and lived 4 hours away. Does that make her negligent? I don't think so. It makes her a grown woman with a life of her own. Just because we made her a grandmother doesn't mean that she has any obligation to our children. We do, we are their parents and chose to be parents. My MIL also says she misses the children but we just ignore it. She knows where we are and can afford to come visit if she wants to.