FirstWorldProblems

Excellent, thank you. I will do that. The trails to the north do appeal greatly.

I have been in a similar situation. I'd moved to Sydney with my then partner and 2 year old daughter, but our relationship fell apart and she returned just 3 months in. I was financially locked into my contract for another 12 months, so I stayed, going back to the UK every 6 weeks to see my daughter. I met my future wife in Sydney in the interim and she moved back to the UK with me. She had a pretty rough time for a couple of years. As the eldest child she had taken on a parental role from mid-teens when her father got sick and subsequently passed, so she felt a huge responsibility to her family and she missed them and her friends very much. She cried herself to sleep many a night. It was pretty tough I have to say. There wasn't an obvious turning point, it was more gradual than that and I'd say it was a collection of things: getting a job and being challenged there making some friends a few years later we had children of our own - that really accelerated making friends her family visiting - we've brought her mum out every year for the summer The most important thing though is accepting that this is the life you've decided upon and really making an effort to try (by contrast, my ex made zero effort when we moved to Sydney and hated everything about it as a consequence). She absolutely came to love it here, but at the end of our annual visit back to see her family, she would struggle and the first week or so back home would be tough. It's been 17 years and she prefers it here to Sydney - she loves her life here, though she is realistic about the pro's and con's of each place. She still misses family terribly, especially with her mum getting older and some new nieces and nephews recently born, but with my eldest turning 21 this year and having a life of her own, we are planning to move back there in a few years, at an appropriate stage in our children's education. To be honest, I've never wanted to go back and I prefer it here, but I've absolutely accepted that is what we are doing and I've begun planning our future, focusing on all the things I do like out there and imagining how I can extract the maximum value from those things and (to borrow a popular expression) "live my best life". If I could offer you a piece of advice, try asking her to commit to a certain number of years. That's what I did. It sets a light at the end of the tunnel during the difficult periods and it helps towards that 'acceptance' that I keep mentioning. I think there's a different psychology between "I'm here forever" and "I'm here for 6 years until the kids are ready for secondary school". Good luck!

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I know it's a bit daft trying to plan so far ahead. It's the way I am wired I suppose (need to feel in control) - but it's fun for me too. More practically though, we are going to be visiting the family there in April for 3 weeks and again for Christmas, so we have the opportunity to go and explore a few suburbs and I'd like to get a shortlist prepared. Given that house prices appear to be on the bounce and the rental market is still strong, it might be worth us buying in advance of the move and renting it out.

Whilst our move back to Australia is still 4 years away, it's nice to have something to look forward to, and I really enjoy planning, so I've recently started putting some time into researching for this next phase of our lives. I am a Brit with an Australian wife and, 2 kids aged 15 & 12 who have dual citizenship. We've been living in south Warwickshire since 2002 (previously living in Drummoyne & Five Dock), visiting the wife's family every year and maintaining our links to Sydney. For a few years now my 15 year old has (independent of any influence from us) planned on going to university in Sydney and living with his grandmother in the Castle Hill area. So unless he gets loved-up in the meantime, he'll be getting on a plane in 2023 without us. The year after that, our daughter would finish her GCSE's and so the window to relocate would open to us in 2024. Despite being rather hopeless at it, I really enjoy my hobby of middle distance triathlon and marathon running, so when considering the question of where to base ourselves, this is top of mind for me. I want to be able to go for runs from my front door that are pleasant (not on busy roads and perhaps even offer trail options). I'm amenable to throwing the bike in the back of the car and driving to the start of quiet roads for a 2-3 hour ride - but of course, it would be better if I didn't have to do that and could ride from the house. Swimming is no issue - there are so many 50m pools all over greater sydney and it's easy enough to get to a beach twice a month from anywhere. For proximity to family, we'd want to be north or north west of the CBD, since they are broadly spread out over the hills district and down to North Ryde. We don't intend to live in each others pockets, but if the journey time is over say, 45 minutes, it becomes a bit of a chore rather than a pleasure. I have a vague notion that somewhere on the south border of Dural would be a good fit. Perhaps a suburb like Cherrybrook, which I don't know well at all, but looks nice online and would fit our affordability. I'd love to hear input from anyone who gets out running and cycling regularly To complicate things, there's also a chance of an upswing in our financial circumstance between now and 2024 and it's always been a dream to have a home with water views. Were we to be fortunate enough for that to happen, I would be clueless as to where to search for somewhere that would have places to run and ride away from busy roads. We certainly couldn't afford to live directly on the water, but somewhere several streets away such as the hills in Clontarf (a place we enjoy visiting but know nothing about) could be an option. It's a (potentially) high class problem I know, but any tips or ideas would be gratefully received. Thank you

It’s absolutely bonkers. If people genuinely think less of you because your 9 year olds birthday party didn’t have $500 of balloons and a $400 cake, those aren’t the people who’s opinions you should care about. I’ve tried that aregument countless times, but I guess some people feel the peer pressure much greater than others.

You are right. It’s not possible to predict. Certainly it would depend on the role and company culture, but I’d expect to be field based and travelling a lot.

I'd like to thank everyone for being so generous with their time and sharing your perspective and experiences with me. It's very good of you to help out some stranger on the internet and every one of them is useful to us. Please do keep them coming if you have more insights. In my original post, I didn't want to bore you with every detail of our life and history, which probably resulted in leaving out some relevant information that would have been useful. To answer some of those questions raised: - we're closing in on mid 40's - work wise I am in public sector IT. So yes, I could probably be located anywhere in Australia, since a comparable level role would see me have to take on an Asia-Pac territory, meaning a lot of travel and not being chained to wherever Australia's head office is located. This is a significant lifestyle compromise, compared to now, which is why I don't really want to compromise further by not setting up home near to the family.

I've been thinking over this point ever since you posted it. As much as I feel I have a good grip on all of the pro's and con's on life in Sydney, I do recognise that my lens for everything is through the filter of my wife's large extended family and friends. I've observed exactly what you are talking about and it's been growing like a snowball over the past 17 years. I'd describe it as an apparent obsession with showing off, living beyond your means to constantly outdo the last persons christening party/wedding/car/holiday etc. but I must say, I'd dismissed it as being something peculiar to their culture (mostly Catholic Lebanese). From your post, it seems its more pervasive. As a mid-40's guy from a (very) working class background, I'd imagine I grew up like many people here, frugal lifestyle, 10 year old family car, holiday was an occasional week in a caravan in Wales, not a credit card in sight and the only debt being the mortgage. I realise I'm going a little off-topic somewhat, but this normalisation of debt does worry me. Of course it happens in England to, but it's nothing like the extent I've observed in our family/social circle in Sydney. I'd like to think that the example we've set for our children would win out, but the lure of "everyone else does it" can be strong.....

I thinks that is right, there is a window of opportunity right now that will close soon if we aren’t to put added stress on their education. Hence the hand wringing. The elder one is smart but academically lazy. Scores high in everything, minimal effort (infuriating for parents trying to impart a strong work ethic). The younger is the polar opposite. Lovely personality, works hard, has extra tuition and just scrapes by.

Thank you for the well wishes, But please, don’t hold off on commenting. I came here looking for help and other perspectives on something that is a real quandary for us right now. My apologies if I misunderstood your point. It’s sometimes difficult to take on the intended tone over the internet. Best wishes.

Thank you for your considered and comprehensive reply. Much appreciated. As you have intimated, the move back for us would be all about family. So it’s down the road from the in-laws or nothing as far as my wife is concerned. Believe me I’ve tried, I’d be quite happy to go to several other parts of the country that I like. But she (quite rightly) sees no point leaving somewhere we love, where we are well established, for somewhere else where she can’t see her aging mother and nieces and nephews several times a week.

I’m not sure that you read my original post, or perhaps it wasn’t clearly written. I possess no such unrealistic opinion. I am perfectly aware of the cost difference between my English town in the middle of the country and the suburbs of the most populous city in Australia. If you read my actual question you will see that comparing London and Sydney is a moot point. I have a very specific decision to make - Stay in my town here in England or move to be near the wife’s large family in Sydney (specifically the Hills district in the west). I can afford to live there, though certainly our standard of living would take a hit and ability to save for a nice retirement would be impacted, but that’s not my chief concern. My worry is, in doing so, do I lock the kids into an untenable financial future by establishing their lives there. As an aside, your comparisons with London don’t work in my opinion. If you can’t afford a home in London you move away and work elsewhere or commute in. Indeed I’m sat on the train right now heading home after going to London to meet friends for dinner. Thats not an option in Sydney. Even 2 or 3 hours commute out of the CBD the median house price is still 10 times median wage. I can’t fathom how they are going to be able to thrive there as adults. I’m very eager to be wrong and I’m looking to understand how to avoid that for them.

Hi everyone, I’ve been enjoying reading the posts on this community. It seems like there are a lot of genuine, helpful and balanced people here, from a variety of different backgrounds and perspectives. I’m struggling with some parental angst and I would really appreciate the thoughts and inputs from others who have dealt with this before me and come to a decision. I suppose some brief background would be helpful here to set the context of my question. I am British and have enjoyed a wonderful 17 year (and counting) marriage to my wife whom I met whilst living in Sydney in 2001. We’ve been living in Warwickshire since 2002 and she loves it here, but has a large family back home in Sydney and naturally enough, she misses them a great deal. We visit annually and bring her mum out each summer, but it’s not the same as living nearby with regular in-person contact. Since we visit so regularly, we feel we are well aware of the comparative positives and negatives of life in Sydney compared to Warwickshire, and on balance, we don’t consider one to be better than the other, just different. Our children are 14 and 11 and it’s their long term future that has us wringing our hands about a potential move back. Compared to where we are, cost of living and in particular housing affordability in Sydney is considerably more challenging. We look at my wife’s 4 siblings, none of whom can afford to own their own home and several of her friends in the same position, and we worry that a decision to move back to Sydney could be really negative for the children once they enter the workforce and try to establish their own lives as adults. Of course, we don’t have a crystal ball and cannot know the future, but based on history and the way things are today, we feel fairly confident that their financial life will be tougher there than here, and as many of us know, financial stress puts an awful lot of pressure upon life, marriages and lifestyle. Has this been a factor for any of you? Do you have any experiences you could share with me, positive or negative? thank you in advance.