TL;DR: My partner's traditional, close-knit family has been emotionally manipulating us about moving away from his hometown. How do we politely explain to stop making digs and help them accept our move?
Around two months ago, my partner of 8+ years and I moved from a smaller (yet sizeable) city to a much larger and more well-known city a 5-hour drive away. It had been something we planned on doing for many years. We *love* the city we moved to and had a feeling we'd feel very fulfilled living here (and we do!)—and with both of us working remotely, it seemed like a good time to make the leap. In our relationship, we value expanding our horizons and trying new things. This was a huge part of that.
My family is spread all over, and many of us have lived abroad and in many cities here in the US. They were very accepting and supportive and understood our reasoning behind it. My partner's family handled it much differently. Their family structure is pretty traditional. With the exception of a couple of folks, the entire extended family of 40+ people was born and raised in the same city and has never left. There's a lot of pride in the family of living in the same community and going to the same schools that your kids/grandkids/etc. grew up in. Honestly, the sense of family is rare and special.
Up until our move, his family members avoided talking about it except for a few disparaging comments (Dad: "So what am I supposed to do when I retire?" Mom: "But X city is too expensive!" Grandma: "I had a terrible time when I visited in the 1960s and the taxi driver was rude." BIL: "That city is horrible and dangerous—you'll never catch me up there."). Similarly, my partner's parents have an incredibly toxic relationship and depend on their kids to meet their emotional needs. I think their son moving really shocked them given that nobody else in the family has really done so and they can't use him as an emotional outlet.
Our goodbye dinner before we left was also awful; everyone except for my partner and I were in a terrible mood, and his grandmother had a breakdown at the end of it. She grilled him about why he wasn't able to secure a better-paying job even if he was moving to a bigger city, said all of her grandchildren are leaving her (with the exception of my partner, all of them live in that area), and said he has an obligation to the family to visit often. Even when we've visited, she's tried to convince him that the job market here is terrible and has made a clear and concerted effort to let us know how unhappy she is that we've left.
With all of this, how do we even mend that gap? I fear it's going to become even more toxic whenever we visit. And how can we politely explain that we don't need these disparaging comments all the time? Although we like his hometown, it's not for us at this point in time, and we want to live our lives without regrets.
Submitted April 25, 2022 at 07:33PM by uglysuccubus https://ift.tt/qZVvjiz
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