The big move out

[TheLoneWolf]

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I was wondering if others have found themselves in a similar situation and how it ended up

Trained anesthesia residency an hour away from home but was doable on weekends off. All family, friends, community in small geographic area in a metropolitan with a high cost of living, high taxes, poor weather and any jobs hard to come by, good jobs or partnerships rare and go primarily to published academic track guys.

interventional pain fellowship in another state which is a very long drive so we rarely travel home to visit.

Spouse had a job near family prior to moving with me to residency and fellowship. Has job offers across crountry and back home.

Best recent decision I made was to hold off on signing an employment contract.

Pretty much everyone could put up with doing residency and fellowship in any location because it’s temporary. I imagine most stay local to where they trained or move back home. The big decision is when picking a job and setting a course for the next few decades.

Found great anesthesia job across country with good partners, decent call schedule, reasonable case load, lower taxes and cost of living, and lots of vacation time.
Job back home has similar pay but high cost of living taxes and overall busyness and traffic.

Anyone find themselves in a difficult situation of having to move away from all family, friends, and community for a great job? How did it turn out? End up moving back or transitioned comfortably in new location? How was it if spouse or children involved?

 

[deleted171991]

Stay with your family, friends and local culture. End of story. If you uproot, make SURE that your spouse is 100% into it (not just moving his/her lips).

Moving across country is almost like emigrating, and I can tell you the latter is no fun. In the end, this decision is also about how important your family and true friends are to you.

 

[deleted126335]

I did something similar. Moved to a smaller town different part of the country. No family. Either mine or my wife’s. It was rough. We made it work. But I did see more than one marriage fail from this type of stressor. My wife is a very outgoing people person, so that helped her.

 

[Mikkel]

Friends will move away. Family can move away. Family can pass away. Local culture can change to the point of being unrecognizable in 20 years.

Go somewhere that will make you happy. Despite what is commonly said, money can buy happiness if it means more time off, early retirement, comfortable house, frequent travel.


If the job can provide 50% better, it can make up for moving away and missing the other things.

 

[Noyac]

You can not take advice from strangers on this one. You must go with your heart.

My case; I moved away from home for sports and college when I was 18. Came back to play locally for a year and that was ok. But my new experiences had changed me. I set sail for an even further location completely across the country at age 19. I gained all kinds of experience. So much that home felt odd to me. The same old people doing the same old thing. No growth. Few experiences. I now live a full 24 hr drive away from my home town and family, including my wife’s family. It’s not an issue for me. It is for my wife at times. She’s actually there now visiting. As parents get older this becomes even more difficult. If you think you want to test the waters then do it early. I will be moving my mother into my house for extended periods of time now. She loves it here. I can see a time when my wife’s mother comes as well. Maybe we will buy a condo back there for us to spend more time with family. The point is, to me it’s just too easy to travel these days. I would hate to live somewhere that didn’t suit me for others. But that is me. I must make myself happy before I can attempt to make others happy.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[pgg]

Something to consider - military families move all the time. Great distances, to places they don't choose, away from family and friends. Usually every 2-3 years, over and over again. They do it without nearly the income or vacation time that physicians do. This is offset to some extent by the fact that they are part of a military community at point A and a very similar military community at point B. But getting uprooted is normal and the vast majority do just fine.

While moving away from friends and family are a stressor, the divorce rate for military servicemembers isn't much different than the civilian population, about 3% per year.

I've moved from California to Maryland to North Carolina to Virginia to California to Virginia over the last ~20 years, staying in each location for 3-5 years. At various stages it was hard on our kids. My wife handled it well. It hasn't been a big deal at all for me. But I'm not you.

 

[aneftp]

It really depends if u have kids or not. Especially young kids. If both working. Best to have grandma or grandpa close by for emergency child car and or the simple weekend get away

It is very hard to raise a young family in a town u know no one with no family support in a two working family. It will strain ur marriage. Big time.

 

[DM27]

I made a similar move with my wife after training, went from being around good friends and an acceptable drive to family to being >10 hour drive away from friends and family. I definitely was and still am borderline depressed from the decision to move since I had a lot of close friends in the area and now I have none. We will be moving again once my wife finishes fellowship and this is something we will take into account.

 

[Mikkel]

I made a similar move with my wife after training, went from being around good friends and an acceptable drive to family to being >10 hour drive away from friends and family. I definitely was and still am borderline depressed from the decision to move since I had a lot of close friends in the area and now I have none. We will be moving again once my wife finishes fellowship and this is something we will take into account.

I'm in the same boat.... I think it's life in general though, we need to make new friends and have roots wherever we are. It's hard work, especially if all your friends were lifelong (high school/college).

 

[DM27]

Making friends after 30 is very difficult, especially if you're out of residency. It tends to only happen when everyone has kids and even those friendships feel more analogous to work relationships.

 

[IlDestriero]

I’ve moved cross country, back, back again, north, south, east and west for college, medical school, training, fellowship, jobs. We were fine with that, but some people are rigidly fixed to a location by a ~60 minute tether. That can lead to a lot of potential job issues and significant compromises. Whatever is best for you and your family is the right answer. We are not the “grandma is our nanny”/monthly extended family dinner with all the cousins kind of people anyway. And Grandma’s not available, she’s at the club playing tennis.

 

[hoopstaahh22]

We moved clear across the country away from both of our families. We don’t have kids so maybe that made the decision easier, but it was more about quality of life for us. I didn’t want to live and work somewhere I’d be stuck in traffic for hours, I would rather spend that time with my husband and friends. We have a plethora of outdoor activities at our doorstep, cost of living is decent (way better than the Bay Area where my family is), the pay is better so (hopefully) I’ll be able to retire earlier, and I get way more vacation which I can use to go visit family. Maybe someday when our parents get older or if we have kids we will move closer to our family, but we’ve also talked about staying where we are permanently because we love it so much.

Ultimately you and your spouse have to sit down together and prioritize what you both want in life, then pick the job/location that suits both your goals. I definitely miss my family, but moving away was a compromise to get the lifestyle my husband and I wanted.

 

[aneftp]

We moved clear across the country away from both of our families. We don’t have kids so maybe that made the decision easier, but it was more about quality of life for us. I didn’t want to live and work somewhere I’d be stuck in traffic for hours, I would rather spend that time with my husband and friends. We have a plethora of outdoor activities at our doorstep, cost of living is decent (way better than the Bay Area where my family is), the pay is better so (hopefully) I’ll be able to retire earlier, and I get way more vacation which I can use to go visit family. Maybe someday when our parents get older or if we have kids we will move closer to our family, but we’ve also talked about staying where we are permanently because we love it so much.

Ultimately you and your spouse have to sit down together and prioritize what you both want in life, then pick the job/location that suits both your goals. I definitely miss my family, but moving away was a compromise to get the lifestyle my husband and I wanted.

Having kids changes everything. Having multiple kids creates a lot of stress with two income family.

It is easy to move when no kids. No easy to raise kids when no family around. Even simple date night where u want to stay very late is very hard.

I’m often jealous of my friends who have parents by. They drop off kids on Friday They take off for the long weekend to the islands/resorts without kids.

Can’t do that when u are isolate no matter how many new friends u make. Even going out to dinner/parties. Can’t stay out to 1am cause not the same with baby sitter. U don’t want to keep them that late

But to each their own. They will find out once they have kids.

 

[rakotomazoto]

Having kids is definitely a game changer and having family close by to help out is a huge benefit.

 

[deleted500612]

I agree with Noyac that nobody can really give you the right answer to this question. Everyone has a different personality, different family dynamics, different emotional and support needs, different wants and desires in life and then multiply those factors x2 to consider your partner. Some people have a really difficult time not living near family, for others it's not an issue whatsoever, and of course there is everywhere in between.

Personally, I moved 2hrs drive from home starting in undergrad 12 years ago and have only gotten further away since. Currently living on the other side of the continent from all of my and wife's family and it doesn't really bother us. We actually enjoy experiencing living in new places (just hate the actual act of packing/moving to a new city). We visit home a couple times per year and will be able to visit more often after residency when there is more time and disposable income. I prefer living somewhere with better recreational opportunities, better career opportunities, better weather, lower cost of living, etc. Trading all of these things just to avoid an easy couple hour flight whenever we want to visit family doesn't seem worth it to me.

We are fortunate in medicine that there are well paying jobs available in virtually any sized city of every state. No matter what sort of environment you prefer to settle down in there is a good job for you somewhere if you're willing to move for it. Those high earners in tech or finance are usually relegated to just a couple major metro areas without much choice of living somewhere more affordable. I think it's a squandered opportunity to still choose to live in these overpriced trendy cities as a physician when you could earn the same or higher salary with a fraction the cost of living anywhere in the country you want.