I have spent much of my adult life moving around. I’ve always worked remotely so have been flexible around my husband’s career. We left the last place after less than a year, because he was made redundant shortly after starting his job. I loved it there and made some great friends, but we left in a rush. I hoped we’d stay permanently in the place we moved to next, but I’ve felt miserable living here and made it my mission to move back to our previous place.
Now, after five years – the longest we have lived anywhere – we have an opportunity to move back. Initially I was excited, but now I am looking around – the kids are happily settled in school and I’ve made local friends – and wondering whether this place might be good enough after all. Or should I take one last leap of faith?
I’m worried that perhaps I’m repeating a pattern by leaving again, but equally, I worry that it’s foolish not to move back to the place I love.
You titled your letter “Am I repeating a pattern by leaving again?” and it’s interesting you’ve seen there is one. Patterns can be useful pathfinders, or they can be grooves we get stuck in and don’t have the knowledge or confidence to get out of. There were a few unknowns and you didn’t mention any actual places, thus I don’t know if the place you’re in now offers more long-term possibilities than the last one, or how permanent either of those places is.
I contacted UKCP psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer, no stranger to moving around a lot himself in a previous life (we did a podcast on belonging which you may find interesting). What struck us is how you hoped where you live now would become permanent but then you disliked it so much you made it your “mission to leave” but now having a chance to leave, you’re not sure.
Vahrmeyer picked up on how leaving the place you were before, in such a rush, must have been a shock for you. “Also,” said Vahrmeyer, “I didn’t get much of a sense of your desire, your appetite, what you wanted. Perhaps following your husband’s career provided the excitement, the purveyor of all the adventure?”
Was the place you’re in now where you had children, or did you have them before the move? I wonder if either having children, or them getting older and perhaps their needs becoming more obvious, has given you a chance to re-evaluate what’s important to you all as a family. You mention this place being “good enough”. Being good enough is rather undervalued as a benchmark in the search for the perfect. That said, no one should remain unhappy if they have a chance to change it.
“You say your children are settled,” said Vahrmeyer “and that’s a really good thing, children need stability. Perhaps that’s something to think about alongside what you and your husband want. Maybe you’ve changed and you’re settled [more than you realise?].”
“I wonder if the last place,” suggested Vahrmeyer, has become slightly idealised? You were there for such a short time. Was life in general more exciting then?” Are you able to go back to the place you were for a visit, to see how you feel in reality and not fantasy?
Nowhere is perfect but it’s about “being able to accept disappointment and limitations but still find substance in a place or a person,” said Vahrmeyer. He also wanted you to think about if it’s the “place that’s making you miserable or the permanence? Is it where you’re living now you find miserable or is it something around the idea of putting down roots?”
I also want you to practise an exercise I tried myself over Christmas. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by life, and looked back at my bachelor girl flat with some sentiment. So I really imagined myself there, but as I am now. I went through all the things I like to do now and imagined myself doing them back there. And I realised that neither my parents nor my friends would be round the corner any longer. So much has changed, internally for me, and externally in the place. I saw that what I had now was not only really appealing but I realised I’d made my life the way it was on purpose. I wonder if you could do such an exercise? This may help you really zone in on what actually matters to you now.
• Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
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