Living near or away from family

[Micca]

DD, her DH, and our two DGDs live less than 5 minutes down the road. That has worked out really well because the two DGDs are here a lot, and we can pitch in and help out with things like letting their dogs out when they can't get home on time. The rest of the family is between 200 and 1000 miles away.

 

[dadtoagirl03]

Most of DW’s family within 20 minutes. My parents 5 minutes away. My brother and his family live 6 hours away, however there trying hard to find jobs closer to home.

 

[Snowysmom]

When our fathers were living we lived about an hour away from each. Thankfully our kids stayed in the area when they married and had kids.

 

[Sydney2977]

The military moved DH and I to SC 20 years ago from TX where most pf out family was. My dad and brother had moved to OH a couple years before that and all of my dad's side of the family is there (he was the only one who left). We visited each state once a year u til my dad passed and then my brother moved back to TX. Over the years our close family has moved around but all remain in TX so we usually visit once a year and some of them come visit us. DS1 is now in the military and stationed in FL. It's an 8 hour drive and we either visit him or he comes to us every few months. Eventually we want to retire in TX but it really depends on what out DS's go cuz we won't want to be too far from them.

 

[Hikergirl]

Closest family is about an hour away, the rest are 2-4 hours.
Close enough to visit when we want, far enough when we don't.

 

[jaiminee krikit]

My parents and my in-laws (parents and sisters) all live in the same town as we do. When I started dating my now DH I lived about 20 miles away from him, in the same town as my parents at the time, actually I was living with my parents when we met. The same year DH and I got engaged, my parents moved to the town he lived in. DH and I had discussed moving after we got married to a town 2.5 hours away, but right before we got married he decided he didn't want to leave his family. I honestly think we would see most of them more often if we did move, but whatever.
My middle sister moved to NY a couple of days after graduating high school and never looked back. My baby sister just recently moved to Boston where her fiancé got a job.
DD15 talks about moving to either Seattle or NYC after graduating college, but I'm hoping she doesn't go that far away. I would prefer she move to the Orlando area, but that's not looking good.

 

[aprilchem]

Where we live is dictated by my and DH's jobs; we both work in highly specialized fields that you can't just live in any city to do. We happen to live close to my family though - about 20 minutes from my sister and about an hour a way from my mom. We see my sister pretty frequently but only see my mom 3-4 times a year.

DH's parents move around a ton, so in the time we've lived here we've been between 5-10 hours from them. They currently live about 6 hours away by car.

 

[yoopermom]

DH's and my families all live within about twenty minutes of each other in SE WI. 22 years ago when he wanted us to move "away", I took a compass and drew a four hour drive circle and told him those were his choices. Now we can have peace and quiet in our daily lives, but go visit all of our huge families at once for a weekend easily. DS and his DGF just moved two hours south of the extended family, so it will hopefully make meeting up for holidays easy. We don't regret it.

Terri

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

When my husband and I got married, we lived about 45 minutes to an hour away from both sets of parents.

A few years later, my parents moved closer but still almost 30 minutes away. A few years after that, my husband, son and I moved 850 miles away from everyone. Six years later, my parents moved to our town, about 10 minutes away. They later moved in with us and stayed until they passed.

My in-laws haven't spoken to our family in over 10 years.

 

[RangerPooh]

We currently live on the other side of the country from family. The exception to this is that my parents move with us as we financially support them. Left CA in 2004 and rarely visit family. Too many busy bodies in the family. When we live din WA, DHs dad moved closer to us at 2 hours away, we maybe saw him twice a year...his request.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

My mom lives in the same town I do. DH's family and most of mine are all in the next town over except my sister lives about 45 minutes away. No one could have predicted I'd live closest to my mother when I was a teenager. I'm still in shock we live near where we grew up bit it somehow just happened.

Anyway, my family has always been decent about giving us our space. A few of DH's relatives needed to be trained, however.

 

[prprincess]

We live near both our mothers. When we were first married, we lived about 45 minutes away from them. But after we had the children we decided to move closer for not only the help and support, but because we felt like we hardly saw them. It was also hard lugging everything back and forth on visits and holidays. So we are now about 10 minutes away from each - my mom lives in the same town, and his mom lives one town over. My sister lives about 30 minutes away, and his sister lives about an hour away. They aren't super far from us, but I have to admit that it's hard to make the time to visit. We usually see them when they come to visit the mothers.

 

[Simba's Mom]

We live about 1000 miles from DH's family, 2 thousand miles from mine. For the first 10 years of our marriage, we were only 30 minutes from my family but then DH got a job transfer to here. My relationship with my parents improved after the move away, but now that Mom's 85 and a widow, and I'm an only child, I often wish I could be closer to care for her. She doesn't want to move from her home, and DH refuses to move back up north (we're in a warmer climate than Orlando and she's in Massachusetts). His mother's almost 90 yo, but fortunately she lives with his sister and her husband.

 

[soccerdad72]

We live in the same area as my wife's family and 2 hours drive from most of my family. My wife and I met in college and stayed in town - it just happened to be the same city that her family lived. Had no interest in moving back to where I'm from (Erie, PA), but that's not a family thing, just that the prospects of professional jobs in Erie was a lot less than in the Cleveland area.

MIL now spends 4-5 months of the year in Florida, as a snowbird, so we only see her at spring break these days. Once our boys are off to college and their own careers, we'll re-evaluate where we want to live. Right now, we're thinking we might retire early and move somewhere a little warmer - not Florida, most likely, possibly the Carolinas.