Dear Anita,

Thank you so much for making sense of my frenzied thoughts this morning! I wanted to give you my real life account – as is.  I appreciate your ability to extrapolate.

I want to add some more now that I have had time to have some coffee and collect thoughts.

I think my husband is extremely torn.  All morning we spoke, since 5 am – going back and forth.  It wasn’t a fight by any means – but a conversation.  I got to the bottom of it after being a good listener (a new skill for me) and realized the major thing that is holding him back is the following: being far from his parents.

His parents are not the type to alarm us.  And so if there was any potential health issue in the near future (for which the likelihood is high given age) they may not even inform us immediately – in order to protect us, and not cause stress.  But of course this would make my husband upset, concerned, worried, etc.  It would then (looking forward) make us feel like it is unfortunate we live so far away.

But then, on the flipside (and we discussed this now and in the past) his parents are mobile.  They are open minded and supportive.  Yes, they do have their whole life here.  A great Indian community they are apart of in their town.  All of their siblings and extended family in the tri state area. But as you mentioned a few months ago – when grand kids are in the picture, you will see how quickly THAT becomes their priority.  And how the concept of being close to us would not be burdensome to them.  You saying that to me really stuck.

So here we are Anita, and we can continue the conversation as I know more will come out the more we speak.

I told my husband something today – speak to your parents directly, it is okay.  To be honest, Anita – when I spoke to his mom in private 2 months ago or so – she mentioned a few things.

First – that she supports whatever is best for us.

Two – It seems like his job here is very bad, and so perhaps it is best to go elsewhere (of course based on the distress that my husband was experiencing in this job – the parts you know about the treatment)

Three- that they’ll be happy to visit us wherever we go – she then joked that hopefully it will be a good excuse for her husband (my father in law) to sell their house (a big house that is very costly to maintain and no longer necessary for them in their older age)

My husband knows these things and understands them.  but of course – he knows his parents are supportive and will make it an important priority to not stress him out.

So then there’s the question….is it foolish to move to the other side of the country away from the one set of parents we DO have, that are great.  And when we will be having kids soon – is it foolish?!

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