Moving states and have a lot of anxiety

[Cloudy Days]

Long story short my husband has been asking to move states for several years now and I was just informed a few weeks ago that my job is being replaced by another company (I was a contractor and worked for a different company). The company I work for has agreed to keep me as an employee if I moved to one of their branches. I love the company I work for and my husband has wanted this move for a long time, so I really feel that it is something that was meant to be. Have been keeping an eye on job openings, and they actually gave me the option to move to any branch I wanted to.

Anyways, when moving my husband isn't always the most pleasant person to be around and I can't imagine moving several states away is going to be less stressful. I was given a year to sell my house and find housing whether we buy or rent in the new state, Arizona. He has an aunt who lives where we are moving so I feel good about that. She is like a second mother to him and his cousin is thinking of moving there so we can have a sense of family, at least during the holidays. It's also a 5 hour drive from his brother and our Nephew. Right now we see them once a year if we are lucky.

My main question is how do I make this a smooth move. First of all we have to clean up our house to sell, it's not bad but the yard needs some work, my husband tore out everything in front thinking we were staying there so now it looks a mess. I also need the money from an inheritance, my Grandmother and Father died and we are waiting on my uncle to sell the house. It won't be a huge sum of money because it's split between several people, but I have to pay for moving so anything helps. Then we have to find a home in the other state, my husband is refusing to fly, he may have to eat it on this one, I am not driving for two days to look at homes. Has anyone ever bought a house in another state? His aunt and uncle agreed to help us look at them. But I figure when we are ready to buy we would fly out there and have a real estate agent show us as many houses that fit our criteria. We are trying to buy because we have 5 dogs and would like to keep them. Then we would have to rent a Uhaul and make the drive down there, it's a 19 hour drive, not looking forward to that part. 

I have a lot of anxiety about all of this. Mostly because my husband is not always the biggest support and I end up doing things on my own. We just bought a house and moved and May, this makes me rather angry, I thought this is where we would grow old together, but things change and I have to accept that. Any advice, I have a lot of emotions I am going through, so much change within the last couple years with my grandmother and father dying, Her house was like a symbol of my childhood and now even more change, going to a whole other state, a different job. It's overwhelming to say the least.

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[lbjnltx]

Hi Cloudy Days,

Moving is in the top 5 of high stress situations.  Moving to another state... .probably top 3. 

My best advice is plan well, keep your husband in the loop about the major stuff and time frames that come with them.  Pace yourself, help him by using your skills.  Avoid as much last minute/rush situations as you can manage. 

Taking one task at a time in order of ability to implement/complete and where it is on the priority list.  Managing as much of the minutia as you can without venting to him may help him be more stable.  Validate how stressful it all is and that you guys are doing this as a team.

lbj

[Grey Kitty]

Buying a new place in Arizona (especially when you cannot feasibly go to look at it before buying!) sounds like a bad idea to me. Consider the pros and cons of buying vs. renting a new place (at least for the first six months or year):

On the pro side:

Buying a home means you know you can keep all your dogs there.

?

On the con side:

You wanted to move to a state with legal pot for your H, and Arizona isn't one (I think)

You haven't done the new job yet, so you don't know how it will work out, or if it will go away too.

Buying a house sight unseen sounds like a bad risk.

Your H wants to move to CA, and has been unhappy everywhere you've lived with him. He will probably tell you that buying a new place in AZ was a mistake within days of doing so, if not hours.

Your current situation proves that from a financial point of view, buying property for a few months or even a year or two is usually a bad idea.

The purchase will be contingent upon a successful sale of your existing property, making the deal more complicated.

?

Would this reduce the number of stressful and high stakes decisions and changes you have to go through?

[Cloudy Days]

GK: Your cons don't add up completely

The new job is actually a permanent thing, I have fully trained for the job except for a few things and they are going to have someone come down for a few days and train me on what I don't know. The only thing that isn't permanent is me staying where I am if I want to keep working for this company.  I am moving to the new state so I can keep the job. This is set in stone, there are many CSR's that work for my company, it's not going to go away, if I want to keep working for the company that I work for, I have to move.

We are going to go look at houses before we buy one, we plan to get a real estate agent and once we get an offer on our house go to look at places. We would request they rent until we are able to move, I've asked about this and it is something that is done. Seems like there are a lot for sale in the area that are what we are looking for. We discussed getting rid of two of our dogs if we have to, if the right place comes along he agreed it would have to be done. But we haven't gotten that far yet. The plus is that my husband's uncle used to build houses and did mainly restoration jobs, so if we are interested in something they can go look at it first to tell us if it is even worth it. Mainly just having someone we can stay with while we look is a big plus.

Arizona is legal for people who have PTSD to get Medical Marijuana, my husband has a doctor that can back him up on this. They are also voting on it to be fully legal in the 2016 election (Not counting on that) but he does have PTSD so it is legal for him to smoke it, that's what counts. I would not have made this decision without researching it first heavily. I am not one to make decisions lightly and he has a really good relationship with his doctor so I know she would help him in any way that she can as far as talking to another doctor.

One of the reason my husband hates where we live now is because of the Cold. My husbands father died on December 17th, my husband is the one that found him after his suicide. One of the things he clearly remembers is going outside in his boxers with 2 feet of snow on the ground. I can attest to the fact that when it gets cold and specifically snowy, my husband is clearly more depressed, I've known him for 11 years now and it happens every year. California is where his brother lives, that's why it was always California. Arizona is close enough we would be able to drive to California though for special occasions for the weekend.

The houses we are looking at are absolutely beautiful, nothing like a double wide. His complaint about our home now is that it falls apart when you touch something. It's a valid complaint, I regret buying the place. His other complaint is that it is too much for him to take care of, also a valid complaint. 10 acres, we don't know how to prune grape vines, there is just too much to do and he isn't capable of doing it all on his own. We bit off more than we could chew because we wanted to live in the country. Arizona has rocks as their grass in many yards, no upkeep for the most part other than picking up dog poo. And the houses we are looking at has rock walls as their fences so you don't have to see the neighbors, also a plus. We've thought a lot about this.

[Grey Kitty]

Cloudy Days, I am encouraging you to add up your pros and cons, not accept mine, and I know I was guessing.

So please work on your own list.

I will challenge you on one thing--Don't put your husband's complaining about where he lives on either list--Your H has a negative attitude and complains a lot because of his own feelings, attitude, and mental illness.

His unhappiness isn't caused by the things he complains about.

His complaints are aimed at whatever seems like an easy target, and he complains because he is unhappy.

[Cloudy Days]

I've done the pros and cons thing. I think the pros outweigh the cons. Would I like some things to be different yes. But those are the things that I have no control over, the move and keeping a job that I like is something I have control over.

If you don't remember one of the main reasons I didn't want to move was because I wanted to keep my job. Well now I need to move so I can keep my job. It makes the decision much simpler than it was before I had to make a choice between moving or keeping my job.

There are two choices now, which state to move to or to find another job that would support what I am making now. Obviously if we are going to move it needs to be one where my husband can obtain medical marijuana. We were looking at two states, Colorado was much more expensive than Arizona so we both decided that Arizona was the best choice. We both agreed that California would be our first choice but we could in no way afford it so it was dropped pretty quickly as an option. I really do want to keep my job, the company that I work for has been incredibly awesome and supportive to me. I had the option to apply with the new company and there are a few pros but to me mostly cons that go with working for a whole new company.

My husband may complain a lot but some of his complaints are valid complaints, am I not suppose to treat my husband as a partner and not take into account anything he wants? Obviously if he has been wanting to move for most of our marriage I have not given into demands for many reasons and most if not all of those reasons are now gone with the loss of my job. Yes my mother is still a concern but she will visit and I will visit her and I will talk to her on the phone every day. I didn't want to leave her alone after my father died but my brother is now in the picture and she lives with him. She can also retire in Arizona if she wants to. She has bad arthritis from a car accident so Its not a bad idea.

I understand my husband's unhappiness is not caused by where he lives. But I do know that he has valid points to his complaints on a lot of things. I've said before, he actually likes where we live, he just feels overwhelmed with the amount of work that is expected of him and we both regret buying a mobile home. I don't expect him to be a different person when we move, which is the whole point of writing this question. I need to figure out how to do all of these stressful things without the support of my husband. Will he be supportive on some things, yes. Should I expect some sort of let down, obviously I have been married to him for this long to know what I am getting myself into.

[Grey Kitty]

I think you should consider your husband's complaints to see if they are valid.

I don't think you should expect your husband to complain any less in the future, regardless of what you do to address those complaints. Does that distinction make sense?

I think your decision to move to AZ following your job sounds good. I'm suggesting you write different pro/con list:

Buying a house in AZ immediately vs. renting in AZ. (At least for a few months)

[flourdust]

I've done cross-country moves twice.

GK is right in that it could be easier to find a place to rent for a year. That takes the pressure off of having to sell your house, line up a mortgage, arrange for a contingency sale, and other factors that increase the stress level in a normal couple, let alone one dealing with mental illness! It's definitely something to consider.

If you do prefer to buy, do your homework online. You can hire an agent and look over housing listings to your heart's content, then make arrangements (with your agent) to tour your top choices when you visit. We did that during our last move -- we spent weeks combing through listings on line, narrowed it down to our top choices, and had our agent set up appointments. We had a couple of jam-packed days of driving from house to house, spending 2-10 minutes in each one, and then going back to our two finalists. We finished the weekend by submitting an offer, then flew back home and finished negotiating the sale.

[Cloudy Days]

I know it takes time for the closing on a house, that's what worries me because I doubt we can match them up at the same time. It's the dogs that complicate things. You can't rent with 5 dogs, and if we could we couldn't afford the place I'm sure. We discussed leaving the two large dogs with his mom to watch for awhile but she has a lot on her plate right now so she may refuse. We are keeping all our options open at this point. Obviously if we have to rent then we have to rent. But I think it would be hard to do with 3 small dogs too. It's just a matter of places not being friendly to renting to people with pets. My mom just went through this, out of about 8 places for rent, only one allowed pets and you could only have two and they had to be under a certain weight. We would have never gotten 5 dogs if we thought for a second that we were going to have to sell our home as soon as we bought it.

Thank you flourdust, that's how I imagined we would look for a house to buy. When we moved last time we had a very specific type of home in mind and there weren't many to choose from. So it took us 3-4 months to find a house we liked. We have been looking at listings in Arizona where his aunt lives and most of the houses seem to fit what we want, so it should be easy to line up a few with a relator. We actually seen a few of them that we were like, I wish we could make an offer now. The plus is that we just went through all of this not even a year ago so we know the process.

GK, I understand that my husband is going to complain, I wouldn't be making this move if this hadn't happened with my job and the state was chosen by me by reason of deduction, I had several places to choose from, and I could have chosen to work for another company, this decision was made by me, not my husband. My main conundrum is that we want to keep our dogs. We can't have children so they are our children. I've never given up a pet before. So think of it like giving up two children and renting vs. keeping them and buying a house, that's what it feels like. I never thought I would be in a position to lose my job, they were happy with our service, the decision was made on a company wide level so someone in another state who had never met me or my company decided my fate.

[Grey Kitty]

  You are sounding clearer to me now... .

Just don't let the tail wag the dog, so to speak.

Keeping your dogs is very important to you. Honor that, and make it happen.

Finding a rental which will accept your dogs is hard. (But may be possible if you keep looking.)

Buying a house long-distance is hard too.

There may be other options like boarding or kenneling your dogs you can consider.

If you know what is important to you, you can make good choices, and you will be at peace with them... .even when things aren't ideal, you know you did the best thing you could have done.