Relocating with D to east coast; Does it make sense?

Parent Cafe
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<p>POIH: “I know my wife won’t like it. If we move she will expect D to be home on weekends. I want to give my D more room to grow. But I cann’t just let the family fall apart because of it.”</p>

<p>It seems like you know there is ultimately going to be a conflict: W wants D there with her on a given weekend, D doesn’t want to (whether it’s because she’s studying with friends, wants to socialize, etc.). What do you see as your role in that conflict, if any? I get the sense that you secretly side with D but you don’t want to rock the boat with W; so you’re thinking that if you’re there, you can at least be distraction / company for your wife some of the time, and perhaps gently persuade D some of the time as well. Which makes you the mediator. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be, and it’s not fair to you.</p>

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<p>But for the vast majority of the week, D will be doing whatever any student at MIT does - going to classes, doing homework, going to the library, visiting with friends, doing whatever. How is your wife any more “there” by sitting in an apartment in Boston or NYC than sitting at home in CA? I can see this if your dd had a health condition.</p>

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<p>“I can see this if your dd had a health condition.”</p>

<p>I agree. The only person I’ve ever met who moved to be with their college student offspring did so because their son had severe cerebral palsy, and needed help with transportation and living arrangements among other things.</p>

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<p>I actually know a mother/daughter pair who matriculated to the same large state school. The mom had recently (like two years before) lost her husband and used the inheritance to attend college at the same time as the daughter. They were in different departments and mom didn’t live on campus and both made nice, independent lives. Mom stayed near the school after graduation while daughter came here to New York. Theirs was a special circumstance, though, and the mom wasn’t looking to be with the daughter all the time and the daughter thought mom getting a degree would be a good thing, which it was.</p>

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<p>POIH, would your wife accept the move to New York? Does she imagine that if she (and perhaps you) were in New York, your daughter would still come home Friday and Saturday nights? I find it hard to imagine any MIT student going to New York all weekend every weekend.</p>

<p>Have you spent a week or two in Boston in January? How do you feel about slush?</p>

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<p>I think NY is too far for every weekend, but it might be just nice for all holidays and might give daughter space and mom peace of mind. POIH, do you think your wife would take a trip out here to get the lay of the land?</p>

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<p>LOL. Sorry, again I smiled when I read this. I so understand your wife. In a previous post I suggested you try an INDEPENDENT financial planner if your wife question your numbers. </p>

<p>Try to see this from her POV. She had been set and prepared for this move for the last few years and then seemingly YOU are changing your mind. You need to give her time to wrap her mind around this. I previously suggested that you discuss your concerns with her, with numbers and I still think it’s a good way to go. Keep in mind, you need to give her time to come around. You and yours have to discuss this many times, and let your concerns/notions sink in.</p>

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How can your W chasing your if your D around like a mother doting on a 5 year old be good for your D’s well-being? In fact, it’s contrary to it.</p>

<p>What’s the point of your D doing a study-abroad if your W will be right there hovering over her? Your D would miss the primary reason for studying abroad - to experience a different area and to gain more independent experience. ‘Study abroad’ isn’t so much about studying the academic material, it’s about the overall experience (without a parent tagging along).</p>

<p>Your W assumes that ‘her always being there for her’ (physically) is important for your D’s well-being when really it’s the opposite.</p>

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<p>OP,</p>

<p>Let me point out a few things here. It’s the “gestalt” forming in my head. Please forgive me if I sound like an armchair psychoanalyst.</p>

<p>You seem much more comfortable dealing with the logistical/practical issues. Perhaps so, because in this domain, you are in control. these issues are at least something you think you can handle logically, based on reason. Besides, if you just focus on these immediate, practical issues, you don’t have to face the really painful issue which is at the root of this whole drama, and you don’t have to “decide” to confront your W about her abnormality. </p>

<p>You immediately respond when posters give practical input - the financial and logistical problems of this whole plan. Your responses are rare/muted when the issue of your W’s much deeper program, which is a fountainhead of all this drama. I am guessing it’s because this is something you are not comfortable dealing with, and you would rather not touch upon.</p>

<p>YET, here is the clincher. You have gradually fed all of us increasingly more alarming tidbits of various symptom and indications of your W’s obsessive compulsive disorder regarding your D. Responses from those like me, who were right from the beginning saw this as primarily your W’s over attachment rather than a financial issue, are becoming more vehement only because you have been progressively adding to our arsenal with more details of your W’s abnormality. </p>

<p>You are saying that you started this thread because you wanted advice from those who have done this on the practical side, since you sort of wanted to move too, and the only issue is really current financial condition. If this were truly your intention, you would not have shared right from the beginning that your wife’s goal in life is to move within 50 miles of your daughter no matter what, no matter where. AND, certainly you would not have shared with us the guilt trip she is laying on you that dates back decades, and her emotional blackmail. Without abundant supply of these details, this thread would not have evolved to this stage of psychodrama: rather it would have been cut and dry advice post with maybe 20 responses on weather, housing market, job conditions etc in the greater Boston area. </p>

<p>If you truly are obtuse about/unaware of your wife’s problem, or if you are in the similar mind set, you would not have “teased” all of us with increasing escalating/alarming details of your wife’s emotional world - of course, you have may have done this unconsciously. Whether this has been done intentionally or not, this observation of mine (perhaps bogus) makes me think that at least somewhere in the dark recess of your mind, you KNOW that your wife has a major problem, and you wanted her to be outed. Maybe not by you: that’s too threatening, but by us on this board. So, we are your proxies. In some way, it seems like you were seeking confirmation/validation of your suspicion. AND, the situation with your wife is becoming unbearable with YOU also, NOT just your daughter. </p>

<p>I truly apologize if I come across too condescending and intrusive. I am pointing this out, because, this observation really convinces me that your whole family can truly benefit from good counseling/psychotherapy. AND you are ready for this, but need a “push” from those who you “confided in” and listened to. If you were truly at a stage where any suggestion for counseling is likely fall on a deaf year, you would not have “managed” this whole thread the way you did. Listen to Oldfort. She is right on the mark. I am of an Asian descent too, so I know the whole cultural attitude about counseling. But, you know what: in the main Asian countries, people’s attitudes are changing very rapidly about the mental health issues. If anything, it’s the ethnic communities in USA that are really the holdouts of the old world practices. I have seen often that in very closed ethnic communities USA, the members are stilling holding on the values and traditions of their home country circa “whenever they left the country”, while in the home country, the culture moved on and evolved more or less in line with the global trend. </p>

<p>Also, northstarmom may have come across too direct to some people’s taste, but she is right on with her observations about your marriage, etc.</p>

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<p>I have now read all these additional posts. I stand by my statement that the OP is Chinese. Perhaps Korean. I stand by my statement that in that culture this is less odd than to us Westerners. But I now agree with hyeon that something is not right here. POIH, your description of your wife has increasingly revealed someone who APPEARS to be (we can’t know from Internet land) the kind of woman who believes that she has the right to indulge her own irrational emotional responses and desires, and that her family needs to do it too. Perhaps she feels resentment for all the dislocations she has suffered. You, as the rational one, are left trying to solve an equation that will give her the answer she wants. When you appear to find variables that indicate your wife might not get what she wants, she rages at you. Probably a lot of drama. Perhaps statements of violence? </p>

<p>Despite cultural barriers against counseling, you, POIH, you should give yourself the Western gift of finding a calm rational voice that includes emotions, vs. either the no emotion or the hysterical emotion route. IMHO. Good luck to you and your daughter.</p>

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NYC might be an option and I don’t think my wife will insists on D’s coming over every weekend. She says Caltech would have been fine and may not require a move.</p>

<p>No, we have not stayed in Boston during winter. Both of our visits were in August/September.</p>

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<p>Alumother - POIH is Indian (he has indicated so in other threads). I have no idea whether the marriage is arranged, and/or whether there is an Indian cultural barrier to counseling as there may be within other Asian cultures.</p>

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<p>If you’re otherwise up for a change, NY might be a great compromise. It might also give you and your wife a chance to recharge your marriage.</p>

<p>Whatever you do, I wish you well, your love for your daughter comes through in all your posts.</p>

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<p>POIH is Indian. See this thread, post #90,#91, #95</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/490292-how-get-advantage-field-hockey-skills-get-into-ivies-7.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/490292-how-get-advantage-field-hockey-skills-get-into-ivies-7.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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Seems like a good option to me to. We both like NYC a lot and it has too much to do. She would like to going back to school too.
We are planning to attend the prefrosh weekend at MIT and may come to NYC if we feel like moving there.</p>

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<p>POIH, someone else asked:

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<p>To which you replied:

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<p>That doesn’t answer the question, though. Let’s say for the sake of argument you decide to keep the peace. Wife moves and you move along with her and you see daughter every weekend or whatever. At one point, these situations are still going to arise. Daughter has a girlfriend whose parents come in from out of town and the parents invite them both to spend Saturday night at a nice hotel in downtown Boston and go to dinner, shopping. Daughter has a boyfriend and he wants her to go home over the weekend to meet his partners. Daughter is stressed several weekends in a row and really needs to stay on campus and work with her classmates and just doesn’t have time for more than a quick phone call. Daughter joins the speech team and they travel more than 50 miles away for tournaments. What happens then? It seems that it’s just delaying the inevitable moment where W is going to have to come to terms with the fact that she cannot expect the D to be there every weekend.</p>

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<p>POIH - Do you mean your wife would like to go back to school? If that’s the case, please, please, by all means encourage her to do so!</p>

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<p>I think what the expectations are need to be VERY clearly spelled out and AGREED to by both sides. You might not “think” that D will insist on coming over every weekend … But you said earlier that the expectation was every Fri / Sat night. I fear that your W still has that expectation.</p>

<p>When there is a conflict between W and D, how does it typically play out? Does W manipulate D, or does D push back? Do they have a history of coming to mutually agreeable solutions? Do you tend to be the mediator / person who smooths it out?</p>

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<p>hyeonjlee: Thanks for such a detailed analysis. I might not agree with you but it is good that you tried to analyze my comments.</p>

<ol>
<li>I don’t blame my wife for her obsession to move as I had always thought myself of it as a right thing to do. My logic was if we have the resources then it will be better for us to be together than to be spread at multiple places. </li>
<li>If D goes to a school near our home then she doesn’t loose anything. On the contrary she has the experience of living in a dorm with an additional benefit of crashing in her room when ever she wants.</li>
<li>We never constrained her to choose a school close to home or told her we won’t pay for her tuition instead we gave her the freedom to choose what ever college she wants to go to.</li>
<li>We were even flexible for her to attend any summer course, camp any where in the world. We have not gone and lived in the camps with her, we have been there in the city so that in case there is need then we will be there. She would have gone to Oxbridge and my wife would have stayed in London.
I won’t agree to that she has any problem. She is just too much focused on one thing. She doesn’t want any thing bad to happen to our D.
I’m bit more relaxed because its MIT, if this have been Penn or Yale, we won’t be having this discussion as I would have moved because I didn’t find those places that safe. I do find Cambridge comparatively much safe and was relaxed as worst come worst I won’t have to move and D will be fine.
But my wife doesn’t think D will be fine if we are 3000 miles away.
Is that a problem? No</li>
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<p>I think this issue is not a college one but one of the marriage and the relationship between the married couple. It’s an issue ANYTIME one spouse wants to live separately from the other. </p>

<p>H and I were separated for about a year and a half due to job, house sale, school, financial situations. It was not easy. He came home nearly every weekend, usually for 3 days, and we would stay with him most weekends when he did not make it home. Both he and I were in agreement to do this as a temporary measure, but I can tell you that it was not an ideal situation and I would not do it again without a good deal of thought and it would have to have a lot of necessity in the situation.</p>