“Anyway, anyone else heard of a blue state exodus who does a U-turn in 9 months?”
No...at least not anyone in their right minds.
You have bigger issues than just a move.
A few years later, another company contacted me that would involve relocating south of LA and about 15 miles or so inland. We had telephone conversations and on the $$$ side of it I told them plainly that I was not willing move from TX unless they would double my salary. No commitment from the company but they wanted to meet in person. By now I was able to extend my due diligence to checking the town and region and it just wasn't compatible for me. I turned down the interview.
We left Seattle for rural KY ten years ago. We love it here. Meanwhile, our friends from high school just last year left Seattle for the Idaho Falls are. we’re all 67 years old. We hate cold winters so Idaho was not possible for us. And I have to throw this out: Boise is the most liberal part of Idaho. It’s not where I’d go if I were fleeing a blue area.
And you didn’t mention California traffic. That’s the main reason I left Seattle. It wasn’t the cost of living.
And why would you lose your family. Is your wife threatening to dump you and move back to the cesspool? I’m confused.
Regarding the kids, you need to home school them wherever you live.
Well, she’s obviously got wrong priorities.
I need to add that about 40 years ago there was a huge property value increase in California and a LOT of people there sold their homes and moved to Seattle, only to get sick of the rain and move back.
Frankly, Southern California is one of the nicest places to live in the US mainland. Low humidity, ocean, mountains, fairly moderate climate, etc. Turn the clock back to the early 1960’s, when I lived there, and I’d move there in a heartbeat. But the politics and population have completely ruined it. I’ll never go back to ANYTHING in that state again. It’s become a sea of concrete, asphalt, graffiti and crushing government and traffic.
BTW, I used to live in Anaheim and Vallejo. My father’s family mostly lives in Napa.
Good, you won’t be missed in Idaho, you and your wife can go wallow in the $%^t and enjoy the CA. culture.
Emancipation day is 7 years away.
I got dumped at my lowest point in 2016. Best thing that ever happened to me.
My family is everything to me too. I’m also a former Californian, with most of my family being in CA (brothers, parents, uncles, aunts).
You did the right thing moving. I love the ultimatum by the way - move with us or stay here alone.
My retort would have been, “Sorry, I’m offering you the same deal.”
Seven more years and you’re free. Quite the helpmeet you got there.
And she’s no conservative.
Sorry to be blunt, but wake up. Stay in it for the kids, then pull the eject handles and parachute to safety.
My emancipation day is July 23, and I’ll be beyond the reach of the courts (she’s threatened twice to go back for more cash).
I bounced back very robustly from 2016. She got absolutely everything and everything she wanted. In fact, she got so much, she ended up giving me boxes of stuff she insisted on having that was mine; things she had zero interest in.
Now she’s with a guy she tolerates, who’s chronically sick, and her kids can’t stand her.
Maintain your virtue, and avoid substances, and work on yourself for the next seven years.
Lack of reason and accountability. Nothing more.
“She hates it here,”
I hear that but I really don’t hear the reasons.
Sometimes the reason is not the reason. You have to shake those things out.
I grew up in an urban area. When our kids were small, we moved to a university town(pop 35k) in Appalachia so the kids could grow up there. When they left, we moved to a county that has half the population of our previous town. A poster named Eschoir once mentioned a song called “Grow where you are planted” and I have tried to live that. Make the best of your situation. Paul said “In all circumstances, I have learned to be content”
So the lack of clear reasons is a sign of something and it may not be just her. Work towards compromise. The Bay Area to Idaho is an awfully big leap.
No wonder she misses the sophistication of California. It’s the party capital of the world!
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/us/huntington-beach-party-unlawful-assembly/index.html
This isn’t about where you live. It’s about who’s in control. Your woman is issuing threatening ultimata generated in whine sessions at the local female hive-mind discontentment mill. And I think I can duplicate your reaction to the threat by dragging a string around the corner in front of my daughter’s cat.
She started this crap in Boise. If you forfeit the last of her respect for you by caving in, she’ll finish you off under the guns of the father-exterminating California family law system. If your initial reaction is to say to yourself, “But my Sweet Sally would NEVER do THAT,” you might want to get an intervention.
You really want to lose your family? Go west, young man.
You honestly believe your kids will have a better school experience in CA? They’ll be so brainwashed you’ll probably lose them somewhere along the line. Get them into a private school where you are, that’s what we did when we moved from NJ to PA.
Next, regarding your friends and the life “left behind”. Please give it time and 8 months is hardly enough also moving again with a family is not teaching your children perseverance. Start looking for a good Church, you’ll make some great new friends.
It does take a few years to adapt but if you keep looking back you’ll never be able to look forward to your new “different” life.
In the end it’s your decision but I would wait and act as if you’re there to stay, you will start to enjoy it. It’s different and can be better if you seek it
Your wife is homesick. Plain and simple. Moving takes 2 years to adjust to. Fact.
Oakland looked pretty good when we sailed in from Yokohama.
Of course, that was 1961...
Good luck ... and I truly mean that.
What about the culture in Boise doesn’t she like? Also, what part of Boise are you in? Different parts of the city have different vibes.
Offer to move to Portland.
Then she and the kids can have “exposure to worldly things, less blue collar values”.
Only half joking. Surely there is somewhere in Oregon that is a little more sophisticated for her tastes, and not insane yet to please you....
Find an Air Bnb for a month in the area she wants to move back to comparable to what you would buy in California. Then go back to Idaho and make decisions. Maybe the trip will remind her why you moved in the first place.
As others have said, if she insists on moving back, file for divorce in Idaho if you want a chance for your kids to be.
There is NOTHING sophisticated about Kalifornia. I was born there. I find Kali to be backwater. Boise is no cultural center either. Maybe find someplace else to go.
A friend just moved to St. George, Utah. I’ve been there twice now, helping her move. I love that town. It has all the amenities and there’s no trash, people are nice, clean. Check out some other places is what I’m saying.