First Chapter of Making the Big Move
New Harbinger 1999.

By Cathy Goodwin
Email or phone 505-534-4294

CHAPTER 1 (excerpts).
Copyrighted Material (C) Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D.

"Why do I dread this move?"
"I've been offered a wonderful job in San Francisco."
"My husband's company says we have to move to Boise."
"I'm moving to New York to go to school."
"I'm quitting my job and moving to New Mexico."
"We're retiring to New England."

Relocation, or "moving," means that you and your possessions move from one physical place to another. Yet the geographic part of the move is only a small part of the experience. Your possessions probably look the same after they're taken off the moving van, but you change more than an address.

What really changes is the way you view yourself and the world around you. Familiar be-liefs, opinions and actions seem out of place. Tasks that you once completed smoothly and effort-lessly now seem clumsy and slow. You start to describe yourself and realize you're talking about a new self ---- a self you barely recognize.

Events that force people to reconsider their identity are considered significant life transitions. Most people recognize that marriage, divorce, graduation, and childbirth are significant life transitions. Many of these life transitions are marked by ceremonies and rituals, such as weddings, funerals and graduations. Rituals link one identity to another:
"After the wedding, I am now known as the husband."
"After graduation, I get to put some initials after my name."
Moving can be an equally significant life transaction, but there are no ceremonies to mark your passage. Getting a new drivers license, changing addresses, and ordering utilities tend to be viewed are chores that allow you to function legally in a new place. They do not transform you into a "resident." Most important, they do not force others to respect your new status. After all you've done, you're still a newcomer and, often, an outsider, for a long time afterward.

"I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE..."
The United States Census Bureau (1990) estimates that three percent of the population moves each year from one state to another. In other words, over seven million people change resi-dence each year. Countless others move within a single city or state.

Americans are not alone. Approximately 250,000 families in Britain move each year at their employer's request (Munton 1990).

Despite these numbers, there is surprisingly little help available to those who move. Few books have been written specifically to help those who relocate. Moving companies and websites offer basic information about the logistics of moving: how to pack, how to look for a house, how to choose a real estate agent.
. . .
When people seek help, they find little understanding from friends and family. Even pro-fessional health providers can feel baffled when confronted with clients who say, "I just moved and I'm miserable!" Physicians, therapists and other professionals rarely move from state to another. A new license requires paperwork and sometimes a new exam. An experienced professional will rarely walk away from an established practice in mid-career.

As a result, professionals often cannot base their recommendations on their own experience. Practitioners often try to bolster their own knowledge by turning to published scientific research, yet relatively few studies has been conducted on the topic of voluntary relocation. The academic and popular presses publish far more articles on divorce, bereavement, and midlife crisis.

Therefore, many people do not understand what constitutes a "normal" experience of relocation. In one of the few studies available, Munton (1990) surveyed relocated executives in Britain. Although these families enjoyed the perks of corporate relocation and the knowledge that a job would be waiting, three-quarters of Munton's respondents reported stress. Thirty-five percent said moving was "somewhat stressful; 27% "quite a bit stressful," and 13% "very stressful."

However, many people are not aware that stress is commonplace. When you try to share your experience, you may find that your listeners minimize the transition: "It's no big deal. People are the same all over." At the other extreme, you may find that some people are so terrified by the thought of moving that they do not want to hear about your experience: "I don't know what I'd do if I had to move. I've lived here thirty years. I'd die."

Even if you seek support from people who have moved themselves, or who have counseled other movers, you may have difficulty gaining support because the relocation experience changes from one generation to the next.

Family roles have changed. When a two-career couple decides to relocate, neither partner will be willing to fulfill the role of what Marjorie Bayes (1989) called, "The Trailing Spouse." In fact, the unit of moving may be a same-sex couple, a single parent, or someone newly divorced.

Most important, your own perspective of relocation may be drawn from outdated memories, televised horror stories, and family legends. What is a move? What images of moving do you bring forward as you plan your own relocation?
. . .
. . .
Moving leads to loss. Behind every stressful event, some researchers believe, lies a loss of some kind. A loss can be anything that is taken away from you, tangible or intangible. You may experi-ence a loss as small as a broken fingernail or as enormous as your family or your freedom. To an-swer the question, "How much stress will be produced by the loss?" you need to ask, "How much do I value what I am losing?" People respond very differently to loss of a pet, a favorite posses-sion, or, as one woman insisted, "the best apartment in the entire city." .

Psychologist Stevan Hobfoll (1989) suggests that people have access to resources: money, friends, family, social status, possessions, and skills. The balance in each person's resource bank can fluctuate. You might lose some money but gain friends or skills. A net loss of resources, Hobfoll's theory predicts, will lead to stress. To reduce stress, replenish your resources. Add social support, status, money, or energy.

Moving depletes resources. Even if you gain a pay increase after you move to take a job, you give up all sorts of resources that most people take for granted: a social network, the confidence that comes from familiarity, perhaps some favorite activities and possessions. These resources cannot be replaced immediately. For at least some period of time, your resource balance has been lowered.

Most people are not aware of this loss directly, but there is evidence that people begin to seek resources during a loss. In her book, The Courage to Grieve, Judy Tatelbaum writes (p. 29) that grief creates a sense of "impoverishment." People find themselves feeling "needy," she says. It is not unusual to want things: a shoulder to cry on, a hug, someone to listen with empathy.