Can I really change who I am?

Since this whole depression thing has come out of the closet things have been hard in my marriage. My husband has been working overtime to make me feel special but I can’t help but feel that it’s out of obligation and that he is doing it because he has to… Crazy huh.

I noticed he was talking to a girl from the past that I believed he had a crush on and I went crazy. My jealousy took over and I couldn’t control it. He was also texting a female client from work and she had sent him pictures of herself to him… Not sexual, just some of her and her family and dog and one of just her. To me she was flirting. And despite what he says I still feel she was. I don’t think a woman would send photos of just herself to another man. Especially when he is married if she wasn’t flirting.

So when he told me this I was upset. I couldn’t help but connect the dots in my head… New girls on Facebook, this crazy client home wrecker, he wants to go to the gym, and he hasn’t been as public on Facebook about me as he use to. So in my crazy mind I connect the dots and it paints a picture that he wants to leave me.

So after lots of conversations and crying we are ok again.. I hope. He doesn’t want to leave. I’m just beyond insecure and I need to work on that. Which I will… Some how… But I was talking to my mom about it and she said something to me which lead me to write this…. And I would like to ask that you comment and tell me your opinion..

She said that if I wanted to keep him happy I needed to be the woman he fell in love with when we were 19. I need to be the carefree, fun, outgoing, up for anything, spontaneous woman… Well girl I was when we met. But I don’t know how to have fun anymore. Or how to be carefree. Or how to just 100% relax. I am so wrapped up in worrying about everything that can go wrong or that could possibly happen or who’s judging me that I don’t know how to do anything else. I’m so beyond insecure… Even more then I can explain. And I don’t know how to just be young and have a good time unless its in our room with no kids and no one I feel is judging me. And being told the only way to fix us is to change scares me. I don’t know how.

So here is the question.. Can u change yourself to be who you want to be? Can u be more like you were when your married your loved one? Can you work through your insecurities and be a “carefree teenager” again? Can I be 19 again? If so how do you juggle being happy in love and carefree and being a mom?

So much to consider.

I live in Orange County California. Which is nice and has its areas and is VERY expensive. I live in one of the nicer cities in OC as well, not the most elite neighborhood since its duplexes and apartments, but still. The last few months hubby and I have been talking about how it’s going to take a lot of money and time before we can settle down into a house here due to prices. Average rent on a small house here is over $2,300 a month. Right now I pay $1,500 in rent on my small 2 bedroom townhouse. If I stayed in the same city it would cost me $2,500 or so. That’s depressing. We make decent money, why do we have to live in an apartment in Orange County? If we lived almost anywhere else we would be high rollers so why is it so little here. So that got us thinking…. Which is dangerous and depressing.

Our thought… Why not move so we have a house that matches how hard we work (well how hard he works). So we started looking around… That’s the depressing part. In OC we found houses in less desired neighborhoods for $2,100 a month. We found houses in perfect areas for $2300-$2500 but they were tiny and had 3 bedrooms and needed TLC. Nothing wowed us. We moved our search just outside OC (literally the first exit off the freeway outside Orange County) and found a house we really like. It’s in Corona (which is about 20 miles away from where we are now. It’s 21 miles from hubby’s work), it’s 2 story, 2400 square feet, 3 bedrooms, (prefer 4 but you get the point) huge yard, nice, all upgraded appliances and newer. It’s $1800 a month. Holy cow. If you go a few more miles into Corona you find better prices. We found so many houses that were beautiful 3-5 bedrooms 2-3 car garages, 2200-2600 square feet, huge backwards perfect for dogs and kids, nice curb appeal… You get the idea. So now we really don’t like OC. Lol.

Hubby’s best friend lives in Lake Elsinore, which is about 30 miles further then Corona. (About 60 miles from where we are now and 50ish from his work). But holy cow we found this amazing home. It’s jaw dropping gorgeous. Words can’t explain how pretty it is. It’s 2 story, 5 bedroom, 3 car garage, never lived in, built 4 months ago, brand new appliances, walk in closets in all the bedrooms, huge spa soaking tub in the master that has a bay widow that over looks a huge open wilderness field with no neighbors in sight (you would never find that in OC without paying millions), a huge back yard that overlooks that same nothingness, 2900 square feet, in a community with pool and playground and all that good stuff, granite counters wood floors.. I could go on. And it’s only… Drum roll please …… $1890 a month. Yeah. Seriously. (For those you that live in places that have way cheaper rent, I envy you. But where I’m from that’s amazing. If you put that house a block from where I live I would pay well over $4000 a month or to buy well over 1.5 million maybe more depending on the streets).

So here’s the issue. The only thing we like about Orange County is living close to my mom and siblings. And for me, my church. (Hubby doesn’t go so its just a me thing) I’m less then a mile away from them. My mom and my son have an amazing relationship. He adores her and asks to see her if he goes more then a few days from seeing her. I was raised with no close family aside from my parents and siblings so that’s big to me. But that’s all we have keeping us here. So I could move 45 min away and have a gorgeous house or move 1.5 hours away and have he jaw dropping house (not likely it’s way too far) and give my kids and dog a yard, my kids would have their own rooms, we would have space and a garage and washer and dryer in my house and all these things I can’t afford in OC and it will cost us about $299-$300 more then we pay on our small town house and save us $200-$300 if we move into a house here (that’s factoring gas for the longer drive, toll road costs, higher electric for running the AC.. Ect).

Now my parents despise the idea. They told me the crime in Corona was horrible. So we looked it up and actually it’s about 30% safer then the city I live in now. Where I’m at now in 2012 had 5600 crimes, 3500 if which were violent crimes. In Corona there were 3600 crimes, 2400 of them violent. Corona is 4 square miles bigger then OC so they are about the same to compare. When looking on a map with a color diagram of safety the area I’m in has way more crime then the area I want to move. The particular neighborhood we looked at in Corona has close to no crime at all in it. Sooo there goes the safety idea.

So my questions are this… Is it wrong to want to go? How far out do we go… Elsinore or Corona? And am I horrible for wanting to take my boy from his grandparents?