Switching between Active Households

[ajny56]

So I started a game in Sims 3. I had a character got him a job and a girlfriend and later down the road they got married and had kids. My kids went through elementary, high school, and university and now they are all grown up and ready to move out and start their own lives. I would like to actively play the lives of the kids when they move out by switching active households and visit the parents to keep the relationship and see how things are going. And probably once in a blue moon I want to switch back to the parents household to see how things are going and play them for a little bit. I just want to know if this is possible and what is the best way to go about doing it. Thanks for all the help. Also when I switch to the kids household will the parents stay in the neighborhood and maintain themselves. I don't really care about wishes disappearing cause I alread completed thier lifetime wish and just want them to live their ederly lives happily in the same nierghborhood.  .

[Aspen]

So I started a game in Sims 3. I had a character got him a job and a girlfriend and later down the road they got married and had kids. My kids went through elementary, high school, and university and now they are all grown up and ready to move out and start their own lives. I would like to actively play the lives of the kids when they move out by switching active households and visit the parents to keep the relationship and see how things are going. And probably once in a blue moon I want to switch back to the parents household to see how things are going and play them for a little bit. I just want to know if this is possible and what is the best way to go about doing it. Thanks for all the help. Also when I switch to the kids household will the parents stay in the neighborhood and maintain themselves. I don't really care about wishes disappearing cause I alread completed thier lifetime wish and just want them to live their ederly lives happily in the same nierghborhood.  .

The traditional way to do this would be to edit town then switch between households. With story progression on, the sims not in your control should continue to do normal life stuff.
Or if you have master controller you can simply switch on the fly with the 'make active command'.
You could also purchase an additional house but then you wouldnt have true seperation of the two families

[Angélique]

It is indeed possible to switch back and forth between households in the same town, I often do that. It's very easy, just go to Edit town and click on the circular button with the 2 little houses on the left side of screen. But before you do anything, I strongly recommend that you backup your Saves folder, so if anything goes wrong you could always go back to your old save file.

If you want to be absolutely sure that the parents are going to stay in the neighborhood, it's best to have Story progression turned off. Otherwise there might be a chance that they are "moved out of town", that is deleted, and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?