Seeking Couch input on a work thing:

I'm a freelance copy editor with four different contracts. Two are with the same company, but for different groups of research journals. The journal group that I started with 2 years ago, I keep getting lots of negative feedback. The style is really complicated, and I seem to struggle to learn it, which isn't usually an issue for me. And they're really nitpicky about it.

I very rarely get any negative feedback from any of the other contracts I have. So this feels like I'm just not connecting with this style. I asked a higher up if there was an option to switch to a different journal (we had a phone call about it last week). She gave me a couple options, and I picked one tentatively.

Today, she emailed to say she had to inform the people on the team that I'd be leaving, and they both said how sad they were, how they thought I was doing really well. The higher-up asked if I still wanted to make the change. Now I feel conflicted. I also realize now that I should have gone to the people on the team directly about this first, but I also wanted to know what my options were. I'd hit the point where I dreaded getting an email from one of the team members.

I asked if I could have until tomorrow or Monday to let her know. Part of me feels maybe I should stay. But part of me is also like, "OK, if they thought I was doing well, couldn't they have maybe told me that at some point in the past 2 years?" And am I only thinking of staying because they're sad to see me leave, so it makes me feel wanted? At the same time, I don't know what I'm walking into, and it likely will be less work, so less money, but it's in a topic I'm somewhat more interested in.

Thoughts? Conveniently, I see Dr. T tomorrow, and I've talked to him a lot about this, so I figure he can give me guidance. I talked about it briefly with H, too, just now but his advice for now was to ask for time to think about it (then he had to get on a work call).