Moved to rural area and hate it

You need to be very strict with the driving.

Don't step in to help out.

Friendships IMO are the linchpin that make secondary school bareable for many children.

If your teen feels isolated and out of the loop, his friendships might drift and he will feel left out.

It will bring a whole load of worry to your life that you really don't need if it can be avoided.

It might. 🤞🏼

Well you could stop driving him around for a start. That would focus his mind.

If you got a FT job you wouldn’t be available.

If you got a job in Dublin and commuted you’d be there even less…

This.

We're currently renting in a small, rural village in SE England. Was lovely with primary age DCs. Beautiful village school, lovely countryside opposite our street, community feel.
Now we have teens and there's no buses at weekends and it's a 30 minute drive to a town with a supermarket big enough to do the weekly shop, a cinema or a swimming pool...

We'll be buying in the next few years and relocating to NE. DH wants equally/more rural. I want access to all the amenities we don't currently have, for both myself and the DCs. We will compromise and look at houses on the edge of towns or in large villages with good public transport access to large towns/cities.

I'm happy to move back to rural living again in retirement (not too rural) and have said this won't be a 'forever' home, just a move for the next stage of our lives.

Can you put this idea do your DH?

And don’t make it all about the driving - if that’s not the sole issue. It sounds like moving back has multiple reasons behind it, which can’t be fixed by getting him to drive more or something.

Hey OP, if it’s really stressing you out that much - talk to your DH and tell him just how much you want to move back to Dublin. Make sure he really listens to you - be as clear and firm about your feelings as you can. Don’t go into the conversation assuming he wants to stay in the country - just assert your own feelings. See what he says/does. He may not truly understand just how much you want to move back, and needs to understand he can’t just fob you off with a flippant comment. Say that you want to live in the city but to have breaks in the country, as it was before.

If his vision problems are permanent, he needs to accept that he can't meet the educational and social needs of three teenagers in an area with no public transport or amenities. And it's not fair to leave that soley to you, sacrificing your career in the process, when this is his dream not yours.

We talked about me going back to work full time with the kids and I reminded dh that he'll have to do all the school runs and some of the sports activities as I'll be working but there is no guarantee he'll be able to that every day and what happens when he can't drive the kids miss school /sports/planned hang outs with friends

What did he say to that and what are his plans for days when neither of you are able to drive?

What would happen if tot staged a strike? Refused to do any driving for a week?

I don't think a person who doesn't drive gets to insist on a lifestyle that requires another person to spend so much time in the car.

I agree with this. I don't think he gets to dictate here. He's not making it happen.

I would be firm. You aren't prepared to be a full time chauffeur. Your middle child is with you on this. You make plans to move back to Dublin and go to the country on the weekend/holidays.

I did mention it to him today briefly (will have a proper chat at the weekend) and I said about having to drive the kid everywhere and all the drop offs and he said that's great at least we'll know where they are all the time

Work out for each trip that you do; how long it takes, whether you'd have to stay, what time you'd be home. Look at the number of hours and work out how reasonable/unreasonable it is. E.g. DC2 did a competitive sport 5 days a week which was a 35m-1hr round trip for a 2 hour activity. For the longer trips DH took him there (7.30-8.30pm) and I picked up (9.30-10.30pm). The other DCs had their own activities too with similar round trips and logistics could be a nightmare. Our worst day was Thursday. I left home at 3.15pm to do a school pick up, then constantly picked up/dropped off various kids between 3 towns, finally getting home at 9.30pm. DH also did one of the 1hr round trips in this time. This was totally nuts, but we did it because we wanted to move house, didn't want the kids to have to give up things that were important to them, and we knew it would only be for 2-3 years.

Spell out clearly to DH what living rurally with no public transport means practically, in terms of hours driving/waiting around and time out of the house. Are you and DH able or prepared to do that for them, or will the DCs just not be able to do the things they might want to?

Also, how will they get to secondary school? Is there a bus, or will you have to drive them to/from there as well? I should add that I don't work and was still tired from having to spend so many hours driving kids around and waiting for them. There is no way I could have done it if also working full time.

Both mine grew up in a small rural village. We kept them busy with lots of activities to keep them out of mischief, but I realise now how exhausting it was for me with no public transport. Especially in dark winter nights, driving on narrow, winding country lanes.

I would hate it too OP. We lived semi rural for 18 years, the relief when DS passed his driving test was immense. We moved to a city, 2 years ago, the best decision we ever made. Never would I move rurally again.

I said about having to drive the kid everywhere and all the drop offs and he said that's great at least we'll know where they are all the time

It sounds like this is his go-to statement to try and shut you up when you are saying something he doesn’t want to hear. What he’s really saying is “no that’s not happening, end of conversation”. Does he often minimise your feelings and try to put an end to tricky conversations with these pre-though out “gotchas”?

What on earth is he talking about “at least we’ll know where they are?” Is he that naive? Does he not think teenagers will be getting up to all sorts and fibbing to their parents (ie they’ll tell you they’re at such a persons house be really be at a rave🤣?) kids brought up in isolated places are much more likely to try and seek out thrills elsewhere when they’re older. They’ll be bored to tears, as you are now.

He is being a selfish prick and you need to find your backbone and tell him you’ve had enough. Next time he says the above say: “I don’t give a stuff about your imagined future glee at trying to control where our children are - I am talking about the fact I am very unhappy NOW and feel I’ve made a huge mistake and we need to talk about the fact that I don’t see myself doing this for much longer. Are you happy to go through life knowing your wife and one of your children is extremely unhappy?”

And then DON’T him deflect/minimise.

My personal experience too! Dd is 16 she's had the occasional slurp of vodka lemonade at a friends house but apart from that is fairly "good". I was smoking, drinking, other substances, older boyfriends, nightclubs and going missing. As were most of my rural friends. The kind of stuff these days that would trigger a camhs/social care referral. There was NOTHING to do where I grew up it was desperate. Rural life is not the idyll it says on the tin. Met a family recently who live in rural Germany due to the DH and his desires. Both the mum and teenage daughter are clinically depressed. You need to go back to Dublin.

He sounds very selfish to be honest.
Happy for you to really carry the load isn't he.

Go back to Dublin, put the boys in the biggest room and get a lodger.

However hard you think the driving is going to be, it will be multiples of that.

For me it's still a PITA in an urban getting with good transport.

Lots of short 5-10 minute runs because my children are spoiled and I like them safe as I worry🙄.

Longer distances means you wait around more to coordinate pickups as going back home is a waste of time and money, so you can be hours in the car.

Every single day.

And the late picknups when you are dying to go to bed? A dose.

My friend who does it said they can often go a couple of weeks without sharing a bottle of wine together because it is so relentless.🙄

I think you need to really decide what you want and be prepared to move.

Start telling him to make his own way to places too.
You need to get your point across firmly..

What if his eyes can't be fixed?

Moving mid secondary is not something I would do easily to a teen.

In my (personal) experience, bored teens in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do tend to find more mischievous ways of entertaining themselves than those with plenty to keep them occupied, so not sure if your DH's confidence at knowing where they are all the time is as reassuring as he thinks it is!

Ask him if he is going to pay for the taxi's as you are only doing 2 days per week maximum.

I think you need to tell him the truth that you hate it and cannot do it long term and if a compromise can't be reached you will have to go your separate ways.

The resentment will kill your relationship.

My youngest is 17 and I still do so much of it and that is with a good bus service but her sporting hobby is a big commitment.

When I had 3 at home it was hideous I couldn't have any hobbies of my own for years as it would clash.

Totally this. I hate driving, but rarely have to do it due to living in a city. I had a miserable upbringing growing up in the middle of nowhere as a teenager. My 2 teens in our city are pretty much independent. They use public transport or walk everywhere to go to their activities, cinema, bowling, ice skating, various parks, amusement arcade and out to eat including ice creams and smoothies from various delis. We go to the theatre or some kind of festival/event most most months. We're half an hour from the peak District though for countryside fix. I love it and would never live completely rurally ever again although would do a peak District town with stuff happening maybe once they've left home. I get in my car about twice a week for max half an hour at a time.

It’s not all about him though ! I would be a lot more assertive especially as you have a house in the city. Thank god you have it.

The driving around in the future now has me really worried. With my husbands vision some days its fine and other days his eyes are so sore and painful he can barely keep them open so couldn't drive. I've no idea if this is going to get worse over time or if we will get a medical solution and he'll be totally fine.

I reeeeeeeally don't think living so remotely is a good idea for you, then. What's going to happen on days you're ill if your husband's eyes are also playing up?