To ask DH to continue to work

I do agree. If it was pushing me over the edge, my DH would definitely support me to find a way forwards.

If I just couldn't be arsed to work and wanted to swan about the countryside, I'd expect him to have a different opinion.

Hopefully OP is having a discussion with him to find out what is really going on.

I get it. I’m the higher earner too and do not let that dictate what we do in our life. However if one day I felt I could not do it anymore I would hope my partner would want to support me in that rather than taking the ‘but we depend on your income to have the life I enjoy’ line. I’d want to feel my well being was more important than a lifestyle. If it were the other way around I’m not sure I would be able to continue to love that lifestyle knowing the price my partner was paying to achieve it.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E. !!!!

And pressing her DH's nose to the grindstone

Has @WittyPanda come back? Or is she flat out swanning around galleries?

Rent your house for a year and try the new lifestyle.
I’d say his health sounds at risk with the pressure he’s under.

Well we can only take OPs at face value. I doesn't sound like her DH has said it's because he's on the verge of a breakdown or hates his job.

In either case, I certainly don't think I could just down tools and make massive changes to my whole family's lives without discussing it with DH.

We're a team and I don't use my higher earnings to get vetos for any decisions, let alone massive, life-changing ones.

And the three hour walks at 5am every Saturday and Sunday? We can split hairs about the difference between not liking and hating, but taking all his behaviour into account I think it would be self serving and remiss of the OP to try and minimise this as a vague preference not to go to work. And unfortunately whether you think it's right or not, the person who earns the money to pay for the lifestyle will always have the power to decide whether it continues or not. The lower earner can't drag them to the office each day, and so if they decide to quit, they remove the lifestyle and the lower earner is powerless. The only power the OP has here (unless she is able to successfully use coercion or manipulation) is to refuse to move to the country. But then she'd have to find a way to maintain her lifestyle, which on her earnings isn't possible.

Possibly didn't like the direction this was taking!

Op, you can't expect the level of lifestyle will sustain if you can't support it by yourself. It is not sustainable period. I also love London and 'swanning' art galleries but I work my butt off to be able to afford it. I retrained, moved jobs, set up my own company to be able to do that. If your lifestyle is only achievable by your DH, who wants to make change happen for his own happiness, you can't make him stop for reasons you outlined here.

Invest in the life you can afford to make everyone happy.

Where is the OP? Has she sloped off to one of those galleries?

He didn't say he hated his job, just that he doesn't like it and wants to spend his time roaming the countryside.

Hating your job and not liking your job are very different things.

OP didn't say tough, she just doesn't want to move to the countryside and roam about.

I don't think either of them are wrong for wanting different things, I just don't think earning more means you get to decide.

They'll either have to find a compromise, one agrees to do something they don't like or go their separate ways.

Her first post wasn’t very clear and can be taken either. And my reply you’re quoting is before she clarified. Perhaps I’m not the only one who needs a comprehension test or perhaps we should just both be more polite.

OP clearly a change of some kind is needed. You both need to agree to that. It's a question of what kind of change.

Your priority is staying in London. I'm not sure what his is. Is the country life dream just because he wants to escape his job? If so, then surely the best thing to do is for him to change jobs and for you to stay in London but change your lifestyle (either move or change the DC's schools to public or both) to accommodate that. This is what I would be suggesting.

Unless he has ever lived in the country, does he really have a clear idea of what he is suggesting? Will he be bored after 6 months? It will also be hard on your kids. Moving out of London to a large town or city where he can find a less stressful job is also an option. Is a sabbatical an option for him?

I would sit down, go through the finances to see what options you have and work together to come up with a plan that you can both be happy with.

Yeah, we're all very happy swanning around enjoying the good life. What was that DH. You want to change things. Well tough shit you can't. Men are so selfish

You can retire in your 40s but you need to sit down with a financial planner and chart a course. The FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early) in the States has loads of online advice.

I also am amazed people pay the school fees they do. DH went to grammar and then Cambridge. I went to state university in the USA on scholarships and earned two graduate degrees. We both were country yokels who did well in life. Maybe move somewhere where there is decent education provision…Kent, Lincolnshire still have loads of great grammar schools.

Your DH is telling you that he’s done with your current lifestyle. Listen. He’s walking 3 hours probably to walk off stress. If it takes three hours for him to walk that off, that’s a lot of stress to be carrying around. It could kill him early.

As to living in the countryside….All I will say is when I have my windows open at night, all I hear are the owls. There is no light pollution. I can see the Milky Way at night. In the morning, there is the dawn chorus to listen to and enjoy. I can see the sunrise and sunset fully. In the summers, I have a veg garden full of excellent produce, an orchard, we get milk and cheese delivered from the local dairy, and a fishman who comes once a week. My past health problems have largely disappeared. I walk in beautiful places and see wildlife. Being in nature is never boring. It is wonderful and pure peace. Being aware of the seasons and living with nature is what our species did for a very long time.

I can walk to a couple set of neighbours and say hello, and a pot of coffee or tea is in the offing, and we have a chat and a laugh…I offer the same hospitality to them. I know everyone in our small village, and people lend a hand when needed. I mentioned I needed help moving from stuff…one offered a trailer, the other said they were hauling stuff and I could add mine onto the load. I lend my neighbour my hedge trimmer, he lends me his stihl lopper when I’m pruning. it is just the way of it.

I can still take a train to the city to enjoy cultural life, but I am always happy to come home back to peace and friends.

Your DH sounds very close to a total breakdown. He is not a work horse.

I get that you are a partnership, and that of course you do have a say in how you live your married/ family life together. But it sounds like the pressure on him is too much. Don't you care about his health and happiness? Sounds like you could still have a fantastic lifestyle even if he slows down a bit.

My DH earns more than 3x what I do and I earn over 60k a year. Much of our lifestyle (kids in private school etc) depends on his income. Like you, I couldn't earn what he does in my field.

But we have deliberately not maxed our outgoings so that we have a buffer if it all gets too much for him. I worry about his health and always say that if he feels he has to, he should step back. We know he can't work 70+ hour weeks forever (he's 39 now so coping but it's taking its toll).

You sound like you've forgotten your DH is a person not just a provider. You might not want a change in lifestyle but since it's not you sacrificing your mental and physical health for it I think you need to reconsider and make some compromises.

No.
The "I don't" in the OP, is the OP responding to her own question stated in the thread title - "Am I being unreasonable to ask my dh to continue to work?
She then says "I don't" (think I'm unreasonable)
She is not saying "I don't" (work) 😂
OP has repeatedly stated she WORKS in subsequent posts
MN should require all users to undergo eyesight and comprehension tests 😂

This.

Did you never make new country friends to replace the city friends who drifted away?

The things I like about living in the country:
The countryside has a wealth of easily accessible outdoor activities not available in the city, great access to organic products, amazing views wherever you look, more spacious homes for a lot less money, good state schools and I have found my neighbours to be extremely welcoming and friendly in a way that seems less common in large cities.

Galleries , theatres, shops and restaurants are only a train ride away if I’m yearning for culture and it’s free and plentiful parking at the station.

buy a small farm or work in a zoo or just spend all day walking and pottering around.

Well, that’s pretty much all that you do. You are being hugely unreasonable. Have you talked to your husband about the stresses? About how he sees his future and his future with you and the family?

Why don’t you go out and work 12 hours a day and bring in the salary on which the rest of the family depends. Unless you’re prepared and able to do that, have done fucking empathy for the person who does do that for you.

Your husband’s dream is probably unrealistic and a bit unreasonable but he is clearly close to burn out. He doesn’t get the opportunities of pottering around art galleries and so on. Maybe he needs a bit of pottering.

I just wouldn’t be able to earn close to what he is earning. I just wouldn’t; you might as well ask a pig to fly.

Well of course you don't earn much, if you've been swanning around your lovely life enjoying all the 'art galleries, concerts, restaurants, amazing shops, museums. There are a thousand things to do.'

Time to swap roles! DH gives up his stressful high-powered job, and enjoys the high life supported by your hard graft. Then he might not want to leave London.

Your earning power will improve if you apply yourself, and if it doesn't, your children will simply have to slum it in state school.

Or, you could give DH's dreams a fair try, move to the countryside, both work part-time in jobs you find rewarding, send the kids to the local comp, and enjoy a simpler, slower-paced lifestyle.

Or, divorce, take him for half of everything he has worked so hard to accumulate, board the kids, and enjoy all the diversions of single life in a swanky city apartment.

Mostly I'm agog that the sale of your home would clear substantial debts and finance retirement at the same high standard of living while still in your 40's!!!

Some people don't know they're born.
Back to eBaying the remnants of my wardrobe to pay for food and heat.

This is what I'd do.

You're describing the back of beyond, not commuter-belt within 30-45 mins of London by train.
35 miles from a supermarket means you are very rural and isolated.