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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Want to move , husband does not

275 replies

Saza09 · 06/08/2016 07:56

Talk

Dear all ,
I desparately need advice . My husband and I are both irish but have lived in lonon for nearly 20 years. I really want to move home to be near my folks and my husband's family . I miss ireland a lot and we are always there . I have always done so.

Part of the move for me is to have a slower life and a more rural small town life with family time. We have partied hard here and lived london to the full but i desparately want calm and quiet and rural views and most of all my folks and in laws nearby for my kids to have a family life.

Objectively , we have an amazing life here in London .

The kids (aged 7 and 5) are well settled here and very happy in a fabulous school and we have a wide range of friends (including irish from uni and childhood ). On paper , all looks good for london and very few understand why i want to move but I am terribly home sick and want a change of pace and direction. My husband has a fab job here and if we moved he would commute from ireland staying two nights away . I have tried to give up on this ireland thing but i just cant.

It is tearing our marriage apart as my husband does not understand my need to go home or why family is such a big thing (for me , my parents are aging and I want to spend time together before they die).

After years of arguing , we are on our knees about this. I finally persuaded him to put an offer on a house in ireland and we lost it today . I am heartbroken and angry with him for not making it happen (the offer was low and half hearted ). I am close to divorce. I know this is not just about "home" but about the state of our marriage and my unresolved need to be near my parents. However , I am so consumed by anger that I have had to persuade my husband for so long when it is obvious (since the birth our first child) that I desparately want to go back. I don't get why he can't see how much this means and why he has not until very recently been open to any discussion on this. I appreciate that he does not want to be separated from us and his careerbis successful and here. He loves london. is it wrong of me to want different things and expect to be listened to ? Why has it taken a year of constant arguing forhim.toagree to think about moving ? Feel like I am losing my mind . Advice please x

OP posts:

VanillaSugar · 06/08/2016 10:06

Buy a weekend cottage in Ireland. Go there every weekend for a year. Then ask your family, DH and DCs where they would like to live.

My DH relocated us two years ago for work. It's been awful. He is shattered by his commute which is now 2hours each way rather than 30 minutes. Eldest DC had to go full boarding at school. She never sees her friends during the holidays other than the boyfriend.

Youngest DC and I have had a miserable time (he's 9) as neither of us can break into the rural cliquey county set. I looked at another school but that was the same. A lady in my village moved in at around the same time as me and has packed up and gone home, citing similar issues.

DH says DS & I can go home and he'll stay in London 2 nights a week as a lodger. If we do this, I think it will split us up as a family and I don't want that at all. My family is more important to me than the risk that any further upheaval might ensue.

How many of you in your family actually want to move? It sounds like 1:4 so sadly,under the same terms as the referendum, this is clearly a case for not exiting London.

APlaceOnTheCouch · 06/08/2016 10:11

I think the 1:4 ratio is a red herring tbh. OP has been asking her DH to consider this for 7 years. If they had moved 7 years ago then the DCs wouldn't have been settled in school. One of them wasn't even born! Her DH has been resistant, closed down discussion and now reluctantly allowing the conversation when people can understandably quote ratios implying the OP is being selfish but actually it's her DH who has controlled where they live for the last 7 years. Not only is that selfish. It's very manipulative.

I think you should consider counselling OP. There are issues in your marriage and if they were resolved (one way or the other) where to live would become clear.

trafalgargal · 06/08/2016 10:11

That said I think the commuting idea is bonkers , travelling off peak to visit family frequently makes more sense. OP how often do you et "home" at the moment ? Parents aside do you have a social circle there and are there cousins etc of a similar age for your children ? Would you be starting again socially as well? What is the quality of local education? A lot of rural communities in Ireland have a lot of social problems with teens with nothing to do ......is this true of your parents community and if so how would you compensate for this? As the cost of living in Ireland is so much higher than the UK what sort of lifestyle compromises would you need to make ? Can your children continue with current classes/interests ? These are the sort of issues my returning cousins faced.

JacquettaWoodville · 06/08/2016 10:13

By making an offer on a place, however half hearted, he has listened. The question is - what next?

happypoobum · 06/08/2016 10:13

It is hard to tell from the OP whether the real issue is that your marriage is failing, or that you really are so homesick that it trumps everything.

If I were your DH, aware that I was "close to divorce" then I would be very wary of moving close to your family where it would be far easier for you to divorce me with extended family nearby for support. I would be thinking you had got me there under false pretences because you wanted to split all along, but knew if you did it whilst we all lived in London, you couldn't take the DC to live abroad.

Smurfnoff · 06/08/2016 10:15

Couch - How is it manipulative? Did he force her to have another child? Would it have been impossible to say 'Not until we sort out where we live'?

APlaceOnTheCouch · 06/08/2016 10:21

Smurfnoff I think it's manipulative because he has consistently closed down the conversation. OP says she has been unhappy for years. And yy in a healthy, balanced relationship, it's definitely possible to say 'let's sort out where we live'. This obviously isn't one of those relationships because her DH has refused to talk about it and the OP has felt he has the power to do that. It implies an imbalance that her DH has manipulated to get what he wants.
I'm assuming since you don't seem to be able to envisage a situation where such a conversation is 'impossible' that you haven't been in such an imbalanced relationship Smurf. That's good but it's not where the OP is. Taking the boundaries from a healthy relationship and applying them to a relationship that is obviously floundering, doesn't really help.

Gazelda · 06/08/2016 10:21

I can't see how there will be any 'winners' here. One of you needs to make a huge compromise, or half of the whole family. I'd suggest some counselling, relate or mediation to help you reach a decision.

Gazelda · 06/08/2016 10:22

or half on behalf

BikeGeek · 06/08/2016 10:24

Moving to Ireland for a slower pace of life only works if you're not commuting by plane!

My OH is from another European country, there's no way I'd consider a move if it involved me still working in England, especially if the move was supposedly for a more relaxed life!

sparechange · 06/08/2016 10:24

Trafal

I'm not doing it wrong, thanks!
I aim to get to the airport an hour before my flight leaves. Because of my gold frequent flier card, I get to go through fast track security which normally takes 15 mins, leaving me enough time to grab a coffee in the lounge and head to the gate and straight onto the plane.

This is cutting it as fine as it gets, because 10 mins late and I'm not allowed through security and have to get another flight.
I can cut it this fine because I live 25 mins from Heathrow and my work pay for an Addison Lee to take me to the airport so I can just walk out the door and then have a straightforward journey. The driver knows before I get in the car where the traffic is and can take an alternative route if needs be.
If I lived an hour from the airport and had to factor in contingency for traffic, I'd have to allow more time. If I was getting the tube, or driving and needing to drop the car, I'd have to allow even more contingency time.
If I didn't have a fast track pass and could face a long wait to get through security, I'd have to allow even more time.

My journey is quick because I'm not paying for it. But I doubt a commuter is going to be flying business class and getting a £60 cab every time. Which means it is a longer and more stressful journey.

Smurfnoff · 06/08/2016 10:26

Couch - but surely even if the husband won't discuss it, there are are things the OP could control. Her own body for one. If you're unhappy living somewhere, why bring another child into the mix and let them get settled in the location you desperately want to move away from?

SpecialAgentFreyPie · 06/08/2016 10:27

If I were your DH, aware that I was "close to divorce" then I would be very wary of moving close to your family where it would be far easier for you to divorce me with extended family nearby for support. I would be thinking you had got me there under false pretences because you wanted to split all along, but knew if you did it whilst we all lived in London, you couldn't take the DC to live abroad.

I was thinking that to. Maybe we're just cynical.

ElspethFlashman · 06/08/2016 10:29

Well in fairness he listened enough to put an offer in on a house. He just sabotaged it consciously or unconsciously through lack of real interest.

The house was only lost today , so there's no saying he won't now be perfectly willing to put an offer in on another house.

But the OP is very agitated over today's loss of the house and it seems to have become a focus of the last 7 years anger.

KatharinaRosalie · 06/08/2016 10:30

DH is happy where they are. Children are happy. If you're the only one who is unhappy the reasonable solution would be for the others to stay put and for you to commute between London and Ireland.

ElspethFlashman · 06/08/2016 10:32

Anyway, I think we've covered it from every angle until the OP comes back!

I suspect it's such an emotional thing that logic is taking a back seat anyway.

JacquettaWoodville · 06/08/2016 10:34

Talk of OP not having a second child is odd. She said she has tried to give up on this whole Irish thing; perhaps at that time she felt she could settle, or that having a sibling was more important., or parents have more recently got less mobile.

Headofthehive55 · 06/08/2016 10:36

IT always strikes me as strange how one persons goal, living in a certain place is belittled, told it wouldn't be how she thought etc yet if it were a new job she'd be told, go for it, etc.

Why do goals that include living near family seem to be less important than a career?

I'd say get a job op if you don't already. Gives you more negotiation power!
Beat him to the good job and then get one in Ireland and you get to say where you live?

SpecialAgentFreyPie · 06/08/2016 10:41

Why do goals that include living near family seem to be less important than a career?

That's twisting things just a tad! We're talking about a different country, not a different town!

OP: Is there maybe a reason your DH wouldn't talk about it? Did he have a bad childhood? Maybe even talking about going back was triggering for him?
Or he could just be an arse. YANBU to be upset he refused to talk about it for so long, YABVU that after he finally gave in, you're still mad because you didn't get the first property you tried.

SuburbanRhonda · 06/08/2016 10:43

Why do goals that include living near family seem to be less important than a career?

Lots of posters on here have explained why.

And if a career change doesn't work out, you can always change again. Unlike when you move to be nearer to ageing parents who may become reliant on your support.

trafalgargal · 06/08/2016 10:45

Spare ......you are talking Heathrow .......I addressed that in my previous post . I get what you are saying (I used to commute internationally when I lived in Staines) Ireland has plenty of small rural culshie airports where arrival to gate is 10 mins . A lot depends on where in London the OP is living but Heathrow is not the first choice or most convenient for many. For example if she lives to the east city airport or Stansted are both better options both for routes and navigation (eg Stansted to Knock might make a lot more sense than Heathrow to Dublin and wouldn't need the sort of time built in you've described). Ireland doesn't automatically mean Heathrow ...thank goodness !

davos · 06/08/2016 10:47

The OP says they have argued about this for years and then that he shuts down discussion on it.

Perhaps he is just sick of the arguments and try's to head them off as he knows deep down there is no perfect solution.

Not the most practical way of dealing with it, but not really manipulative.

Perhaps the op sees him as shutting down the conversation because she hasn't got her own way.

We really don't know as the op hasn't come back.

3luckystars · 06/08/2016 10:47

Did you ever get the feeling that the OP is about to come back, give us more info and we will all have a different opinion then.

happypoobum · 06/08/2016 10:48

SpecialAgent yes, I probably am cynical! Seen and heard too much.

Katharina makes a really good point. If OP thinks it's fine for one parent to be apart from the family during the week, and she is the only one one who wants to live in this country, it would make more sense for her to do the commute and for DH and the DC to stay in London where they are all settled and happy.

ElspethFlashman · 06/08/2016 10:53

Knock is great. You just walk in. Shannon is pretty easy too. If you live locally. But if not you're fucked.

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