To think I should have just married a boy from my home town?

[creepymumweirdo]

Instead I found my DH is London, where neither of us are from and neither wanted to stay, and now we're both doomed to be miserable where ever we live.

We grew up on opposite sides of the country. When in our twenties and living in London, the rural ideal he holds so dear seemed appealing. I had 'outgrown' the place I grew up and was tired of family ties. I wanted to start something anew as a family, be unconventional, romantic and alternative. I know, I was a dick.

Four years later and we live in said rural backwater with our one year old. DH has his old school friends and parents close by. He enjoys his work and the people he interacts with on a daily basis give him a sense of belonging and wellbeing. Mostly he feels 'at home'.

I have no friends, no family within 250 miles, a job I find dissatisfying and no energy left by the time I've battled all these things (not to mention bringing up a toddler) to be the idealistic, artistic, interesting woman he fell in love with. All my time is taken up with work, chores and parenting in total isolation. My emotional energy is zero. I put this down to living where we do (and the monumentally shit birth experience I had followed by a year of impenetrable loneliness). He blames me for being lazy and conventional. I blame him for being insensitive and immature.

We talk about living somewhere else, maybe nearer my family, but not necessarily. It always comes down to him feeling dissatisfied anywhere else and thinking I'm betraying our shared 'vision' of what our life would be when we hatched our plan to move, have babies etc. So moving gets taken off the agenda again.

I'm so tired of struggling to make a life here. I feel like all my best qualities (sociability, love of culture, enthusiasm for change, being part of a big family) are quashed rather than celebrated. I feel guilty because he thought he was getting something and he got me instead. But life and marriage and family are full of unexpected twists and turns, and I'm open to any suggestions that might meet some of both our needs. It always ends in a row.

Am I being unreasonable to worry that this meeting of young, naive minds is doomed? What the hell do I do for the good of my new family?

Sorry for the inarticulate, self indulgent ranting. Thanks for getting this far.

At a very base level, your DH's 'supportive' approach seems to be that you should shut up and put up. You're unhappy with all the fundamentals of your life and rather than working together to address any of them, your DH is shutting you down.
You actually need to start to move away from the bill of goods that he has sold you. He isn't a nice, caring, considerate partner. I'm not saying he never has been or that he isn't capable of being one but he definitely isn't being one just now.
It always makes me uneasy when someone tries to hold you to previous comments too. Having a child is a momentous change and it's perfectly fine to say 'I thought I wanted to live rurally but actually I don't'. If you're a people pleaser, you can end up committing to big plans without considering the reality, but a caring DP shouldn't try to hold that over your head.
Actually, a lot of your posts and these comments are about your DP and I remember a relationship counsellor asking me, 'where are you? this is all about him.' Put yourself back in the centre of your life and you will know what to do next.
Take your DS and go to visit your DSIS. You need thinking space and to reconnect with people who know the 'you' that you feel you're losing.

I understand it's hard having no family close by. My family live 250 miles from me. And I don't have any real friends here.
We live in a city though.

He doesn't sound unconventional to me. Like a PP said, he seems to be the embodiment of a society where women have to put up with endless shit shut in silence, even befriending the women convenient for him. Because they're defined by him and his great self identity, supporting bit parters in the grand saga of His Life.

When I married DH I left a city, activities, family, for a market town 200 miles away with zero facilities where everyone lived up the road from their mum and sisters. Things were fine until I had DD1 then the isolation bit hard.

We moved house a few times and each time I wanted to look in a neighboroughing city. No, there were hundreds of reasons why he wouldn't even consider it.

My life improved when I went back to work, and then drastically changed for the better when I accepted a job in a city another 200 miles away. After years and years of "I don't want to" it was my turn to say "I'm going, come if you want." Life is 1000% better here, and now he agrees.

If I could turn the clock back to where you are now I'd be out of it. Gone gone gone. I didn't feel I could take DD1 away from her adored father, but I'd have saved myself years of heartache.

Have you tried saying "Ive tried as hard as I can but Im not happy here and you know that, Im not willing to spend the rest of my life like this. What do you suggest we do?"

How much is he able to think beyond what HE wants to consider what you want?

It sounds to me like if you both are happy in your home, but hate the others, the thing to do is find a new place where you can make a third joint home, but you cant drag him to it or every tiny bump in the road will be met with "well I never wanted to come here!".

Oh love! I could have written this at a time in my life.

I too moved to a rural (ish) area to be with my partner. Thinking it would be wonderful etc. And honestly, it is now. It wasn't for a long time. I felt so alone, with all my family and friends so far away. For years I didn't really make any friends because I already had friends that I loved. But it was after our son was born that I actually made some. Because I forced myself to join a 'first time mum' group. How long have you lived where you are? Because I have lived here for almost ten years now and it's only been in the last 3 or so that I have like this is my home.

Are there no toddler and baby groups you could take your kid to? To me, those things sounded sooooo lame, but I made myself go. And while they were exactly that, at least I was out, I made some friends, and so did my son. And it's definitely gotten better since my son has started school.

I don't think DH sets out to be selfish or mean, he's single minded to the extreme and the effect is the same

Selfish people rarely set out to be selfish they are just determined get what they want, what works for them.

If you told them that was selfish they'd be shocked and offended because they don't think of themselves like that.

I have no advice, just wanted to say I adore your writing style. I read the OP and wondered if you were a novelist researching for a book. If not, you should be.

Good luck with your situation, I hope it improves. Don't ever forget that you matter too

Try being from different contries and meeting in a different country, which neither of you could legally stay
One of you has to sacrifice...

I'm sorry but your 'shared vision' is all about him & what makes him happy-that isn't what a partnership is about.
Time to tell him in no uncertain terms that you have tried but it's just not working, you then look at what will work & if he continues to refuse then you say sorry but I am doing this for the sake of my happiness & well being.
His response to this will tell you everything you need to know.
Good luck OP, your current set up sounds miserable -I hope it changes very shortly

Has he changed much in a year or you just assumed he will change?

I think you need to work out how to build a life together. Sounds like he has his life and you're just in the background, like a +1 at a wedding rather than a named guest.

My DH is kind and lovely but my god I've realized that if I want things to happen or to change in our lives, I have to do it. It's not the romantic planning sessions all cozy over a fire and glass of wine, dreaming of what our future could be and researching the possibilities that I thought it might be!!

I have also had to give him some ultimatums over a few things. The threat was enough to get his attention, before that it was just falling on deaf ears. He'd listen and take things in but I think felt at a total loss as to what he could possibly do to help or change things. At times I think he just thought I was moaning rather than trying to explain I was deeply unhappy about whatever it was.

I dont know what the answer is I'm afraid. But I think he needs to really understand how you feel first and that need something to change. Then i think you ask him if he wants to help you find a way forward or whether he would prefer you did it on your own.

I have nothing useful to add, or suggest, but I hope you find a solution. It sounds unbearable, and unsustainable for your sanity, and I think you deserve better.

mrsmuddlepies I have a few friends who foster and it's very much NOT well paid. It's hard work and emotional and wouldn't be the right thing for now though it could suit OP in the future.

If we are suggesting alternative career paths, I was going to say diary writing or blogging (might be too identifying though) might help you through. And also there is so little written about mourning children not had that I think it would speak to a lot of people to write about your experiences if you can. I had a horrendous time accepting my "last child" was never going to be (I lost a baby to stillbirth and wanted a large family to compensate). For a long time I looked for things to read about that sadness without really finding anything.

Thanks everyone. This has genuinely been helpful in prompting me to think some things through and decide how to change my situation.

Just to answer someone down thread; I didn't marry my husband thinking I could change him. I didn't need to. Before all this, we were both very very happy.
In most ways, he hasn't changed at all. And that's problematic. Parenthood has changed me, my perspective and my priorities. I don't feel that's true of him. He has become a bit more 'comfy' since we moved here. No great surprise there. It's what happens to most of us when we are surrounded by the familiar. Obviously the same hasn't happened for me.

Thanks for saying kind things about writing style (!). A researching novelist I am not. I call my OP style "a lot pissed off and a little pissed". I do think diary or blog writing might be helpful. I, too, have found a lack of material about both catastrophic births and sudden infertility. I've avoided it because I fear it would become a pity party for one. Maybe I'll give it some more thought.

Thanks again all.

I think it was Mohammed Ali who said, "A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."

I would add to that that the man who does this manages it only because he has a woman behind him doing all the shitwork and chameleon-changing to fulfil her role as supporting bit part to the grand story of His Identity and Ego.

Sometimes I cannot believe it's 2017.

OP, I think you should read Larchfield by Polly Clark. It's a novel about a woman who finds herself in a situation similar to yours.