Don't want to move for DH

[FEJ2016]

DH and I met in central London where he owns a business but I've always wanted to move home to the north. (East Yorkshire) When we got married and decided to have children we agreed on a plan (his idea) that we would move north and he would work 3 days a week in London (he owns a flat there so has somewhere to stay etc) and spend 4 days a week up north with us. We're now living in the same town as my parents, grandparents and my sister and her family with my 6m DD. I'm really happy here it's a lovely place really friendly I have lots of groups to go to etc.
DH has decided our arrangement isn't working for him. He wants to see his friends more and doesn't feel like he's getting the most out of his life so he wants us to move to a commuter town near London. The thing is I would then effectively see him less. He wouldn't be around at all during the week because of work (possibly one morning before midday a week), and generally he would miss wake up and bed time for our daughter, and he would go out with his friends and playing golf etc at the weekend so he would be spending less real time with me and DD.
I'm terrified of being isolated down south away from my support network and my amazing family. My grandparents are old and my sister struggles with childcare it's been amazing to be around and help. But he is my husband and he's not happy. Do I have to sacrifice everything for him because he has a business and pays for everything? I'm so torn

I actually asked him if that meant moving so he could spend less time with me and he said yes.

This puts a whole new light on things OP.

I guess the time for trying to build a marriage together is over. If this is what he said you need to be picking a divorce solicitor as the marriage is clearly over already.

At the moment you have it all set up for you though - his business pays for your lifestyle to hang out with your family and friends doing exactly what you want to do.

Ho gets to go to work, then come home and not be near any of his friends of family (except you and the baby of course).

I can see why he isn't happy. But I can also see why you wouldn't want to move away from your family/friends/support. It would be very lonely for you.

So I am torn. At the moment its fab for you, shit for him. If you move, it will be fab for him, shit for you. I can't think of a compromise that would work.

I agree with Twitterqueen:

you need to create a life together, as a family unit. At the moment you have a life with your family in your town and your DH is peripheral to that. For your marriage to grow and develop you need to put your DH and you and your DD first. You need to develop habits and practices and friends and networks together, not separately and in two separate places.

I actually asked him if that meant moving so he could spend less time with me and he said yes.

WHAT I missed that. fucking hell. Fuck that.

Start gathering financial evidence QUIETLY and putting money aside for a fucking good family law lawyer.

Please don't move away from your support network.
What he is proposing is NOT going to work for YOU and your DD!
It's that simple.
Don't let him isolate you.
Stay put and he can work around it as he wants.
But he basically wants the single life with you in the background to look after his DD and wash his skiddies!
No way!

Based on the reasons he's given, not a chance in hell I would be moving.

Can he not see his mates on the two nights he already has in London? Ditto the gym?

Does Yorkshire not have gyms? Or golf courses?

If you wanted to compromise I think a pp suggestion that he also spends a weekend in London to indulge his gym/golf/buddy time to the max, is a good one.

You're happy because your with all your family and friends and he isn't because he goes to work and doesn't have much of a life otherwise. I think you need to move where the earning partner is. And if he wanted a totally single life he'd just come back every other week with excuses of work commitments. This could end up in you splitting up if you're not prepared to budge. That's my opinion.

When DP worked away during the week for a few years we used to go and stay with him every 3 or 4 weeks for the weekend so he wasn’t doing all the travelling every weekend. Would that be worth trying for a while? Particularly while DC is small a long weekend down in London every few weeks might take the pressure off an all or nothing approach to moving? Good luck

At the moment its fab for you, shit for him. If you move, it will be fab for him, shit for you. I can't think of a compromise that would work.

That's a fair summary, I think. If you do want to work at this marriage, then could you compromise on you and DD spending more time in London - i.e. he comes up north one weekend and you go down to London? The wanting to spend less time with you and the baby is still worrying though and I wouldn't take that lightly.

6 months is nothing. I think Thebluedog made a great suggestion.

This is a really difficult decision and I am going through almost exactly the same process myself. My DH works away for 4 nights - Monday-Thursday and is home for the long weekend. We moved away from London because his job is a very demanding one involving lots of travel and long hours and we are now based near to my family, where I grew up, so that I have that support which, in all honesty and he has begun to admit this himself, I haven't had from him. His job, rather than us, has been the sole focus of his life. However, now we are living apart we are beginning to see the downsides. He is really struggling with the commute (We are Midlands) and whilst it is amazing to be close to family part of me is wondering how long term this solution can be so I'm not feeling particularly settled yet....or maybe we will get used to it and it's too early days to tell......

It sounds as though you don't want to move because you don't fully trust him - your family is your rock rather than your DH (again this is very similar to my situation) However it will start to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy - you don't think it's going to work in London because he won't spend more time with you and DD, so you don't move to be together as a family, in which case you definitely won't spend more time together and it probably won't work out. It does sound as though your DH wants to have his cake and eat it so before making any move I'd want to talk to him about how he sees your lifestyle in London if you do move back. It's alarming that he openly says he just want to spend playing golf with his friends. It's early days for his fatherhood - only 6 months in. It sounds as though he has a lot of growing up to do.

Feel free to PM me as our situations are spookily similar.

Pp has good idea

Re a trip down to him every few weeks to break up that awful journey and monotony.

I can see both sides tbh

I think he's making it clear to you that although he loves you and your DD and is happy to support you his interests now come first. He's clearly successful at work and he obviously feels he works hard but gets nothing for himself.

However if he is looking at socializing more with his friends then why does he want you to move closer to London? To me it suggests money is getting tight and selling the flat and house in Yorkshire to buy 1 place he can commute from would free up money to expand the business.

If it were me, and this is purely based on personal experience I would not feel I could move from somewhere with a lot of support to being on my own. Especially if DH is off out all the time playing golf and going to the gym. I would be looking at splitting up and staying where I have support from my family. I say this as someone who moved away from my support network to live with my DH in a place that has been utterly soul destroying. I have been stuck here for years. I love my DH but I wish that I had considered what my life may have been like with a better support network close by. Its been incredibly difficult.

Blimey that doesn't sound workable for anyone!

It sounds all or nothing - either he's happy or you are, but you can't both be if it's either stay as you are or up sticks and move wholesale, especially if he's proposing seeing you and DD less so he can see his friends, yet asking you to move away from your friends and family to facilitate that.

Wouldn't a more sensible solution be he splits his time differently and does 4 days in London instead of 3, and 3 with you? Then you aren't essentially knocking about on your own with DD in a place you know nobody, with DD only seeing him at weekends anyway.

It's all a bit unsatisfactory, as there is nothing in the new arrangement he's proposing for you and DD, it's all solely for his benefit and to your detriment, no compromise. He feels he's compromising ATM and he is, but he's asking more of you than he's been doing.

Suggest 4 London days and 3 hometown days instead of the other way around, and point out that what he's asking if you isn't a compromise but totally giving up everything for him.

It’s not so much that he wants to move to London as that he doesn’t want to be married anymore as others have realised.

I would consider what jobs you can apply for and start visualising how life will work without him. Where could he stay to visit his DD? How would you get DD down to him to visit etc.

He wants a single life with a dw on the side.

DO NOT MOVE

He wants to have more time with mates & less time with you and DD. You’d be an absolute fool to move. Stay where you have family & friends.

Is your name and on the deeds?

If he’s told you he want to spend more time with his friends and less with you and baby that’s what he’s planning on doing. If I were you I wouldn’t move as you (like me ) seem to be getting the support from your family rather than dh.
Could you suggest he joins/tries some golf clubs in East Yorkshire, he spends a weekend a month with his friends in London and you spend a weekend a month in London with him. It could be planned so he is making fewer journeys north and you do not have to move.
It does take longer than 6 months to settle into an area and make friends.

I can see why op doesnt want to move as she is really is having her cake paid for and eating it too.

Dh is doing all the legwork whilst op hangs around with friend and family.

Im not surprised he wants to change it up

He plans to spend much more time doing 'what he wants' to do. So that would be far less time with me and the baby and more time going to the gym, spending time with his friends who are mostly single, and playing golf and pursuing his hobbies. He thinks that because he makes a good living he should be having more fun than he is

This is not a man who wants to be in this relationship any more.

I think he has the crappy end of the deal, you get to live where you like, be near your family and friends and not have to work as he does to pay for it all and he gets nothing bar his job.

Given you won't sacrifice anything for him, it shows exactly how one sided and selfish it all is.

One small point, having RTFT: my support network IS my friends. Maybe it's the same for the H. It smacks of a kind of privilege, to me, to be dismissive of that just because (a) it involves golf (bleurgh) and (b) obviously "real" support networks are families. Not everybody has nice families, families all living in one place, or families at all.

But clearly his alternative "plan" needs a hell of a lot of work.

There's only one reasonable explanation I can think of for his nasty response to the OP's question about spending less time with them. Which is that (knowing something about "marrying into" extended northern families myself) time spent with the OP and DD is actually mostly time spent with her mother/sister/cousin/whoever.

If that's not the explanation though, then it looks iffy.

Can he not stay alone in London every 4th weekend? and have the whole weekend to see his friends. Also can he not go to the gym and see them in the evenings of the days he is there? Or extend it to 4 days a week in London instead of 3?

I wouldn't move OP. I was in a similar situation a long time ago with exH. I was due a big knee op and we moved where i knew no one about 6 months before. By the time i had my op he was going out to gigs with mates every day after work and i was housebound with no one local to see me. I was really lonely and needy and then it came to a head and he said he didn't think he loved me anymore. He just wanted to have more fun.

Could he have an extra day in London, or one weekend a month there or something? I'm not sure why him wanting to do more means you have to do LESS.
Let him have some time with his friends, but dont move to some commuter town just so he can pretend to everyone that hes not bunking off from family time.

Surely the simple solution is that he spends every long weekend (Friday/Sat/Sun) in at his London flat to both attend to his business and see his friends.

Then he spends Monday-Thursday with you and your child.

You've both chosen an unusual lifestyle, commuting so far between work and home, so have to put up with the inconvenience or submit to the more usual way, by relocating to a closer commuter town.

However, you need to stay with your support structure.
Because your marriage may well fail if you can't find a compromise that works for both of you, and you will need that support structure if that time comes.