DH says he hates our new house and wants to move

[TimeRoStop]

About six months ago DH and I left central london with our DC and moved to the Home Counties. The reasons for the move were that I don't want to raise DC in central london (crime, too busy, quality of the housing we could afford) and to buy a house.

We now live near Beaconsfield, it takes us about 40 mins from leaving our house to central london. We aren't in the centre of the town but have a beautiful, decent sized house in a semi rural area. The community is lovely, DC are happy and both of us work in london (me part time, him full time.)

DH hates the commute. He was born and raised in central london. He misses so much about our old life - his community, the tube, being in the thick of it all, walking to everything. Now we are reliant on a car but the trade off is a beautiful home, garden, safe area, good schools, amazing countryside. I fundamentally believe it's a better upbringing for DC (not hating london just my opinion) and we are in london very frequently anyway, a few times a week!

He has said he can't ever settle here and wants to move back to london but we could only afford a flat. I don't want to move and uproot the family. I hate his negativity and to be honest he is like that horrible stereotype of a Londoner who thinks everything outside of london has no value at all.

AIBU to say no to moving back? I'm worried this will divide us.

What about his behaviour means he needs to grow up?

He is huffing about the fact that the lifestyle that best suits his children, and his family as a whole, is slightly inconveniencing him, and he went into this already. Its done.

It's not a fact that semi-rural life is best for his children, that's an opinion.

As I said upthread, I'm raising my child in London and I think this is absolutely the best life for them. I'm just lucky that my DH agrees (we are both city people).

Neither the OP nor her husband are wrong to have their preferences, but ideally they could compromise on outer London. Plenty of areas have what they both want.

Tell him to get over himself and to suck it up!

do people really speak like this to their partners over major life events?

40 minutes? Wow! My old commute took 1 hour 20 minutes from zone 4 to zone 2, so in to central and out the other way!!

I think your husband needs to give it more time and maybe now the weather is getting better, lots of garden activities like bbqs may just be the ticket to realising he has the best of both worlds!

Well, quite!

I'd far far rather bring up kids in central London than the home counties. London is incredibly child (and teenager) friendly in a way that car centred suburbia just ain't.

Or who shouts the loudest and stamps their feet the hardest

Both the OP and her DH are entitled to their opinions, it’s the speed with which her DH has changed his mind that’s concerning. I’ve moved around a fair bit and have found that I needed two years to really settle and know whether I fit into a place. Any less and I haven’t given it a proper chance.

So I’d suggest they review the situation in 18 months min. Luckily the children are young and moving again at 5 and 8 shouldn’t be too traumatic. Plus the housing market is so bubbly atm.

If they love London. This feeling will not change. They can learn to live with what you have described. It sounds like it's what you prefer and not his idea. Living within London is a great feeling and it can be satisfying. Outside London and constantly driving is crazy. Some people love this but I don't understand it..I tried, then got depressed. I ran out of what to do becuase they all became same and not that great. The only good thing was driving to get excellent quality of food.

Well op,.since you got what you wanted ,.perhaps you could be more gracious and sympathetic to how your DH is struggling instead of getting angry with him.

I moved out of London and it took me about 4 years to feel at home.. I was pretty miserable about the move for at least 2 years, then more ambivalent. Now 7 years later, I feel better and like it.well enough here but it took a long long time

You need to reach a compromise really. Yes, your DH should think of the whole family needs but he is a person too.
I moved to be with my partner and we started our family in this part of the country- I’m from 200 miles away. In the beginning I hated it and was desperate to move home in order to have support with my kids and feel like ‘me’ again. OH refused as where I’m from has lower job prospects and a higher crime rate. Everyone told me Id be mad to go back, so I just kind of settled.
I am settled here, I have friends etc BUT there is a large part of me that harbours resentment towards my OH because I feel denied the right to live the life I wanted to and yes, displaced is a good way to put it.

If I'm being honest OP from what you have said, I would give it a year and see how you all feel- but I think somewhere bigger and more buzzy with a bit of scuzz round the edges , but still has greenery and a family feel and decent schools would suit him more and probably give you what you need too, maybe south west London- kingston, Ham, Teddington, wimbledon etc or a little further afield somewhere maybe like Guildford. You might have to compromise on a slightly lesser property but possibly not much- commute probably wouldnt be much less though - but to be honest anything under 50 mins is pretty good going- even 'within' London -

Sorry, I am not saying rural life generally is better for all kids (we don't live rurally because we prefer urban), but from what tje OP is saying about their life, this suits them as a whole family and specifically their kids more.

I wasn't making a blanket statement of all. I was making a comment on the OPs situation and the info she has provided.

We left London 6 months ago and now live in a semi-rural area of north east scotland. It has been an enormous adjustment for all of us, and both myself and DH go through phases of hating it and wanting to move back to the SE. Being able to express those feelings, and to know that if we still feel this way when DS starts school in 2 years we can look at moving back, has helped both of us to cope with the change and also to look for the positives of our lives now. Give your husband some time, he hasn’t just left London, he’s left everything he’s ever known behind and it’s not an easy adjustment. If he still hates it in another 6 months, look for a compromise. That’s what marriage is about.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz I think the OP has explained why it suits her more but not the kids? You can get good schools and green spaces in London, it sounds like they can afford a house and a garden in parts of London, so there's nothing in her posts about why the kids would definitely be better off where they are.

If the kids were older and had lived there a long time, all their friends and activities were there, they were settled in their schools etc, then I would agree it's not a good idea to move.

You're deliberately misrepresenting the commute. Based on your other post - it's a 15 min drive or cycle to the station and then 25 mins on the train which is every 15 mins and then he often works in areas of London that require an additional tube journey.

That is almost always going to be longer than 40 mins but also many people find the being a drive/cycle from the station a huge pain.

I would try for a compromise - he gives it 6 more months and then if he is still unhappy a move to walking distance from Beaconsfield would be a good compromise.

At least if this isn't you, it sounds very similar..

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4541920-would-you-consider-this-a-difficult-long-commute

We made a similar move 10 years ago from zone4 to Home Counties. Regretted it enormously. It wasn't bad enough to move back immediately but wasn't what we liked either. We just enjoyed what we could and moved back to zone3 (totally different area of London) after 7 years when the right opportunity came up. But we both felt the same way. Give it time, but so keep your options open. There are many beautiful suburbs in London which could meet both your needs.

This is exactly what I thought too. I have sympathy for OP's husband and I can see it's very difficult if one of you wants to live in a big city and the other wants rural. But moving is so expensive. We moved out of London to the Home Counties and we're really not wild about where we live now, but we're putting off moving again because of stamp duty, solicitors costs etc. Plus we're on a fixed term and would have to pay to extricate ourselves from the mortgage.

In OP's position I would be open to considering moving, but the problem is that if they can't afford to move back to the part of London that her DH knows he likes, there's a risk that they sink more money into moving and he still isn't happy and has the long commute. Very few people can afford to go through the selling and buying process repeatedly to find somewhere they're happy with.

Would renting out your Beaconsfield property be an option OP? Then perhaps you could try to find an area that suits you both and rent for a while to check you both like it enough to commit to buying a property and don't end up back in this position again.

Is he making a good effort to put down roots, or is he just writing it off?
If it's the latter he's not being fair and although it's hard as an adult to put yourself out there and meet new people, he needs to give it a good go, and hopefully he will feel more settled.

It's funny, I always thought the attraction of a town like Beaconsfield was precisely that while being in the country it is still easy to access London, particularly if you work there full time! We live in a town not from Beaconsfield and we still regularly go to the theatre, gigs, exhibitions, galleries in the East and West End. DH will often stay in town for a drink or dinner after work to catch up with London-based friends. OK it's not the same as living there, but it's not as if you suddenly have to give all that up.

Well, I’ve just put in a max guide price of £2m for Beaconsfield on rightmove. Given what’s popping up, you really REALLY would be able to get a house with a garden in zone 4 or 5 on the tube for £1m or £750,000 (numbers I’ve chosen because it’s a comparable price to a “tiny flat” in “sweltering” London in a central-ish location). Whatever MN opinion you have of the relative safety of raising children in London would be absolutely achievable on the tube.

if you’ve never had to live your life constrained by a train timetable, without the freedom to leave your home or your work when you’re ready to, rather than when a train company says your train will be at the station (with mitigated certainty that everything is running on time), I don’t think you can fathom how huge a change this is.

To move from transportation being a means to get from A to B, to dictating what time you wake up in the morning and what time you leave your desk and how many drinks you can stay out for after work and whether you can have a coffee with your friend on Saturday morning - that’s MASSIVE. To have lived your entire life free to focus your time on things you choose to do and using the tube and busses and cabs to facilitate that, rather than life being dependent on available transportation services SUCKS. And, as the commuter, where is your life? Where are your friends and where is your community? In the town that you only spend weekends in? In London where you are restricted by the train timetable? It’s one thing if you actively shun London or if you have a life in your commuter town already, but if you don’t why on EARTH would you do it??!

Your DH has got himself into a right pickle. He should never have agreed to move. All this is completely foreseeable just by looking at a map. Why on Earth did he agree to it??

We made a similar move about four years ago (not to Beaconsfield but to a similar well-known commuter town).

I have a lot of sympathy with your DH because I absolutely hated it at first. I actually started a thread on here about it at the time under a different name.

I think it’s really difficult to settle somewhere new when you’re commuting full time. You basically only come home to sleep and for weekends. It’s difficult to make friends, to feel part of the community, to enjoy your environment. You see the worst of a place when you commute through it.

You're not commuting (or working) full time. You have plenty of time to enjoy the benefits of your new location. Your DH doesn’t really - he gets the shitty aspect of the deal, which is doing the commute daily.

I didn’t start to settle properly until I went on maternity leave. I made friends, got to know the place well, got involved with things. Then Covid hit and we started WFH so the full time commute is a thing of the past for me.

I suggest that you look at how you could lessen the burden of the commute on your husband and how you could give him more time to make himself at home in your new location. Could he drop a day at work? Could you increase your hours at work so that he could drop a day? Could he WFH more? Could he move jobs to an employer that’s very supportive of home working?

PS his door to door commute can’t be 40 minutes unless he works next door to Marylebone?

*Your DH doesn’t really - he gets the shitty aspect of the deal, which is doing the commute daily.

I suggest that you look at how you could lessen the burden of the commute on your husband and how you could give him more time to make himself at home in your new location.*

This is so condescending. I’m getting strong 1950s housewife vibes from this, along the lines of ….

….Don't bother your husband with petty troubles and complaints when he comes home from work. Be a good listener. Let him tell you his troubles; yours will seem trivial in comparison. Remember your most important job is to build up and maintain his ego (which gets bruised plenty in business). Morale is a woman's business….^

Why is it her responsibility?! I’d suggest the DP takes a bit of initiative and finds ways HIMSELF that he can make himself more at home.