DH wants to move to London as soon as DC go to uni

[GoutFine]

DH is from London and we moved to the Home Counties when DC were small for schools/ quality of life. I have always loved it and he has loved it but always missed London. We met in London but I was from another area of the UK originally so don't have the same emotional ties.

Now the DC are older and youngest l due to start uni next year DH has said very strongly he is desperate to move back to central London. He wants to sell our lovely family home and buy a "lovely" flat in zone 1, with spare rooms for the children.

We have lived where we are for 18 years and built up a great network of friends and I'm so emotionally attached to this area as this is all our children have ever known. If it were up to me I'd stay here and the DC would still have their family home to return to. In all likelihood they'd be living with us for a while after uni and we are within easy commuting distance to London (25 minutes into Marylebone and we are a short walk from the station).

He says I'm being unfair as he has lived here for so long and he belongs in London and wants to live back there. I feel my life is here end don't see why he must live in London when we are so close anyway. I mainly feel sad for the children I don't want them to lose their family home and the friendships and connections they have here.

WIBU to refuse to move? He is desperate to.

Rent out your home and rent somewhere in London. Try it for a year and re-evaluate then.

Sorry, didn’t read the post where the OP said they would have £1 million. Short answer is, you won’t get anything like the flat your DH wants for £1 million.

And the service charges are bonkers. Ours is about £7k and there’s a block up the road that’s over £10k. God alone knows what the really swanky flats over the road are (£many millions for a one bed flat - but they are amazing).

Assuming he wants to be central central - driving is a pain and getting worse (out mayor really doesn’t want people drive), and public transport is getting worse (rammed and expensive). So your weekly shopping can be a drag if you don’t get things delivered.

if you live somewhere like Wimbledon, Richmond, Putney, Barnes you don’t have to feel hemmed in at all.

I agree. I live in Putney and it takes 20 minutes to get to central London so perfect for theatres/museums etc. We also have lots of green spaces and I have never felt 'hemmed in' at all, nor is crime a huge issue.

But you'd need to spend a fair bit more than £300K for a flat here. I agree with other posters - rent your home out and see how you might now enjoy living in London after all.

Sorry, didn’t read the post where the OP said they would have £1 million. Short answer is, you won’t get anything like the flat your DH wants for £1 million.

Yes, you would. Prices of flats have stagnated although perhaps not so much in Mayfair. Many other parts of London have lovely flats well under £1million.

Has OP specified what kind of flat her bloke wants? If so I haven’t seen it.

As a Londoner I totally understand him but I feel like this is a conversation that could have been had when you first moved into your current house.

maybe you can comprise and find somewhere in outer London so you can still have space and an outdoor area without the claustrophobia but he can still have his “London life”

I don’t think you will be happy and your marriage will be at risk, with you sad and living away from your network. Do you have finances that would allow him to rent somewhere small in
london as an addition? He might find this “cosmopolitan” dream he has going on is not so great when it’s cramped conditions, constant traffic and everything is bloody expensive.

One with “rooms for the children” to come to stay. So that’s got to be a 3-bed at least.

Well one of you is going to be unhappy or you will go your separate ways.

I sympathise with your DH, we moved from a city (not London) to South Devon, I thought it would be OK but by the time kids had friends and settled at school I was trapped and I hate it. I mean Devon is lovely, nice being close to the beach but I don't want to live here. I've done 25 years and I want to move but DH won't budge.

I'm trapped and to be honest I resent the fact that my feelings apparently don't matter. I know I can't move (unless I leave him) unless or until I'm a widow. I know getting the house ready to sell and on the market will be the first thing I do if he dies before me. Grim really.

Is it possible to downsize where you are and get a smaller place and a one bed flat in London so you could live between both areas?

Has he actually looked at the flats you can afford in Zone 1? £1 million really wouldn't go very far. You say you want spare bedrooms for the kids, but for £1 million you wouldn't be able to get enough spare bedrooms for more than one of them, if that. Is that what he wants? Maybe when he investigates the actual reality, which is a super small flat in the less nice parts of Zone 1, he'll change his mind.

But they live 25 minutes from central London now. What would be the point of moving somewhere else in London, that's also at least 25 minutes from central London, when the OP would be unhappy? Especially somewhere like Richmond, it's at the end of the sodding District Line!

Is your husband black perhaps? Most black people I know are apprehensive of life outside London because there is much less diversity.

I don't think he can be apprehensive if he's lived there for over a decade!
Bored maybe

Actual reality

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125029460#/?channel=RES_BUY

More actual reality

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127550390#/?channel=RES_BUY

Not all of zone one is Pimlico @Blossomtoes !

We’ve recently left london for Hertfordshire gif all the reasons you mention. We kept our London flat, rental pays our mortgage here. As soon as ours go to Uni we both want to get back to London. If you’re raised in that kind of buzz in the greatest city in the world, it’s really hard to live anywhere else, even though I know my children have more freedom, safety and a better education here, I can’t wait to get back when they’re grown.
However - if you live it where you are then I think it’s a big ask if his, maybe just plan more trips into town, London weekends?

Because they’d actually be in multicultural London rather than the sticks so DH would be happy. Yet Richmond is very villagey, near to beautiful parks, easy to get straight out of London, so no need to feel hemmed in as OP fears.

Did I say it was? Those flats are in Zone 1, have three bedrooms and are the right price, are they not? I found them in five minutes, obviously a committed search would reveal many more in other parts of Z1. So much for actual reality not measuring up.

People don't half go on about the galleries and theatres of central London. I live 10 minutes' walk from Tate Britain and about 25 minutes' from the National Gallery. I appreciate them and theatre and the Thames and the Houses of Parliament but what I really like are the huge variety of restaurants five minutes' walk away that I go to whenever I feel like it. I couldn't be arsed if had to make what amounted to a two-hour journey and would stick with my faithful local Italian. I don't think people are giving that enough credit.

Amazing bit of stereotyping of so many things in one statement.

Sounds a bit nostalgic. I've lived in London all my life and it's changed drastically over the last 10 years. Violence everywhere, dirty, transport appalling, expensive. TBH it's a shit hole! Fine if you have LOADS of money of course, but so is everywhere. I'd really get him into perspective about this, you could make a drastic mistake.

Queen’s Park is quite nice and central - you can get a 4 dbl bed semi-det house for a million there if you’re willing to update interior.
I know this because my aunt has hers on the market.,