Dream being shattered by husband, how to cope?

[WanderlustLost]

I'm looking for advice on how to cope when you are being held back from your achievable dream.

I want to move out of the area we live in. We made a strategic move to an expensive area with a large mortgage for schools.

We planned (I thought) to only be here while our child attends school (5-7years) and then move out of the area.

We live in our home town and for as long as I remember I wanted to move, I don't like where we live although it's very popular, I want to live in the country.

He has now said he doesn't want to move.

This now means a huge mortgage over our heads until 68!

It also means being stuck in a house neither of us are particularly fond of.

It means I will never get out of this town.

He doesn't like moving, the packing, the paying the solicitor and the estate agent for their services and he doesn't want to be far from work even though moving would allow for him to retire early.

If I try and talk to him he just gets angry and then doesn't talk to me for days but I can't cope with the idea of living here forever.

What would you do, how would you manage the feeling of loss that losing an achievable dream brings?

I'm gutted and while I'm hiding my feelings from our children the older ones know what this means to me and are angry with their dad (he told me in front of them and I've spoken for years about the long term goal). It's their dream too.

Right now I want to curl up in bed and hide, I'm not obviously but I feel like what is the point. We will work out guts out till we die for what? A house we don't like in a place we hate.

He shouldn’t not communicate, that makes him sound like an arse.

I have a DH who will communicate and I love him dearly but no way would I ever for instance live in a city centre or very rurally as have done both.

If living rurally means that much to you then you will need to split up, that’s it because there can be no real compromise though you could move from the house you both dislike to the edge of town.

Kids don’t get a say. They get to fulfill their dreams when they’ve grown up enough to pay for them.

I don't want to bulldoze him into something he doesn't want because that isn't fair either.
So it’s either this way or no way? And you’re happy with a lifetime of you bowing down to him when he doesn’t want to do something for fear of upsetting him? Autistic or not that is no way to live.

I dunno, I wouldn’t be planning a future with a bloke you gaslights me tbh. Especially when you say the relationship is hard and you paper over the cracks all the time… it sounds exhausting and tedious.

Sounds like he’s gaslighting you into believing he never properly agreed... 🚩

Shutting you down and giving silent treatment… 🚩

How much older than you is he?

I know you don’t want to divorce him but he seems to think he gets to be the one to call the shots, and uses tried and tested abuse techniques to get you to tow the line.

Of course they do if you’ve shared the dream with them and promised them we are doing x, y, z. If the OPs other half never intended to go through with this plan then they should never have involved the children!

Her older kids are already at uni? They won't be living at home in 5 years and if they want jobs will not find much in the countryside

A lot of things change in 3-5 years. Wait and see.

It feels like there has to be some sort of compromise here.

It sounds like you need an open conversation about why he wants to stay. Hating packing is not a good enough reason - in fact you can get packers - the best £500 I spent on our last move.

I would have thought having to pay the mortgage until your 68(!!!!!) would be the biggest motivation to move to a cheaper property for most people.

You may need to adjust your dream slightly - a village / small town rather than the country.

As others have said he sounds like he could be on the spectrum. We've just found out that my adult BIL is on the spectrum, he finds it incredibly hard to make some decisions eg. took them 14 years to do the kitchen which they were meant to have done 13 years ago.

She’s already said one child will probably live with her forever I believe

Sounds like one of you needs to be realistic about your future, and it doesn’t seem to be him. I don’t think I would even want to go out every day..especially during winter it’s nice just to stay home! And he might actually find that the woodworking thing is more important to him than he thinks it is..

Why did you post on here, OP? Just to moan? I don't mean to be snide, but if you're not prepared to leave him and he won't do couples counselling, then basically you're going to have to put up with his controlling behaviour and him getting what he wants by using it, aren't you?

Sulking, silent treatment, refusing to discuss things is coercive control. If you want to live like that, then no one on here can say anything that will help.

We had the opposite . We moved rurally because my oldest was autistic and he benefited so much from the space , no close up neighbors, lots of nature to use as the beach , nhs was much better as less population . Yes we drive more but not an issue at all . The benefits where huge

You're life would be easier without being attached to your husband! Sounds like he is work shy, couldn't he even have helped working from home? Even filling out surveys for extra money to pay a few days out. The resentment I'd have for your husband would be huge and then to have the audacity to suggest living in a caravan...wtf!
Imagine being elderly, freezing in a caravan no thanks!! And all your hard work with bigger all to show for it.
I hope you don't entertain him!

@Ffsmakeitstop if you’d have enough equity to buy somewhere small but bricks and mortar go for that. I’d never sell my biggest asset to live in a caravan. If your DH has not been able to work for 14 years is he really up to hitching, unhitching a caravan, filling and emptying water and waste containers and sitting out a toilet cassette every two days?

@WanderlustLost If there's a chance your husband is ASD perhaps try having the conversation by email? Some autistic people find conflict very hard and simply shut it down. Email allows them time to properly digest what you're saying and then respond while not having the pressure of emotionally responding at the same time. Might be worth a go. I wouldn't get stuck in did he or didn't he previously agree. It doesn't matter. What matters is finding a way forward. I'd take the pressure off by choosing the sensible windows etc.

Leaving aside the stonewalling and unwillingness to discuss it with you, what are his reasons for not moving @WanderlustLost ?

We are in the opposite situation. DH is desperate to move. I'm not. He just wants to move to have a change of surroundings. We don't need to move. He is deeply introverted and insular, and is not bothered about socialising or having friends. Neither of us is from where we live, and we came as incomers into our village.

I have joined hobby groups and a fundraising charity and have made friends. DH has a couple of acquaintances that he goes to the pub with. We live hundreds of miles away from both sides of the family and DD has stayed on in her university city to work so there are no family considerations to take into account.

He is also several years older, has had a stroke and cancer, and is statistically likely to die many years before me.

I'm not in any rush to move and having to start making new friends all over again.

But her oldest are at university so may never live at home again. The youngest is in Y8, and it can’t happen till he is in Y12. So it may even become less of a dream to him by the time it can happen.

OP has said it’s been her dream to leave the town since she was 6, and yet she never has. She presumably had the opportunity before she married and had kids but didn’t do it.

There’s no real compromise if they both want different things. Those saying, just move without him anyway, must think this couple are made of money.

However, in OP’s position, I would go for the basic repairs to make the house liveable and more comfortable and keep the possibility of moving on the back burner till her youngest does his GCSEs

You're a submissive wet blanket that belongs in the 1950's along with your husband's stubbornness notwithstanding his autistic traits.

Why ask advice here, you're not going to like the responses as they'll require dynamic action?

I already feel sorry for any prospective buyers of your house if it ever gets on the market, as your husband will refuse to move at the last moment 🤣🤣🤣

In which case you are stuck doing what he wants, as you can't force him to sell.

Hw you can stay married to someone like this: If I try and talk to him he just gets angry and then doesn't talk to me for days I do not understand, as that behaviour is very toxic, IMO you are in an emotionally controlling relationship.

I'd leave with the kids and do it on my own, which is exactly what I did years ago.

A normal adult does not treat you to silence for days and refuse to discuss what his family wants, it is very abusive.
Do you still want to be in that house until retirement because that's what it looks like.
I'd be off personally.

All th posters encouraging th OP to become a single parent to her kids should be ashamed of themselves.

OP I really feel for you as our situation is quite similar.

We moved to this house on the basis it was for 5 years and then we'd move to be detached and beside the water (my dream). That was 8.5 years ago. Naturally I have been looking at houses for years... and years... and years.... DH always found fault with them, something random and fixable. Then suddenly it was too expensive to move. Then it was the possibility his job would change. Etc etc.

Eventually I have realised that he doesn't want to move so it's likely we won't. The market has moved so much that we'd never get the kind of house we want now. He won't compromise on what sort of place he will live in, so we're here for the foreseeable.

We've put off expensive bits of work to the house and garden 'in case we move' but I've just started to crack on with them now. I'll never stop browsing Rightmove but I have resigned myself to the fact we're staying put.

We won't divorce over it, our family and life is good otherwise but I do feel like my dreams have been crushed. He has made other dreams come true so I try to weigh it up in my head. It's hard sometimes though.

You say that one of your children is autistic. That usually doesn’t happen out of the blue. Could your husband be autistic too, as there is a genetic link? If so it’s not surprising he doesn’t want to move and that he hates change. It seems to me that you might just have to back down on your plans if moving is going to cause him distress. You need to decide what is more important, where you live or who you live with.

I'm gutted and while I'm hiding my feelings from our children the older ones know what this means to me and are angry with their dad (he told me in front of them and I've spoken for years about the long term goal). It's their dream too.
I’m confused as to why you moved there in the first place?
Are the schools really that spectacular in an area that both you and your children are so anxious to get the hell out of?

@Ffsmakeitstop

Im sorry it's taken until now for him to show/you to see his true self.

I hope if you split up you get more than 50% & that's enough (with a small mortgage maybe) to buy a nice little house.

or could you buy him out with maybe a caravan size chunk now & more when you sell.

caravans are great, but they're not a secure way to live or comfortable /easy as you age.

gardener v caravan. He needs a tap to the head!!