I want to move to countryside but DH not sure

[MaybeRural]

I'm fed up of city life and want to move to somewhere more rural, not to a really remote location but definitely to a place where I am not woken by car doors slamming, neighbour's children screaming from all sides, excessive traffic noise etc. DH is a city boy through and through and thinks we'll hate country living. I've been studying the online property websites and have found three houses to look at this weekend. He says he might be 'too busy' to come with me. So AIBU if I go and look by myself and try to persuade DH to at least consider moving? There's nothing keeping us here really because we both WFH and can work anywhere and have no dependent children or family nearby. Has anyone else moved to the countryside during Covid or any other time and did you love it or hate it? Obviously, I'd like some 'good news' stories to tell DH but perhaps I need the realistic ones to stop myself going off on a romantic quest for something that won't actually make me happier?

@flapjackfairy my comment about sky : rural sky is big open sky ie a view across valleys without it being blocked by tower blocks etc. Maybe if you've never experienced 'big' skies then it is hard to understand. Big sky to me is not feeling hemmed in, similar to being on the sea.

I've lived in the same village all my life. Its very large , several thousand people, but still a village.
I grew up in the centre, on the main road several shops and takeaways within a 5-10 min walk. Copious amounts of buses.
We now.live on the very edge in a much quieter area. Countryside on the doorstep, which I love especially dog walking.
But to walk to the shops /takeaway is at least 30mins(including having to carry shopping back), bus routes in general have massively reduced during the last few years. I'm currently without my car (until tues) and its doing my head in having to walk everywhere. We have no coffee shops, delis etc
I love where I live, our immediate neighbours are lovely but we have nearby ones banging doors, shouting, tractors early, kids shouting currently not an issue as most near by are teens now, smell of cannabis around the area is shocking etc.
Moving rural won't get rid if that unless you are isolated . Rural neighbours can be arseholes just likes city ones can.

Personally I couldn't look.on my own. I wouldn't be looking at houses. There's no way you will be buying another of THESE houses if you are not agreeing about 'possibly' moving.
I'd suggest having a few weekends having a drive out and about look round a few places , have a meal/drink in the pub. See what's out there and if DH is in agreement THEN start pinpointing where/looking at houses.

Would your husband go for somewhere like Woodstock in Oxfordshire? Tons of pubs and restaurants, beautiful old architecture and buildings, Blenheim palace, a doctors etc but also surrounded by countryside and horses! Stones throw from beautiful villages but also not far from Oxford or train to London?

This update doesn't surprise me at all considering OP's general attitude throughout the thread.

It's not just that she's ignoring what her husband clearly wants but I don't get the impression she's done a huge amount of thinking or researching - she's seized on an ideal fantasy of "this would be simply LOVELY for me and my horse" and barrelled ahead, picking counties at random and not thinking about ay of the specific issues of rural life. There's a lot of handwaving away the problems that posters have brought up and a frankly patronising attitude to her husband - what is this "he doesn't know he'll love it yet" nonsense?

I grew up in a rural village (having been born in a city) and hated every second of it tbh. Have lived in cities since I was 18 and wild horses couldn't drag me back.

Obviously people have different tastes in what makes for a good life but I can't emphasise enough that if OP's husband is a city boy who thinks he'll hate country life - he will really, seriously hate it ieven if he agrees to it. He will not come round. He will be miserable and resentful. You cannot jolly him into it.

Haven't RTFT but I'm a city girl, now live in a suburb of Greater Manchester. 20 min train to central Manchester, fields behind me, livery stables, horses clip clopping past every day. We're at the edge of the suburb a final bit of houses before the field part.

I love it! Nice, quiet neighbourhood too, I can hear birdsong all the time.

You need to stop thinking about 'countryside: and work out what you actually both want.

SIL is a farmer and would hate where we live, she wants miles and miles of open fields, no housing estates and other human beings for miles.

Still others relatives live in houses built from converted stables, in the middle of farmland 20 min drive to their market town but also train to a major city.

Loads of possibilities.

We've lived in numerous towns and cities over the last twenty years because he's had to move with quite a bit for his career and I've always uprooted myself (and my horse) to go with him, even when I've been settled and happy so I'm wondering if it's my turn to find a property in a location that I might like after years of trailing after him?

Sounds like you've made a huge number of changes for him and he's just not prepared to do the same for you. You've prioritised his career and his desire to live in particular places. He's giving a flat no when asked to do the same for you.

I'd see if you can reach a compromise. I'm in a small town with lovely countryside and livery yards nearby. Public transport isn't great but it does exist. No deliveroo. No mains gas. Wifi can be dubious. Plenty to do though - restaurants and pubs with wonderful, locally produced food, fresh and in season, low food miles. Great music scene, especially if you like folk - we've had people like Duncan Chisholm playing locally. Museums, heritage centres, opera recitals, local film clubs. You get a film, a raffle, and custard creams in the interval.

Dorset is great. Maybe it's my sense of humour but who doesn't like a county with signs simultaneously pointing to a tank museum and monkey world? I do think OP, given the adjustments you've made for him, he should at least consider adjusting for you. And if he won't - well I've always prioritised horses. Oh, and as for country vs suburbia, country is friendlier and more self reliant. Suburbs look to the city and have few amenities and little sense of community, IME.

We moved from inner city Manchester, to a tiny village in Cheshire in 2017 with our 2 children. We both grew up in the city and we’ve never looked back! We love it here.

We live in the countryside. A village of around 150 houses, no shop or bus route. It's around 10 mins drive from a town.
Positives - quiet, a forest 2 mins drive, lovely views, small local schools.
Negatives - nosy neighbours (I'd imagine that happens everywhere but small villages can be a bit odd!), no shop in walking distance.
Our friends who live in cities ask how long it takes us to drive to a supermarket (around 10 mins but country lanes mostly so hardly any traffic). It takes them longer in a city because of traffic.

We moved from a suburban cul de sac to a rural hamlet of 4 houses in the middle of fields and rolling hills almost 3 years ago. We are a family of 4.

It’s the best thing we ever did. We love our home, our garden, our neighbours. When it’s noisy it’s because a tractor is out working or the neighbour has the rams in to service the sheep. In the summer you hear people working in the garden or in the fields. But somehow it doesn’t bother me at all because they’re just countryside noises.

You do have to think about different things. Our heating is oil fired, we have to drive to get to anywhere, we committed to being full taxi for our kids until they can drive themselves. Our wi-if is 4G only but actually it works fine, we both WFH full time and rarely have any issues.

That amount of isolation though isn’t for everyone and I do think if your DH is uncertain then you need a compromise.

Lots of the comments about rural life are the extreme and sweeping generalisations. Nobody’s saying you need to live in a hamlet with no facilities and miles from anywhere.
We moved during Covid from the outer suburbs to a village and we love it. Best decision ever.
it’s a large village surrounded by lovely countryside. It’s around 15 minutes drive to supermarkets and high st shops. 25 from the city centre.
It has 3 coffee shops, 3 pubs, good bus service, local shops, PO, regular activities etc.
Our suburb before was quiet but background traffic from nearby ring rd. Not much in the way of places to go in walking distance.
Here the peace and quiet, birds tweeting, no traffic noise, strolling about the lovely little peaceful streets picking out all the unusual little cottages down to the local shop it’s wonderful.
I stand out in my garden on a dry morning with my coffee and I feel like I’m on a country break.
I know you don’t have kids but our kids love it too, they have some independence and it feels so safe. We walk to school etc
Absolutely love it very happy

There may be an option that would work but it might take serious research to find it. I have a lovely friend who moved rurally and says her social life is better if anything - local pub where they just go and see who's there that night, street based events with neighbours, volunteering with very local things etc. You'd need to really pick the right place though, some will not be like this and hate outsiders.

I had a very positive experience moving to a village but I think the key thing that helped was that I have a child and her being in preschool / school here has meant that I’ve developed a network of friends through seeing the other mums everyday. If I didn’t have that daily contact with others I think it would have been a lot slower to feel like part of the community. I think it would have been quite hard to meet people here otherwise. Especially if working from home. The lack of takeaway options has made us healthier. There’s a couple of pubs and some really beautiful walks near us. There’s a good park in walking distance. It’s so quiet here. I love the seasons changing and the peace. Our house isn’t overlooked. We do have to drive most places but life with a young child means we’re quite often just pottering at home / in garden anyway and we don’t have a huge need to go outside the village, but we are close enough to a large city (30-45 mins in car) to still enjoy the perks of city life and go out for dates still.

Just setting off to see third house now. First one neither of us liked. Second one was nicer but needed quite a bit of work. The one we’re viewing today is for sale or to let, which gives us more flexibility if we like it. DH is a lot more positive now we’re actually viewing properties rather than me bounding over with RightMove open on my laptop and extolling the perceived benefits of various houses!

When I was a teenager we moved from a city to the countryside and I loathed it. I got out as soon as I could and nothing would persuade me to move back to the sticks. If my DH went so far as to arrange rural house viewings after I told him I didn't want to move to the country and thought I'd "hate" it I would be really upset. I would assume he either hadn't listened to me, or just didn't care about my feelings.

I live in the countryside village with a town either side, you have to drive EVERYWHERE and I hate that sometimes, public transport is hourly or two hourly on a Sunday however it’s quiet, peaceful, plenty of greenery to walk to or bike ride.
It has a local parade of shops which include a tiny co op, a restaurant, takeaway, salon, butchers & social club but that’s about it and definitely more than some villages.

Omg do we live in the same place!

Following as I’m desperate to move out of London and have more space and greenery.Grew up in the countryside but husband is a townie.

I am a city girl through and through but DH likes the countryside. Our compromise is a village (within a network of villages) just outside a market town. While it has its advantages, such as an immense sense of community spirit, it is an absolute ball ache.

Shit wifi
Frequent power cuts
Almost no bus service
90 minutes to get to anywhere with a decent selection of shops for clothes shopping
15 miles to the cinema
If you have kids, you’ll have to ferry them everywhere
Only a choice of two secondary schools
Cars constantly covered in dust at harvest
Potholes
Can’t go anywhere this weekend because roads are flooded
New built housing estates taking over (so you can never guarantee keeping your nice view)
Nearest 6th form college is 15 miles away but the bus is too full after the second village, so kids either need mopeds or a lift

We found our house just before the pandemic and chose the area based on a good selection of shops and restaurants in town. Most of them never reopened and town is now depressing.

Whatever you do, rent for a year, and let out your house, so if it doesn’t work you can go back.

Given your husband thinks he’ll hate it, go for somewhere on the edges of a small city eg Bath, so the taxi home after a proper night out isn’t crazy.

My observation is that even when someone from an urban area is sure they want to move to the country, what works best is the edge of a market town, it’s also much better with teens - if you live in a village you will spend years as a taxi service.

If you want a night out and don’t want to drive, remember to book your taxis both ways at least three weeks in advance.

It's interesting really, sometimes people need to actually see something in reality to form a reasoned opinion about it. Reading your first posts I was reminded of a time years ago when I concluded I had to go and visit a school that was too far away from where we lived and therefore a complete non-starter - but had specialist options that our daughter was particularly interested in. I visited on my own without even telling her about it (she was only 8 or so at the time), partly to understand what was on offer, partly to get it out of my system. Later DH agreed we could go to an open day and he immediately saw why it could make sense. The decision to let her go there age 10 in part changed all our lives (positively).

Now what you are looking at is a bit different, but maybe not so much. Keep your head screwed on and I wish you all the best for figuring out what will tick the right boxes for both of you.

I moved rural from a London satellite town having previously lived in several cities.
I have pavement outside my house but it only stretches to the Pub and "most of the way" to the footpath, and bus stops. We have 2 buses an hour (one each way) from about 8am to 5pm. The internet is good (I filtered on internet speeds).
But the nearest shop is 2 miles away either along a dodgey footpath or on speedy roads. I wear a hi vis if I'm walking on them. I also have a station about 2 miles away walking along the dodgey roads.
In summer I worry about tourists who decide to walk to and from the pub along our c road (apparently the busiest c road in the country).
We can get deliveries of food but a limited number of places. At least one local taxi firm I won't use because it's drivers are awful and seem to scam people. A Taxi from the local main station costs not much less than one from the nearest city.
I'm very happy here but can imagine some would hate it. And we have towns and cities pretty close.

Following on from my previous message we also have mains gas and 200mb broadband 15 minutes from 2 train stations.
Theres rural and there’s rural.
People telling you all about how terrible it is their hamlet miles from anywhere is not at all helpful if that’s not what you are looking at and I would agree it’s probably too much of a jump if you are used to city life.
There’s plenty of places where you really can have the best of both worlds but they usually are popular so it might be quite competitive for houses although less of an issue right now

I live in a market town in Oxfordshire with a great community spirit, several pubs and restaurants within walking distance but still fairly rural. Easy walking distance to river and hills for walks. Close to train lines which take you into London in 45 mins if needed. 30 mins drive to Oxford or Reading for bigger shops if needed. Personally I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

@littlecats sounds like we live in the same place