house move wobbles, it’s so ‘nice’ here I sometimes feel suffocated

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First time posting so please be gentle. We used to live in London zone 4 with our DD and DS. The area was scruffy and busy but we were happy there. We could walk everywhere, lots of friends, and it felt like all of London was a stones throw away. I felt connected to something bigger and would often meet friends for dinner or drinks central.

We then moved for all the usual reasons, more garden, more space, better schools. On our school run we would often see drugs exchanges on the corner of our street or be approached by crack heads so this accelerated leaving London for me.

We now live 30 miles out in a rural but well connected village in the chilterns. The area is beautiful, schools great, kids happy, more woods and fields and pub gardens and family days out than you can shake a stick at. Our family life if happy and we enjoy going for walks and being outside. I now go in to London once a month on average either to meet friends or for work, but the commute is really an hour once parked etc.

However I often feel like i’m living in this ‘nice’ bubble and find it suffocating and a bit dull tbh. I miss the excitement of being in a city and if it wasn’t for the kids, I would live in zone 2. I like cafes, bars, restaurants, museums, shops and exploring.

Has anyone else felt like this and has any advice on improving this feeling? I’m a very positive and action orientated person so don’t want to feel this way. I guess my question is

YABU- you are hugely privileged to live here, embrace it for what it is in this season of your life and stop complaining

YANBU- this is a common feeling, try to change something, consider moving

I think it’s natural to feel this after a big move.
You probably need to throw yourself into your current life more. Maybe stay away from London until you’re more settled.Go to your nearest town more often, learn what’s really around you, there will be more that you think. You need to scratch below the surface

I'm in the same position, even down to the area, not even a bus to the nearest town, and can honestly say as much as it's nice to be surrounded by greenery it's not enough, I really dislike living here.
I've now given myself a target time to move out within 3 years.

What you do is you promise yourself once the kids have grown up you’re allowed to move back
this is what I did from boring Chilterns, kids had great childhood and they then went off to uni and we moved into zone 2/3 for some fun. No regrets for living in London now, go to the theatre most weeks and do loads of city things. Much better than living out in the sticks, I don’t miss it at all.

Agree, scratch beneath the surface of your local town to find something interesting that will make you happy and keep you going. Start a book group, volunteer, do some activism, find a like minded mate….

You’re there so you need to find a way for it to make sense and enjoy it, not resentful. Project learn to love my local area!

And also agree, plan to move back to London in 15 years and spend some good times there, with your family, in the intervening period so you have that “best of both worlds” feeling.

There’s a middle ground between the hustle of London and a sleepy village life! Explore different cities/ large towns with good schools close to London.

I think you just don't really like the countryside that much and that's okay. You moved for your kids.

I love the countryside, I moved to be rural and work in the countryside. However ever week I go into town or go to a club and then I appreciate it at home even more.

Either find something you love you can only do where you are or go into the roughest place you can in London and then you will be glad you don't have to live there and worry about your kids.

This is a perspective thing

Yabu. You were talking past drug deals and ‘crackheads’ with your kids so you’ve hardly left a great thing behind have you?

Plus 30 miles is nothing.
A lot of people’s daily commute into work is about that so you’re close enough to pop in and out.

Honestly I’d hate it too .
When the children are grown you could go back perhaps .

I lived in London after a rural childhood in my home country , loved it, then moved to a midlands village after we had DS and hated every second, despite giving it my best shot. I now live close to a lively, culturally-vibrant city centre in another country and am absolutely happy to trade proximity on foot to three theatres, lots of music venues and galleries, two arthouse cinemas and good markets and restaurants, against scruffiness and knowing the local dealers by sight.

Takes a minute OP. I now live in a small
market town just off the Chiltern line.
You will find your stride with it. There is so much to like. Kids can play outside, you can get into London/Oxford easily,
so much more school choice, loads of
sports and family pubs. I love being able to sit in a pub garden with a pint and families are there grabbing food after activities or walking the dog.

After a couple of years it’s now London I can’t stand.

I think perhaps you’ve accidentally moved too far out. Is moving into a town not village - ideally on a train route - an option? One with lots of cafes and a theatre and stuff going on.

failing that - get stuck in, join things. Volunteer. Keep yourself too busy to miss your old life until dcs are old enough to fly and you can move again. Libraries are a good place to start to find out what’s going on locally.

Could you organise a house swap ?

I am sure someone who lives in an area full of crack dens and drug dealing would be willing to exchange ?

London wanker answer here: We moved for similar reasons....but from zone 2 to zone 4. This bit of zone 4 isn't drug dealery much at all, the odd few obviously but they're discreet....but it's still got a lot of life and bustle and I can be properly in town in 20 minutes. Being as I'm middle aged and still here I believe in my head this is as country as I'm going to get, but you never know. The idea of a "nice" home counties life does fill me with dread so I think I might know what you mean. One of my friends threatened to move to Hertfordshire once.....we went all out to defame it's reputation but having stayed there it is of course lovely.

Your life sounds great out there. It's probably just a big adjustment especially if you've never lived outside the city, but your children will grow up with clean air and freedom and you can always visit the stinking big smoke and see the sights. It doesn't sound like it's that far away anyway, probably it just takes time to bed in, and in a year you'll wonder why you ever thought of leaving.

Well…my parents lived in London before I was born (one of them grew up in London) but they moved to a nice boring market town and brought me up there. My dad used to take me to London on day trips throughout my childhood and I constantly berated my parents for not staying there and bringing me up in the city. I moved to London as soon as I was old enough and have been here ever since, living in a zone 4 drug dealery area like you describe and I still wish I’d been raised here for the proximity to culture, the diversity, the opportunity. So my advice would be to move back!

Thanks all for your advice so far. We’ve discussed moving back once the kids leave for uni, I would be 56. We’ve spent all our savings on stamp duty to move here, so moving again in the short term unfortunately isn’t an option for us.