DH dreams of countryside and I love the city. WTH do we do?

[Shwish]

Ok i'll preface by saying we're not currently looking to move as we have kids who will need to apply for secondary in a few months so we moved to current house in catchment. But it's a compromise that neither of us really love being in London zone 5 so full on suburbia really.
But every time the subject comes up it gets a bit heated. He complains that our road is too busy, I hate the fact that the train station only has 1 line so if that goes down then you're screwed (we both work in central London) but I do like that we're about 5 minutes walk from the not great but at least useful High Street.
He dreams of living in a leafy village somewhere eventually where it's all green and country lanes. I literally can't imagine anything worse. I find the countryside scary in the dark and hate having to drive everywhere. He loves the idea of space, I like being able to walk to pubs / restaurants / theatre (or at least very convenient public transport) I absolutely HATE driving daily. He hates crowds and noisyness. I know it seems daft to think about now but I just don't see how we can reconcile this for our future. Any suggestions please?

Same here. DH would be happy with a tiny village with a pub and one shop. I’d move into central London if we had the funds 🤷🏼‍♀️

There are some pretty leafy places within a reasonable commute? Bits of Croydon, Herts, Bucks, Hillingdon?
I know what you mean though. I'm a city dweller and break into a sweat at the notion of a shop that isn't open till at least 11pm within 5 mins walk!

Suburbia is the worst, you don't get the advantages of either.

Find a city with the culture etc but close to great countryside? I know you work in London now, but for future plans?

I'm trying to move to Exeter as it has the best of both worlds, with the added bonus of stunning beaches nearby.

Maybe spend the next few years having breaks in different types of UK places to see how you feel in them? We had something similar and ended up moving to a market town we both love, walking distance to everything we need, and the country a short cycle or drive away. We only discovered here by chance while on holiday.

There are lots of places where you could get both a city and a country vibe at the same time, depending on where you pick to live.
Bath, Bristol and Cardiff spring to mind in the South West. All easily commutable to London too if you get the itch.

Plenty of villages have pubs that are walkable. Mine has 2 village shops, 3 pubs and a tearoom. As others have said suburbs are the worst of both worlds, but you should be able to find plenty of villages with lots going on and a decent couple of pubs that are walkable.

High culture you’ll always need to go into the city, but for me I don’t go to the theatre enough for it to be a bonus for it to be in walking distance. Ask yourself how many times you actually use each amenity? If you are using pubs, gyms and tennis actually village life might be ok. But if you are museums and theatres every weekend then you might struggle.

We used to have the same issue

Around covid time I agreed to look at some small towns around London as a compromise

DH looked around and said “but where are all the restaurants?” Turns out he’s more of a Londoner than he thought…

Is there anything your DH loves about London that you can point to? Also as your DC get older, will you be able to take advantage of London benefits more?

There’s compromise out there. I live in a town, I have Waitrose, 5 other supermarkets of differing sizes, a dozen pubs and lots more restaurants in walking distance, rotating street food plaza each weekend on top, I can walk to the beach in 5 minutes and open countryside in 8 minutes, its 15 minutes by car to the mall and “big shops” and 30 minutes by car or a bit longer by bus to the city centre for theatre, hundreds of pubs and restaurants etc. Yes it’s not middle of know where do noise happens, though it’s not loud, and if you want to leave town at night there is no street lights but with a train line being built too it’s a good compromise I’m a city girl, he’s a country boy

Separate when the children have left home? He buys a thatched cottage in the middle of fields, you buy a flat in the Barbican.

When we had the same debate we agreed to spend 2 weeks of our holiday in the type of little village he liked - he admitted by the end of it that we would not enjoy living there! I think it sounds very appealing to a lot of people but in practice rural living can be quite hard.

Outskirts (so close to countryside walks etc) of a nice village/small town/even small city like Salisbury or Chichester?

My parents were the same and ended up living in zone 3. Not sure about any solution, maybe a smaller city within east reach of countryside or with villages on its doorstep. In London the place that springs to mind is somewhere like Ham which has a very village like feel but transports links aren’t great so less ideal for you.

I actually think this is quite a smart idea. I think he's thinking it will all be country fetes and rainbows where I'm thinking practicalities. I don't like walking on empty roads after dark. It doesn't feel safe. What if we have to give up the car for some reason? What will we DO in the winter?
Mud. Ugh. It's funny. I always say the countryside stinks of poo (manure obviously) he says the city smells of piss and greasy food. I think both of these are actually true 😆.

Suburbia is the worst, you don't get the advantages of either.

Agree completely. Suburbia isn’t a good compromise. It’s the worst of both.

My suggestion would be to live in a nice market town with good shops, eateries etc and to buy a house within walking distance of the station to get fast, direct trains into London. Somewhere like Market Harborough is what I’m thinking of, but in the Home Counties rather than the Midlands. Amersham? Epsom?

Yes, DH had this idea that country living would be sort of like living in a miss marple episode but with fewer murders.

So we had a couple of weeks of having to drive absolutely everywhere (both because of distance and because there’s no pavements), getting bored of the one pub very quickly, running out of milk and having to do a 30 min trip out before we could have coffee….

He changed his mind after that :)

My DH is similar, or was, before we actually tried rural living for six - very long - years!

We're both city types, born and bred, although he spent his childhood in a fairly rural location right on the edge of his city, as well as all holidays camping in the countryside. As a result he'd always hankered after the 'picture postcard' cottage. I couldn't think of anything worse, but after a few moves to locations where I'd had the final say, I let him choose the next place.

In hindsight we should have tried before buying. Sadly we didn't and it was a big mistake. However, as it was a renovation project that we planned to DIY and we'd have lost money if we'd re-sold immediately, we stuck it out till we'd finished, before finally selling last year.

For me it was too quiet - I admit to being noise sensitive, but you can have too much of a good thing and the silence became almost unbearable. It was also very lonely -our nearest neighbours (an older couple) took an instant dislike to us - or at least he did....in six years we never met her! The other neighbours (huge mansion up the lane) didn't live there full time and were very wrapped up in their business so didn't socialise with the locals. The closest shop - we weren't in a village, but had just those two near-ish neighbours - was a 45 minute walk and most of the roads to get there had no footpath.

We had two dogs when we moved (both since passed away 😭) and we imagined loads of long, country walks with them. The reality was very different as much of the land within walking distance was farmland full of horses, sheep and cattle and a few places we loved walking when we first moved were later sold and closed off to the public. Eventually we had to drive to take them for a walk that wasn't just walking them along the road.

Our home was lovely (once completed!) - very picturesque - plus we had 0.5 acre of garden which we'd never have got back home. DH still misses the 'idea' of rural living but concedes he wouldn't go back and we've now bought a Georgian cottage two minutes walk from the beach in a small town with everything we need on the south coast.

Don’t understand the “suburbia is worst of both worlds”
London zone 4 - 45mins home from the theatre, high street full of restaurants and garden that backs onto green belt. Tube, shops and restaurants all in walking distance.
We have a dog- so many more accessible walks than when lived in the countryside when much is inaccessible farm land.
I don’t ever want to be reliant on a car to get anywhere

Agreed. London suburbs tend to have great schools and facilities. You can get a bus every 6 mins, and a train into a central London station that takes 15-20. Family house for a reasonable price. Garden. What’s not to like? People can be snobby about it but who cares?

This made me smile, I agree entirely. I'm in a small city but have the best of both worlds - 20 minutes walk into town, with all the liveliness of bars, cinemas, restaurants etc and 20 minutes walk the opposite way I'm in open countryside. Loathe suburbia, can't see why anyone finds it appealing when you have to drive to get anywhere!

We have a similar clash. DH wants village and country. I want city.

We live in the very very outskirts of Glasgow in a leafy village. There are fields right beside our house.

We have a trains station 2 mins walk away and can be right in the city centre in 20 mins. We can walk to pubs and restaurants in the nearby town.

It's a compromise that works for us.

I think we must have different definitions of suburbia .
To me the appeal is not relying on a car with all the advantages of London on the door step.

Similar issues here, we are semi-rural, DH loves it, frequents the local pub, goes for walks with friends. We are just over an hour from London, which sounds great but trains are infrequent and local towns are a bit crap. I’d love to sell up and move to town when the kids are grown, but he doesn’t.

Although I think in reality what the kids decide to do will have an impact, if I can be quite close to them I’ll do that. Currently near older parents which is also keeping us here. I’d love to be able walk to some nice places to eat out.

To be fair our "suburban" location in zone 5 is more like this. I rarely use the car. We have the high street 2 roads away. 7 mins walk to the station to central London 30 mins ON the train to the west end. But we are both compromising because it's not what either of us want really. I would prefer livelier, he would prefer more space.but our town is a popular one and it does have plenty of restaurants and there are "country" parks nearby. I just find it a bit boring and it's not village-y enough for him. In reality I imagine we'll probably remain in similar type locations where neither of us get quite what we want.

Honestly I think suburbia (or at least the right bit of suburbia!) is the perfect compromise. I wake to the sound of birds twittering in the trees, I can go for a morning run through woodland. Church bells ringing on a Sunday morning. I know all our neighbours. And I’m 5 mins from the high street, with cinema, shops bars restaurants etc. 5 mins from train station that takes me into central London in 20 mins. What is not to love?

I live in a market town. DH and I both grew up in Bristol , but job opportunities meant relocation to Bath. I couldn't afford the house prices in Bath so we moved midway between the two to a town called Keynsham. Its got enough pubs and shops for our daily needs but It's close enough to both cities to catch the train in (10 minutes ) or bus (20 minutes). We can also get to Paddington in about an hour and a half. 20 minutes from the airport as well.