Apologies, this is long ...
I've been with DH for 7 years, married for 3 and we have a great relationship. We live in a modest 2-bed terrace in an ok-ish area about 1.5 miles from the city centre, which I bought on my own with a mortgage in 2004. When I moved into the house I never envisaged I'd still be in it all this time later - it was very much a house that suited my 20-something single self. I now work from home in a job I love far more than my old 9-5, and the second bedroom is used as an office - we really want to TTC, but one of the main reasons we haven't so far is because the house doesn't suit our needs - I can't work without the spare room (in which I practice on clients during the day) and since DH moved in, every room is full to the brim – he uses that room as an office too as he has a job with a lot of additional work in the evenings. We'd love to be able to move to a house with more bedrooms and in a nicer area for kids to grow up in (the schools are terrible where we live) but DH has a poor credit rating and now that I'm freelance, mortgage lenders aren't willing to take a chance on us. I also have a large amount of debt which I accumulated before meeting DH but after buying the house during a time when I was unable to work due to illness - this is another reason why I've delayed motherhood as I don't know how I'd cope with the debt repayments while on maternity leave - DH earns enough to cover the bulk of our living expenses, but not the debt as well.
My DF passed away and now my lovely DM is terminally ill. We're really close and it's an extremely stressful and horrible time for me. As their only child, I'm in the incredibly fortunate position (although it's hard to see this through the stress) of standing to inherit their house outright - it's the home I grew up in and one which my parents have owned since their marriage 50 years ago - it's approx. 8 miles from where we live now, separated from the city itself by greenbelt and 3 miles of A road. It's a picturesque area with a brilliant school and the house has 5 bedrooms and an office. It's very modern inside, needs no work doing to it and is worth approx. 4 times as much as our current house.
I had a wonderful childhood and my parents' home holds countless happy memories for me. I'd always imagined that I'd go back to live there one day although it's never been something I'd particularly talked about with my DH, mostly because it seemed callous to entertain the thought of gaining from my parents' deaths when they were very much alive.
Today however, with my DM's situation playing on my mind, I broached the subject of what would happen to the house with DH. When I expressed my wish to live in it he looked utterly horrified. He said there was no way he wanted to live so far from the city centre where his friends and work were (it would be a 5 mile drive to his work, whereas now it's a mile which he walks) he thinks the area is "too snobby" (yes, it's affluent, but I don't equate the two in the way he does) and he wouldn't want to live in a place surrounded by parents’ memories - he wants us to have a place of our own.
To me, it's a no brainer - move into my parents’ house and sell our current one (which is in my name, although technically it’s ours given that we’re now married and he contributes towards the mortgage). There's 80k equity in the house and releasing this money would clear my debt and give me the freedom to take maternity leave without worrying about rushing back to freelance work. There would be a sizeable chunk left over after this, which we would be able to save or use to make any changes to my parents' house and make it our own.
He's adamant he doesn't want to move there - although he would never tell me what to do, he thinks it would be best for us to sell both houses and buy somewhere new - preferably still close to the city centre. He can't understand why I won't go for this as it would still enable me to pay off debt, have more flexibility around starting a family, etc. FWIW I really hate living so close to the city and only really saw it as a temporary stopgap before moving somewhere greener again, whereas he has lived in cities all his life and said he would feel isolated moving so far out - it's hardly the sticks!
I'm trying my hardest to respect his feelings and we've always has a very respectful relationship where we make decisions together, but we appear to have hit a brick wall. DH just doesn't get how much it means to return to the house so steeped in happy memories for me. He thinks it's daft because it's only bricks and mortar, but to me it's so much more than that. It's a place which symbolises security for me and it represents my parents' parting gift to me - there's nowhere else I'd rather live.
I told him there was no way I could bring myself to sell their home - he suggested renting it out, but then we'd still be stuck in our small house with no capital released to buy somewhere to have a family and I'd still be saddled with the debt (although arguably paying it off quicker due to rental income). Plus I don't like the idea of strangers living in my family home when I want to live there so much. There would also be the issue of what to do with my parents' furniture and belongings - some could be sold but certainly not all and what remains won't fit into our already crammed house, so we'd be looking at costly storage solutions.
So how the hell do we reach a compromise? I don't feel I can budge on option 1, he feels the same about option 2 and option 3 is completely unworkable.
Am I being precious? Is DH being selfish? We rarely disagree let alone argue and I don't want to end up arguing over this, especially with the grief to come when my DM passes.
Have any of you been in a similar situation to this and what did you do? I feel I have lost all perspective.