He's from the country, I'm from the city - feel like am slowly dying

[splendidisolation]

Hello! I'd really appreciate any advice you might have. Sorry if this is long, I need to write it down for myself, too.

THE SITUATION: I'm 29, been with DP (34) for 2 years, first year was long distance, and for the last year I've lived in what I'll call The Town.
THE PROBLEM: He's from the countryside, born and bred in the same place. I moved around loads and always lived in cities.

Last year, I moved from a city at the opposite end of the country to be closer to him. Whilst he still lives in the large village he was born in, I moved to the middle-sized town that is basically the 'epicentre' for all the surrounding villages.

It was always going to be me moving, simply because my work means I can work from anywhere. Also, I knew he had very strong ties to his region and village, whereas I am much, much more footloose.

THE PROBLEM: The problem is after a year, I feel really isolated and unfulfilled. I have done everything in my power to create a network for myself, and having moved so much, it's something I'm good at. I know how to put myself out there and am a really relaxed and friendly person. But I just haven't met ''my'' kind of people here.
There's no real cultural scene to speak of. There's no exhibitions, or theatre, no classes or courses you can go on (everything here seems really scattered. Instead of stuff happening in The Town, you have to drive around to various other smaller towns for stuff to do). I've made a few friends here but it's a different kind of friendship than the ones I'm used to. A lot of my social life revolves around going to dinner at his family or friends' house. All his friends are married with kids and the conversation normally centres on local gossip and the kids.

The Town has been suffering from post-industrial decline for awhile now. It's kind of a dormitory town. It's just so dead. I can appreciate it's pretty, but what little is going on here is really low-key and for all its charms it's just a very uneventful place to live. I know I should have thought about this before I moved, but I was just so happy to finally be moving near him, I didn't give it any thought.

The saving grace is that just a 40-minute drive away is a major city that I really, really like.

My dilemma is whether I should move to the city or not, but for some reason I'm really struggling with this decision.

PROS OF MOVING TO CITY:
I'll be able to fulfill other parts of me. I'm also an artist, it would be great to hang out with other artists, take some specific classes, go to exhibitions. Since I'm self-employed, it would be great to find a work space too. Just so many more opportunities to meet like-minded people and thrive.
It's near enough to DP still that we can definitely still spend at least 3 nights a week together. I may find I actually appreciate the country when I'm not living in.
CONS OF MOVING TO CITY:
It will definitely be more expensive. That's not to say it's not doable for me, it is, but it's something to bear in mind.
I'm very worried that DP will see this move to the city as me breaking away from him. On the other hand, I can't help but feel a little seed of resentment: I told him (back in the good old hazy days of idealising the place when I first moved!) that it would be great to move into a house with him, and he balked. I guess he likes having his independence, although he stays at mine pretty much every night. But I kind of think you can't have your cake and eat it, too. You want independence? That's cool, I'm off to the city! :-D
But seriously though, I'm worried he would see it as the relationship becoming weaker. I think if I said I wanted to move into the city, he would try and push us moving in together in a bid to keep me there. Which on reflection, is probably not the right solution.

Our relationship is good, we love each other. But how is this going to work long term if he's a through and through country guy and I'm the opposite?

Should I:
A - Move to the city, and me and DP can see each other 3 or 4 nights a week? Distance between city and his village: 40 minutes by car
B - Stay in the town but try and get to the city one or two days a week? The only thing with that is - it's really not quite the same thing as living there and making a proper network for yourself. Distance between town and his village: 10/15 minutes by car

I'm starting to feel frustrated and like I'm wasting away a little. It also annoys me that he got to keep his lifestyle and network and I'm just supposed to find a way to make this work for me, whilst spending a lot of time with HIS network, etc.

Please, any thoughts or opinions would be very welcome.

Kleinzeit Sorry to drip feed, but the reason it might seem like I'm more over-invested is guilt.
There's a back story I didnt tell you, but it probably is actually quite relevant:
We were going out together 7 years ago. Me and a few colleagues ended up working in this small town (commission) and I met him. I felt the same way I do now about him. There was this warmth and instant connection and just a great feeling of being with him. But in the end I wanted to leave because the town didn't seem right for me. I knew I wouldnt be able to move him. We broke up.

When I moved back, I did so thinking I had aged a little and city life was losing its appeal for me. I also was incorrectly remembering the town as it was when my colleagues had also temporarily moved there to work on this project: back then, the town was still small and as it is now, but there was a group of us working and having a laugh together, so it seemed much more dynamic than it actually is.

You can see my dilemma. From his point of view, it's history repeating itself. I feel guilty, but I also really want to make it work with him - why else would I have been drawn back to him? From my point of view, I feel bad about repeating the same ''mistake'', but I also don't feel unreasonable to want to ask for some kind of compromise.

I don't think suburbia is the answer - it sounds as if you need the energy of the city....

TwitterQueen1 He wants children and to move in together, but he also feels its too fast and too soon. I can definitely see that, but in that case, I dont feel I should have to hang around in a small town waiting for the time to be right. I can live in the city for 2 or 3 years with us seeing each other every week, and then when the time is ''right'', we can consider ways of living together that make sense for both of us.
Sorry I'm replying to you but also talking myself through it. There's guilt hanging over me, if you check 2 or 3 posts up, I just replied to another poster re this. There's a bit of a back story I didnt share, didnt seem relevant but I guess it's what's adding an extra layer of emotion to the decision.

"He's a very decent man but I don't think he sees that he's applying double standards: getting the benefits of a cosy marriage-style relationship without any of the hassle. Me, I would want either or. Either I would want us to move to a big fuck off house in the countryside and have some kids, or I'd like to move to the city and get back to my girl about town life. As it is, I feel like some kind of small town wife without the benefits."

This is very clear thinking, EXCEPT

"he's a very decent man"

I guess we have a very low bar for decency in men, which doesn't include treating the person they purport to love fairly.

I don't blame you for this, I think this way too, out of habit. but I think we should all interrogate our notions of what a "decent man" is

Your drip-feed information puts things in a completely different light OP.

I would say now, that you are clearly are very undecided about where you want to call home and your DP is completely right to hold off until you can commit to somewhere / a lifestyle that you both agree on.

Definitely move to the city 40 minutes away, focus on yourself and then see how the relationship goes. If he is serious about it he will miss you and want to compromise. You have done all the legwork so far and it's time for him to step up.

I moved to DH's rural backwater, it has not been easy. We are building a house across the road from his parents' house and have a DS so no chance of uprooting at this stage.

I am currently languishing in 3rd period of unemployment since moving down 4 years ago. My finance career has hit the skids & generally it is an unfulfilling life.

DH loves life here.

His friends are nice and I go out occasionally with his friends' wives but like you say it is all small town gossip (about people I don't know) and all about kids.

Best of luck OP.

I live in central London. A couple of years ago I moved in with who I thought was a great love who lived 500 miles away in a wee village. This was after nearly a year of flying / long train journeys back and forth. All was shiny at first. Then I started missing certain things that I'd really enjoyed doing in London that I just couldn't do at all in my new home. We did a lot of dinner party type evenings with his friends which was all well and good but they weren't my friends. Everyone knew him so I really felt stifled when I tried to create a circle of girlfriends. In fact I ended up hating that everyone knew if I was in or out and started to feel very suffocated. I tried Meetup but it required driving 50 minutes to the city for the sort of night out I was looking for and even then it was a bit meh as I had to drive back home again. I'd planned to find a job in the nearest city but didn't feel settled / fulfilled enough to do this and bit by bit the relationship shine wore off. We broke up seven months later and I moved back to London and know that I'll never leave here again as I value the tube, the galleries and museums and the endless choices I have plus work is on my doorstep. I also really love the anonymity. No one gives a fuck if I'm in or out, gone for 5 days or anything else. I gave love a chance but didn't realise how much I loved what I'd given up until it wasn't there any more.

Definitely move to the city 40 minutes away, focus on yourself and then see how the relationship goes. If he is serious about it he will miss you and want to compromise. You have done all the legwork so far and it's time for him to step up.

I'm not getting this logic. OP has moved across country to - almost - be with DP. She has done a 95% job and expects him to make good the final 5%. So they both end up unhappy.
She wants him to uproot from friends and family, from his job and for what? - so that she can find fulfilment with persons unknown in the city.
Isn't there some cliche about "you can run away from your surrounding but you can't run away from yourself". OP seems to crave newness and excitement and glamour. So why repeatedly hook up with a man that doesn't want these things?
Why is the unknown in the city more enticing than the known in the country?

You don't live together? I'd move. Today.

The thing is Crunchymum it's complicated by our back story, which I just add at the top of this page. So you can see the reason I'm not more incisive about it is I see his point.

'Too fast, too soon'- he's 34, you reconnected after 7 years apart, and he still doesn't want to live together and comes up with bullshit like 'I don't want to live with you as you'll get bored'.

Honestly, OP, the issue isn't a city/country one, it's a commitment/being on the same page/wanting to go forth into life where both of you are your best selves together one.

You can't admit you've made the same mistake twice, and you still love him but secretly know it's not enough. I think he knows it's not enough for you, which is why he's embedding where he is, and sticking with his family/friends, and getting a shop. If he's bought a shop and set up a new business, he's not intending to move to the city, or help you fulfill your life dreams, is he? Basically, you can be his town wife, or you can't. That's your choice. He didn't follow you last time you left, and he won't next time either.

Sorry OP, but I think you need to admit to yourself what's going on here.

TwitterQueen1

Well exactly. He's right too. This isn't something he holds over my head, but it is something that forms a kind of tint to the whole thing.
Me, I was his 'great love' and he never really moved on from me. And in the reverse, I always thought about him and missed him, indeed loved him, but didn't want to move back to this region.

Now I can totally see where he's coming from. He feels I'm too unpredictable and it's an emotional risk for him. I get that. But back in the day, he wouldnt have moved for me. And now 6/7 years on, it's again me coming to him. So whilst I understand his concerns, I think he's a little hasty to paint himself as 'the one who has been/is scared of once again getting left behind', when he is also 'the one who has been/will still be making no sacrifices for the relationship to work'.

What Selma said ⬆️

That's the thing Summerswallow and I'm glad you can kind of see it from my POV. I just wrote a post right above this one. The thing is, it's easy for him to see it as the one who is hard done by: "you changed your mind and needed to get out all those years ago, I'm nervous you'll do the same thing again, etc. etc." I really do empathise with that and am sorry that it was a hard wrench at the time. HAVING SAID THAT, you also have the agency to move, to follow me, to give things up on your end if you really want to make it work. My attitude is, I really want to be with you and I've moved to the other end of the country for you. Could you now consider moving a 40-minute drive down the road?

I don't agree with the poster above saying I'm asking him to move away from his family and friends. He will be spending every day working in his village, where all his family and friends live, and I am more than happy to go and spend Sundays there for example.

But I know this isn't going to happen. I think I'm going to have to move to the city alone.

My dilemma isn't actually doing that. I think reading back through my posts I already knew my answer to my question.

My real question is whether I should feel bad about it, how I'm going to tell him and reassure him that this doesn't mean the end of things for us.

In summary,. his attitude is going to be: "You pulled this shit once, I can't believe you're doing it again".

My attitude is: "I'm trying to make this work so that we can be happy together and also happy in our own lives. Please try and meet me halfway here."

I mean moving to this city is already a compromise, I'd be in a different city if I didn't care about the relationship. (It's not a big compromise though, as I said, I really like it. My point is I've already moved region).

He will never move or change OP.
Pack your bags and get out of dullsville. You have nothing to feel guilty for. You tried it and hate it. He has done nothing in return.

You haven't made any mistakes op. You made choices which you thought were right at the time. With the benefit of hindsight you might have chosen differently or perhaps not.

I'm not sure the back story makes much difference. Apart from it creating a pile on the guilt which is preventing you making an unbiased decision now. You don't need to feel bad about the past. It's gone. Focus on now.

Sometimes we have to make the same choices a few times before we get it.

You don't have to make any choices or do anything right now. You have time. There is no rush.

I don't agree with the poster above saying I'm asking him to move away from his family and friends. He will be spending every day working in his village, where all his family and friends live, and I am more than happy to go and spend Sundays there for example.

Commuting to the village is not the same as living there. Because if it was then you would live in the village and commute to the city. You said yourself in your OP "it's really not quite the same thing as living there and making a proper network for yourself".
He has a real connection to place, you don't. It's an important part of his identity and I'm not sure that it's fair to ask him to compromise on this.
I feel that you two are incompatible.

I don't think you can reassure him it won't mean the end of things for you, because- it might! He doesn't want to move in together, he's mid-thirties, it's late in the day for that type of faffing, I wouldn't be putting up with this flakiness, and I think you will start to resent it too.

He is staying put as, correctly IMO, he's judged that you won't fit where he likes living, and will probably leave again. He's a stick in the mud who would rather live with his family/friends/have his business where he likes it and risk being alone/with Bev down the road than make a new life elsewhere with you, and that's the hard truth you have to face.

You don't need to feel bad about moving to the city as it's clear you can't thrive where you are currently, emotionally or workwise, and a good partner would be trying to enable those things to happen -my husband lives somewhere which isn't his first choice to enable my work, I holiday where I wouldn't usually chose to enable his enjoyment, these things are usually a compromise which is not the case here which is why you are going to have to assert your own happiness.

I actually think your backstory makes it less complicated. You tried it once - it wasn't for you. With the passage of time you wondered if perhaps it could have been for you and you should give it another try. You've come back and found it's still not for you. He's clearly not going anywhere - not only is it his home since birth, but he has now got his own business there. You need to decide if you want to live there with him or elsewhere without him. You can criticise him for refusing to compromise or you can admire him for being honest about what he wants. I can see why he doesn't want to commit to moving in together when he's not sure if you will stay. I can equally see why you might not want to commit to slotting into his life and feel compromise should go both ways. I think that as this your second time trying it might be time to face up the fact that it's not going to work.

I don't think he, in his entirety (including his living aspirations), is enough for you.

I think you desperately want him to be, but he's just not.

I understand his perspective in terms of moving in together / you getting bored. But he's basing that on you moving to his Town. And I think he's right. He knows he can't create what you want, he's not that person.

I can't see how you'll grow and blossom with him in The Town, and I think getting him to move anywhere would under duress which is not a good foundation for the future.

Your op clearly focuses on the location so the first thing that jumped out at me is that that (is your location) is a bigger priority for than he is. In that the location is such a huge driver your happiness that nothing else, even being with him, will override that.

I get it op, I have lived abroad 3 times and where I live has a huge impact on how I feel and my sanity. My DH is less like that but fully supports that my desire for travel and adventure and newness and diversity is greater than his desire to stay put... so he rolls his eyes and says "ok crazy lady, where to next?" because he understands how important it is to me.

Similarly I had a friend who was desperate to marry her long-term DH but he was very anti-marriage. She was devasted and considered leaving him for that reason, that she couldn't envisage a future without being married to the man you love. It was that important to her. In the end he 'caved' because he realized how important it was to her and that she felt stronger about getting married than he felt about not getting married.

So living in the city is important to you. Living in The Town is important to him. I'm not sure there really is a workable compromise here. I think it's one or the other and you need to decide what you can live with your OP speaks volumes imo

Splendid - you & DP are on two different paths. You've outgrown him.

You want a life that is rich, exciting and full, he wants home, old friends, and familiarity.
You are still reaching for the unknown, glorying in a curious mind, and he is happy to stay between the lines, with what he already knows, not rocking the boat.

Move to the city and reach your full potential.
Have a glorious life, Splendid.

Yes, agree with others. The back story means that you have tried twice to compromise and make it work. What has he done?

There is no reason for you to feel guilty imho.

He seems to want it both ways. Stay with his friends/family in familiar country surroundings but not prepared to settle down and commit to marriage and children. If he is not ready to take the relationship to the next level, then why should you live in a place that you don't really like?

"You moved across the country, gave up your entire social & cultural life and the cheeky fucker won't move in with you? Sorry OP, I know you say you want a future with him, but he sounds monumentally selfish."

^ this.
OP, I think it's time to test the relationship...and I have a feeling he's not going to like your plans as it means leaving his beloved village. You've put yourself out for him but he hasn't for you. I bet if you did end up married with kids the wedding would have to be in his local church (no way could it be your choice), and the kids would have to go to his local school (I bet the one he went to!). Nope, put yourself first. Move to where best suits you and let him make a bloody effort for once.

He reminds me of a BF years ago. The relationship was fine provided I did what he wanted but as soon as I had other ideas he would get arsey. The tipping point was him demanding that the wedding venue be his local grotty neighbourhood church as that was where all of his family who still lived in the same shitty neighbourhood they were born in were married. I point blank didn't want to get married there and he wouldn't compromise. It was his way or no way. Thankfully we split up and in hindsight I can see (with the help of MN) what a controlling twat he was. Lucky escape.

He wants children and to move in together, but he also feels its too fast and too soon
What? He's 34 and you've been together 2 years but met 7 years ago! How much time does he need to feel ready to move to the next stage? It doesn't mean a massive commitment, you could rent a place together rather than buy, and children dont have to be straight away.

When you split up before I'm assuming you explained that it was the location not him that was the issue, yet you say you knew you "wouldnt be able to move him". He wasn't prepared to move for you, compormise even, yet you've done it for him twice. Don't feel guilty that it's not working out for you, at least you've made sacrifices which is more than he's done for you!