What the hell happened to my life? *LONG*

[splendidisolation1]

ALERT ALERT - This post is long. Like INSANELY long.

I have been such a complete and total idiot. Warning: this post is for people with some serious time to kill, people who aren't afraid of long, convoluted stories. I've posted snippets of the situation under different names. If you recognise me, please dont call me out.

I've just read back over a thread I created two years ago. Two FUCKING years ago. Maybe some of you are still around. I need to write all this down in honest detail so I can get my mind straight and ask you for practical help. There's a bit of backstory here and it's important:

I had spent my life going back and forth between France and the UK. I could never make my mind up about which one I wanted to live in. In July 2016, after the referendum results came out, I panicked and moved to France, thinking we might not be able to move to the EU afterwards. I then moved all the way up to the north of France to be with my DP in January 2017. That's where this thread comes in:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3012669-Hes-from-the-country-Im-from-the-city-feel-like-am-slowly-dying?pg=1

So now fast forward more than two years, coming up to THREE FUCKING YEARS. I should have listened to the advice on that thread. But I still willfully believed I could change things. I didn't move to the city, like posters suggested I should. He said it would inevitably mean the end of our relationship and I still had the thought that maybe something could change. Cue a year of me feeling tearful, isolated and furious. I started drinking more and developed a swallowing problem - you read that right, as in I became so tense, I was having trouble swallowing food, out of fucking nowhere, never having had any issues with food my whole life.

Finally, this spring, it came to a head, with him STILL not agreeing to even the suburbs of the city. I finally managed, after a year and a half, to convince him to move to a village a 15-minute train ride from the city, and so we moved house. We thought it would be a compromise. Yep, that's right. I wanted the city and ended up in the fucking country!

It's now been five months. The house is beautiful. But I'm paying through the nose for a house I don't want, in a place I don't want. Im financially worse off than I was three years ago, which my mum is really pissed off about. I had to do some massive soul-searching. This time here has forced me to think about who I am.

What I really want is to move back to the UK. My time in 'purgatory' has taught me what barriers I have for myself in a relationship. I never knew that before. I'll never erase so much of what I am for the sake of a relationship before. I say he's a nice guy, and he IS a nice guy. He's comforting and warm, I feel respected by him. But he hasn't listened to me, has he? He has been unwilling to try any kind of significant compromise for the sake of 'us', and so I've been a fool trying it on my side. Even this house in a village nearer the city - it sounds like a compromise for him, but really it's just an extra 15 min drive away from his family, and a house he could never have afforded alone.

For awhile, I tried nagging and cajoling him into moving to a different part of France, but who was I kidding? He couldn't even contemplate moving 30 minutes up the fucking road, so that was never going to happen. So I gave up. Now, living in this house in the village near the city, I don't even talk to him about how I feel about it, or about wanting to move back to the UK because I know he will just stonewall me. And as nice as he is, he just doesn't seem to be willing to help me. I pay way more of our expenses, because I earn more. But he only works 5 hours a day, and its in his own small business he has - I've given him ideas for upscaling it and said I would help, but he doesn't want to, because upscaling it would require moving it out of the village where all his childhood friends and his mum and sister live. Every day, he goes and eats lunch with his mum. All his business stock, he stocks at his sister's. Even when we moved to this house in the village nearer the city, he's never suggested coming into the city with me, ever. He just keeps commuting back to his childhood village. To make matters worse I was supposed to be all happy and enthusiastic about hanging out with his friends, who all have kids and have never left the village and think I'm weird, and his family too.

Again, with the niceness - nice on one level, but on another, weirdly ununderstanding. I can't help but think that maybe if I was the one having everything my own way, I'd be pretty relaxed too. But it's almost become a kind of "joke" with us that I'm crazily over emotional. He doesn't seem to understand that my rage has often spilled over and been expressed in unrelated things.

On a day to day basis our relationship is pretty smooth and comfy feeling. Just as long as we don't talk about the future. I get it now. Back when I posted in 2017, I was still trying to figure out how to change him. But now I understand he's not going to change. We won't ever move.

I started a writing group in the city and that has given me some new friends. Also, my time in 'purgatory' gave me another amazing thing: the sheer fucking boredom and desperation to finally write the novel I always said I would write. It's written. I'm now just editing the first draft. And I've been taking the Eurostar to London once a month for a writing group. The time in the UK has taught me that no matter how much I love France, the UK is where I want to be most of the time. I miss my friends, pubs, writing buddies in my own language.

At the same time though, because I moved around so much as a kid and adult, I reckon I'll always have that grass is greener mindset, and I'll always be reluctant to fully shut the door on one or another. And in that sense, Brexit put a fucking spanner in the works. Where I once could just have upped and left safe in the knowledge I could come back anytime, that's not the case anymore.

So here's my plan:

• I want to hold on for another 9 months by which stage I could get French nationality before I go
• I want to think about buying a house in the UK straight away: is this even possible when you're not living there? It would just feel better than returning back almost as if the last 3 years hadnt mattered, back in a rental on my own aged 32 and with fucking nothing to show for it!

My partner could move back to his village and because my work is remote and the Eurostar is so handy, we can go back and forth and have something of an unconventional relationship: unless it doesn't work, and I guess that's that.

Am I being stupid though? I dont think I am. But am I throwing away some French countryside idyll with a nice man? I want to do this though. It feels right. At the same time, I feel sad and like I've somehow failed.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading it. I just needed to get it all out. It's been kinda like 2.5 years of hardcore psychotherapy for myself. I've felt really alone and confused and angry. My life now is literally unrecognisable from 2016.

I guess what would be helpful is if anyone can say whether I'm doing the right thing, whether they've experienced similar. Also, it is a good idea to try and hang on for citizenship first, right? I dont want these years to have been for nothing. What about the buying a house thing and mortgages? Also, should I talk to him about this now? Is it necessary? He's going to be so shocked and hurt.

All of this shite for a"comfy" feeling ?
Sell up , you tried it and it didn't work, move back to London .

I skim read the relationship stuff.
I live in France. You can’t apply for citizenship after just 3 years. It’s a minimum of 5. ( I went to a meeting held by the British embassy last month)
Post Brexit, you will have to apply for an annual carte de Séjour, until you can apply for a 10 year one after 5 years residence.
Even post Brexit, you can come to France for 90 days out of every 180.

France is an amazing place to live, but you have to be here for the right reasons.

Get you EU citizenship and leave.
He sounds utterly parochial and I'd hate it too.

OP, I remember your thread from before. I'm sorry to see that you're still in the same situation. You sound like you are driving yourself mad trying to force yourself to fit into a life which is the opposite of everything you want and which is damaging your mental health. What is it that's stopping you from leaving this? What are you scared of? Do you have a voice in the back of your head telling you that if you can't make this work you'll never be able to settle down or have a proper relationship? Because that's bollocks, you're still young and you're making yourself miserable trying to hang onto a relationship which sounds deeply mediocre.

I am also a grass is greener person so I know what it's like. You know, it's ok not to have decided on "the one" place you want to be permanently and its OK to move around a lot. One day you may find that you're somewhere you don't want to leave. I am lucky and have managed to balance out my need for change with my desire for a stable secure home by having a job which involves a lot of travel so I don't feel like I'm stagnating anywhere and you may be able to find some sort of balance for yourself too, but not in this situation. Your options are 1) stay where you are and go insane, or 2) move. That's it.

When I read your title I thought you were much older and really stuck.

I'd leave him and France. Sounds like you are trying to live s fantasy life instead of the one you really want.

You're 32. Time to seize the day and start out on your own, returning to London and buying your own place.

Do not waste anymore time spending good time after 'bad'.

It's hard to have sympathy for you because your entire post is just complaints about a situation you have control over. pack up and leave if you are so miserable. He has been completely transparent about not wanting to leave.
you have even said in your post you tried to change him. Where you are in life is because of your own actions and choices. Stop blaming him. You have the means to change your life.
Even in you move back, you have this delusion that it will work long distance. You seem incompatible but refuse to see it.

Nah move back to Britain now. Anything else is flogging a dead cheveaux.

Gemma Bovary is sublime btw, I recommend to everyone, not just those who feel antsy in rural France.

Recently it’s taken my friends 2 years to get citizenship from when they applied so I’m not sure that should be taken into consideration when you decide where you want to be.

Listen to what your body is telling you. Your problem swallowing, developing a drink problem - you'll end up with stress-related auto immune disease or fucking up your mental health staying.

And you have choices. You're not trapped by children or finances or age. You clearly have money, you have time on your side, you have opportunity all around you. Don't fucking waste it with indecision, inertia and some misplaced sense of who you think you should be or dreams you think you ought to have. Or what you think other people will think. Take some chances.

No point hanging about for a French passport if you know you want the UK. It's just an excuse to postpone the decision.

I'm a towny too and totally understand how you feel.
It never leaves you I wouldn't bother delaying it to be honest.
I drive my daughter to her friend's very rural house and hate every second of it , feels like pure isolation and I hate it.
Go for it you only live once and it's so short.

I was a grass is greener person who moved around a bit like this in my 20s and 30s. It was fuelled by an anxious and perfectionist personality and a massive fear of missing out. I was also one to put up with situations that were really quite mentally bad for me. Second guessing my decisions, that kind of thing. You say the last few years have been like therapy, but have you actually had therapy OP? You may find it helpful. I certainly did.

He seems like someone who is immensely content with his life as it is. You are not. No better or worse, but I would imagine not very sustainable in the long term. If you are this kind of personality (and I am trying not to project too much) then you may have to accept that wherever you move next and however great it seems right now, there will come a point where you have some regrets. It’s almost inevitable in my experience but at least with self knowledge you can go into it with eyes wide open. Coincidentally I moved back to London at 36 and though I love the city it was a struggle.

At 32 it is perfectly fine not to own a property and that’s the situation for an awful lot of people. If you are in any kind of situation to buy then I’m sure it will happen. But why do you have to do it now, before you’re even back in the UK? That seems almost like an over-correction of your perceived current lack of stability, or something. Prices are pretty stagnant at the moment so what’s the rush? At least rent in a place first to see if you like the area.

The only other thing I would add is that at 32 it is really worth considering whether you want children. Again I am REALLY trying not to project but there is a big difference between doing what you’re doing in your 20s and early 30s, and doing it at 40 onwards. And those years go really fast.

Are you there OP?

@MorrisZapp

Cheval. Knew my schoolgirl French would come in useful someday