That old chestnut: DH wants to relocate, I really don't. How does this get resolved??

[mummabubs]

Will try and include main points but not waffle...

DH and I met 7 years ago in the geographical area that we still live in today. By sheer coincidence both of our families live 150 miles away but within 7 miles of eachother if that makes sense. Pre covid we'd been travelling back to our parents' location about every 4-6 weeks on average for the weekend and seeing both families each time. We now have 2DC that are preschool age. We have very different life experiences so far in that from the age of 18 I left home to go to university and then moved around the UK for jobs 4 times in 5 years, so became very used to relocating and having to start from scratch and make friends in new areas etc. DH meanwhile stayed local with the same large friendship group he's had since junior school right up until I met him (he only moved to our current location for a 3 year training programme that only runs in a few locations across the UK). Possibly because of these differences I've made friends here and feel very settled (and relieved at not having to relocate anywhere again). Apart from a few work colleagues he gets on really well with DH has not sought any friends where we live.
DH has told me that after much consideration he is unhappy where we are and wants to move back "home". I feel completely torn as I can tell he is genuinely not very happy in life at the moment and he says moving back home will make him a better husband and father. The thought of him being unhappy here upsets me, but I can't even articulate fully how unappealing moving back is to me. My parents are looking at moving to another part of the country within the next year and they're the only motivation I'd have for going back (and even then we're still really close and maintain that relationship really well at this distance, DH by comparison goes weeks/months without contacting his family). As far as I can tell he wants to move home to get help with childcare from family (which I don't want, yes it's hard but I'd rather see him step up more in the parenting department if I'm honest) and so he can be back near his friendship group. I meanwhile would lose my friendship group as I have no friends from our home town now. My job is in a very niché area of the NHS and I literally got offered a promotion to my dream job here where we live just 2 weeks ago which he really encouraged me to apply for. Another confusing point for me is that just 12 weeks ago we had our house on the market and were putting in offers on houses where we live now which he seemed genuinely gutted to not secure. (We decided to delay moving due to covid and not wanting viewings during the pandemic). But he says his mind is made up, he wants to move back and to stay there indefinitely.

So I'm stuck, seems either he's miserable not moving or I become miserable if we do move. I'd actually be more open to the idea of relocating elsewhere in the UK but just not where we grew up, that's how strongly I feel. Anyone else been in a similar situation and how did it get resolved??

Thanks for reading.

[quote WinterSunglasses]@MotherExtraordinaire but I'm not convinced he does want a closer relationship with his parents. He hardly speaks to them. It's talking the talk but not walking the walk.

As for unintended consequences, I think @TodgerStrunk's picture of how OP could end up stuck there if they were to split is pretty compelling. If you look at splitting as a worst case scenario, then where would OP be better off if that happened? That's what to consider.[/quote]
@WinterSunglasses
I totally agree that this could be the crux: where would OP be better off if that happened? That's what to consider.

I've been in this situation where DH wanted to stay and I wanted to relocate so I understand the complexity. But since you've just been given a promotion it would be very unfair for him to expect you to move until you've at least had a year or two established in that position.

I think he is being unfair to you TBH. He sounds much more like he has some issues with middle age /parenting etc .Even if you were to move away and he thinks he can pick up old mates .How does he know they havent moved on as well? He could be worse off than now! I would say that now you have your promotion ,you would struggle to get the same position elsewhere and could end up worse off financially.Most men would be keen to keep finances in order I think.OW after LD ends maybe arrange a Date Night with a Babysitter ? I think the pandemic has made many people question their own life and seen it wanting .Sounds like this is the case here .Also he has encouraged you to go for your promotion recently ,so whats changed.Maybe time for a heart to heart

Be mindful OP that a lot of posters on this forum have a bias to favour whatever the woman wants. If the roles were reversed and it was you in your DH's position, many now saying the contrary would be saying that you should move back to the "home" location, who's your DP to stop you, you need a supportive community for the kids etc.

The practical advice around delving into details around what he actually expects will change with a move, and whether it's actually realistic, is sensible. Counselling can be a really good way of talking through everything and it may expose the deeper reasons for why he feels a move is necessary. And it could be these reasons can be resolved without the family having to move. It's quite sudden going from encouraging you to take on a promotion job in your current area, to saying he now wants to move to another part of the country. Perhaps he's been feeling this way for a long time but wanted to stay to make you happy, and now he's feeling he can't cope with being where he is now for whatever reason. I wonder if individual therapy for him would be helpful too. How happy is he in his current job, and could changing that address some of his issues? How does he feel about the marriage, is there anything in the marriage he feels is lacking? You all certainly don't want to move then realise nothing improves or it's actually a deeper issue on his part, or in your marriage, that needs to be addressed.

This is a really knotty problem.... I would really want to get to the bottom of his apparent change of heart/mind. It seems to me that your DH up until very recently didn’t have this need to relocate and suddenly he does? What has happened?
His contact style is obviously different to yours (infrequent contact etc) but is this maybe part of why he would be happier living closer, so that he could have a more face-to-face relationship with his family and friends? Also, maybe he sees his parents GPing style differently to the way you do? These things aren’t necessarily right or wrong, just different.
However, I’m somehow not convinced so I go back to my first question, what has happened?
Overall, it makes sense to stay where you are for now as you have just got your promotion, I would try to make the case for this first. If you can get to the bottom of his reasons for moving, I would be asking for time to make sure that it is the right answer even for him.
Lastly, where does this go.... ultimately he can’t force you to move but what will he want to do? You can’t be together in two places so... would he go on his own? And how would you feel if so?
Best of luck

Honestly?

He goes back for visits and sees his teenage mates now living the grown-up version of small-town, teenage-mate lives and sadly there's a big slice of him that wants that too. If you give in to it, not only will you end up living in a place you don't want to live, but with a man who regresses to something you probably don't want to live with either.

It's so obvious. In his mind's eye, he can see a lovely, lazy, ambition-free life (in every sense - work, social horizons, experience of the world). He trots off to work, unencumbered by childcare because his parents pick up the slack you don't. You do the rest. And he trots off down to t'pub every night to tell the same stories he told at 18 to his group of mates while you carry the rest of the cans.

I don't think you should be talking about moving, I think you should be talking, hard - and you should be looking at him even harder - about what kind of people you really are and what you want. Because it sounds as if you've got yourself a very boring, quite traditional when-can-I-go-back-to-my-village-and-live-the-tiniest-life-possible little man here, who you accidentally met when he was on his one adventure outside of mummy's skirts, and now he's had enough of that and wants to go home and slip back into being the person he was at 16.

It's not confusing that he references being nearer his parents but doesn't seem to want to actually communicate with them, by the way - it's classic, it's actually one of the strongest pointers that this is what is going on. He's a child, this is a child's response (man-child, that is). He's not interested in his parents as people. He has no notion of engaging with them. They're just The Parents and somewhere in his very, very narrow-minded head, he should be living round the corner, and he should be handing his kids over to them to do the parenting you don't do, while he Goes To Pub. Preferably on a Sunday afternoon, when he intends to roll home in time for the roast you've cooked for everyone, so he can nod hello to Mum and Dad sitting like bookends in the sitting room you hoovered this morning, with the Sunday papers. Sound familiar?

NEVER agree to this. It will kill your marriage. As well as your career, by the sound of it.

I honestly think the first stage in this conversation would be to lay it down that never, ever will you want to just return to your hometown to live the lives your parents did and if that's where his ambition lies, you need some very honest conversations.

Is he sure he understands why he's feeling like this? It sounds like post Christmas blues coupled with covid and the impending doom that is the first quarter of next year.

Might be a good time for a New Years resolution to make some friends. Are you coastal?

I'd not be looking to move, tbh.

Gosh, I haven't done a good job at keeping up with posts, sorry!

To the poster who said I seem emotionally detached on all levels, if you knew what I do for a job hopefully you'd see this is beyond not the case- if anything I'm often a little too in touch with emotions for my own good! 🤣 Maybe I've come across like that here as I'm trying to keep a highly emotional subject relatively factual.

Someone asked about locations, without being too outing our parents live on the south coast of England... we don't - but where we live has seen a boom in property prices in the last 5 years or so, so while our money does get a bit more house here it's not hugely different anymore. The nicer areas by our parents would likely be out of our budget though and we are both in agreement that if we move anywhere it has to feel like an upgrade to the small townhouse that we currently live in.

Someone said could he not go home for the weekend and see family and friends every couple of months - good idea, we were actually going back more frequently than that pre-covid and I gently observed this morning that he's never once contacted his friends when we're down there to meet up. He said he feels it would be rude to our families if he didn't stay with them the whole time so he's never asked... My parents wouldn't mind at all and I'm pretty sure his wouldn't either but he says this isn't an option. He has at least said we don't need to decide imminently but this has been a sudden and consistent theme for the last couple of weeks so I doubt it's going away.

I agree with what one poster said about asking what's changed, especially given his recent engagement in looking to buy a house here and also in jobs. He has said this morning that he loves his job here so that would be the one thing he'd be sacrificing if we moved away.

Oh sorry, to add to the post that said I contradict myself by saying about making new friends in the past: yes I can do it because I've had to and have now been here for 7 years. I know I physically can but I can surely hold that position whilst also saying that for once in my life I want to feel settled and not have to do it again? Since he moved here DH has seen his friends from home once a year ay the local pub on Christmas Eve and at a handful of weddings.

Someone mentioned maybe he's more of a face to face friend/family person and that is what he's said to me this morning, so he says that's why he doesn't stay in touch with anyone from a distance.

He says he doesn't want his parents to provide regular childcare, rather that they can chip in whenever we need them... Which sounds pretty similar to me just without the structure of naming a day each week! He isn't fussed about what their role as GPs is, more that we (he) gets the respite from parenting. I'm not saying it hasn't been hard not having family close, especially this year with covid, but I also feel like we can do the parenting without the frequent support as I do most of it anyway. It's our relationship as a couple that needs supporting (and he doesn't want to use therapy).

Just stall him,and bide your time. In a year or two, your parents will have moved, kids in school, you'll be ace-ing your new job; lots of things could change.

Meanwhile tell him

1. it's unreasonable to expect you to leave a brand new job and looks bad on CV if you did. So you want to give new post two or 3 years.

2. as he's keen to move in a few years , no more househunting or selling in present location. You stick for 2 or 3 years while bedding in to new job.

3. Meanwhile he needs to address his discontent ; counselling, GP, new hobby; make more social effort, whatever Running home to his parents is not the answer.

4. as you have a new demanding job he needs to shape up as husband and father and shoulder more childcare.

He is showing his hand as a man who wants an easy ride.

Nothing to show the real mettle when the parenting years start.

DO NOT MOVE.

You will end up resenting him from the bottom of your soul when he uses it as a reason to sit even more on his phone, you'll see that he's the same person he ever was but just with more options to enable his laziniess, and you've lost your friends, the area of the UK you've always wanted to live in, and your job.

You'll hate him for it.

Tell him now. It's a no, it's always going to be a no, I do not want to return.

I honestly wouldn't dissemble on the location thing.

YOU DON'T WANT TO MOVE TO YOUR HOMETOWN. That's no more 'selfish' or 'stubborn' than not wanting to move to Guildford, Australia, or Bahrain. In fact, it's less so - you spent X years there, you do not want to spend any more. You know it, you KOW it's not where you want to be. The end.

Nip this now, or it will just get more complicated because you 'agreed last week, what's changed?' - be straight with him now. No means NO.

Looking at things from a different angle: how would you manage to cope as a divorced couple/single parents where you currently are?

Raising children without family support, combined with your resentment about his lack of emotional engagement with parenting & the strain that puts on your relationship- that's a recipe for disaster.

I was in a similar situation (moved away from family, had DC with no family support nearby, felt like a single parent with emotionally absent partner).

I think these are a big part of why our relationship failed, as there was too much pressure & not enough support - we live in an expensive area & cannot afford 2 homes, 2 lots of childcare etc.

Raising children without family support, combined with your resentment about his lack of emotional engagement with parenting & the strain that puts on your relationship- that's a recipe for disaster.

Yes, it is. The solution is most definitely not moving back to his hometown so that he can outsource that emotional engagement and hands-on help to his parents instead, thus confirming that he is, indeed, an utter manchild who you've not only wasted a marraige on, but also lost where you want to live and what job you want to do to indulge him.

The solution instead is more likely to be telling him that no, he isn't going to be able to run 'home' to outsource the adulting he's now being asked to do. His choices will instead be - grow up, or ship out.

@YoniAndGuy - agreed- which is why OP needs to re-frame it as: how will I cope as a single parent here if when my marriage fails?

You made it clear right from the start of the relationship that you didn't want to move back and he didn't. Even if you DID want to move back, selling a house you have only just bought and giving up a job you only just got is very bad timing. And even if he isn't looking to offload his parental responsibilities to his parents, home might not be what it is in his imagination. A friend of mine left Dublin to move to London for work and met and married a Londoner. After 10 years and two kids they moved back as she persuaded him they would get loads of help with the children, they would have a friendship network of all her mates, Dublin was booming at the time and he would get plenty of work. The reality was, that while her parents and siblings love the kids, they had lives and bills of their own to pay and could spare very little time for childcare. And while it was great fun catching up with her friends on trips home, once she was living back in Dublin full time, she realised how much life had moved on without her in the last decade and some of the friendships didn't stand up to more regular meetings as everyone had changed from school days. Add to that, Ireland's economy went belly up a few years later and you can imagine the resentment it caused in her husband the strain in put on their marriage. I appreciate I am talking about a longer time frame and different countries, but the pull of 'home' is often more sentimental than it is practical. I wouldn't do anything right now, even if the timing wasn't so lousy, he needs to really think about the practicalities and what he is asking you to give up versus what you will gain.

Honestly it sounds like your DH isn't liking the reality of the drudgery that parenting often is.

It seems that he thinks his sister has got a good deal with weekends off and lay ins and that is what he wants but he hasn't got the guts to say that. All this is a roundabout way to get this. Could have complete disaster written all over it...

He is being a git and a stupid and selfish git at that. He is not considering you and DC at all, not one little bit, in this daft scenario of moving 'home'. Tell him you can't manage your job and the major load of parenting plus a new load of building a new support network. Don't give him any quarter on this, just tell him no and that it is not fair on you and the children. Then if he does not value your marriage he can go on him own. Also he can stop being a big ole whiny baby and step up to being a father, phone-addicted lazy fuck that he is.

What comes through to me a lot from your posts (and this may be your bias or perspective, I am aware) is that your DH wants a lot of things to be different without actually having to do anything to change them himself. He wants a better social life - but not to the extent of phoning people or making new relationships. He wants more time for you both together not parenting - but hasn’t fully thought through logistics of how this could work in either location. He wants you to compromise, despite only holding this opinion himself recently and your opinion on location being long-standing. He’d miss his job but he’s seemingly not worried about you giving up a dream job.

This stage of your life is hard. My DH in fact had a full-on breakdown at the same point (2 DC, juggling childcare without family nearby, both working parents), and it was tough on us. I still feel I shoulder more of the emotional heavy-lifting and resilience years on. We were in a similar situation and did move back - but it was very much a mutual decision despite us both liking our existing area and we were moving for pretty practical reasons (house prices and security, parents with life-limiting illnesses) not nebulous ‘extra help with childcare’ reasons. And a bloody good job too because whilst we do get some more last minute help if needed, it’s not vastly significant. If your PIL already do childcare for your SIL in my experience they won’t have loads of opportunity or appetite to do the same for yours.

My DH needed counselling and it was that that helped more than anything with his adjustment to post-DC life. It sounds to me like your DH is a bit the same - he wishes life was more fun, and hasn’t adjusted to how things are. It changed for my DH and I hope it does for yours too. (And despite our move being mutual and bringing benefits there are still plenty of things I miss about our old location - the grass is always greener, you know. Particularly in 2020!)

Some posters really love to ramp up the hostility, don't they.

As previously stated I think OP's husband is the unreasonable one here but if I thought so little of my DP that I'd use the language @Rebelwithverysharpclaws and @YoniAndGuy (on every single thread) suggest, it'd be quicker and easier just to leave him.

Do you get off on these very long rants about other people's partners' failings or something?

And make no mistake if my DP started yelling about how I was a lazy phone-addicted fuck who wants an easy ride, I would be leaving HIM. What is the point of a relationship if there's so little respect that you go straight to insults.

Totally agree with @YoniandGuy says.

Unfortunately, marriages do end, over half of them if statistics are correct. OP leaving her current home, job and life on a selfish whim of a manchild is not exactly looking like a dream scenario when he's already showing his hand in how he, and I use this term loosely, parents his children.

Prepare for the worst, then be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen. What I mean is, don't drop yourself into a situation where, if the worst happened your life would be significantly worse. What would your life be if your marriage failed right now? I imagine a lot better than if you moved your entire life and it happened.

Sorry to be the bearer of doom, but the very fact your DH wants to move your entire life without any consideration of the impact on your life isn't exactly painting him as a emotionally intelligent, involved and supportive partner. Do you really want to trap yourself, away from your friends, leave your dream job etc and for what?

Sounds like the Brexit deal to me. You're better off where you are.

Why won’t he agree to couple’s counselling?

If he wants ‘respite’ from parenting and for your relationship to improve, is he doing anything now to try to make those things happen?