Husband wants to move closer to his family

[ConfusedDippy]

First time posting so hopefully it is ok!

My husband of 2 years told me at Xmas that he hates everything about where we live (in the Midlands) - the people, accent and the fact there is nothing to do and he wants to move back to his home town 2 hours away up North. He hasn't lived in his home town since he was a teenager which was 16 years ago. He has his family there, 1 school friend and 1 uni friend and his work is based in London. He has been wfh but his work have said they expect people in the office 3 days a week now, which has added another layer to things, as his company has an office in his home town, however he would still need to regularly travel to London.

We have also been TTC for 18 months now with no luck and have found out that I have a low egg count. I am 35 and my husband is 34.

He has been here for a total of 10 years and was already living in the city for 3 years prior to us meeting. He has now decided that he hates it and that his family being a 2 hour drive up North is too far. And the fact that there is nothing exciting to do where we live. He has friends where we live but he doesn't see them as being close. His other close friends are scattered all over the country but the majority of them are in the South (so closer to where we live now)

Very early on in our relationship I did make it clear that I wouldn't want to move from this city, so if that is what he wanted we shouldn't become serious. I have a job in research that I cant do remotely and I have spent the last 13 years building a reputation in. It would be very hard finding a similar, permanent position somewhere else as funding is very low. I also have all my school friends, family and family friends here. We also live in a house that I own. I would find it really hard to leave all of this to go somewhere where my husband only knows a handful of people and the level and amount of support isn't the same.

Husband packed his bags on Valentines Day (I came home from work to find that he had spent the day packing) and left. He wants to come back to our home to try and work things out. He said he would join clubs etc to try and make more friends here but I don't know what to do. Have totally parked the idea of having a baby now and postponed our fertility appointment. I just don't know what to do - anyone have any advice?! Thank you :)

@ConfusedDippy No, DH didn't "help" me settle because I'm an adult and once I'd made the decision, I went about organising my life so that I could be happy here. One compromise DH DID make is that he had livd in North London and I lived SW London and I didn't want to move up north. I had family and friends here so while I liked where he lived, I didn't want to move away from that. So that is something he did to help me.

At the time of our big conversation, I was in a job that I'd taken as a way to get some experience and for a firm that, had I gone home, would have been really really good on my CV when looking for a new job (with a small chance that I could even be relocated). But I didn't really like it and it was badly paid. So once I decided I was staying, the first thing I did was look for a new job and I was able to start a much better one 6 months later.

When we wanted to move out of London, commuting was an issue for both of us. For DH, being close enough to "pop" into London was really important and for me, a long commute wasn't an option. But we did some compromising to find an area that worked for both of us.

Of course, both of us had lived in London for a while before all this and already had friends etc, but we absolutely made an effort with each other's friends and colleagues and created a social life accordingly. I think you said your DH had been living in your city for a while before you even met so doesn't he have friends/ colleagues from then?

I think the point for me is that I did want to go home, but not because I thought living in London was awful. It was because I wanted to go home. So once I decided I wasn't going home, I made the effort to maximise the benefits of living where I was, to settle down, put down roots etc.

OP I agree with you it's about the person not the place. He's changed the parameters not you, don't spend your life wondering if you are enough.
You are enough.
If you want a child maybe consider sperm donation - can they be done via IVF or fertility treatment?

You only get one life make the most of it.
Good luck

Sorry not sure how you can negotiate I will never move at the start when times and feelings change over the years. Marriage is a 2 way thing and if you love each other you make it work. The way I see it you've had friends,family etc on your doorstep and he has had nothing for a long time. A good marriage is about compromises, communication,peace and love to make it work from both sides. Hubby and I moved back to my family area last year after I spent a considerable time living in a city where his was and it's worked out just as nicely and we are probably happier in that our kids are happier being more in the country with a very active extended family grandparents,cousins etc.

Of course feelings change. eg me and DH are seriously considering moving further away from London in the future (although still somewhere we could get in relatively easily), but actually, on some basic fundamentals, you need to be clear together up front so that you each know where the other one's boundary is.

Similarly, I would hope most couples would agree before marriage on how they feel about children and how many . I wish more would at least talk about what happens re work/childcare in advance - of course there is inevitably some shifting but I've lost count of the number of women I've seen on here for example who say, "I just assumed that once we had children, family would be his priority".

I have a very good friend who is still bitter because her ex and her had agreed that they would move back to her home country after a certain number of years. As the time approached, he convinced her to wait another year or two. And then eventually it came out that he didn't want to move. She accepts that. The bit she's annoyed about is that she was always 100% clear that she was going back and if he'd been honest with her upfront, she'd have moved back much sooner and invested less in her relationship with him.

You have a house and career where you are. He WFH and needs to be in London periodically. Moving to his pointless northern town is not happening.

This man is not committed to you. He thought he was but the shit got real when having a family with you meant IVF snd struggle and he wanted to go back to being a teenager. So he LEFT YOU IN VALENTINES DAY —just screaming the message in case you missed it when he acted it out.

Don’t let him come back. If he isn’t desperate to win you back he won’t lift a finger to make this relationship work. Going to couple’s counseling is literally the least he could do and he won’t do that.

Throw the whole man away snd start fresh. You have your house, work, friends, family, world. You can not make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

He wants you to give up your job security and entire support network. No imagine doing that with a baby too when you need support more than ever.

Don't do it. He walked out on you easily on Valentine's day of all days ffs.

Also 2 hours away is fuck all to visit family or friends more often.

Thank you for all the messages - getting it out to strangers has eased all the thoughts going around in my mind, even for a little while. What I do know is that I still want him to stay back in his home town for now so he can see if the grass really is greener (or not....) but beyond that it feels so scary that I could be losing my future and starting over at 35. I will, however, definitely be freezing my eggs.

Hi there - just re reading through everything and missed this! I completely agree about marriage being about compromise but I guess I am also looking at it practically as well. Where we (well where I at the moment...) live has so many people for support when it comes to raising children - grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins, aunts (both family and friends), friends children, neighbours we are close to. Also in terms of location it has green spaces, kids are able to cycle and play on the roads safely, excellent schools that children would be able to walk to. Whereas in my husbands hometown we wouldn't have anyone to help with childcare as his granny doesn't drive and his mum works FT. His dad isn't reliable and his sisters live an hour away. That is the extent of his whole family - mum, dad, granny, 2 sisters - he doesn't have an extended family. We would be living in more inner city so children wouldn't be able to just walk out of the door to go and 'play'
If it was just us 2 and we didn't want a family I would definitely say I was being stubborn, but I can't forget about how best it would be to raise children in all of this :(

OP, be very careful about what you do next!

The fact that he wants to return now - so what has changed for him!

Is it the realisation that he now has no home to go to?
Remember he walked out on you! On Valentines day no doubt!

I would be very cautious allowing him back into the home. Your House!
Imagine if you listened to him, sold up everything and moved up North, what is to say you will still stay together , he had no problem leaving you in Feb.

Do not under any circumstances sell your house to move up North with him. I am sorry to say this - but I don't trust his motives. He has now weakened his position by moving out and he knows it.

Imagine if everything went well for him since he left you - do you really think he'd bother wanting to come home now. He has a plan, I really don't think it involves you long term.

I would not, under any circumstances, move to where you could not have a job in your field. To me, that is the tie-breaker. Family and friends are nice to have around and it's a pity that his family and friends don't live closer to the two of you. But if you moved to his area then you would be financially dependent on him and that would make you vulnerable. That is WAY bigger, IMO, than having family and friends nearby, especially if you then had a baby together.

At the same time, where you are now, socially, everything is what works for you and not what works for him. Your family and friends are nearby, his are not. You like the area, he does not. And you want to basically keep it that way forever. I hear what you say about him not making friends, but as someone who has moved a lot and had to re-invent my friend group a number of times, I can say that friends you make as an adult are most often not as close as friends you make as a young person. Also some places can be very insular as far as making friends and people are not always welcoming, or they think people who are not from their very specific local culture are weird. It can be REALLY hard to make friends if you are an adult and an outsider. I can see why he's unhappy.

What I don't understand, and it doesn't seem like you've addressed it in your replies above is, two hours is really not that far. It's not quite close enough to commute daily, but how about living halfway between the two areas, so he would be just one hour from his family and you just one hour from your workplace? Lots of people commute an hour to work.

' He has been here for a total of 10 years and was already living in the city for 3 years prior to us meeting. '

DO NOT MOVE FOR HIM

He did not move for you, he was already living in your town ! and had been for 3 years.

Furthermore he has not lived in his home town for 16 years !!! He is looking at this through rose tinted glasses.

This is where I am being stubborn as I don't want to entertain the idea of a compromise move as he wasn't nice to me at all between Xmas and him leaving. If he wasn't snapping at me he was giving me the silent treatment and when he was conversing it would just be the same thing about what a shithole we live in. He didn't do anything to help himself except take it out on me. To make it more frustrating I spoke with his granny (was a lovely call) and she said she's hardly seen him since he's been back. If he can't drive 10mins to see he certainly wouldn't be making an hour journey either. It just adds another layer to everything as I thought he would have seen her at least a dozen times as being close to her was one of his reasons for leaving! Makes me so so sad as there's obviously something else going. Feeling so down today about what I may have done to have caused this and if I had been able to get pregnant this wouldn't have happened :(

You are just lucky! You dodged a bullet. If he is this shitty to you now he would be—will be—ten times worse if a baby were in the picture.

This man left you because he wanted to live in his home town? What a charmer.

What's to work out? He behaved like a selfish knob and he needs to grovel to you. Even then, his nasty Valentines Day move was beyond shitty.

I can see you are hurting but do not pander to his hissy bag packing and calmly get on with your life.

He's got the problem. Not you,

I wonder if he left to go to his hometown in the hope that you would capitulate and follow him up North? And he only wants to come back now because that plan clearly did not work?

After reading your posts, I don’t blame you at all for not wanting to move away. You have a great support network, which is essential whether you end up having kids or not. And it sounds a good set up with your job and house. It’s more important than ever that you remain financially independent while things are rocky.

I think your asking him to stay in his town longer so he can reach a clear position is a good strategy to follow. Good luck.

@ConfusedDippy

OP given how he's been treating you for months, the fact that he starting packing his stuff up whilst you were at work (sounds like you knew nothing about it until you got home) I would be very careful about your next moves.

I'm glad you've not allowed him to move straight back in (I wonder if he's found the grass is much less green "back home" with mum, especially if he's not really seen his grandmother- one of the reasons for his departure. And his two childhood friends have, very possibly, moved on with their lives without him.

You would be losing a great deal moving - for what? And with a man who is much less committed than you.

In your situation I would get legal advice on the position with your house and what claim he may have. You have already taken steps to stop IVF and freeze your eggs (extremely sensible, given the way things currently seem) and talk to your close family/friends for more support from those who know and love you. 🌹

@ConfusedDippy I do think a compromise move would be a bad idea - no one would be happy, and you sound like you have a great set up, errant DH aside

It’s not because you’re a “failure” cos you didn’t get pregnant. Honestly, he is the one at fault, not you. Think carefully about whether you’d really like him back. And do not move

Chasing happiness my moving is unlikely to solve his problems. You shouldn’t risk your career because he is having a midlife crisis. I would actually suggest individual therapy for him. He needs to figure out why he isn’t satisfied with his life as it exists.

Feeling so down today about what I may have done to have caused this and if I had been able to get pregnant this wouldn't have happened :(

This has absolutely nothing to do with you, whatever is going on with your H deep down you know it won’t be ‘fixed’ by moving up north. Him wanting to be closer to his family sounds plausible but given he has made no effort to see his granny, that lie has been exposed.

This man doesn’t sound like good H material, let alone father material. His actions have shown a side of him that you may not have seen earlier but now the emotionally immature genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

Let him stay up north.

It does have all the signs of an affair. The build up of not being so nice to you and then just swaning off on Valentine's Day

I think it's easy to underestimate how unbalanced these situations can be when one partner is surrounded by family and long term friends in their home town and the other partner is from elsewhere. Yes, it can obviously work out well sometimes, but not always. Lots of factors involved, not least personality.
Having said that, I wouldn't be moving anywhere if I were you: you have a well established career. Also, I find it very unkind that your H walked out on Valentine's Day.
Sadly, my instinct is that you would both be better going your separate ways.

OP, on the positive side, at least he said something now before you have parented a child together.

I have some sympathy with him. My ex persuaded me to move to the Midlands on the absolute promise that it would be for no more than the time he took to sell the house. He changed his mind as soon as I'd moved in and I hated it. I'm used to rural, clean air. space, a different culture and the Midlands was my idea of hell. I ended up on ADs.

I'm surprised it took your dh so long to say something. I left within 12 months, I just couldn't bear it. Your dh stayed for years which I don't understand. But I think you are right to leave him where he is in the north. If he hates your home, that feeling won't go away. If he moves back, resentment will build and he will never be genuinely happy. You'll always be waiting for him to leave again.

One thing, this has nothing at all to do with you taking a while to conceive. Don't even think that.

I think it comes down to the simple fact you want different things.

AGREE

There has to be more to this- you don't just pack your bags because you miss your mates. I would also add that in the midlands there is so much to do! You aren't far from many locations so personally I feel that's an excuse. Is he having a mid life crisis where he wants to be single and out with his mates? Are his old mates single still? Things change and people change, he probably doesn't have alot in common with the anymore. What's your relationship with your mother in law? Could she be driving this?

I'm sure he loves you.

But he is not happy. He wants to move home.

I think you have to let him go.

I don't think either of you are willing to compromise. Even if you did I.e. moved half way between each other home town .. you both won't be happy.