Moving Blues Straining My Marriage

I read your post as soon as you put it up, but held back a while to think it over, putting myself as much into your perspective as I can. This forum is dominated by more conservative and slightly older, married, men— apparently that’s who’ll buy a new truck that’s really a 10 year old truck- LOL! All about reliability! So the fact that the “happy wife, happy life” adage is a shared perspective here is not surprising to me. But I don’t think these guys chiming in have givin’ over power in their relationships, as much as they’ve settled on a long-term strategy for maintaining a marriage they want to last. Same as their choice of trucks.

That said, I quoted these above because they’re closest to my thoughts, except I’ll get really streamlined on one aspect. Blacksheep, be clear in your heart, would you leave this marriage rather that give up the closer-to-the-city situation you previously agreed to and are in now-? I read in your first post that you feel pressured and a bit defensive already, and this tells me it’s important to you, keeping the aspects you desire about your current location. I grinned at your “not play outside in the city, or not play outside in the suburbs” comment— ‘cause it’s true, other than organized sports, kids typically don’t roam free any more, wherever they live. I also agree with your assessment of the value to your time as a family, not having a long commute.

I agree with those on here that suggest prioritizing what you need, asking your wife to do the same, and scheduling time to meet to talk through it without interruptions. If that conversation doesn’t go well, this might be a major enough choice that you and your wife should seek a counselor to guide you working through it, to make sure you don’t go off in the weeds— and help identify any related motivations or problems, if you do.

Finally, the reason I suggest you figure out whether this is The Thing you won’t give in on (i.e. if you give in, resentments won’t help your marriage), what are you willing to do without to have your way? What is she willing to do without to have her way? Compromise that isn’t freely entered into doesn’t go well. I know there’s a couple of deal-breakers that would be no-go’s in my marriage, but I was older when we met, and shared those at the beginning. I suggest you figure out if this move thing is a deal-breaker (principle) or an inconvenience (preference) for each of you, so you know how hard a stand to take.

 

My $.02

The disagreement between you and your wife isn't abut where to live, it's deeper (as most are) your comment about resenting that she has changed her mind is insightful. Why does it bother you? (and don't judge, just try to dig into it). Do you feel like she was disingenuous? Are you worried that he sister is manipulating her? Do you feel unimportant and what you want doesn't matter? Do you feel like she's not being open with you about her real reasons for wanting to move? Do you feel like you're going to get screwed, end up with a long commute, never see this kids and hate the new house?

Is she living in a polyiana world where you move to the suburbs, the kids play with all of the neighbors as rainbow and unicorns shower down the street? Or could it be a great environment for the kids where they can roam the neighborhoods, ride their bikes and play in the dirt lot?

Second thought, if you take emotion out of the decision it becomes much easier. If it's not personal then it's just a decision. Can you and your wife talk about it without getting upset and emotional, if not, tread lightly and I would highly recommend a good counselor. Even if the counselor just acts as a referee to keep emotions in check. On the bright side, this could be a huge positive step in your marriage. This could be a decision the two of you fully make together as a team and it sets the stage for future decisions.

Last thought, "happy wife, happy life" is not very good advice. It can lead to the husband being a martyr and that almost always ends in disaster. It ends in the husband losing sense of who he is and any self respect. It's all about balance. Can you make her happy in ways that you can live with?

 

20-30 minute commute is really not that bad. Its probably under the national average. Guessing your 5-10 minutes now?

Have heard more than once, "Live where you want to, Work where you have to".... But I am thinking you and the wife have different wants.

What about the kids? Are they ready to move, leave friends?

 

Ok I started this happy wife happy life thing. I do not agree 100% with that I'm just saying if you want to be happy then you do definitely need to find a solution yourself and be happy with it. But sometimes one or the other is going to be way more stubborn in a problem. Something has to give or you will be with the divorced population. btw I have been happily married for 15yrs. Just do what's best for you your relationship. No one on here can come close to tell you what's best . If you guys are happy together now you will be where ever you end up. The end.

 

Yeah, we're both under ten minutes now, home to work.

You hit the nail on the head with the thought of different wants. My wife used to champion raising our kids in a diverse environment, so they could see different family structures, different ways people struggle, not be surrounded by kids who are pretty much the same as them. I loved it. I thought, alright, here is a broad-minded woman who sees life differently than most. But now she's changing, she just seems to want to live in a snow globe. And I don't.

As for the kids, they were fine in our old house, which was kind of suburban, and are fine where we are now. They are pretty chill kids, thankfully.

 

You guys are all really helping me out here. Putting thoughts out there (maybe not verbally, but still reaching an audience) helps me clarify things, and also I just feel better having told somebody instead of letting it fester. I like the suggestion to remove the emotion from the situation. That's key. Also the pro/con thing, but it's difficult to weight each item properly.

 

What happy wife happy life really means is... when the wife is unhappy, you'll both be miserable because she'll let you and everyone else around you know it, therefore everyone is unhappy. When the husband is unhappy, no one really cares and only the husband is unhappy. It's really better for only one person to be unhappy than everyone being unhappy.

 

Well no one on here can be unhappy lol we have the best trucks ever made. Haha sorry way off topic ...

 

You jest, but no matter what mood I'm in when I get in my truck, as soon as I press that gas pedal, I'm all smiles

 

I think the only measurement people are using to assume your current area isnt as safe is your accounts of a guy waving a gun around and your wife not feeling as safe there?

 

I do this every day and still don't have an answer. I'm gone 12 hours a day (6am to 6pm) because I have to drive into Charlotte. Thankfully my wife is able to handle 90% of the day to day stuff for our 4 year old daughter but it is tough that I'm not able to be around more. On the weekdays, I only get to see her for 2 hours a day. Been doing this for about 2 years now and haven't figured out any other solutions except moving into the city. And forget that!

 

Your not kidding I love racing 6v mustang's also lol ik it's a v6 but still makes me smile that I have 35s on my truck and can still take them no problem haha

 

And to think it could be worse you could be gone for weeks or months at a time like my dad was when I grew up. Alot of us have so much to be thankful for.

 

Yeah that's the closest thing to crime we've seen near our house in two years. Next to our house is a six unit section 8 apartment, unfortunately. Cops have visited it periodically since we moved in, I'm not sure for what. Sometimes they get loud and annoying, but no one is violent. My wife has grown weary of dealing with them.

 

Very much true but I do travel alot for work. Can range from being gone a night to the whole week. Always home on the weekends though except if it's international travel.

 

Rural vs suburban vs urban all have their benefits and their drawbacks. You (and your wife) need to figure out where your priorities are and make a decision that requires the least amount of compromise from each other.
I will add though you will always lose the safety and crime argument so I would avoid it. Crime rates have nearly a 100% correlation to population density an mediean imcome. Suburbs will always be safer than the closest urban areas and the rural areas will be somewhere in between.
Another thing I will add, and I know you're a bit jaded by you field of study and career, but urban areas will always be worse for the environment when compared to suburban and rural environments. All major city have killed off 100% of the natural environment during there development and have literally transformed the environment to only suite human interests. There is no healthy eco system that is 100% dominated by 1 species. I live in a rural area where all the lots around are either an acre or bigger. And it's always 2 to 3 degrees cooler in my neighborhood than the city just due to the amount of asphalt that's holding heat.

 

Sorry, but the key word here is “taught” that patterns of suburban development is wasteful.

Thats the opinion of leftist college professors. Suburban life has exploded due to consumer demand for it. If people preferred living in cities, which i agree are more efficient in some aspects, then mass populations would not have chosen to migrate away from big cities. Everything has a cost and opportunity cost. To look at things purely in terms of urban efficiency is to completely ignore the human aspect of life. Being as crime is generally higher in big cities than in suburbs would tell me that it is not universal that people are happier and healthier inherently in big cities. People Are not meant to be confined to small spaces. We were designed or evolved, whichever one prefers, to roam and work. Big cities seem to close off human development far more than they inspire it.

Bringing up the environmental costs is even stranger I’m sorry. I enjoy nature and i hate pollution, but you have to love people more than nature. To paraquote Michael Knowles “without humans there would be nobody to appreciate nature(paraphrased).

Furthermore on the environment, harping on the watershed of suburban parking lots is an odd comparison. Many theory’s are pointing to urban centers for desertification and localized warming of the air. I cant imagine big cities are using the sun and rain more efficiently than suburbs.

One thing i’m in 100% agreement with is that we should all walk around more and say hi to our neighbors. It would be a better country.

I’m not trying to be mean. Hope that doesn’t come out like that, but I wouldn’t use academic theory to debate a major decision with the wife. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Nothing wrong with a big city at all if thats what someone wants. Work it out with her. Maybe try both, you can always move back to the city

 

Hey now, no need to assign political affiliation to anything. I happen to be pretty damn conservative, so urban does not have to equal liberal.
I think the social fruits of suburban living on a large scale are pretty self evident. I don't like them. I also think there are some systemic problems with urbanization's effect on people, theft and leeching off the system being a couple of them. Rural is probably best overall, but if everyone preferred that, then @Aerindel wouldn't be able to get far enough away
I also agree that some parts of the environmental conversation are tomato-tomahto. It's pick your poison, they're both bad. I personally would prefer to see tall buildings than mostly empty parking lots.

 

We are all a product of our experiences. Thats hard to change. Maybe even impossible. There are reasons 'they' require you to get a very specific kind of education before being allowed into their world. Once you have been processed like that you may just be better off going with the program. You probably wouldn't be happy on the outside and your happiness DOES matter.

Yet oddly, over the last ten years, its been the opposite, mass migrations into dense cities.

Don't ask me why....but its whats happening. Personally, I think it's a form of mass suicide.

 

They also produce more waste, have a higher infection rates and have no connection to food they eat (agriculture) or the natural water systems they drain to sustain their existence.

 

Firm believer of Happy Spouse Happy House. It's a relationship and not a one way street. You can get advice here all day long but at the end of the day you are the one who will be living your life and have to be happy with your decision. You are talking about a decision you didn't think you would have to face until later on down the road. Who's to say that wont happen again? Housing is not permanent, at the end of the day you need to be happy and accepting of your decision and not hold resentment because of it. No one knows your relationship/wife better than you and I am sure your happiness is also important to your wife so it's all about talking through it and making sure each side understands not just how the other feels but why.

 

My two cents: I don’t know you, but this may not be the best place for marriage advice. Lots of people have different opinions. Seek help from a qualified marriage counselor and pray about it. The problem may be deeper than figuring out where to live. When you have love and respect for each other, both sides try their best to make it work. Not saying you don’t, but there may be a bigger issue here, and that’s alright. Marriage is NOT an easy thing, but worth fighting for.

 

Living next to a eight-unit Section 8 apartment building puts another view on your original post. I would be looking for another house even if in just another urban location. There may be great people living there, but the odds are against it.

The man waving the gun was probably from that building, and the experience has your wife is scared to death. I hope that someone called the cops on the a-hole; cops don't tolerate public brandishing of firearms in ANY jurisdiction. That's the only way your neighborhood will improve...that the malfactors realize they aren't going to get away with it.

With time, if your marriage survives, your wife will begin to regain her confidence if there are no more incidents. She has to feel confident that all of you are safe. You should demonstrate your willingness to harden that old house to restore her security; more and modern locks, alarm system, security cameras. If you/she don't like the idea of responsible trained use of firearms, then a poor substitute would be baseball bats.

Meanwhile, as @Amanda B suggested, start "planning" for what both of you want in relocation. Make her part of the process. Begin by temporarily subordinating your emotional attachment to the urban life to her peace and comfort. Make a list of pros, cons, and desires for the new home. Consider school quality. Put a price on everything, including the additional time and cost of commuting. Remember..."for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, til death do you part". Maybe when she realizes what it will cost and what she's giving up, her thinking will change. Divorce just to live in a city would be insane.

My daughter lives in the Heights subdivision of Houston. It's a renaissance neighborhood that's gotten very expensive, but her part borders on some poorer, high crime areas. Her husband had his tires and wheels stolen off his pickup in the driveway. But, her commute is minutes. They love the city life and are raising two kids there with all the hip millennial advantages. They've just added a second story expansion that cost as much as they paid for that old thirties house. Not for me; I lived as close to work as I had to, and moved out of the near-to-city life as quick as I could.

 

I don’t know you but from the first post it just seemed like you’ve dug your heels in and already have your mind made up. From the sounds of it, if you were to compromise and move, you WOULD resent your wife. That is an absolute, unequivocal recipe for disaster.

If you were to sit down, have a calm and productive dialogue I am sure there could be a compromise here. I always say - “the truth lies somewhere in between”. Either you both will compromise and accept that neither will get everything each wants or there will be division. I have been married for 21 years and have 15 and 12 year old daughters. My wife is a natural mom and her world revolves around family. I commute 1.5 hours each way each day to the city and we live in the “country”. The commute is tortuous.....seriously. It takes years off of my life. But we have decided that until our kids are out of school this is what I will “sacrifice”. When they go to college, we will look elsewhere more affordable with more land and a “nicer” house. I certainly am not retiring here as my dollar goes nowhere.....but I am also of the mindset that safety, security, comfort and being close to family is important at this point.

This is a long winded way of saying you both will decide what’s best for your family. It may turn out that there are much bigger issues to address in your marriage. From experience, in separation and counseling I found that some of the issues we fought and argued about were manifesting themselves in other areas. Or it may turn out that you guys sitting down and having a calm and open minded discussion can accomplish the needs for both of you. Either way, good luck man.

 

So she is going back on her agreement to live in your current hone till the kids are out?

I see what your saying. Your going to have a less desirable house and a lot longer commute Seems like a bad deal

 

I have purposefully only read the initial post, as it sounds like you're just trying to use everyone here as a general sounding board, and are interested in reading through opinions and perspectives from the wide variety of people here in this forum.

For context, I am 32 and purchased a home in Seattle with my fiance/partner/wife about 7 years ago (we haven't bothered to get married, as it's just not a priority, but the commitment is the same for us). We don't have any kids, so that does simplify much of our collective decision making processes.

Hopefully you are able to pump the brakes on making any drastic, life altering decisions until both you and your wife are able to think about and discuss the issue relatively dispassionately. Without knowing how either you or your wife have worked through significant and intentional lifestyle and financial decisions or changes, one option would be to each separately build a list consisting of three general topics. Items to include on each of the three areas would be financial aspects, schools, commutes, hobbies / sports, restaurants, and basically anything else you do on a consistent basis.

1. Absolute must have in a home and location
2. Nice to have, but not a dealbreaker
3. Absolute must not have

Take those lists and compare to your current home and location to determine the things you both like, and the things you are potentially looking to change or improve. Those lists will most likely have some differences, but at least you'll have a starting point.

Then take those same lists, and start comparing the different potential locations in your area to them. If possible, try to prevent any bias either of you might have from entering the discussion, although that will most likely be very difficult. See if you're able to make any progress toward consensus or agreement.

If not, maybe spend time with a disinterested third party, such as a counselor or therapist. If possible, avoid friends and family, as they will most likely, even unintentionally have a bias toward one decision or another based on their own perspective, experiences and feelings.

I feel ridiculous saying this last point, which is that if at all possible, avoid introducing alcohol into the discussion.

Apologies if this is the same as other folks have suggested, or if this is just totally useless, and hopefully you and your wife are able to come to a decision that fits most of what you each want.

We're all rooting for you both!

 

Yeah pretty much that exactly. She was so ecstatic to move here, called it her dream home, loved that it isn't the standard cookie cutter house. Loved that it's close to her place of work, and that the neighborhood residents are super engaged in each other's lives.

 

Good luck with what you're going through man. It sounds like you two love each other and have been at least communicating your desires which is huge. I find as the Patriarch of a family you basically get last choice. It's your job to keep the family happy and unfortunately more often than not that means you compromise. Easier said than done but as others have said,"Happy Wife, Happy Life.". I'm sure you will work it out if it's something that's important to you. If you end up moving her to the burbs' maybe you can bargain in a supercharger to make the trip to town a bit faster

 

I’m a young married guy, 27 this year and just over 2 years of marriage. I will say I do and don’t agree with the “happy wife happy life” thing, because it has to be a 2 way street. I love making my wife happy and fulfilling her desires, however not at the expense of my voice and my opinions in our marriage. Big decisions are made together. Compromise is a MUST. Two different people with two different opinions will NEVER get exactly what they want, but compromise can be had so we both walk away satisfied with the outcome of major decisions.

The last thing you want to do is resent your wife over something. If needed, loop in a counselor or neutral mentor. Talking to a counselor doesn’t mean your marriage sucks or you’re doing anything wrong, it just means you both have the wisdom to seek assistance before there really is a huge blow up problem.

Communication is key, talk it out and take it slow. Big decisions can take time and rightly so they should. Best of luck!