Partner wants to move - I dont

LegacyUser

I met my partner many moons ago in Cork. I’m from here. She isn’t but had studied down here.
We have two girls of primary school age.
We bought a house together. It was a long and hard process and took a toll on me (mentally exhausting). It was a doer upper in a good area. It was always meant to be a medium/long term project. We’ve spent c. €80k in improvements and probably need another €150k for our plans.
My partner is having second thoughts. The cost of the extra improvements is a bit more than we thought. We can still afford it but she thinks whats the point in working so much to pay of something we may not have time to enjoy.
The lockdown has brought all this up. She wants to move her home county where we could get a lot more for our money and where money wouldn’t be as big an issue in terms of living costs, mortgage costs (a bigger house with half the mortgage) child care costs etc.
She would easily work at home 90% of the time where as I probably need to either meet people locally or in the office (if it returns) 3 times a week which would leave me commuting 120km each way per day. I currently have a 15 min commute.
I would also feel terrible pulling the kids out of school They have friends there.
I’m very torn between moving away from my home (my family are close), pulling the kids out of school and the commute that I would have to face. There are a lot of other issues in my head but don’t need to bog this thread down with them just yet.
We’ve had two big arguments about this. This will either make us or break us.

Augme

Only advice I can give is to stop getting into arguments about it. That's not going to get you anywhere. Yous both need to sit down and discuss it as adults.

I would also almost approach it as a business meeting. Ideally I'd recommend arranging to have a chat about it when you'd have some free time and won't be interupted.

Then I'd set a few ground rules. The main being that a decision isn't going to be made at the end of the meeting. This is the very early stages of discussing it so an actual decision is very far down the road. At this stage I would be sitting down to discuss the pros and cons of the situation and listing then down.

Once you have that done I think the best thing to do is then leave it at that and let that various pros and cons sink in for both of you and agree to have another discussion about it a few weeks later.

Often in situations like this, it is how the decision is arrived at is what makes or breaks couples. If one party feels they are being pushed into doing something they don't really want to do then it's very difficult to repair the damage of that.

road_high

I’d be leaning towards your “side” here- wtf did she do up to this point like settling there, starting a family and then announce mid stream she wants to move back home? It sounds like she’s not that far anyways from her home place. From what ive read it sounds completely unreasonable to me

juneg

Could there be any income from the house? Airbnb guest apartment or converted garage?
I understand exactly what your partner means because renovating an old house is a money pit. Theres always something. The heating system. The roof. Whatever. It sucks up all the available money that other people in newer houses use for living.

Rubberchikken

Could a compromise be reached in terms of moving a certain distance.
A commute of 120k a day sounds way too much for anyone long-term.

I agree that maybe putting a lot of money into a house that may never be finished is tough and time consuming.

You both need to sit down uninterrupted, as another poster said, and discuss this as adults.
It may take a few discussions to come to some arangement.

Good luck

suicide_circus

So she wants to move to a place she will work from home 90% of the time while you potentially commute 3 days x 120km each way = 720km...the equivalent of driving from Cork to London every week...sheer madness and extremely selfish madness at that.

antix80

U2Castle wrote: »

ard process and took a toll on me (mentally exhausting). It was a doer upper in a good area. It was always meant to be a medium/long term project. We’ve spent c. €80k in improvements and probably need another €150k for our plans.

Houses aren't meant to be long-term projects - I grew up in an environment like that. My mother was in hospital giving birth when my dad had the roof off the house. 40 years later, he's still not finished. Buy an A energy-rated home, let your wife pick the decor, plant a few shrubs in the garden and watch them grow. Your kids will be fine wherever they go. Sure they haven't even been to school in 6 months.

So, your wife has thought it through.

All you have are excuses that aren't good enough IMO.

It's different if you said you have family and friends and ties to the area, or workmates you're really fond of, or you're afraid you won't get a new job if you move to the new area. They'd be better excuses than doing a long-term project on your house.

Iodine1

No the wife's view is totally selfish here. That commute is a killer, and consider the cost? Fuel is not going to get cheaper, and you will be wearing out cars. The €150,000 saved will be spent in a few short years and the "cheap" house will be still a cheap house but cost will still be incurred. Spend the money on your house, have something to show for it, and enjoy it by being at home instead of wasting hours in a car travelling.

Hannibal_Smith

It could be that with lockdown she's realised exactly how far away her family are? That's not unreasonable. How much of a longterm plan is it to get the house finished? Maybe she sees a big long tunnel with no light at the end of it?

You both have valid points, but maybe if you try and set a time line for finishing the house so she can see the end is in sight where you can both sit back and enjoy the home you have?

Upforthematch

Agree at the start that you will make a joint decison on this. Uprooting your family is a big deal so should not be rushed.

Next create a list of pros and cons for each option, primarily the big three:
1. Stay
2. Leave
3. Get another house in the locality

While many of the posters here agree with your viewpoint based on what you have said, I want to ask, which is more important to you, your family or your job?

You may have a make a choice here if your partner is that unhappy with the current situation.

strandroad

Consider permanent and temporary factors separately.

House price differential and where your families live are permanent factors. Jobs and schools are not (schools might be a mix normally but in the covid situation they are fickle too, there was next to no school this year and who knows what's coming up next). You treat your job as if it was a permanent factor but is it? If everything else aligned, could you change it?

For the permanent factors, someone is always going to live away from their family so it's a toss. On the money pit house and the price differential your wife is right.

juneg

One other factor is that you are in a city where your children can live at home and not have college accommodation costs. I believe that's currently running at 10k per year. So that's potentially another 80k in the mix.