I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/TrashIt555. Originally posted six years ago on r/relationships.

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My boyfriend feels like I am completely disregarding his feelings by moving to NYC. I feel like I'm trying to compromise and he isn't. Am I wrong? [Aug 17 2015]

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3hcptr/my_boyfriend_feels_like_i_am_completely/

Throwaway and no ages because he's on Reddit. I'm a woman, if that helps.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over 3 years, currently long distance. We love each other deeply, and for the most part, we get along famously.

For the past few years, we have both worked very low-paying jobs. I recently came in to some money, however, so I decided I would love to move to New York City. I've been there multiple times and it suits me: lots of stuff to do, diverse, easy to get around (I don't have a car), etc.

Here's the problem: my boyfriend grew up in the country. I don't mean "small farms just outside of a city," I mean a truly rural area, with a ton of open space between every small town. Before I came in to this money, we would talk about what we needed in a home when we eventually got the money to live together, and he would always bring up things that make rental prices skyrocket: a garage, a shed, a big yard. And he wants in an area where "the houses aren't as close together" as they are where I live now (which is...a suburb). He went to a suburban college several hours away from his hometown, and he has traveled through Europe, but I think he still has the mindset that everything he had in his rural town (namely lots of space at a decent price and tons of quiet) is the only stuff worth having.

I told my boyfriend that I wanted to use the money to move to NYC. I told him I was looking at apartments in comparatively quiet parts of the city, like Washington Heights, and I was looking for a studio-type space where he could do all of the crafty stuff he likes to do. (I have artist friends who live in NYC and have studio spaces, and they've helped me locate a few viable options.) My family is an 8-hour bus ride away from the city, and I now have the money for us to get on a plane whenever we want, so we could leave the city any time we wanted quiet.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend is saying that this isn't enough. First he said that he wouldn't want to have to travel to go to a studio; I told him he'd be able to get there in 20 minutes on the subway, but apparently, he feels he should just be able to roll out of bed and head out to his "shop."

Then he said that he wouldn't feel comfortable driving there. Fair point, but I told him he wouldn't need to drive in NYC because the infrastructure is so great. Nope, he wants to be able to drive, and do it comfortably...and since he complains about traffic in my tiny suburb, that basically means he wants to drive in the country.

Next, he said it's too noisy. Fair enough, I said, what if we move to a smaller city? Nope! He doesn't want to live in any city. Well, fine, I said, what if we live in this really nice suburb that's 20 minutes outside of the city with easy access to public transportation? Nope, the houses are too close together! Okay, what about a suburb that's an hour outside of the city and I could get to the city within an hour by train? Nope! Nope nope nope!

Last night, he pointed out that his parents are "down home country folk" and would never feel comfortable coming to the city to visit us. I said that's fine, we could just go visit them at their home (which is what we do right now). Apparently, that's selfish of me, because he wants his parents to be able to come to his home and feel comfortable/invited. (I feel like his parents are just stuck in their ways and totally opposed to anything outside of their norm, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

I've tried explaining to him that houses are close together in most suburbs, but he just keeps repeating that he isn't comfortable with that. I've also asked him where he would like to live, and he always picks rural areas. I even told him that I could rent a smaller apartment in NYC and also purchase a little house in a different state so we could have both, and he nixed that because he "doesn't want us to be separate anymore."

I'm just not sure what to do. I feel like he has unreasonable expectations and is unwilling to compromise, but he tells me I'm being selfish for even considering moving to NYC because "he never did like cities." I'm just not sure what to do.

tl;dr: I'm making plans to move to the city and am trying to accommodate my boyfriend, but nothing seems to please him. It seems he will only be happy with country living. I think his expectations are unreasonable, he thinks I'm being selfish.

Relevant Comments:

• I feel like I'm trying to get the happy medium, though--suburbs instead of city or country, quiet for him and close to transportation for me, etc.--but he doesn't seem to want to compromise. Even before I got this money, I would tell him, "You know, renting a house with a garage or a shed is way more expensive than renting an apartment; I don't know if we'll be able to afford that," and he would sulk because "that's all he wanted." I feel like I'm trying to be realistic/fair and he's just being stubborn, if that makes sense.
• When I tried pointing out that his hometown isn't a great fit for me (because most people there don't like "outsiders" and you HAVE to have a car to get anywhere), he got really angry with me. Maybe he sees his hometown through rose-colored glasses...? It's a nice little town, but it's definitely not perfect. No place is.
• Maybe I should write down why living in the country makes me unhappy or doesn't work for me. I want to be with him and make him happy, too, but I think we BOTH have to give some "wants" up for this to work, and he's not willing.
• I think part of the problem is that he grew up and went to school in roughly the same area, so until he spent a few weeks in Europe, he never experienced anything outside of "his world." When he first came to visit my family in the suburbs (in another state, I should mention), he made a big deal about how close the houses were, how much louder people were, how the towns all run together instead of having miles of separation between them, etc., and he acted like it was SUPER weird. His parents...I could write a book about them, but they NEVER leave their town for any reason, so they probably foster that. I think I experienced more diversity at a young age, and I have no problem leaving my home town.
• We have lived together for 2-month spans when we had breaks between work, and we were totally fine then. We're usually both very easy to get along with. We've compromised/talked out a lot of things: different sexual desires and appetites, who will pay for what, whose parents we should visit and when, if we want children, how we should pay down our school loans, etc. I really do think the fact that I now have the money to do anything has flipped some weird switch in his brain.
• We're both close to 30. I do think he's a little spoiled and immature sometimes. He's never had to worry about money (family is rich), never lived outside of his state, and was cherished because he was the only son. I can usually talk to him when he acts a bit bratty, though, and we work it out.
• He's shot down every other city I've mentioned, including (and this is a short list) Bend, Portland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Iowa City, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Fargo, Bangor, Cincinnati, Savannah. Even a city within a few hours of his home town, he shot down. I've been there, and it feels more like a suburb to me. Every suburb, he shoots down. It's almost like he wants his area and only his area.

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[UPDATE] My boyfriend feels like I am completely disregarding his feelings by moving to NYC. I feel like I'm trying to compromise and he isn't. Am I wrong? [Aug 28 2015]

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3irz5u/update_my_boyfriend_feels_like_i_am_completely/

My original post wasn't wildly popular or anything, but I just wanted to let everybody know what happened with my boyfriend. Warning, wall of text.

I took some of your suggestions and talked to my boyfriend more. He admitted that he was in the wrong for acting like everything that wasn't like his hometown was 'weird.' He's been trying to learn that things can be different without being weird. Then I told him that it hurt me that he just kept rejecting every option I came up with instead of coming up with some of his own ideas. He told me he'd been thinking about it, and he was really ashamed about how he'd behaved. He admitted that he'd become very stubborn because of the money. (We normally compromise very well, which is why him shooting everything down without suggesting any alternatives was so out of character and hurtful.)

He said he was afraid of moving out of his comfort zone. He's lived in a small town where everybody knows him for almost thirty years, and that's always been a safety net for him. He even got his current job because the people in charge knew him and liked him. (He didn't even apply or interview.) Unlike me, he's never really moved away from home. He didn't want to tell me this because he was embarrassed. That was part of the reason why he ignored my ideas and didn't come up with his own. When I asked him why, he said "Because you've worked for everything in your life, and I hate admitting that things are easier for me here because I'm a hometown guy. I hate that I'm scared of moving because people move all the time." He said he would kind of be glad to get away from his hometown so he could be proud of his own achievements, but it would still be scary being surrounded by nothing but strangers. But in the end, he wants to move to create his own life.

I asked him if staying in the country was a 'hard limit' for him and something he wouldn't compromise on. He told me not really, he had just been embarrassed and was avoiding the discussion. He said he wouldn't do that in the future. I believe him because we talk everything else out.

So I did what a few folks here suggested and I asked him to go to NYC with me for a few days. To make it more comfortable for him, I worked it out so we could stay with friends of mine. Trip started off REALLY badly: he saw how people drive in NYC and freaked out. We used the subway to get to my friends' place. The subway scared him. Friend #1 came out to get us, and my boyfriend asked, "Are all apartments that close to a subway, so you don't have to drive?" Friend #1 shrugged, said he takes the subway or the bus just about everywhere, and mentioned that friend #2 (his boyfriend) grew up in NYC and never even learned how to drive because he felt there was no point. I think my boyfriend is so used to everybody driving as soon as they legally can, and towns being very far apart, that he had to see it to believe it.

My friends live in an older but really homey apartment in an up-and-coming part of the city. My boyfriend told me he hadn't thought there was anything BUT the super-modern million dollar apartments you see on TV, and again, he had to see it to believe it. ("I didn't think it could feel like a real home.")

We went for a walk around the area, and he said he liked all of the different things to do and how easy it was to get around, but he didn't like the noise or the dirt. He said the parks were pretty, but more crowded than he was used to. He thought it was interesting that there were so many different food and shopping places, but because he doesn't get in to a lot of that stuff, he wasn't wowed by it. I admitted that every time I visited, I would blow my nose at the end of the day and a layer of grime would come out. That grossed him out a lot, but I wasn't going to lie about it.

I decided that I would take the opportunity to do things HE loves and normally can't do. My friends and I took him to see a few musicals, and he loved them. We also went to the Met one day, and he was really impressed with it. He said he liked doing it, but wouldn't want to do it every day because there were so many people around you all the time.

We checked out a few in different parts of the city, and he realized that they're all kind of different. But he still didn't like the dirt or the noise level. I knew he wouldn't, so I wasn't shocked. He asked if I would be okay not living in the actual city, and I told him that was fine, and reiterated a huge list of places I'd be fine living in.

We also met a real estate agent in Yonkers for an afternoon. There was one brick house she showed us that my boyfriend liked a lot. He told me that he had been silly, he could absolutely live in a place like that. I asked him if he was sure because the neighbors were still pretty close, and he just shrugged and said, "Not everything can be like my childhood."

At the airport, we talked more, and he said that part of the reason he originally felt uncomfortable with the idea of moving was that his parents are racist and homophobic, and right now they live in a town that's all white people. They say rude stuff all of the time and it embarrasses him. A lot of my friends are gay or black, and he was afraid they'd come to the city, make comments about people who lived there, and upset me. I know he isn't racist or homophobic, so whatever, let them yell all they want.

After seeing it, he has decided that he would really like to live in the suburbs near a city. He wants to move away from his family and the favoritism he gets in his town and start new. He said he wants a garage and a security system wherever we live, and that doesn't bother me at all.

tl;dr: Talked it out with boyfriend and he told me he was being stubborn mostly because he was embarrassed. Agreed to at least look at a few other places. Visited NYC. He is now fine with the idea of living in the suburbs.

ETA: Thanks for all of the great real estate suggestions, guys!

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[FINAL UPDATE] My boyfriend [20sM] feels like I [20sF] am completely disregarding his feelings by moving to NYC. I feel like I'm trying to compromise and he isn't. Am I wrong? [Nov 07 2015]

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3rv0gh/final_update_my_boyfriend_20sm_feels_like_i_20sf/

This is not an entirely needed post, but I thought some of you would like a quick final update!

After looking around New York, my boyfriend fell absolutely in love with a certain part of Brooklyn. It's very suburban feeling, safe, and is a quick walk to public transportation. I was actually surprised that he liked the area so much, and I asked him again and again if he was sure he wouldn't want something a little further away. He insisted that he loved the place and it "felt right" to him. Our friends helped us get a nice apartment for the time being (which, holy shit, real estate moves fast out here) and we're looking in to buying a place soon. (Tips for buying real estate in NYC are welcome!)

There are a few things we both dislike about the area, but that's normal, and they're pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. We've both found work and volunteer projects to keep us occupied, he's gotten close with a friend's boyfriend (they go to musicals together), and he's managed to meet fellow craftsmen in the area. He loves that he can have a relatively quiet place to live, but can also get to Manhattan in a half hour or less. He's also started to lose some weight because it's so much more walkable here than his hometown, which, I loved him anyway, but he's thrilled about it. So yeah!

I was worried he'd get lonely, but he's met so many new people already, and several of our friends have promised to visit us soon. He was worried that he'd stick out and everybody would realize he was a "country bumpkin," but he's starting to realize that there are people of all shapes and sizes here, and they've seen everything there is to see, so they have zero fucks to give about how he looks.

Most of all, he's happy that he's got a clean slate. Nobody knows who he is out here, so things aren't just being handed to him. He has to make his own friendships, he had to find his own job, etc. His parents are actually the only real problem we're facing right now because they're throwing a tantrum about him leaving. I won't get in to details, but I will say that while it's upsetting, my boyfriend and I both agree that we're not going to legitimize their shitty behavior. It's aggravating, but we'll survive.

Thanks to everybody for all of the wonderful insight and the fantastic real estate suggestions. We're hoping to build a new life as a couple out here, and r/relationships was so helpful!

tl;dr: Boyfriend decided he liked Brooklyn. We've been settled in for a little while and he absolutely loves it. His parents aren't thrilled, but they kind of suck, so fuck them.

Relevant Comment:

• I'm almost stunned by how happy he is to be here. I'm sure the excitement will die down once it all becomes routine, but for now, it's infectious. The other day he was like, "Honey, look, I'm going to ride my bike...to the grocery store!"

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I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/TrashIt555. Originally posted six years ago on r/relationships.