City Girl

My husband Sam grew up on a farm near a small Iowa town. We met at University, got married shortly after graduation, and have been living and working in a good-sized city, where I am completely happy. My career is challenging and stimulating, my parents and sister live nearby, and all of our friends live here. We have an active social life, and are involved in various art and drama associations. I feel like I am living my dream life.

But my dream life is not my husband’s dream life. He longs to give up his lucrative job to move back to small town Iowa. We have a three-year-old son, and plan to have another child within a year or two. Sam says it would be so much better for our children to grow up in a town where everybody knows everybody else – the kids would always have someone knowing what they are up to. He also has hinted that we consider home-schooling our children, the idea of which I find frightening.

Sam doesn’t necessarily want to live on a farm, but he wants to have a huge garden (I hate gardening) and can and freeze our own produce. He says he could open a hardware store (do they still have family-owned hardware stores?) or grocery store (WHAT?!) I think he’s gone bonkers. This feels like an episode of “Green Acres” gone horribly wrong. I love the guy, but I will not be moving to the country any time soon. I don’t want him to be unhappy; but how can I persuade him to give up his bucolic dream?

City Girl

Dear City Girl,

Does you husband seem happy in your present situation? I don’t know if he is miserable and looking for an escape to what he thinks will be an idyllic existence, or if he’s just considering a different option, even though he is content with his life as it is.

In any case, I think you should make a list of everything you like about where you live now, and everything you don’t like. Then I think you should make another list of what you think you might like about small town living (if anything), and what you think you would not like. Your husband should make out those very same lists. Take your time – give it a week or so, and as pros and cons occur to each of you, enter them on your separate lists. Then, set aside a big chunk of time to read your lists to each other, and discuss them. Do not be critical or judgmental during this discussion – genuinely listen to each other, and consider each other’s points of view. You will probably need more than one session to totally understand each other’s motivations and desires.

The list making and subsequent discussions may lead to compromises … perhaps Sam could join a communal garden in or near the city. Or maybe, if finances permit, you could buy a weekend home in a rural area. If at the end of this exhaustive exercise the two of you are still at loggerheads, consider counseling – maybe Sam’s discontent goes deeper than his desire to live what he may consider a simpler way of life.