Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 25, 2025
At first glance, this reads like a housing disagreement. A cottage, a deposit, a shared future waiting to be pinned to a map. But the map matters in a practical way. The alarm at 4am. Leaving the house in the dark. Pulling back into the driveway after 8:30pm.
She loves her job not casually, not temporarily. She has been there since she was twenty. Promotions, trust, routine. He loves the house the quirks, the price point, the quiet, the fact that his work can follow him home. Each preference makes sense on its own.
The tension doesn’t begin as a fight. It begins with repetition. “It’ll work out.” “You’re overthinking.” The suggestion that starting fresh might even be good for her. At some point, the decision stops feeling like a conversation and starts feeling like momentum.
Sometimes the future hinges less on location than on who absorbs the adjustment.
This conflict centers on two fixed positions that cannot coexist. He identifies a remote property that fits their savings plan and aligns with his growing ability to work from home. She measures the same decision against her career: a six-hour commute or leaving a nursery position she has built over seven years in a field she considers a calling.
The disagreement sharpens because the framework changes. What had previously been mutual two yes, one no shifts into a single preference presented as settled. There are alternatives closer to her workplace. They have even viewed some. But those options gradually lose relevance in the conversation.
When she raises practical questions commute time, future childcare logistics, school distance the answers remain broad and optimistic. “You’ll find something else.” “It’ll work out.” The specifics remain hers to solve.
The turning point arrives when he says he is set on the house and she can either accept it or leave. She leaves.
What remains uncertain is why that particular house became immovable ground.
Text Version
AITAH for not wanting to buy a house 3 hours away from my workplace?
ONGOING
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/throwra_nowherehouse
Originally posted to r/AITAH
AITAH for not wanting to buy a house 3 hours away from my workplace?
Thanks to u/Arifault for suggesting this BoRU
Trigger Warnings: manipulation, possible controlling behavior, possible misogyny
Original Post: August 4, 2025
I don’t know how to start this. I, (27F) have been with my fiancé (28M) for 5 years. We’ve just recently saved enough for a deposit on a house and he’s found this cottage in the middle of nowhere, two hours away from where we currently live. The thing is, I already work an hour away. I am a nursery practitioner and I love my workplace, I’ve been there since I was 20 and I’ve worked my way up to a room lead position. Living three hours away from my job would not be ideal, but my fiancé won’t budge on this house. He says it’s perfect, within our budget and quirky enough to fit our tastes in home style.
I’ve tried to communicate with him about this issue multiple times, bringing up the fact there’s not even any nurseries in that area that are looking for staff, and I don’t want to find another job that’s a bit further out but start from the bottom again. He says it’ll all work out if I just stop overthinking it, and I’ve been at my current job for so long that it would be nice for me to start fresh.
Another issue is that I want children, they’ve always been a huge dealbreaker for me and I don’t think it would be such a good idea to live so remotely when it comes to children as we will have to get them to/from school or nursery before and after work every day, the nearest school/nursery is a 30 minute drive away from the house he wants and we both start work fairly early and finish quite late. It will also be an issue of their freedom as they grow up, because I think it would be horrible to have to rely on your parents for transportation all the time and have to skip out on plans if they can’t drive you.
He really thinks I’m being dramatic about this and I’ll just ‘figure it out’, so AITAH for not wanting to move so far away from my job and basically all civilisation?
AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: NTA. Y’all didn’t talk about where you wanted to live? You both should have discussed where EXACTLY you wanted a home. You don’t have to move where you don’t want to live.
OOP: We did discuss it, we both want a nice cottage that’s out of the way of lots of people, but there’s options near us, and even more options that are actually closer to my job, that also still have access to regular buses and there’s even a few up for sale in a town with a train station a reasonable walk away. I don’t know why he’s suddenly so set on this house that’s so far out when we have plenty of options available to us that won’t move us hours away.
Commenter 2: NTA. You two are not on the same page. You need to sort that out before you get married.
OOP: I am desperately trying to sort it out. I’m considering telling him that I will end the engagement if he continues to be unreasonable and doesn’t consider my feelings on the matter
Commenter 3: NTA. If you have joined the funds, immediately remove your contributions from the account and safeguard the money. He absolutely will use all of it to buy the cottage. His plan is to isolate you and keep you away from your network of people.
OOP: Luckily I control our finances because I’m better with numbers so I’ve already transferred my half of the savings into a different account, he won’t even notice. He’s usually very sweet and considerate so I’m not sure what’s got into him about this house. He loves my family and we have the same friend group as we’ve known each other since high school so I don’t think he’s trying to isolate me
Commenter 4: Is the house also three hours away from his workplace? Or does he WFH?
OOP: He works in tech and he does go physically to work but has the opportunity to WFH if he wants to. He says because it’s ’worked out’ for him it’ll work out for me too and I can always just find another job in a nursery, but I don’t think he gets quite how difficult it is to find a genuinely good job in a great nursery that doesn’t have a toxic environment and crazy high staff turnover
Commenter 5: Who exactly is the “we” who received the money for the deposit? Who did the money come from? if it came from somebody in his family, he is probably being very proprietary about how the money is spent. That isn’t a partnership and this kind of thinking will spill over into other areas of their life. If the money came from someone in your family or if it is somehow attached to your career, like a bonus, then he is a dictator who will force his ideas on you time and again. Buying a house is a partnership. He will expect you to help pay your portion of the mortgage and the upkeep but you don’t get to say in where the house is located. Is that what you want? NTA
OOP: We’ve been saving for a while, nobody gave us any money. I was already saving before we got together, so was he and after a couple years together we decided to pool our house savings for our future which I now realise was probably a really dumb idea because we aren’t married. I’ve actually put more in than him despite spending less because I’m happy to live a frugal lifestyle while he likes holidays and expensive cars, etc.
Despite *earning less, sorry I’m completely exhausted
Update: August 6, 2025 (two days later)
UPDATE AITAH for not wanting to buy a house 3 hours away from my workplace?
I wasn’t expecting to be able to update this fast, but here we are. First off I want to thank everyone that commented on my last post, and also add some context as I realised my last post may have been lacking some. Fiancé and I have been together five years but I have known him for twelve years, and in all the time I’ve known him and especially since we got together he’s always been sweet, taken my feelings into consideration and hasn’t actively ignored my opinion like this. It’s always been a two yes, one no situation in decisions before this.
We had a good relationship otherwise, we had date nights once a fortnight, we enjoyed each others company, had aligning plans for the future and the same ideals for a relationship. He had watched me go through a few quite bad relationships over the years before we got together and did his best to be the opposite of my exes, though he’s always been quite pushy when it comes to sexual intimacy so I guess that’s an issue. But other than that it was great, and we had actually had a lot of talks about what we wanted in a house. We had agreed that we wanted a house or cottage either the same distance away or closer to my work, a bit more remote but still with a town or city easily accessible by public transport and car. I’m not sure why he suddenly switched to wanting a house so far out from everything and everyone we both know. We live in the UK, and a two hour drive can have you in basically a whole other world.
Anyway, the actual update. I had annual leave from work yesterday, and my now-ex fiancé was having a WFH day, something he’s been doing more and more frequently as of late. This is another reason he is so okay with the house he wants being where it is, because he can just switch to full time work from home.
In the morning I sat down with him and tried to bring up the house. I laid out my points from my last post yet again and told him I am under no circumstances leaving my job, I love it and I do not want to search for another. I brought up the countless other houses that fit our criteria that are in our area and closer to my work, some of which we have viewed. We haven’t viewed the place he wants yet as we haven’t had the time, and I told him I do not want to as I already know it’s not what I want.
I also asked him if he really thinks it would be okay for me to have a 6 hour round commute every day, especially considering my shift starts at 8am so I would have to leave by 5am every morning and be up by around 4am. My shifts typically finish at 5:30pm, so I wouldn’t even be back home until 8:30pm. Would he be okay with doing all the childcare in the future, housework and just everything that needed to be done because I would not be home for any of it?
He didn’t seem to take any of it to heart, and still insisted I could find another job, maybe one not even in child care, and that’s what finally pushed me over the edge. Child care has been my dream since I was a little girl, and I managed to find an absolute dream of a workplace that I know many child care practitioners would kill to work for. How could I possibly leave that all behind when I’ve worked so hard for it? He told me he’s set on this house, so either I accept it or I leave.
I chose leave. I gave his ring back and told him we’re done, that he’s not being the sweet, considerate man I fell in love with and I don’t know why he can’t see my side of things in this. I do not want to live a life with somebody that doesn’t consider how I feel in all of this. This completely shocked him and he started begging me to rethink, that we can figure something out, but I refused and went to pack my things.
I’m staying with my brother and his wife now, which is nice because they live closer to my workplace (a 30 minute drive instead of an hour), and I get to spend time with my little nieces. I am hurting, but I also feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I do not deserve to not have my opinion valued, and he certainly did not. I guess it’s onwards and upwards as they say, but I definitely won’t be dating for a long time after this
Relevant / Top Comments
Commenter 1: You mentioned that the two of you had saved up enough for a down payment. If the money is in a joint account add up how much you contributed plus interest on the amount, and withdraw it Fast.
OOP: Hello! Sorry for my absence I have been very busy. I withdrew all money that I contributed from the shared balance before I left my ex fiancé. It’s all safe in my own bank account now!
Commenter 2: He didn’t even give up. ” We can figure something out” means his option is still on the table. He just wants to keep debating even after you dumped him. Man he really wants that house.
Commenter 3: Oh damn. He thought he could strong arm you into agreeing with him. He thought you would relent because you were engaged and you’d never walk away. And then you called his bluff and he realized he didn’t hold the control over you he thought.
Good on you for calling his bluff and being rid of him. He would have 100% used that tactic again and again if you had stayed with him.
Commenter 4: NTA and good job advocating for yourself!!! if current You starts to waver, which is a totally normal emotional cycle for people to go through post break up, just remember that future You will be so glad that you stood up for yourself and made space for better relationships to come.
Latest Update here: BoRU #2
Source
Begin with the math. If she leaves at 5am and returns after 8:30pm, the day compresses. Coffee before sunrise. Traffic. A workday with children. More traffic. Dinner late. Repeat. The numbers do not negotiate.
He operates within a different structure. Tech. Hybrid options. Increasing days at home. From his perspective, location stretches. If his routine adjusted once, it can adjust again. It seems transferable.
The transfer isn’t clean.
Her job is tied to place. Years inside one workplace. A room lead position. Relationships with families. A specific environment that isn’t easily replicated. Finding “another nursery job” isn’t the same as replacing a laptop.
There is also the conversation itself. She lays out commute times. He responds with reassurance. She mentions the absence of local nurseries hiring. He suggests starting fresh. She asks about future childcare if she is gone fourteen hours a day. He insists it will sort itself out. The words repeat. The tone tightens.
Then the sentence: accept it or leave.
She gives back the ring. He says they can figure something out. She packs.
At her brother’s house, the drive drops to thirty minutes. She sees her nieces. She describes the feeling as weight lifting.
Whether this was about a cottage, autonomy, or something harder to name is not fully clear. The shift in how decisions were held between them is clearer. And once that changed, the house was no longer just a house.
