She knows I hate everything but the weather in CA.
She knows I will be miserable there.
She hates it here, even in a nice home with good schools.
There are other CA refugees here she knows (all women) who want to go back to Walnut Creek/Lafayette area. People here are not very open and are very happy with quads and Bud Lite.
I don’t want to lose my family.
Our compromise is to buy a small investment house we can keep here if SHTF.
If I look at an election map of California, I see a lot of red areas. Would one of those perhaps serve as a compromise? She gets California, but you get out of the San Francisco awfulness?
I grew up out there, off Reliez Valley Rd, and it's a beautiful area. It was also conservative when I lived there. It's still beautiful, but filled with a lot of leftists. I'd hate to see what this 9 month vacation is gonna cost ya.
I can't comment on your specific relationship, but in general I'd say this isn't about the kids. SHE wants to go back to CA. Don't assume that in 7 years, she will be ready to leave again.
You got a real keeper there. She’d rather you were miserable in order to get what she wants. Good luck on that marriage lasting.
I understand. I really do. We left SoCal after 20 years in a nice Valley. We moved to Phoenix and had culture shock. At the time, all the things we loved about California were still there and open.The Wineries. The Hollywood Bowl. Disneyland. The Ballet. Universal Studios. The Ocean. Concerts. Even watching the news on TV in Arizona seemed backwater.
We went to the Ballet a few times in Phoenix. It wasn’t the same. The best thing in Phoenix is the Musical Instrument Museum. The WAS really nice. But we had culture shock for a long, lingering time. It was tough, even though we chose to move there.
We have now moved to the East Coast, to be closer to family. We are nowhere near a big city. A lot of what your wife misses is the culture of the big cities. Even though they are cesspools of Liberalism, they give the resources for a Ballet, a Symphony, Concerts, Plays, etc. I do miss that very much. But we adapt. The most difficult thing has been the pandemic lockdown. Nothing anywhere has been open for recreational purposes. Why don’t you offer to rent a house for the summer in Walnut Creek? Let your wife work out her unhappiness. She might appreciate the slower life after realizing that what she moved away from wasn’t exactly what she wanted anyway. She is romanticizing her former life right now, but her former life isn’t there anymore. We still miss the activities that California offered. But they aren’t the same now either. Good luck to you and your family.
“She hates it here, even in a nice home with good schools.”
If someone close hates that which is good, you’ve got to ask yourself some hard questions.
For a time, I worked at least one week each month near Boise.
I was born and raised in a small town.
Yes, Idaho is different from where I was raised and what I enjoy, all of my friends.
To live in Idaho is like any other move, you leave behind all things familiar and that which defines who you are.
That said, Boise area remains on my short list of retirement destinations (Gotta live where I can earn a living!)
There are other CA refugees here she knows (all women) who want to go back to Walnut Creek/Lafayette area
There’s yer problem right there!
I think I see the problem here.
“There are other CA refugees here she knows (all women) who want to go back to Walnut Creek/Lafayette area.”
There is your problem lady! She needs to get away from that group and spend her time in the here and now. She can be happy in Idaho only after she gets away from that bunch. They are feeding on each others nostalgia and building it up into someplace better than it is.
Good luck breaking that psychology!
I happen to live in Walnut Creek, and I don't see many of the people outside our immediate group of friends being very open as you say. In fact, a close friend who lived in the area (and has actually moved to Boise) was very upset some years ago because his wife was derided as being "only" a stay-at-home mom.
Which is probably one of the few things that HASN'T changed in the area recently. Politically things have swung way Left, and a lot of places that gave this area a small-town feel are gone and replaced with either chichi places geared towards today's hipsters or the basic commercial ventures you see everywhere.