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God, I hate to be one of those people, but I'm coming here asking for relationship advice. I'm looking for honest, blunt opinions here - the kind that only a stranger can really provide.
My partner and I have been together for around a decade now. For the last several years, she has lived in $(CITY) about two and a half hours from where I live, and where we met.
We've discussed living together, and we both agree to the idea in principle, but we have several enormous roadblocks that are in the way.
She does not drive, and will not accept living somewhere that does not have ubiquitous, reliable transportation. I, on the other hand, have formally-diagnosed PTSD from moving dozens of times throughout my youth, and the various forms of abuse that came with it. The idea of moving is miserable for me; the last time I did it was when I moved purchased my first (and current) home, which sent me into such a tailspin that I damaged relationships with my friends, had trouble at work, and essentially lost six months to righting my life again. The idea of moving to a city is exponentially worse. Therapy has slowly improved things, but the more real and imminent things seem, the worse it gets.
While our attempts to find a home together have been interrupted by the cultural and economic shocks of the last five years, we have proceeded as far as looking at houses in $(CITY). It got so bad for me during this process that I more than once found myself miles from her apartment or my home, shoeless, and covered in scrapes and cuts with absolutely no idea of how I got there. I was depressed, and wasn't sleeping due to the 24x7 flood of adrenaline in my system. This manifested in a whole host of other physical symptoms. It got so bad that my partner and I sat down and agreed to pause our search while I got myself right.
Now, in 2025, I'm doing some soul searching. I love this woman more than I have ever loved anyone in my life. She is loving, and kind. She is the kind of person that will stay with a stray kitten in freezing weather until a rescue group arrives and takes it somewhere safe. If I can, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and more than anything I want her to be happy. In all of our time together, we've had our share of fights and disagreements, but we've always been able to come out of them stronger and with a better understanding of each other's needs.
She tells me she misses me, and that she wishes we could be together. She has also told me that she will never move into my home. When we spoke about this a few weeks ago, she told me that it was because my area lacks ubiquitous, reliable public transport. I mentioned that we have a fairly effective municipal ride share program, and that I would be willing to drop a few grand on an e-bike that would get her almost anywhere in the region in about the same amount of time that she could expect if my area has a bus line. I also let her know that my job has a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, so I would willingly and joyously drive her wherever she needed to go whenever she didn't feel like using the other options. Her response was that she didn't want to feel Beholden to me, and that was the end of the conversation.
Like a lot of you, once I'm presented with a problem, it's extremely difficult for me to let go of it until I have found a solution. Several sleepless nights followed.
I started looking at homes in $(CITY) again, and started doing math on what I could afford. I have a reasonably good income, and the value of my current home has appreciated significantly since I purchased it. I have also been aggressively paying ahead on the mortgage to th point where I could pay it off now and still have a full year's emergency fund available at my current levels of spending (which includes paying ahead on a mortgage that i would not have). Despite being blessed with those advantages, I am not sure if I will be able to afford a home in $(CITY) in any neighborhood that she would find acceptable.
That was terrifying. I was fighting the idea that I would lose her simply because we couldn't afford to be where she wants to be. I kept crunching numbers, and investigating neighborhoods, and mapping bus and train lines, until eventually I got a notification out of the blue.
I've mentioned before that I live on the outskirts of a little urban-ish enclave. A house had come for sale much closer to the core. It was more expensive than I would have liked (it would set my earliest possible retirement date back by a decade), but it was bigger than my current place, and newer, and a quarter mile from a regular bus stop, and within walking distance of several amenities and the downtown district (such as it is). She told me the problem was transit, and she told me that she didn't want to live where I am now. Was this a possible compromise?
I broached the idea. She shot it down immediately, citing a new concern - she didn't believe that my area would allow for a career path for her. She also said that she knows it's hard for me to hear things like that without looking at it as a problem to solve.
That kicked the legs out from under me for a few days. She had told me the problem was about transportation, right up until it wasn't. In her new reasoning, she claims that the issue is about career concerns. She works in service , but my area has a raging hospitality industry. When she lived here, she would make as much money during tourist season as she does in a year in $(CITY).
We haven't spoken about it since, because I don't want to go into a conversation as important as this one without having my head on straight. If I can, I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman, and I don't want to fuck up that chance because I'm not thinking clearly.
I know that I need to discuss finances with her. That is something that I am planning to do when we both have real time to go over it. She may be under some misapprehensions about what we can afford.
After that, I need to talk to her about where she thinks we're going to live in $(CITY) that fits inside that budget. I've done my best to figure that out, but she's told me after the fact after suggesting homes that it won't work for $(reasons) that are not immediately obvious to me as a non-resident.
I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I'd like to have both of us suggest a few other areas to possibly explore in 2026 that aren't my home and $(CITY).
I have considered suggesting limited couples counseling for a neutral point of view, but that is a hazy and unfinished thought.
I'm terrified of losing this woman simply because I can't get my shit together, take on a mountain of debt, and move somewhere that makes me deeply uncomfortable to the point of dissociating when I stumble into the wrong neighborhood.
Alright, if you're still reading at this point, what do you have to say?
Going by stated preference, you really want to accommodate her wishes and keep her happy.
While her switching to a different reason for turning down the shift is somewhat concerning, people are allowed to have multiple reasons for not wanting to do something. They even state the biggest one first, and in isolation, when they really ought to tell us everything else that matters. The fact that she disagrees with you on the viability of her career in that particular place? Well, that needs addressing.
You need to sit her down, explain the financial situation, and ask her what she wants, and doesn't want. Where did she imagine things were heading? Is she feeling lukewarm about moving in together?
That said, I do wonder what you're doing about the PTSD. The best evidence when it comes to therapy relates to the forms that involve desensitization. If you don't want to cough up the money, I might recommend simply booking a weekend at an Airbnb, practicing packing or figuring out transportation at a new location. Start nearby, same neighborhood even, and then slowly keep pushing yourself till you can begin to contemplate a move. Perhaps consider heavily staggering the actual move, should it happen. I would presume you'd have to sell your house to move into the new one, but if there's a period of extended occupation of both locations, move things over slowly, with friends and family around.
Then there are the more experimental treatment options, psychedelic therapy involving MDMA, ketamine therapy etc. Often both effective from the outset, and particularly so for treatment resistant cases of PTSD. They might be worth exploring if the standard drugs and talk therapies didn't help.
In my actual appointments, we're focusing on recognizing the signs that I'm about to have a full episode and get it under control before it spirals. My therapist has also broached EMDR, but does not believe that we have done sufficient ground work to make it useful without simply retraumatizing me.
In my personal life, I go to $(CITY) when I can. There are a few neighborhoods that are absolute no-go zones for me at the moment, but I can at least drive to a few venues on my own without throwing up on the side of the road and turning around these days.
One thing that I have learned recently is that her sibling and her parents both think she would be better off here. Since she has moved to $(CITY), her support network has atrophied as local friends have moved away. Her sibling lives about five miles from me. Her grandparents and extended family are considerably closer to here than to $(CITY), and her parents are considering moving to that town as well.
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