I love living on our boat, my husband hates it.

[David Ess]

Another option is the wife stays on the boats she like, while the husband stays in the house with the mistress he likes.

[motion]

Easy answer. But a house with a dock. Stay or live where you desire.

[Siberian Sea]

So unfortunate, many are much to busy earning a living then to live.

[David B]

Originally Posted by Farawaysailor

We’ve been together for 20 years, lived onboard for 5, bought a house 2 years ago and I hate living on land. All of it.
My husband says he doesn’t want to live on a boat full time until he doesn’t have to work anymore ( 20+ years )
I feel like that might be too late. I love living on the boat, even though life is harder, I’m so comfortable in this space. Makes me happy. I don’t know what to do. Do I give up on living on the boat until we retire and hope I live that long and am good enough health to live and sail.
Meh.

Some great advice has been offered here - some not so .....

Happiness is important - for both of you.
Are you both eachothers best friend?
Hopefully so - therefore there is a way through this.

I assume your house is not on the water - can you afford it to be?
Having your boat at (or near) the bottom of the garden would mean for now, you could satisfy eachothers needs partially. And remember, a relationship is inevitable compromise, but a good relationship brings rewards that far exceed the compromises.

So husband has been on the boat for five years, and now wants to live on land and focus on his career for the next 20 years. That is understandable. You only get one shot at this life, and he wants to satisfy his need for success in business - and grow some wealth. Can you based on that, plan for the future (that hopefully will come) with a bigger, more livable boat as part of those future plans, while making do with part-time living on board and sailing the boat you presently have?

You say that you love living on board, even though life is harder. Does that mean you have a condo? Because it's the other way around for us (and I would suggest, many others). Life on board is just so much more simple and relaxed than running a house, maintenance, gardening etc.

If my assumptions are correct, would a nicer boat or nicer house work as an interim (cooped up in a condo vs. on a boat, I can understand your perspective and need for the sense of freedom living on a boat brings).

Finally - getting back to my first question - if this is not the case, and you are seriously questioning boat or husband, then there is the answer all in one.

I hope those thoughts help you to work out where you are going with this.

David

[captmikem]

After 27 years of marriage, at least half of it living on a boat, my wife told me she wanted to move ashore. Believing in happy wife happy life, I acquiesced and we moved ashore. One year later we divorced. One of the hardest things I have done in my life, yet one of the best things I have done in my life.

On another note, we were laying at the anchorage in Bora Bora and the wife of a couple we had met stopped by and asked me to talk to her hubby. He wanted to sail to Hawaii the next day, sell the boat and move ashore. She pleaded with me to talk some sense into him. I came aboard with a bottle of tequila and a couple of limes that evening. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning we finished the bottle and I went back to my boat, a week later when we sailed out of there, they were still there.

M

[MicHughV]

I don't think the boat is necessarily the problem. The divorce rate most anywhere in the world is staggeringly high. I can think of only a few people I know that have not been divorced, but most people I know, have been divorced, some many times.

The reasons for it span from one end to another. It's interesting to note, that many divorces are by people that have been married for many years and even more interesting is that after the divorce, the divorced couple seems happier.

Life is short though, divorce, death, hurricanes and other calamities occur daily. After the initial shock, most people appear to deal with whatever befell them, pick up the pieces and move on, most often to a better circumstance.

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by redhead

I learned a lot of the "blue" jobs - I can change the oil, water and check the batteries, fill the day tank, paint, varnish, tune an outboard, etc. Take some of the pressure off him.

wow good for you .. I hope he knows he is a lucky man

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Farawaysailor

We’ve been together for 20 years, lived onboard for 5, bought a house 2 years ago and I hate living on land. All of it.
My husband says he doesn’t want to live on a boat full time until he doesn’t have to work anymore ( 20+ years )
I feel like that might be too late. I love living on the boat, even though life is harder, I’m so comfortable in this space. Makes me happy. I don’t know what to do. Do I give up on living on the boat until we retire and hope I live that long and am good enough health to live and sail.
Meh.

If you value the relationship you should find a dream/solution you both share and can be happy with.

For some it works, but for most people pursuing separate interests, especially ones which result in you're being apart, leads to separate lives, less sharing, less attachment, marriage in name only. Why? There is so much joy to be had in a good relationship, don't settle for that.

The worry would be that you’d give up your dream but be regretting it every day of the rest of your life. In that case, maybe the relationship won’t work.

[AndyEss]

Originally Posted by captmikem

After 27 years of marriage, at least half of it living on a boat, my wife told me she wanted to move ashore. Believing in happy wife happy life, I acquiesced and we moved ashore. One year later we divorced. One of the hardest things I have done in my life, yet one of the best things I have done in my life.

On another note, we were laying at the anchorage in Bora Bora and the wife of a couple we had met stopped by and asked me to talk to her hubby. He wanted to sail to Hawaii the next day, sell the boat and move ashore. She pleaded with me to talk some sense into him. I came aboard with a bottle of tequila and a couple of limes that evening. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning we finished the bottle and I went back to my boat, a week later when we sailed out of there, they were still there.

M

Alcohol poisoning is not a solution to life.

[SV__Grace]

Originally Posted by Clivevon

This is the wisest & most sensible thing I have seen in a very long while - maybe ever. Please listen to this person.

Aww, I'm honored by your kind acknowledgment, thanks!

One additional comment in response to one post on this thread mentioning "Compromise."

First, to define my use of terms-

Compromise= giving up some of what you want to meet in the middle.

Negotiation= finding a way that both parties can get what they want. A true Win/Win.

Too often couples compromise as it is the easier and faster path to a solution, but if you do that as a habit you end up unhappy because you are constantly giving up what you really want.

Example- my first marriage was 10 years and all that time we compromised on movies- she hated my action/adventure preference and I hated her animal themed preference so we compromised by watching comedies, dramas, and documentaries. It wasn't til my divorce that I got caught up with Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, etc. and I realized the downside of compromise.

If you get creative and let go of the "how," meaning being attached to the way YOU want it, and are open to finding the Third Option that truly works for BOTH of you, you CAN and WILL find it. It's not always easy but with experimentation and creativity and believing it's possible, you will find it. If you DON'T believe it's possible then you won't, simple as that, and most couples in trouble have an uncreative, scarcity minded, black/white approach that prevents them from finding the Win/Win.

Perhaps it's because I'm a cruiser and most of my in-person interactions are with other cruisers, but I find that our lifestyle wouldn't be possible without flexibility, creativity, and adaptation, and most of the cruising couples I've met apply that to their relationship and inspired my approach to Radical Marriage.

So if you're a boating couple, simply apply the planning, preventative maintenance, situational awareness, adventuresome spirit and creative solutions to your relationship as well as your lifestyle!

[MicHughV]

I've learned that the trick to a successful marriage or other union is to convert "yours" and "mine" into "ours".

Money and possessions most often drive a wedge into most any relationship.

I've learned this the hard way.

Men, especially, are reluctant to take this step...."what, my Corvette, is now our Corvette, nah, I don't think so...."

As in above, I don't think compromise is a solution as one party must give up something to appease the other......

It took me a while to say..."my" boat is "our" boat.....but once I took this step, the magic began...my wife took "my" boat and made it into "our" home.

[sailingabe41ds]

OK ...another OP who throws this out there as their first post and disappears?

That said, if I had a choice I would sell my house ...buy a HR 48 and live in it cruising up and down from Alaska to Baja.
Best I can do with the Mrs is home in northern Idaho and have a boat in Washington state spending a few weeks/maybe month back and forth. That is the plan in the next few years... God willing.

Abe

[Mike Banks]

Buy waterfront property and shift shacks.

[FatBear]

So you both must have liked boating quite a bit to have tried the liveaboard life. But you had opposite outcomes from the trial. That was a 50% probability.

So what about each other's boating expectations for the future? Do you want to live aboard in a nice marina and cruise out of there as your permanent home base? Or do you wish to sail the world? Sailing the world is a very rootless lifestyle and I suspect a lot of people would be averse to that. But living long term in the same marina is not so far from living on land.

And does he want to live on land and cruise locally on weekends, perhaps taking longer cruises on vacations? Or does he never want to set eyes on another boat?

Where do you live? If you live someplace where people have floating homes, you may be able to find a nice compromise. Floating homes are basically "normal" stick-built houses on floats instead of on concrete foundations. They are like living in a house and like living on a large boat that never goes anywhere, both at the same time. You have to walk and schlep your groceries down a dock to get to/from them. You get to know the herons and which corner that really large carp likes to hang out. You will be pleasantly close to the neighbors you like and uncomfortably close from those you don't. When it is icy you will have to be careful stepping from the dock to the house. It moves up and down with the tides or boat/ship wakes.

But you step off the dock onto a front porch of some sort. Once inside the only indication you have that you are not in a house is that you can feel it move and see the hanging lamps sway from time to time. (I find this comforting.) And that it is probably unique. I know of no floating homes this side of Amsterdam that are "tract home" copies of each other.

Floating homes are measured in square feet (or meters in some countries), not displacement - though length and width do matter a lot. You can have a shop and/or a "boat well" which is sort of an attached garage for your boat. (We did.) Or if you have the right situation you can tie a larger boat up alongside. You can have plants, trees (small ones), even a greenhouse (we did) to grow your vegetables if you find the right house with the right decks in the right orientation to the sun.

You get those negative ions which are what make us feel so good when we are on the water. And yet you get the comfort of a regular house.

The catch is that you might both have to move to the right area to find such a home. (Floating home owners usually call them "houseboats" to each other and friends, because Floating Home seems kind of snooty. But they aren't anything like what most people think of as a houseboat.) They are all over the Pacific Northwest. I've seen them in the Sacramento area. I've seen one in San Diego and it was pretty plain and very well hidden. I imagine there are probably some around the lower Mississippi, though I've never seen them. And, of course, they have them in Amsterdam and probably other parts of the Netherlands.

If there aren't any in your area and your husband wants to have a career and manage stuff and such, maybe he should drum up some partners and build a floating home marina. It's no mystery - the marina we lived in was built by a blue collar yacht club on a blue collar budget with lots of their own labor. If they can do it that way, then a well financed project can really do it right.

Boy, that really got carried away, didn't it? I guess you can tell that I miss our place. I consider houses on land to be sad, pathetic, dead things. Anyway, it might be a possible solution to your dilemma. You could live on a large, comfortable boat and keep a smaller boat or skimmer tied-to for play and local touring. He could live in a house and not have to bump his head every time he needs to pee in the middle of the night.

[Nani Kai]

Originally Posted by SV__Grace

.... each partner needs to be committed to what their partner needs and to their happiness.

... focus on and commit to your husband's happiness and he needs to commit to and focus on yours.

....as an unbeatable team who is committed to your marriage and each other, you find The Third Option.

..... there are always creative ways forward if you're looking for them, but you won't find them if you aren't looking for them. It will not work if the choice is between two unworkable options. Assume the Third Option is possible and find it or create it.

This is how my wife and I have addressed the issue. We are in the process of selling our business and home and moving to Brunswick Georgia where our boat lives during hurricane season. From there our plan is to cruise for as long as our health, finances and desire allow. I would be completely content to live aboard the boat the entire time but my wife needs the social connection of community theater, the emotional and spiritual connection of art, gardening, baking, bee keeping and the deep yearning to be with our children and grand children on a regular basis. To meet both our needs we have agreed to cruise 6 months of the year (December-May) then return to Brunswick for 6 months of land based living. With the boat very nearby we would be able to go for day sails or weekend jaunts to Savannah or further north to the Chesapeake. If I get an unbearable itch to spend more time afloat I can venture further north alone or with buddies while my wife stays ashore to pursue her interests. Should she want to join us later she can fly and meet up with the boat at any stage of such voyages. The important realization for us was that we didn't have to be constantly in each others company in order to have a rich and fulfilling relationship.

If you love each other and are committed to each other's happiness you can find a way to make it work.

Have fun finding your way.