S
Southernbelle12
Guest
Here is my situation, I would like any comments, especially from men:
I am an American that happened to have Canadian citizenship because my mother was born in Canada. I was married to my first husband for 17 years and divorced him finally after years of abuse and contempt.
I get together with a man from the UK and we have a wonderful affair, fell in love hard and I moved to the UK to be with him. I took my then 12 year old son.
I managed to find a nice working life in a niche profession that gave me structure, meaning and money. Son grows up and moves back to the states to go to college. He is now 21. I’m 53, my husband is 57. We have been together for 11 years. Mostly absolutely wonderful and happy.
My husband has complained about his job from the first day I met him. So when he maxed out his pension I encouraged him to retire. We have money (6 figures) in the bank, a good pension and own everything. He has always wanted to live in the States, so we naturally looked to go there after retirement. But at some point the healthcare thing came into our minds and we decided that $1000.00 a month can buy a lot of other things besides insurance premiums. So we looked at Canada.
Neither of us have any relation to Canada, or connection to it. Neither of us had spent longer than a weekend in the country. We found a place in BC that seemed OK. We thought that we had done our homework and it looked nice. Beautiful mountains, the sea, wildlife…et al.
We spent three days there in the summer and bought a house.
We were under pressure because our house in the UK unexpectedly sold in under a week. And all our research had been on this place in BC and we had not looked anywhere else. We thought we had time, when it fact it did not turn out that way.
We moved, lock stock and barrel. I felt very uneasy about it, but figured it was just the moving.
After about four months my husband gets an opportunity to go back to work part time doing consulting. He works two weeks out of four. Sometimes more. He is in Vancouver for a week, and then the UK for a week.
With traveling I have him home for around 10-12 days month. We have pets that need looking after, so I am home alone all the rest of the time pet sitting.
The place we landed is a small island with a very small,population. It cannot support restaurants, or grocery stores or even a coffee shop. What is here is open only in the summer when we get some tourism. I cannot work either in my previous profession (teaching) or in anything else. There are about six jobs available here, and I have no references in Canada.
I hate the place. It is cold and wet and all the people are “alternative”. They are either old hippies, or young hippies. There is a lot of squalor here and no one is very well educated, or cares to be. There is a lot of pot smoking here, that and drinking seem to be the pastimes of choice. People come here because they are running away, or they only stay for a few months in the summer, and then go back to real life.
It is nice that we get to see eagles and ducks. It is fun to go kayaking. But most of the time I am alone and I can easily spend weeks without seeing another soul. Groceries are two ferry rides (each way) and $60.00 away. I can’t even get to church in time for mass.
We used to do things like see historical places, and art galleries. We used to go To London for dinner and a show.His family became mine.I used to have a job that gave me a stake in the family economy. I used to have responsibilities and spent 7-8 hours a day in the company of other teachers and students. I used to plan lessons and mark work. I was happy.
We moved because I wanted to make my husband happy. I didn’t balk, I thought it was “his turn”. I thought that with retirement we would go out to play a lot. But as it happens he is not home much now, and we are so far away from things that we can’t even go to a movie without an overnight stay in a hotel. And that means finding a pet sitter…it’s like preparing for an expedition to do anything. And so…we haven’t.
This situation has turned a lovely, confidant, happy woman into a mess. I cry all the time, I am so homesick I want to die. I struggle to fill the hours. I read a lot, and pray a lot, and watch TV a lot.
My husband does not want to move and I am told to “sort myself out!” He will not go to counselling.
He refuses to understand my side, and gets angry when I try to talk to him about it.
He says he’s working for the money only and for no other reason.
Recently he has agreed to move to another island closer to the city. There are more people,there and access to Victoria is better. We are house hunting and the present house is on the market.
I don’t really want to move there. I want to go home. I am terrified that we are doing the same thing as before, just on another island. I have told him so. Again, we have no connection to this new place. It is more expensive, so he says he will have to work more to pay for it. I have already been blamed for incurring the costs we put into the present house to make it work for us, and now I am being blamed for his working. I am now “selfish, immature, and ungrateful!”.
I want to go home and find a nice mid terrace house that is cheap and cheerful. I would much rather travel or have fun on the money we don’t spend on another big fancy house.
He is the one who wants the nice things,the magazine house, not me. I want my life back. I feel like my life is over if I stay here, and that the man I married has suddenly changed for the worse.
We are not married in the Church. He has said some things recently that if he had said them whilst we were courting would have been a deal breaker. I often feel,that I should divorce him and go home letting him have his isolated life. It would a kinder thing than to make him move and then still hate Canada and still want to go home.
What should I do? What would you do?
I am an American that happened to have Canadian citizenship because my mother was born in Canada. I was married to my first husband for 17 years and divorced him finally after years of abuse and contempt.
I get together with a man from the UK and we have a wonderful affair, fell in love hard and I moved to the UK to be with him. I took my then 12 year old son.
I managed to find a nice working life in a niche profession that gave me structure, meaning and money. Son grows up and moves back to the states to go to college. He is now 21. I’m 53, my husband is 57. We have been together for 11 years. Mostly absolutely wonderful and happy.
My husband has complained about his job from the first day I met him. So when he maxed out his pension I encouraged him to retire. We have money (6 figures) in the bank, a good pension and own everything. He has always wanted to live in the States, so we naturally looked to go there after retirement. But at some point the healthcare thing came into our minds and we decided that $1000.00 a month can buy a lot of other things besides insurance premiums. So we looked at Canada.
Neither of us have any relation to Canada, or connection to it. Neither of us had spent longer than a weekend in the country. We found a place in BC that seemed OK. We thought that we had done our homework and it looked nice. Beautiful mountains, the sea, wildlife…et al.
We spent three days there in the summer and bought a house.
We were under pressure because our house in the UK unexpectedly sold in under a week. And all our research had been on this place in BC and we had not looked anywhere else. We thought we had time, when it fact it did not turn out that way.
We moved, lock stock and barrel. I felt very uneasy about it, but figured it was just the moving.
After about four months my husband gets an opportunity to go back to work part time doing consulting. He works two weeks out of four. Sometimes more. He is in Vancouver for a week, and then the UK for a week.
With traveling I have him home for around 10-12 days month. We have pets that need looking after, so I am home alone all the rest of the time pet sitting.
The place we landed is a small island with a very small,population. It cannot support restaurants, or grocery stores or even a coffee shop. What is here is open only in the summer when we get some tourism. I cannot work either in my previous profession (teaching) or in anything else. There are about six jobs available here, and I have no references in Canada.
I hate the place. It is cold and wet and all the people are “alternative”. They are either old hippies, or young hippies. There is a lot of squalor here and no one is very well educated, or cares to be. There is a lot of pot smoking here, that and drinking seem to be the pastimes of choice. People come here because they are running away, or they only stay for a few months in the summer, and then go back to real life.
It is nice that we get to see eagles and ducks. It is fun to go kayaking. But most of the time I am alone and I can easily spend weeks without seeing another soul. Groceries are two ferry rides (each way) and $60.00 away. I can’t even get to church in time for mass.
We used to do things like see historical places, and art galleries. We used to go To London for dinner and a show.His family became mine.I used to have a job that gave me a stake in the family economy. I used to have responsibilities and spent 7-8 hours a day in the company of other teachers and students. I used to plan lessons and mark work. I was happy.
We moved because I wanted to make my husband happy. I didn’t balk, I thought it was “his turn”. I thought that with retirement we would go out to play a lot. But as it happens he is not home much now, and we are so far away from things that we can’t even go to a movie without an overnight stay in a hotel. And that means finding a pet sitter…it’s like preparing for an expedition to do anything. And so…we haven’t.
This situation has turned a lovely, confidant, happy woman into a mess. I cry all the time, I am so homesick I want to die. I struggle to fill the hours. I read a lot, and pray a lot, and watch TV a lot.
My husband does not want to move and I am told to “sort myself out!” He will not go to counselling.
He refuses to understand my side, and gets angry when I try to talk to him about it.
He says he’s working for the money only and for no other reason.
Recently he has agreed to move to another island closer to the city. There are more people,there and access to Victoria is better. We are house hunting and the present house is on the market.
I don’t really want to move there. I want to go home. I am terrified that we are doing the same thing as before, just on another island. I have told him so. Again, we have no connection to this new place. It is more expensive, so he says he will have to work more to pay for it. I have already been blamed for incurring the costs we put into the present house to make it work for us, and now I am being blamed for his working. I am now “selfish, immature, and ungrateful!”.
I want to go home and find a nice mid terrace house that is cheap and cheerful. I would much rather travel or have fun on the money we don’t spend on another big fancy house.
He is the one who wants the nice things,the magazine house, not me. I want my life back. I feel like my life is over if I stay here, and that the man I married has suddenly changed for the worse.
We are not married in the Church. He has said some things recently that if he had said them whilst we were courting would have been a deal breaker. I often feel,that I should divorce him and go home letting him have his isolated life. It would a kinder thing than to make him move and then still hate Canada and still want to go home.
What should I do? What would you do?