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So when does it "get better"

So when does it "get better"

Old Apr 9th 2019, 5:44 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by raindropsandroses
Sorry Paul, I quoted your post, but that wasn't aimed at you, just a general observation
Thats ok, I understand what you are trying to point out, and I agree, when I first arrived in Canada, I had a VERY tough time of it and almost went back to UK, I was living hand to mouth and could not get a break by way of getting employment. I set myself a date and said to myself "if things dont improve before that date Im chencking out and heading back to blighty" Thankfully things did....I got a great paying job and made lots of new freinds through that job....it was a kind of long term secure job that should have seen me through to my retirement......it didnt, the company closed and I was laid off in a town with very high unemployment. Again another tough time ensued....I spent all my savings and sold some of my belongings to make ends meet......but fought tooth and nail to hold on to my boat, as I knew I would never own another one if i sold it....what the money and time I had sunk into it for repairs and improvements, and in the big scheme of things it has given me a lot of joy and fun times, so its been worth it to fight for it.....

After 11 months of unemployment, I got another job, but it pays nowhere near what the other job did, so I have to be very careful of how I spend money now, but I know what gives me fun and enjoyment so I prioritise it what i spend it on, good times cost money after all.

I look back and see that I was lucky enough to wear the rose tinted spectacles for a period of time, where I didn't have to worry about money, but I am now back to being a mere mortal watching the pennies again.....but have still found things here I can do here, that I cant in the UK, I love the outdoors and Canada does take some beating as far as that is concerned in my opinion.

So yes I do fully understand what you are saying, I think a lot of it depends on luck in how things pan out for you after you move here, I have had a mix of good and bad luck, but always have a dream to fall back on and a deternination to live it.....which is a must to make the move work..

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Old Apr 9th 2019, 5:46 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by dbd33
Pah! My car is older than that. Practically new, that is.
Wow that must be worth a pretty penny then! A 32 year car has actually turned the corner into an investment!
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Old Apr 10th 2019, 8:59 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by seascape
going the other way, my wife came over from Canada and has been in Scotland now for 10 years, total culture shock for a good while at the start, only last year or so feeling at home. We may well go back to Canada and I think she will have readjusting to do again along with me!
Could you elaborate on your wife's experience? Having lived in Scotland for the last 12 years, would be interesting to note the differences
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Old Apr 11th 2019, 12:10 am
  #64  
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by no good name
Been here 3 years. Still waiting. Waiting for the feeling of disconnection, unconnectedness to go away.. It's still not home. Still want to go home. But, no simple solution to that. My wife and young kids like it here. I'm stuck.
Been here 10 years in January...divorced my Canadian wife couple of years ago and have a 4yr old son. Stuck here also. Feel like this is a permanent situation, alleviated only by travel home at least once a year. Best of luck.
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Old Apr 11th 2019, 8:03 am
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by stuabroad
Been here 10 years in January...divorced my Canadian wife couple of years ago and have a 4yr old son. Stuck here also. Feel like this is a permanent situation, alleviated only by travel home at least once a year. Best of luck.
Same here.. been here 15 years, divorced 2 years ago. I came here because of my ex-husband. I would have moved to practically any other country for him back then. So now that I'm here by myself, I 'm seriously questioning my motives to be in Canada. But I don't feel stuck. I can move as I please if I find out where I want to go. Or stay. I'm not sure if I grew real roots in those 15 years.
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Old Apr 12th 2019, 8:56 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by stuabroad
Been here 10 years in January...divorced my Canadian wife couple of years ago and have a 4yr old son. Stuck here also. Feel like this is a permanent situation, alleviated only by travel home at least once a year. Best of luck.
Divorce looks like the way my marriage is heading. We came here mostly for her. It was her soul filling desire to do this, not mine. And the naïve notion that "things are better in Canada"..
Nonsense. There is just as much bull#hit here. Just as much social problems. Just as much (infact more) of a rat race of a life.

Awesome
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Old Apr 12th 2019, 10:45 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

If you're looking to avoid the rat race, you don't move to the GTA. Sounds like you ended up in the wrong part of Canada for entirety the wrong reasons. It won't get better unless you change your entire way of thinking about it, which is hard to do, unless you really want to do it. Canada is never better (or worse), it's simply different. If you didn't want different, or weren't expecting different, then your expectations clearly weren't met, hence the disappointment. I really don't think it's going to get better for you unless you seek counselling.

Last edited by Lychee; Apr 12th 2019 at 10:48 pm.
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Old Apr 15th 2019, 1:54 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by no good name
Divorce looks like the way my marriage is heading. We came here mostly for her. It was her soul filling desire to do this, not mine. And the naïve notion that "things are better in Canada"..
Nonsense. There is just as much bull#hit here. Just as much social problems. Just as much (infact more) of a rat race of a life. ….
It sounds like you don't even want to address your problems, and have no intention of trying to. I predict that you will be no happier if you return to the UK as that isn't Nirvana either.

A quote, commonly though not conclusively attributed to Abraham Lincoln seems apt for you.
"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
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Old Apr 15th 2019, 2:39 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by no good name
Divorce looks like the way my marriage is heading. We came here mostly for her. It was her soul filling desire to do this, not mine. And the naïve notion that "things are better in Canada"..
Nonsense. There is just as much bull#hit here. Just as much social problems. Just as much (infact more) of a rat race of a life.

Awesome
The issue is what I said in a earlier post, you made this move for someone else, it rarely works out when a person does that ,.....moving for someone or just on a whim ends up in resentment much of the time.

If you think your marriage is past saving then, I think you have to do something for yourself now.....as other posters have said, the UK is no utopia either, but it where you see home, so you will be happier there by the sound of it. I think the sooner you make plans to move back the happier you will be, Canada is a way past as dead horse for you now,
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Old Apr 16th 2019, 3:12 am
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

There's no one-size-fits-all formula. As others have said, it might never feel like home. Home is a state of mind so it won't ever be home unless you decide that it is. For me, Ireland is the closest country to being "home" even though I spent only the first 18 of my 54 years there - but it's where I feel the most comfortable. The other 36 years have been spent in England (8), Canada (7) and the US (21) - and those feel like home in reverse order of the amount of years I've spent in each country. I think my travels have actually caused me to become "homeless" in the sense that I might never truly feel settled anywhere.
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Old Apr 16th 2019, 10:28 am
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by MarylandNed
There's no one-size-fits-all formula. As others have said, it might never feel like home. Home is a state of mind so it won't ever be home unless you decide that it is. For me, Ireland is the closest country to being "home" even though I spent only the first 18 of my 54 years there - but it's where I feel the most comfortable. The other 36 years have been spent in England (8), Canada (7) and the US (21) - and those feel like home in reverse order of the amount of years I've spent in each country. I think my travels have actually caused me to become "homeless" in the sense that I might never truly feel settled anywhere.
Interesting sentiment, I spent the first 7 years of my life in Canada (BC) and we came back to England because my grandfather was ill and my mum didn't settle very well (although we did get Canadian citizenship, which is a blessing). My family have lived in a small market town in Nottinghamshire, England for over 35 years. I moved out when I got married 20 years ago and spent 2 years in Nottingham. I have lived in a former mining town in Yorkshire for the last 18 years, and actually none of them has never felt like "home" to me - my parent's home is still kind of home, but it was a town that I never felt settled in, although enjoy visiting. My dream is to return to Canada with my family, and I'm hoping to do it in a couple of years, having got my husband to consider it a viable option after years of trying to persuade him. Ultimately it is up to the individual to work out what they class as home, or maybe some of us are kind of meant to be more nomadic. I don't know.
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Old Apr 16th 2019, 12:06 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by Danii_i
Could you elaborate on your wife's experience? Having lived in Scotland for the last 12 years, would be interesting to note the differences
Sorry only back on now, She was brought up in Toronto and then lived in Vancouver before coming over. The lack of a pattern to the streets, gloomy looking tenement flats, untidiness of things, what does going to a doctors surgery mean, people don't look so tidy, gloomy faces, why don't they care for their teeth better, not having to automatically do a tax return, teasing sense of humour, and the accents. You may think its all English speaking and so very similar but forget its a different country and culture! So it took a bit of time to get used to it all. After her last trip back to Van last year, she had quite a few critical observations in comparison which was interesting!
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Old Apr 16th 2019, 12:42 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by carolg2712
Interesting sentiment, I spent the first 7 years of my life in Canada (BC) and we came back to England because my grandfather was ill and my mum didn't settle very well (although we did get Canadian citizenship, which is a blessing). My family have lived in a small market town in Nottinghamshire, England for over 35 years. I moved out when I got married 20 years ago and spent 2 years in Nottingham. I have lived in a former mining town in Yorkshire for the last 18 years, and actually none of them has never felt like "home" to me …..
I feel somewhat similar. My family left Sheffield when I was eight years old, and moved to Gloucester, where I stayed until I left to go to uni in London, and I have been living in North Carolina for the past 16 years ago. In truth none of those places feel like "home", like I "belong" there. I always knew I wouldn't stay in Gloucester, there were few opportunities there and my parents encouraged me to leave to build a career. I moved too often in London, and never really settled - living in shared rentals and rented rooms for several years, didn't help though I was lucky enough to be able to buy a house and that helped a bit. Looking back, I was always felt like an outsider, not least because of my accent which always flags me as an outsider as I am apparently immune to adopting the local accent.

At school in Gloucester my accent was often ridiculed, in London it stood out and although infrequent (compared to the US) my accent was occasionally, and correctly identified as being from Yorkshire, or even specifically to Sheffield. Now I am in North Carolina my accent is more of a novelty and I get asked about it frequently, averaging about once a week, though several time a week, or even several time a day is not unusual, and from the questions I get asked it is clear that many people think I have arrived recently.

Anyway, NC is home for now, and likely for ever - have no plans or appetite to move further afield, at least not beyond the area of southern Virginia immediately to the north or upstate SC immediately to the south, but I am probably destined to spend the rest of my life, like the entire time since I was eight years old, feeling like a bit of an outsider.

I have only rarely been back to Sheffield and not at all in the past 17 years, but even when I visited as a teenager it didn't feel like home and it is extremely unlikely that I would ever return there to live, even if I returned to the UK, which I have no plans to do so.

Last edited by Pulaski; Apr 16th 2019 at 12:45 pm.
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Old Apr 17th 2019, 9:27 pm
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

I think I might be a 'wherever I lay my hat' kind of person. I was happy in the UK, moved here on a whim because OH got offered a job and they paid for the move so we came for the adventure. I loved it from day 1, since being in Canada we lived in Oakville (GTA) for 12 years, Mackey (in Head Clara and Maria township which covers an area similar to that of Toronto but with a population of 286) for several months, and now in a rural property about 25 minutes north of Guelph - I have been happy in all of them. I try not to compare one place with another but try to focus on the positives on each.
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Old Apr 18th 2019, 2:58 am
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Default Re: So when does it "get better"

Originally Posted by HGerchikov
I think I might be a 'wherever I lay my hat' kind of person. I was happy in the UK, moved here on a whim because OH got offered a job and they paid for the move so we came for the adventure. I loved it from day 1, since being in Canada we lived in Oakville (GTA) for 12 years, Mackey (in Head Clara and Maria township which covers an area similar to that of Toronto but with a population of 286) for several months, and now in a rural property about 25 minutes north of Guelph - I have been happy in all of them. I try not to compare one place with another but try to focus on the positives on each.

I think I'm that same kind of person! Happy in the UK, moved here on a whim. Enjoyed our sabbatical in Australia. Been very happy in Vancouver.
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