Peds500

Hi,

So, Me, the wife, and our 2 toddlers moved here 5 weeks ago, I have been in y new job for 2 weeks, and I am beginning I struggle....

I work as a construction project manager in Toronto and I am finding he transition hard. New rules, regulations, building codes are a lot to take in, especially when you are thrown in at the deep end! Add into that, having to convert from imperial to metric to get an idea of how big something is...

Home life is, well interesting. We have moved in with the in laws, as a temporary measure, which I am struggling with as I get no privacy and get questioned about my day when I get home from work, and when I try talking with my parents on FaceTime, they always seem to butt in and I can't really talk to them. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We have been pre approved for a mortgage (I have to complete my probationary period first) and are looking to move north of toronto. But here lies another problem. My brother in law wants us to move in downtown so we are not too far away, and is doing everything to try and put us off. Our realtor is a close friend of his and is even been persuaded to put us off to!! I am also afraid of losing my job, and not being able to support my family, as I am the sole earner in the family.

Anyway, just wanted to get things off my chest and let anyone else that is struggling know that they are not alone. I want to move back home, into my comfort zone and back to my family, but I know that hopefully this is just a passing phase and will soon feel settled.

dbd33

Don't buy a house. Rent a house or apartment for a year so you can have some freedom and get the measure of things. A house will trap you.

cheeky_monkey

New rules and regs you learn fast by being thrown in the deep end so that's easy..as for imperial i just force the lazy bastards to use metric..i only ever converse in metric and get them to suck it up..sometimes you gotta be hard faced.

But yes rent dont buy for now until you are settled and know that you are going to stay.

Peds500

We rented for the last 2 years in the UK, and I didn't feel settled while we were, which is why I want to buy. I know we will stay, I couldn't make my wife leave her family again....

Animal

I'd agree with dbd33 and cheeky Monkey in renting but if you really think you must buy then the first thing I'd do is bin the realtor (unless you signed something to say you'd solely deal with them etc) and tell the brother in law to butt out and tell him straight that you aren't moving downtown.

What is the wife thinking ? Does she want to move close to the family or North also. I'd hope she would agree with the location at least - if not you could pi$$ing in the wind.

I was thrown in at the deep end at work and that does get easier. Working in imperial is also a pain but something you just get used to also.

Work will likely all fall into place but definitely need to get the personal/home life in order to fully settle - and that will start by tell the B-in-L to do one and ask the realtor does he/she want the comission from a sale or not.

george82

i thought canada was metric

Souvy

Put some distance between you and the family, or you will never have your own life.

I've been going through that crap since about 1998. We are a relatively safe 3-hour drive from the MIL. We can get there easily enough but the dropping-in danger is minimal.

I have learned to keep my gob shut about anything personal/financial/medical at tribal gatherings. I know that it will just be analysed to death at the dinner table.

I got away with pretending to not speak French for years, which helped. I inadvertently blew my cover a couple of years back. It was a tribal do but with, unusually, people there that were not part of the herd. They didn't speak English. I chatted to them in French. It did not go unnoticed.

Souvy

Bits of it are. Building materials seem to be mostly imperial.

iaink

Only the speed limits and highway distances in reality. There is a lot of metric conversion of lbs and pints to odd numbers of g and ml, but thats not fooling anyone really.


I also think renting is a much better idea under the circumstances. There are countless thousands of realtors out there, if this friend of the family is not working in your best interests then ditch them and find another who you can work with.

As souvy says, you have to live your own life, regardless of what the inlaws think you should do.

5 weeks is very early on in the journey, but the original honeymoon period will be coming to an end. Give it time, and be aware of how culture shock can affect your judgment in the next 6 to 12 months.

Animal

DOH !

Animal

I work in Aerospace electrical and they still measure in 1/8 of inches etc for board thickness.

Funny as when I was in a similar industry in the UK it was all mm.

iaink

I work in a similar field and its all thousanths of an inch.

dbd33

Only the government. Everything related to houses is in imperial; a house is n square feet (even in French), panels are 8'x4', it'd be a massive pain in arse to measure in metric and to take those dimensions to the shop just to have the shopkeeper giggle and translate them to imperial to match the materials on the shelf.

Food is legally measured in metric but sold in imperial so, for example, the cheese we buy has a sign $11/lb and the scale is dual but inspected in metric. If something is sold specifically in metric, it has an odd number, butter for example is sold in 455g slabs, which is arithmetically challenging.

Farming, according to my neighbour is "bilingual" some products are sold to be used in lbs/acre, some in litres/acre. No doubt this results in interesting accidental experiments with pesticide overdose.

bats

Rent! Even if you move in the same area then rent as selling costs $$$.

We had a shit realtor too, BIL of the friend we were staying with and put under an obligation to use him. Big mistake as we bought and in the wrong area.

Souvy

What are you making? Dakotas? Mosquitos?