wiltshire_1

Hi all,

I've just joined the forum and thought I'd say hello. We have just moved from Wiltshire (originally Scotland) over to NSW. Been here 7 weeks - hated it since we arrived! This week we have booked the removals company to ship us back to Wiltshire and the dogs have had their rabies vaccinations so that they don't need to go back into quarantine.

Unfortunately my OH has signed a 3yr contract so he is stuck here and I'm going home on my own, with our 2 small children, in February 2010. I'm hoping time flies as I can honestly say I have never been so miserable!

Reading other peoples posts about why they are heading back home just confirms that we are doing the right thing. I just wish we had done more research before we came over here. The grass is defiantely not greener - for us anyway.

Hoping I can get lots of advice re our move back home - I can't wait and I'm counting the days! Only 16 months to go...........

islandergirl

Yikes, sorry to hear it has not worked out for you.

I am one of those who married an Aussie so I couldn't move back for ages, have been here 11 years but when you know, you know! Welcome to BE

scrubbedexpat055

Sorry to hear its not working for you. It might improve, it does for lots.

Is there anyway your husband can break his contract?

Anyway, good luck with everything.

Margaret3

i have no doubt it will improve, it has for me, i dont want to stay here by any manner or means, but after 18 months things are 'slightly' better, so dont beat yourself up too much.

Try your best to enjoy your time here, i do, and most weekends i enjoy myself a little too much, lol, i can see why people love it here, i can see the good in it, but its just not for me, i long to ho home.

TillyG

Wow, that's going to be tough - being apart for that long. Are you sure there's nothing you can do? Could he break contract or could you handle staying here for a bit longer?

When we first arrived here (Feb 2006) I was miserable as sin. I cried all day and all night, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep and it was generally just horrid. As soon as we boarded the flight from the UK, I felt we were making a massive mistake.

When I told DH (within a couple of days) that I wanted to go home he told me that if I did, then he was going to stay here.

At the time, I was gobsmacked that he was (in my eyes) putting Australia/his job before me. But what he wanted to do was give me the shock I needed to realise that if I chose to go back then it wouldn't be at all easy.

It took me a good 11-12 months to start to feel settled here. It didn't help that after 4 weeks here I had to go back to the UK for a friend's celebration and to get the house packed up & ready to go (we only had about 2-3mths notice that we were moving here - it had never been our big dream). It was so hard. Flying back to Oz after my trip back was so hard - I cried solidly the whole way across Europe.

We've now been here 2.5 years and recently had our PR visa granted (we were originally here on a temp visa). DH is loving his job still, DD (now coming up to 5) is loving it and I am pretty much enjoying myself.

We went back to the UK in July this year for about a month and it was quite odd really. It was lovely to see everyone but it felt a bit "foreign", it was very weird. It was then that I realised that, for now, Australia is our home - but that is mainly because that is where DH & DD are... and trite as it may sound, being with them in Australia is a damned sight more enjoyable than being on my own (or being without DH) in the UK.

Please take some more time to think about what you are doing. February 2010 is a very long way away and being apart from your DH for that amount of time is pretty much guaranteed to bugger up your marriage. And what about your children? They're not going to see Daddy for another 18 months?!

Please, think carefully, give it some more time if you can. It just seems so very soon to be giving up on everything. Surely being with your husband is more important than *where* you are?

TillyG

Oops - on re-reading - are you saying that you're staying here until Feb 2010 then?

Then will your DH stay here for the next 18mths to finish his contract?

Either way, you're still going to be apart for a huge amount of time.

Please give it more time. Open yourself to the chance of being happy here. I was determined to hate it here, I really was... but little by little I found my feet. I used to hate going to the supermarket and not being able to find what I wanted - I actually cried in Coles on many occasions.

But gradually you get into the way of life here.

It won't always feel so gut-wrenchingly dreadful.

wiltshire_1

DH could break contract but that would mean paying back his employer for shipping us out here - we don't have those funds! He is an army officer so we are used to spending long spells apart. It will be difficult - particularily not seeing much of the kids but it won't be for ever and our marraige is strong enough to deal with it. I'm not mentally strong enough to deal with being out here so staying here would do our marraige more harm.

My eldest is due to start school in 2010 and I don't want him to start here then have to move back.

The army have posted us to the middle of nowhere. The shops are dreadful! I have to drive a round trip of 3hrs just to get decent shoes for my children. I have to try and make the best of being here for the next 18 months but I won't change my mind about going home.

TillyG

OK then.

So you're going home in 18 months' time. Until then, at least *try* to get on with life here. Spending everyday wishing you could be at home is going to test even the strongest marriage. Emigrating is hard, incredibly hard, and it can push the strongest relationships to the limits. So please, concentrate on getting through each day, getting into a routine and just involved in the lifestyle, even if it's just for 18 months.

If your eldest is due to start school in 2010, then even if you DO stay for the rest of the contract, he'll only be doing about 18mths in the Aussie school system - I doubt it will be the end of the world (education-wise) if you DO stay the length of the contract.

I know it's hard to see clearly at the moment - trust me, I know - but try and get yourself out there, make some friends, meet some people, make a life for yourselves (even if it's only for the next 18 months)... you may find that it's not quite so bad as it seems.

Re the mental strength - I was on Prozac for the best part of 10 years. I had finally weaned myself off them (under GP guidance) and took my last pill at the start of November 2005. It was about 3 weeks later that DH's ex-colleague phoned him out of the blue to say "fancy working in Oz, mate?". With hindsight, I don't know how I got through the first year or so living here without going back on the pills or having a complete breakdown. At times it felt like my whole world was falling apart and that I had nothing left to live for. It was so very hard.

I don't know how or why it changed and that I just started to accept that home is really where DH & DD is. I was flying back into Sydney after 10 days in Tasmania (with my parents, over here on holiday, but without DH - unbeknown to my parents DH & I were treating the 10 days as a trial separation - that's how bad things how got)... and as we flew into Sydney I got this overwhelming feeling of "coming home"... it really knocked me for 6 as I hadn't realised that I had started feeling like it was home.

Over the months after that (about 1yr after arriving here) DH & I went through some shocking times and got perilously close to separating. But somehow we stuck together and got through it.

I just worry for you, your marriage & your children - please just give it a chance. I know that at the moment 3 yrs feels like a lifetime - it certainly felt like that for me. But somehow we've now been here 2.5yrs and whilst sometimes it feels like we've been here forever, othertimes it feels like it's only just begun.

wiltshire_1

Thanks tillyg. I have to try and make the most of being here for 18 months - for my childrens sake. I know it will get easier in time and who knows, I might change my mind and see out the 3yrs, but I doubt it. I just can't understand how people can live somewhere so isolated.

TillyG

I hope you've not been offended or annoyed by what I wrote. I know that if someone had said to me, back in April/May 2006 to "hang on in there, it'll get better" I would have wanted to smack them one

Whereabouts are you?

Nu-Shooz

Hello Wiltshire1.

Just want to say you know in your heart what you want to do, so go for it.

All the best.

wiltshire_1

Thanks nu shooz.

Tillyg - yep, Ihave had my fill of people telling me "it will get better" or "you'll change your mind". It won't and i won't. I'm off at the earliest opportunity. But no, you didn't offend me

We are in Singleton NSW - about 2 and a half hours north of Sydney.

quoll

Welcome to MBTTUK - we are a helpful bunch on here and we do tend not to be of the "stick it out" "move to somewhere else in paradise" persuasion and we are here to help if you need a vent!!! I reckon if you know that the arse end of the world is not for you then you know it and no amount of gentle persuasion and encouragement from folk who think they live in the Garden of Eden are going to make you change your mind. Hang in there and it wont be long before you are posting the "I leave tomorrow" post!!!

wiltshire_1

Thanks! You obviously know exactly how I feel Do I recognise your name from Poms in Oz......?

quoll

Yup you do! Feel more at home here, less of the rose tinted stuff going on in this forum and you can have a b*tch and no one is going to think you are deliberately trying to wreck their dream of utopia. How's the calendar counting going???