So bored, I actually hate my life

[Pralineandcoffee]

This is going to be long.
I'm 45, with 3 children. I left UK 22 years ago. I met my dh, had kids.
We live rurally, shit transport links, 3 miles to nearest shop. I'm not working, 2 kids in primary school, 1 in secondary school. They are always on school holidays, secondary school finish 28th May, primary 22nd June until September. There are no afterschool or breakfast clubs near me and I'm unskilled so even if I had a childminder it wouldn't be worth my while working.
I'm just so bored, I hate it here. I've got no friends, no hobbies, no life!
I need a job, I need money . I feel like my life is passing me by. My dh loves it here, this is where he grew up. The kids like it too.
I just want to have a normal life, I checked jobs in my area today, 15 jobs ina 50km radius of my house and I'm not qualified for any of them.

@Pralineandcoffee I TOTALLY understand how you feel. People telling you to go and volunteer in clubs don't understand what it is like. If you are English, you can get treated with real nastiness and hate in Ireland.

I also moved from England to Ireland. My family moved me here.

Irish people were really awful to me, at every stage of my life in Ireland, because I was English. They were terrible to me. They either would not speak to me, or they were outright nasty to me.

I still have an English accent. If I go to groups now in Ireland. The Irish people look at me with real nastiness and disgust. They treat me like I am awful.

It is definitely extremely hard to be English in Ireland.

I really understand you.

I'm Irish (small city) and moved back from
London to rural west of Ireland and I completely relate.

Like a pp said, they don't even like the people from the next parish!

I would've thought marrying into an established family would've helped a bit though.

We were like aliens when we landed 20+ years ago. We get along fine now, the secondary school helped a lot, also we both got involved with a local rugby club and we both worked. That was a big help.

Sounds awful. I’d do what I could to get out of the country if you’re treated like that. You can’t live the rest of your life like that. It will grind you down.

Are your parents still living in Ireland?

I'm in rural West of Ireland, dh isn't from here, well its about 45 min drive which may as well be the moon. But he does alot of sports and is involved in groups. I know I'm not helping myself but I just hate that feeling when I go to a group thing. People say hello, I say hello and it just doesn't go any further.

@EdieLedwell yes my parents are here. Unfortunately my dad is a carer for my mum so they can't really help with childcare but I do see them every week.
I'm lucky in some ways compared to others I know that, I just think I need a job, some interests really!

My dh is English and he's quite bolshy and doesn't tolerate much tbh. He's never had a problem (to his face anyway). But he gives off a definite vibe of "Try me"

My brothers wife is English and quite timid, she's been here since she was 10 and was fine, but she lived in a city on the east coast

I think the cities are very different, especially on the East side of the country.

I totally get you. There's only so many cold shoulders you can take right?

Can't agree with this. I'm Irish in Ireland, though I've lived in UK and abroad.

I ahve lots of friends from everywhere. English included. They all have plenty of friends from all over. Ireland is so multicultural now (and not just in the cities). Being English is not even of note. It doesn't matter where anyone is from.

https://www.tcd.ie/OnlineEducation/free-online-course/

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/skillup

😂😂😂

What are your hobbies/interests? Is there an interest you can turn into further education and ultimately a job?

Would you consider joining a choir?

I’m actually quite shocked that you are being treated like that locally. I’m Irish living in Ireland, grew up rurally, and apart from some friendly slagging when we play England in rugby, there is huge integration, so I am genuinely sorry that is not your experience. Is your DH doing enough to integrate you, include you, stand up for you? He must have childhood friends with their own families with whom you mix, no?

@Whydidyou thanks I'll have a look at those courses

@SarahDippity It may be that people just don't like me, not that I'm English😂
Dh is unfortunately a bit of a loner but he's happy! He has his sports and work mates but doesn't really have time to mix with them outside of work.

If you're Irish how would you know? If you're Irish, how would you know anything about the abuse that foreigners receive in Ireland. Really?
You don't live their life.

If I was Irish, I wouldn't speak for how foreigners are treated in Ireland. You don't live their life. You don't know what happens.

You said "I'm quite shocked that this is happening to you locally".

Why would you be shocked.

Irish people always think that this doesn't happen, because it doesn't happen to them. They don't see it, because it doesn't happen to them

I know an English man that moved away from Ireland recently. Because he said that he couldn't take the abuse he was getting here.

I was also recently talking to an English barman in Ireland. He said he wanted to move over here because his grandparents were from Ireland.

But he said that he was getting so much abuse for being English, that he was going to have to move back to England.

"it doesn't matter where you are from".

Very easy for you to say that when you are Irish.

I've talked to people who are not Irish, who are living in Ireland, and they have told me that they have received a lot of abuse.

Can you work remotely? Friend moved much further from the UK and she WFH for the NHS long before it was a thing.
Become self employed ? Holiday accommodation, B&B, glamping, cake business, soap making ?

Do you have adult education there?
I started with a maths course and then an access course before eventually going to uni.

I'm Irish and there's some truth in what Moo is saying. There's a massive difference between living in a city or even a country town and a rural location.

I lived in London for 12 years and I got it from the other direction especially during the troubles.

Its always been only slightly below the surface IMO.

My husband isn't. My children aren't. Most of my friends aren't.

Its easy to say because it's true, and I'm tired of the notion that Ireland is still some oldfashioned unfriendly backwater. It's not.

Far friendlier to foreigners than the UK, that's for sure. No hostile environment here or Brexit "keep them out" nonsense.

I've always found rural Ireland approximately a million times more welcoming to English people than rural England is to Irish people (based on my own experience as an Irish person married to an English person who has lived longterm in both places, and who has a lot of Ireland-based English friends who are happily settled.) I'd lived longterm in the UK, but a stint in a Midlands village broke me finally. I'd always dealt with anti-Irish prejudice from a minority of people, but never so aggressively or from such a large minority. Brexit didn't help the xenophobia. We chose to leave the UK altogether.

Having said that, I had done absolutely everything to engage in village life: volunteered, got involved in community events and litterpicks, invited people around, ended up running a local baby/toddler group etc. So I knew I had given it my best shot by the time we left. (Which did involve us both quitting our jobs, though DH was immediately headhunted for another, and taking our son out of school and away from everything he'd ever known.)

I'm not unsympathetic, but it sounds as if your choices are to do something differently to find your tribe locally (are there no other blow-ins, whether Irish or foreign, in the vicinity? An African friend living in rural Clare set up a foreign women's group and made an excellent network of friends) or to move somewhere (not necessarily an urban area) with a more open mix of people. Where I live now, my neighbours include South Africans, French, Brazilian, English, American and Indian people.

I can't agree with it either and I'm originally from England, originally moved here when I was 8 also but my parents moved us back and forth to England a couple times as teenagers. Never had any trouble making loads of friends in my small Irish town and no one gave a crap where I was from.

in the spirit of honesty, I do have a colleague who complains about anti english hate and how she can't make friends because of where she's from.

But the thing is, it's just her. She's a twat. She can't make friends because she's a twat. Being English is nothing to do with it.

I don't know what to say to you because I can see that you are just going to want to stand up for Ireland.

However, many many foreign people in Ireland have told me that they have received a lot of abuse in Ireland.

You can't speak for the whole of Ireland. And neither can I.

But to say there is no racism or abuse to foreigners at all in Ireland is totally unrealistic.

I’m in the west, also a blow in. Send me a PM. If we are near each other maybe we can meet for a coffee.