AIBU to feel like giving up on the UK

[Fairysnuff321]

My OH is EU born, but has been living here with me and working , paying tax (go those who read the Daily Mail this may shock you)for 20 yrs. He has started his own business and is well respected in his industry. I've always worked in advocacy/counselling/support jobs, I am struggling to get back into work despite years of experience and training because of the lack of funding for these services.

I feel like accepting we have to leave the UK for the sake of our DD. I know so many people in this situation, and feel really sad that every day I hear stories like this...
"I work in the City as does my French partner: the European bankers, lawyers and asset managers are all talking about how London has changed for them now and are thinking it may be time to head home."
My husband feels the same.

And you seriously 'don't blame' countries for not wanting to take refugees??

I can never understand these threads. So many of them.

Your other half is from somewhere else in Europe. You are both fed up with the uk. It's now the turn of experiencing his country for the pair of you. Go and enjoy.

Why all the drama llama stuff.

Racism is socially unacceptable in Britain but oh boy is it there, just below the surface.

The UK is one of the worst places in Europe for xenophobia IMO, it is totally mainstream, shouted daily by most of the press and supported by the government. It pervades many aspects of society in a way that would be unimaginable in other countries.

I am a little puzzled that people are unable to understand that after 20 years of contributing to a country it must be really disturbing to feel unwelcome there and to feel that you may have no option but to leave. Moving house is considered to be a high stress life event I can only imagine how stressful moving countries when you had no plans to do so must be. There is a real lack of empathy here which cannot be needed.

The uk has gone to the dogs - brexit is just one factor of that (barely, even) think foodbanks, homelessness, austerity and our failing healthcare system.
I'd advise anyone with the means to do so to seek out another place where they could have a chance at a better living (which is personal to each person with their circumstances, lifestyle, careers etc as one country may be best for one person and horrible for another)...
I've already left.

Circumstances change, jobs vanish , you need to change and move.

This is reality for most of us and was for my parents generation. No big deal.

Another goady thread where the op pisses off and leaves everyone else to argue

NinonDeLenclos

It wouldn't be a very accurate Marxist given that 'workers outside the capitalist class' are some of those who've benefited the most from FOM. Just ask workers from Eastern Europe, Greece, Spain, Portugal etc...

On the contrary, our hypothetical Marxist may very well argue that the fact capital could cross unimpeded across Europe forced workers from Eastern Europe, Greece, Spain and Portugal to migrate in search of work in the first place. They were following money and investment flows that were as free as a bird.

Indeed, the only reason we got freedom of movement in the first place was to calm concerns about the free flow of capital through the EU and its impact upon the labour market.

And I do think it is worth recognising that the EU paradigm, where there have been no parameters on capital, particularly with the introduction of the EMU, has pretty much wrecked the economies of Greece, Italy and Spain.

They weren't forced. They chose to move from poorer countries to find more lucractive work than available at home. That was an established pattern well before the Maastricht treaty and FOM. And it doesn't account for the shift the other way of UK citizens migrating to work in Spain etc, ie richer to poorer country.

To blame the EU for Greece, Spain and Italy's economic woes ignores the considerable inherent economic problems in those countries, and the impact of the financial crisis.

These arguments seem pointless. We don't know how things will pan out.
Look at Greece - a total mess. They are still borrowing yet more to keep afloat. They are trashed for several generations. The EU ignored the disastrous way the country was run, civil servants lining their pockets for decades. Are people saying we got billions more from the Euro than we put in? That's appalling if that is how it was. We have a pretty hard working, well educated country why should it necessarily go wrong.

We saw the writing on the wall in 2014, and made our escape. 3 years later in the US our family is thriving.

This may not apply to the rest of the US but here we have great weather, no crime and no racism

YANBU OP. We moved 18 months ago. Australia. I'm very glad we did.

Pilates great guess but no prize.
Dd has been ill so have I, still pretty bad.
nice judging though is it a full time hobby?

To everyone else , thanks for commenting, I haven't had a chance to read it all yet, sorry I've not been around and missed out on the responses.

no big deal ?
Leaving my friends, my daughters friends, my mum in a home, my day who cared for her with dementia for years . To leave him when he's becoming frail himself or expect him to come to a country he's never even been in and abandon his wife ... ?
Pretty big deal to me, but guess we are all different

Thanks sunshine super mum you are indeed super xxx
Actually I've lived here my whole life I am British, it's my husband who isn't, although he's spent his entire working life here, and our daughter who like me was born and brought up here and if about to start junior school.
I'm beginning to get a bit apprehensive at what lurks in these comments, and still pretty ill so might have to come back tomorrow...

In answer to Pilates, Germany since you ask.

Shinyredbus to have a conversation, that's why...
Yes, I will be making my own decision, just a very difficult one with elderly parent I don't want to abandon, when I've lived in the UK MY WHOLE LIFE.

NINON I think that the unpleasant racist attitudes that were used in the campaign are visible here too. The government is using that to deflect attention while they screw everyone over.

I don't live in London, if you read my post, that was me quoting something I'd been told that day that related to my own experience. I live in a different city.

allegretto
[Mission - not knowing what your position is (legally) and whether or not you will be allowed to stay in the country is pretty stressful, no?]
Exactly, would think that understanding that would be fairly easy with basic empathy?

Artycakemaker thanks
Tomatoa no your opinion wouldn't make me go or stay, Artycakemaker is spot on . Lived here my whole life, this hard, I needed to talk. This seemed like a good enough place.

Some of the comments are showing exactly what is making people despair at the UKs future. Lack of basic empathy for others. Blind faith in a process being delivered by someone who felt the whole thing was a bad idea to start with... what could go wrong.

user1486062886 No we do not know EU workers will be allowed to stay. A Dutch woman married to a British man with children born in UK , applied for right to remain. It was refused and she was told to pack. This is very similar to our situation.

NO I would love BREXIT to be a success, and that this government getting back in would not destroy the economy, the NHS, EDUCATION etc driving us into even more debt for no gain for most of us. I'd be ecstatic for us all if that doesn't happen. Just all the evidence currently doesn't look good.

Germany is looking pretty good right now, they even have a transport system that works, oh and an economy and aren't flirting with Trump. But it doesn't have my dad and my mum. I want to be around to support them.

Do you know what fucks me right off? For years and years people in working class professions have been really badly affected by EU migration. My DH works in construction. Every time new EU states have joined he has seen a dramatic drop in his wages overnight. This was across the industry and affected the less well paid just as much as it affected pricey plumbers. When they couldn't suppress wages much more the conditions got worse with overtime expected for no pay from self employed people paid by the hour, which effectively put them under minimum wage. Impossible to take time off, even for emergencies (DH was told when I was in hospital having a threatened miscarriage that if he came to the scan 'there'll be a Romanian doing your job on Monday'. Ridiculously long hours, 6 day working, withdrawal of bonuses for working weekends or bank holidays. Ditto the care industry where a large transient work force prepared to take poor conditions has led to the proliferation of zero hour contracts.

And you know, I haven't really heard these musicians/counsellors/bankers/academics/lawyers etc, etc kicking up much of a fuss on our behalf. What I have heard them doing is banging on about how wonderful it is they can get a cheap plumber/nanny/cleaner and how dreadful the British work ethic is because people don't want to work 60 hours a week for less than minimum wage on a dodgy contract which gives them no rights, or pension or notice etc.

I really don't understand why those same people expect other people to start weeping into their drinks for them just because they're starting to feel negative effects in their industry.

I really can't muster up much sympathy when the general attitude from those sections of society to other people seeing dramatic drops in their employment prospects, wages and standard of living was 'suck it up, it's good for us'.

I want to be near my Dad and Mum. I can't because the wages in construction are so shit living in the SE near them is impossible.

My DH would like to live near his family. But he can't because the EUs financial fuck ups mean that his home country is screwed and there's no work there. We all have our crosses to bear. But some of us can't solve them by upping sticks and going somewhere else because we're not wealthy enough to be highly mobile and able to pick and choose. My heart is not bleeding.

BillSykesDog I totally agree. My heart isn't bleeding either.

Big clap for BillSykesDog

Your post explains quite clearly why people voted for Brexit. I find it astonishing that people don't or don't want to understand this.

No bleeding heart here either!

Leaving my friends, my daughters friends, my mum in a home, my day who cared for her with dementia for years . To leave him when he's becoming frail himself or expect him to come to a country he's never even been in and abandon his wife ... ?

I'd accept a major drop in living standards/prospects before I'd leave my DM behind (or DF if I had one). But we all have different priorities, I guess.

I agree about the number of similarly themed threads. It's odd because I know tons of couples where one is an EU citizen and none have left or expressed any intention. Perhaps they'll all vanish without warning?

I totally agree that the stresses and strains of immigration without the necessary investment in services and infrastructure and, most crucially, workers' rights, have been felt most by the working class without seeing any of the benefits.

I also have zero sympathy for those people who have benefited most from the cheap labour and been able to pay their way out of the pressure on housing, schools and healthcare now complaining about Brexit.

However... while I am definitely one of the "winners" from Britain being part of the EU and I support immigration for all the brilliant stuff (and people!) that come with it, I have ALWAYS voted against my own financial interests for more and better housing/ building council houses, better funding for the NHS and workers' rights. I feel really angry about what life is like for a lot of people in the UK now and, because no man is an island, life wasn't great for us either before we left.

I feel really sad that we couldn't be part of Europe and share the benefits. Such a waste of an amazing opportunity.

Fantastic post Bill Sykes Dog

I feel the same - it is the poor people of this country who have been getting FUCKED from various directions by the various agendas of well-to-do people who currently style themselves pro EU. As the poorest most vulnerable in society they have born all of the brunt of the immigration waves - the extra pressure on public services and housing, the lowering of wages, the extra criminals who they and their children have to live with. When they have tried to express their anguish at these things they have got "nah, you're racist, the things you're experiencing are myths that don't exist, I'm enriched by immigration thanks back under the rug with you".

When I see people (some of whom have been friends and colleagues) talking about having to get a bit of paperwork to travel or worrying about the extra millions of pounds of EU funding their employer might now have to actually work to secure from somewhere, bitching about their fave art gallery or their nanny going home it is hard to summon up floods of tears.