To sometimes feel like abandoning my life and starting a fresh?

[3GreenFrogs]

Just got back from Glastonbury so could well be suffering from hippy overdose but ...

Whilst there I was talking to a bloke about volunteering abroad. I’m a nurse so do have skills I could take and there are also opportunities to teach English to kids in places like Cambodia etc.

DH and I spoke about it and he says he’d like to do it too but it would mean giving up everything we have here and basically starting a new life.

We’re very comfortable, have a 4 bed detached house which is too big for us (it’s just DH and I, no kids at home), a good income ((£60k in the north east is a good income) and good jobs.

Sometimes I feel like jacking it all in the start a different life. Even if we’d have to really scale back on our lifestyle. I’m bored. There has to be more to life that going to work, doing housework and watching telly?

AIBU to even consider it?

I’ve done it, twice. Nothing hugely adventurous like moving to Cambodia but in 2011 I packed in my London job and flat and moved to a converted church in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and did some homesteading; in 2016 I realised I didn’t want the lifestyle anymore and did the same move in reverse.

If you’ve no DC, good career prospects or professional skills and a sellable house then it’s not particularly difficult. What you do have to have a proper think about is whether it would really just be a “same shit, different scenery” sort of thing i.e. you can move town or country but still actually have to do all the stuff which you’re fed up of at the moment like housework. Going off to teach English or volunteer in the developing world would require a lot more planning and honestly, I imagine there’s a lot of competition with every other gap year student who wants to do it.

You could rent your house for a year and give it a try

The problem we have is the house. We got it ridiculously cheap (£140k) I love the house and we’d never find another one like it for what we can afford. Also, DH is on really good money but his job is rare and he’s worked there over 20 years. If he gives it up he’d never find another one that paid the same wage.

I suppose it’s a pipe dream.

Rent the house out. Can he take a sabbatical?

What type of nurse are you? Can you join Operation Smile, they have 2 week stints operating remotely.

Thinking another way - whenever I thought I shouldn't leave something "because I'll never get another" the decision got made for me - eg redundancy etc - so I learned to just do stuff and sort it out later - also not regret making a decision.

I would say don't bother with the English teaching if your main motivation is to address poverty. Layering a smattering of English onto an inadequate primary education system doesn't actually achieve that much. Your medical skills would be much more valuable, particularly if you can find a capacity building/ skills transfer role where you're training local HCP in best practices. You might be able to do that on a short term/ short sabbatical basis and see how you feel about it.

I'd look into a short trial first, something like Seaside said. DH can cope without you for a few weeks, and you might find that that's plenty long enough to get it out your system.

Otherwise would DH's place offer a sabbatical or career break? 12 months, belongings into storage, house with an agency.

Life is to short to regret the things we never had the guts to try x

Rent your house out, take a sabbatical for a year and see where it takes you. YOLO and all that. Tbh now you've had the thought, it'll be very hard to look back on your life without regret if you don't act on it.

I think sabatticals and renting the house out for a year are the way to go. It sounds like you'd be giving up a lot to do it permanently, plus you don't know how you'd feel living out their long term. Bear in mind almost all of your colleagues would be in their early 20s and would be going home after a year or two.

• out there