AIBU - living in England completely insufferable?

[hellosunshine5]

As per the title really, I loved living here for a few years but I now just find the whole country completely insufferable.

Does anyone else feel the same?

For what it’s worth, I’m English and was born here to English parents who then emigrated to NZ when I was 8. Lived over there until I returned to England when I was 20 to get to know my extended family and have an adventure etc. I ended up meeting someone and settling - South East for reference.

Fast forward 7 years and I am really struggling to tolerate life here any longer. I’m making plans to leave, but they’re obviously on hold for the foreseeable.

My reasons?

• I work hard in a fairly well paid job that I commute to in London, but I can still only reasonably afford to live in a tiny one bedroom apartment with no outside space. I see my friends from back home in similar financial situations buying 4 bedroom new build family homes with massive gardens.

• England is over crowded. I find it unbearable to have to circle my local supermarket car park multiple times (whatever time of the day) to find a space. Such simple things in life shouldn’t be so difficult.

• I hate the competitiveness of life over here. Everyone trying to have the newest car, the best holidays, the nicest house, the best schools for their kids, even if they can’t actually afford it. I think people elsewhere in the world are much more humble and happy with their lot.

So, AIBU? Are you genuinely happy living here? Appreciate it’s a difficult question for those that have never lived elsewhere.

You have a London problem, not an England problem. Maybe do some volunteer work overseas to get a bit of perspective? Then look into moving elsewhere.

You feel how you feel OP, it’s your life. I don’t really understand your question.

I like it here, it’s home. I’ve lived in Hong Kong as a child, then England, then lived as an expat in the Middle East and Malaysia for 5 years in my late 30s, now back, it was a reverse culture shock. Looking back, my sense of home was always England. It seems that your sense of ‘home’ is with NZ, as you lived there during your formative years.

London commuter belt is not the same as England.

But if you would prefer the NZ lifestyle, there's nothing wrong with working out how to move back.

don't have your experience OP but I live in the North.

You couldn't pay me to live in the south and have to go to London on a regular basis. Can't bear the place, too many people.

YANBU
Boils down to personal taste. But New World countries are full of wide open spaces. New World cultures are more informal which can be very liberating. NZ is one of those countries. If you like being in the New World - Canada, Australia, the U.S - Europe and England can seem claustrophobic.

One caution: NZ house prices finally caught up with and surpassed Australia, the UK, for unaffordability in about 2012-14. Your friends purchasing 4-br houses have not been the standard NZ 1st home buyer. Housing stock, new builds aside, is poor quality and not fit for purpose.

NZ is likely to be a sought-after country to which to emigrate in coming years, having eliminated Covid-19. So high immigration should continue to continue to make inroads into the parochialism and cultural isolation which dogged NZ throughout the 20th century.

I think the OP's question was "does anyone else dislike living in England?", the problem is that

a) of course some people do and lots don't. So the question is kind of pointless

b) anyone who has lived in more than one country should be know very well that talking about what you dislike about a country with a group of people from that country is like poking a bees nest with a big stick. Why would you do it?

@ChickenFight I hate Cambridge too. I would do anything to be back in NewMarket

If you don’t like it, live elsewhere. No one wants someone who hates the place they live to be around them.

Define “completely”, but no, I don’t like it here. We did get on the housing ladder finally by dint of moving to a cheap region, where we were greeted by the well-off local elites (not the working people I should add) with lots of sneery inverted snobbery. Snobbery, inequality, male aggression and constant struggle is my experience of England. You really have to come from those well-off middle classes to make a decent living and be welcome. However the country itself, when you can get out into it, is very beautiful, particularly with lockdown freshness.

I think the cost of living thing is because you live in the SE. I do agree about the overcrowding. Even in rural areas there are traffic jams galore. I used to wish a mystery virus would wipe out half the population as I think the uk would be great with fewer people in it. Sadly that came true...

The south east is quite different from the rest of the country as PP have said. Your third point I agree is true to some extent throughout the country, but your other points don’t apply where we live in the North East

You can’t just move somewhere else now btw. You need money to do anything and no one particularly wants immigrants. We’ve lost our rights to move in Europe, so that, for most of us, is it. We’re trapped.

These are London problems. Move.

It's a backward nation. I'm desperately hoping we can escape and start a better life.

OP just bog off back to NZ easy as

Oh God - not another thread whinging on about living in the UK/England.

If you don't like how you live your life OP then do something about it. No one else will change it for you and whinging on an internet forum certainly won't make any difference apart from unite you with more internet whingers who also moan but don't actually do anything positive.

I spent many years in both NZ and the U.K. (mostly London). No country is perfect. Those detached large houses you’re talking about are bloody expensive. My brother has a 4 bedroom, two living room place with swimming pool etc in Hamilton. It’s valued at $860,000. My Dads in South Auckland. His three bedroom plus Workshop and granny flat is $750,000 (not a great area, but not crime ridden). My sisters just brought in February a 5 bed ‘McMansion’ in East Auckland near the ferry - $1,450,000. These are not cheap houses. Buying a home is out of reach fir many people. They all work hard, spend a ridiculous amount of time (and petrol!) commuting, and groceries etc are really expensive. It’s cheaper to buy NZ lamb in the UK than NZ. There’s a traffic light system get onto the motorway... I’ve heard comparisons (rightly or wrongly so very open to correction/could be an urban legend) that the Southern motorway is as congested as the L.A. freeway. I’ve certainly spent plenty of time in Botany or Remuera playing hunt the bloody carpark. Christchurch is better but they’re still rebuilding post earthquake almost a decade later. House insurance is expensive and getting prohibitive anywhere considered an earthquake risk.
We currently live in Ireland, probably not our permanent home, but DH is happy here and I can cope with it. No one country is perfect, but I think part of it relies on you making the best of it. Look to move elsewhere, make new connections. We’re lucky, we’ve got multiple passports so our options are good.

Yes OP, I felt exactly the same but up north where I was born. Moved to South Wales, I am very happy with my lot and very happy here. The people here have been lovely, really made us feel at home.

I think you may have a problem where you live as opposed to the whole country! The SE is NOT a good gauge of England.

Scotland isn't crowded. The sense of space and lack of traffic and pollution makes a big difference.
You are very lucky to be able to move back to NZ.

I lived in New Zealand for five years and my 2 eldest boys were born there but we were always broke there, wages were low and not much in the way of public transport made shift work hard. We are much better off here financially. NZ is a beautiful country though and just a different way of life.

Same, although I don't agree it's overcrowded. Depends where you live. I hate the biased media and the way so many believe in it without doubt. Xenophobia, jingoism, rush to have more & more stuff. The way people grasp at any stupid way at all to look down their nose on others - I own a house you don't, I have a better job/car/life so you fully deserve my scorn you lowly council tenant/benefits claimant. The way hate and suspicion of each other is actively encouraged by the government and media - We'd all get on with each other and be a bit more tolerant if minds weren't fed constantly with negativity designed to split communities. Ruled by The Order of Chaos. Then there's encouragement to spy on each other too, and the way some have taken to it like a duck to water I swear they live their lives through binoculars. I can live here as I'm normally away 4 months of the year, can't do that now because of lockdown so I'm pissed off. If DCs didn't live here Id be gone. Just don't want to hear it all anymore, it makes life grey.

Love England, love Londond, but really love all the beautiful places across the country.

Tbh, hellosunshine, you sound like the sort of competitive person you say you are trying to escape. One minute you are complaining about your tiny living accommodation, the next complaining about people not being humble , living beyond their means and wanting the nicest house, etc. If you didn’t have the easy option to move back to New Zealand to get the nicer house and life, would you be a bit more humble and accept your small flat; move to a less crowded part of the UK where you could afford a larger house; or just carry on telling yourself that the problem is the whole of the UK and nothing to do with your own attitude to life and the fact you work in London, which is famously overcrowded and where the most competitive people all flock together to work and wind each other up?

Yes OP, I felt exactly the same but up north where I was born. Moved to South Wales, I am very happy with my lot and very happy here. The people here have been lovely, really made us feel at home.

@Fearofawelshplanet I am delighted to hear this and very pleased you are happy here. So many MNers seem to think Wales is a deprived unwelcoming shithole.