To not feel happy about where we live?

[Dennysheart]

I feel ungrateful even writing this. We’ve come home from a lovely holiday up north. I love the scenery and the vibe. We live where we grew up. It’s a desirable town within commuting distance to London. We moved here as we have two children with special needs and we have a set of parents locally. My husband also works locally. My kids are settled, the schools are decent but I’ve come back this year feeling hugely unsettled and tired of my life. The last few years have been quite tough with the kids and I’ve got one of those rare term time only jobs but I feel lonely and really dissatisfied here. Our eldest is starting high school next month and my two children with Sen are settled. We have a nice house but I can’t help feeling that something is missing. I adore my children but for the last 10 years I’ve been a sahm and because of their needs, I’ve geared my life round them. It’s also made making friends very very hard. Has anyone managed to get over the unsettled and dissatisfied feelings? I don’t feel I can ask everyone to uproot their lives especially as securing what I need for my kids could be tough is another county.

In what way would your life be different if you lived "up North" What is missing fro your life now?

Realistically, what would change if you lived somewhere else?

Some things are nicer elsewhere - if you live in Nuneaton, you’re not going to be enjoying vast, dramatic beaches.

But remember - you were on holiday. What’s a “vibe”? Are you sure it wasn’t a general feeling of positivity because you were more relaxed on holiday? So not the place at all, really.

Treat your local area like a holiday location . Think about all the places nearby that you’ve never been to. Your area might have more going for it that you think.

I think going back to work might help you rather than moving

You can’t judge based on a holiday because what is getting you down is the day to day grind.

What did it highlight as missing from your life?

Are you a sahm or do you have a term time job? That’s unclear to me. However, I’m returning to work this year after being a sahm as I was fed up; I’m hoping it’ll give me the new lease of life I need. If you’re about to start working, you might find it picks you up a bit.

Changing where you like isn’t going to change anything else. The same issues will still be there plus you’ll have no family nearby.

It sounds like you need to do something for yourself.

Holidaying somewhere can be a completely different experience to living and working there. It sounds like you could do with trying something different though.

It’s like that programme where they go to Australia and have a lovely weeks holiday ‘Look we can go to parks!’ and buy a house based on that one week. And that’s all it is, it’s a holiday, not real life. And we have parks here.

It’s not about where you live, it’s about doing something for you. Whether it’s getting a new job, hobby, exercise, studying... whatever it is needs to be specifically to motivate you. You’ve spend a massive part of your life focusing on your kids needs, including a term time job, you just need to carve out something for yourself.

And if you moved away from your family support, had worse schools and unsettled kids, your life would be so much worse.

You're not fulfilled in yourself. Take steps to remedy that and see if you still feel the same way about where you live. My guess it's not the place but your situation that's grinding you down. Running away won't fix that.

You have made very clear what you don’t want and don’t like...

But do you know exactly what you do want?

First step is to get very clear in your mind what you would like to change, then figure out the “how”

I think I’m bored of the area. We don’t have a lot of nature on our doorstep and even driving to it takes a lot of time. I know holidays are different. No one is working, you don’t have the day to day stresses. I just feel a bit flat. I’ve lived here all my life pretty much apart from 10 years in Yorkshire and some time in London. Maybe I need to look at some more hobbies.

You need to weigh it up against the downside of a moral rural area likely being further away from the amenities and services your family needs. Unless you can find somewhere that offers best of both worlds for you of course.

Somewhat different but 2 years ago we came home from our summer holiday in Spain.

We'd spent the week with IL and our dc loved it. We were living in London and had family in Ireland and Australia, and it was starting to feel lonely.

Walking home from the train station with our luggage I said to dh, that's it, I've had enough and our house was on the market 2 weeks later.

Best snap decision I've ever made. Luckily for me dh is pretty easy going and was fine with it all!

Sometimes you just know it's time to go.

Oh I'm sorry you feel like that OP, but what do you think a move would bring that you don't have now?

Just to note, I live in a desirable holiday destination and hear tourists frequently say how much they'd love to live here, how perfect it is, how laid-back and so on. Yes it is a very nice place to live, but those of us that do still have jobs, day to day stresses, traffic, money worries, contentious local issues, boredom with what there is to do in the immediate area and so on.

The grass isn't always quite as green as it seems to be!

if you live in Nuneaton, you’re not going to be enjoying vast, dramatic beaches

In fairness, that's not all you won't be enjoying if you live in Nuneaton...

OP, I hear you. Unlike you, I've moved around a lot in adulthood, to different countries and continents, and I can say that I have been far happier in some places than others, not because of anything internal to me but because some places suited me more than others.

My son spent the only period of his life he remembers in a village in the midlands -- it suited him perfectly, but it's the place I've been unhappiest and most bored out of anywhere in the world I've lived. So I moved us to another country last New Year, even though it involved uprooting a seven year old from all he'd ever known, and putting him into a new school system and a different language. He has no additional needs, so it's not the same as your situation, but I have no compunction at all about recognising that my needs matter too.

Despite the fact that we'd barely landed before C-19 shut things down, and we're still living in a series of rentals for various reasons, it was a good decision.

So, while I appreciate the point that people are making about your own fulfillment, regardless of place, I think it's not at all true that everywhere is much the same. The people who say that either haven't moved around that much, or have always moved around between the same kinds of place.

@ToastedSausages Interesting that you say that. My husband has only ever lived here aside from the two years we spent living together in another city. He feels a place is a place. Whereas I don’t.

That’s how I feel like here doesn’t suit me. Growing up I wasn’t interested in living here and the support of parents is the only reason I came back.

Lots of food for thought everyone. Thank you.

My husband has only ever lived here aside from the two years we spent living together in another city. He feels a place is a place. Whereas I don’t.

It just doesn't sound as if he has a great deal of basis for that position, though? I think it's worth exploring whether working or retraining or otherwise refocusing on yourself makes you happier where you are in the short term, but also seriously considering moving somewhere else, and actively looking about for where that might be. I've moved countries for DH, and he's moved countries for me (and pre-child we've also temporarily pursued our thing in different countries).

You say that where you live is a 'desirable' town, but (as you suggest yourself) that's irrelevant to what you feel about living there. The midlands village I spent seven years in was considered an incredibly 'desirable' place prosperous, pretty, low crime, thatched cottages, excellent village school, surrounding by rolling countryside etc etc but it was a miserable place to live as far as I was concerned.

We've let our (very nice) house there until we can get organised to sell it, and every time I have a communication from our (very nice) tenant, the mere thought of the place makes me depressed I wasted years living there. It's not a mistake I'll make again.

Basically you simply have post holiday blues...it too shall pass.

I'm at that point. I've lived in the city we are now the longest I've lived anywhere and I really miss having the sea close by. But I don't know if my viewpoint about this city is coloured by things seemingly going downhill or where we now are in this city. We are moving in the same city but renting in a different and I'll see how I feel in six months. But sometimes you just know ...

Basically you simply have post holiday blues...it too shall pass.

I suppose it depends on whether you see your life as a matter of having to knuckle down in an existence that doesn't make you happy after the brief respite of a holiday, or something you can alter just because the current set-up isn't working for you, even if objectively it's 'not awful'. If I were felt this unhappy and unsettled on returning home from holiday, I would be actively looking to move. I certainly don't think life is much the same everywhere -- to me that's a lazy (or ground down) way of not doing anything about your own dissatisfaction in case it unsettles other people.

There's far too much female putting up and shutting up.

I live in the rural north. I'd hate living in a city (I have done so) and I didn't really like towns either.

Yes there are disadvantages to every place; I have a longer commute, it's a 45minute drive to a supermarket (they deliver so who cares) BUT
Every morning I look out of the window and see a beautiful place. There are loads of fantastic and free things to do on the doorstep, we have a much bigger house than we could afford elsewhere and our kids go to a great school with 15 pupils.

Some people would be totally dissatisfied with it as I was when I lived in a city (with all the "advantages" that brings).

Different places suit different people. There's nothing wrong with evaluating where you are and where you want to be