Feeling really :( today, want to leave Germany

[SSSandy]

I know this will offend any Germans on MN but I have to talk about it somewhere, so rather than risk being hurt by what I write, please don't read further!

I don't like to talk about it to Germans I know here for fear of offending them but I hate living in Germany, and apart from the first 3 months when it was all an adventure and I still had my sense of humour intact, I've always disliked it.

I do meet decent people and nice things happen of course but the overwhelming tenor of life here I find so negative and it really really gets me down.

I don't know why I'm writing this other than that I have to get it off my chest. I feel so very sad today (dd's birthday) thinking we may well be here for years to come. I would love for her to grow up somewhere else. I had such a lovely childhood in Africa by comparison where people were so friendly and warm and I wish she had something like that too.

I do try to see the good points about this place and there are some, but I don't think I will ever feel at home or happy here. We're stuck here because of dh's job which is a very good one and well paid. He wouldn't give it up just to do any old thing somewhere else. He would like to stay.

I told him this morning that I would like to leave with dd which is all very well - but where do we go and how is dd going to cope? She's just started school here (6) and hasn't learnt to read or write yet. I see so many difficulties with a move, not to mention her not seeing dh anymore (or very rarely) but I don't feel I can face another year here. I don't know what to do really but I feel I've been here so long now that if I don't like living here by now and I did try, I don't think I ever will

notso, I think there is a big discrepancy between the public and the private face in Germany. People here will tell you they what they perceive as public rudeness is them not being hypercritical just being honest and direct. Why should they pretend to be concerned about a stranger who means nothing to them and they'll never see again? The same woman with the shoe cupboards would be generous to you, kind and welcoming if you were a guest in her house. As indeed she would be to that black man in the supermarket. It is difficult to explain. My parents never knew what I was talking about because they had fabulous German friends back in Africa but after visiting us in Berlin they DID know what I was talking about.

I meant What WE perceive as rudeness

when in Rome Admylin... It seems somehow acceptable to push in here although I haven't figured out the intricacies of it. Who can push in and when etc. I let a lot of things pass (in particular if I'm with dd) because resistance means getting entangled in nasty scenes I'd rather she didn't experience and they always leave me shaking for some reason.

Sometimes though it's better not to mess with me. I remember queueing up in the sun to get into a swimming pool at 38 degrees and dd had to get to her swimming course. This woman just stepped up and pushed herself in front of me. I had PMT so she was unlucky and I told her she could forget pushing in front of me (I've found you have to speak very loudly if you want a hope of winning these arguments) so I bellowed it out and pushed myself back in front of her. She said she didn't want to wait (?!) I mean who does?

The people behind me let her push in front of them though.

Oh Sandy, I am at your supermarket experience, though have to admit a bit of a at the pure ineptness of someone who thinks it is acceptable (in whatever country!) to go up to someone and shout 'weg da!'. Am pretty at the shop assistant, though! Well done for saying something to the silly cow.

I haven't experienced all that much pushing in here, but I NEVER let it go. I always protest and am quite often met by incomprehension.

I remember the very first time my sister came over to germany to visit. She flew into Stuttgart (we lived near theer) and we met her and went to pay the car park fee and a woman barged up and shoved her ticket in just as I was about to put mine in. For me this was a normal everyday happening so I stood back and waited. My sis was shocked and stayed shocked at all the things she experienced that week!
She and most of my friends back home can't understand how I've stuck it out so long and my tales of terrible things each time I go to the UK never sease to amaze them and they always try to tell me to come back.
Trouble is I would but that would mean splitting the family up. I ask myself every day "is it worth it" I could have such a nice life , I would be able to send my kids to a great school, etc..now you havegot me really worried about gymnasium and all that is our next hurdle, it seems never ending and do you know what my dh has to say to it all "But millions of germans manage to live with it all so why is so hard for you"

I know what you mean by being met with insomprension. In italy they do push too and they see it as their right, and like they're being smarter and clevere than you poor idiot who waits in a queue. if you do say something they look at you like you are crazy.
once I was half was with the pram on the zebra crossing, with a green man on, when this van speeds past me without a care in the world. I shoted at him and he just laughed and shook his head. I was so fuming I could have punched him! now at the thought!!

Damn! I have to go back to the supermarket again - out of milk and rubbish bags. Arghh. I'm taping my mouth together first though! "See" you all later

I'll alert Californifrau (Hausfrau as was) onto this thread. She was vastly unhappy in Germany too and will send waves of sympathy

I really shouldn't click on this thread anymore...

admylin, in a way your dh is right though. There are Swabians who complain about Berlin, Berliners who complain about Bavaria, etc. Germany is really not a homogeneous country. And I know Berlin can seem (and be) very full-on, but it is really not a homogeneous city either. I think one has to develop a level on which the daily abruptness and bustle is a bit 'water off a duck's back'. When we lived in Berlin we created 'niches' for ourselves there, which gave us the impression of actually living within a good sense of community - the Turkish baker down the road, the cafe we would go to on a Sunday afternoon, etc. I think you kind of have to do that and mentally 'cut out' the rest.

oh em ich mag euch!

that was horrible saaandy! and well done for telling them off! good on you.

mind you, the other day I found a used tampax in my front garden...

foundintranslation, I am actually alot happier in Berlin than I ever was in schwabenland, I really suffered there, as the unfriendlieness that I see here in Berlin was more like pure nastiness in schwabenland!

We lived in a small village and we had a really hard time of it, my dh can easily say things like he does because he spends 7 days a week in his laboratory with international scientists, he doesn't even know where to buy his top up card for his mobile, I do all that and I've always been the one who has had to do any behörden stuff too. Just organising our marriage was enough to have me crying a couple of times after being treated so badly. I even nearly had a breakdown.

In Berlin I find people leave you alone and mind their own business, in schwaben land life is abit slower so everyone has time to nosey into what other people should or shouldn't be doing.

Oh dear admylin, that's not on, you having to deal with all that stuff by yourself. I've gradually got better and better at the whole behörden business, and am now perfectly comfortable dealing with them by myself (also because linguistically, on a good day you can't tell me from a native), but dh did come along at the beginning.

Hi Californi, I know you were really unhappy here. I remember you posting about that somewhere else. Isn't it odd though that just moving country can make such a change to your personality and your whole sense of well-being? I notice this when I'm on holiday (but then holidays are never the same as real everyday life). I laugh a lot, I chat to complete strangers, I feel so free. I'm always so sad when we touch down in Berlin again. Feel like a heavy stone is lodged in my chest. I am bit worried that my personality will change permanently for the worst, so it's so good to hear that all that fell away from you when you moved.

How did it come about that you were able to leave? Was dh unhappy here too?

Thanks califoni that's all reassuring. Wish we had a move on the horizon. Will have to do a bit of appropriate Feng Shui around the house I think!

I was thinking about that supermarket incident again when I went out in the afternoon and why I met with incomprehension. Like others have said about other countries, you complain about rude behaviour and are met with total incomprehension. Berliners wouldn't say that woman behaved well but she didn't overstep the boundaries of what is considered to be acceptable here. If she had, people might well have said so.

So what I did was quite arrogant in a way - telling someone off whose behaviour is within the acceptable local norm because for me it was shocking. Not sure what to think about it all really. I mean if I were in a completely different cultural environment like say the Brasilian jungle, I wouldn't dream of telling someone how to behave because I wouldn't have a clue about their society and how things are governed.You can't really go to a different country and expect to impose your standards of courtesy there, can you? Yet in a way I suppose that is what I do here whether I say anything or not, I'm judging people for having different standards of courtesy.

SSSandy, I would just like to say that I think the woman in the supermarket did behave in an unacceptable manner, and I would have been appalled and would have said something.
Every single one of my family and friends in Germany would find this unacceptable too.

I'm sorry you are unhappy in Germany, and I can empathize to some extent. But this incident is IMO not representative of German behaviour standards, and it would sadden me if the MN community thought it was.

Just out of interest, which supermarket was it?