Think we've made a big mistake

[Itscoldouthere]

So we did it moved out of London just after Christmas.

We've bought a wreck to do up an hour from London.

I think we've made a big mistake, I feel overwhelmed and lonely, I miss my old life.

I know I need to 'get a grip' as we have to make this work, but I feel really fragile and pathetic.

I know my friends thought we were mad to do it in the first place but we went ahead regardless.

I feel like we've lost so much in this move and wish we hadn't done it

Lot of it has to do with condition of your domicile. Living in a Doer-Upper is stressful unless you love the process. I would hate it, too. DH had some walls knocked thru last year and I responded by going out to get a job so I didn't have to live with it 24/7. So much around our house needs doing, he can crack on with it in his way (WAHD now).

Well it's great to have this good advice form all you lovely people on MN.

I had a good chat with DH this weekend and he is now aware of how I feel and I can see its wrapped up in lots of things, some of it the security blanket of leaving the ever rising property market in London.

But we moved for lots of reasons which I seem to have lost sight of, if I project myself forward another 5/10 years I don't think I would want to be in London then, so perhaps its just we did it at a funny time in the usual cycle (ie DCs mid secondary school)

Some of my stress is linked up to DC1 who is 15,, so obviously a difficult time for him to move from London, although he is actually there all the time as he goes to stay with his school friends (lots of them live in London).

I don't mind living in a wreck that much, but I do feel like I don't really know where everything is as lots of things are still in boxes, so it adds to the feeling of not being in control.

But I'm going to take each day at a time, make more effort to try and get to know some people here and do some things locally instead of relying on London for my life, as SconeInSixtySeconds said I need to stop being a 'Londoner'... gulp

Itscold - you'll get there! I lived in London for six years and loved it, but people outside of London definitely project negative feelings onto Londoners like unfriendliness and being self contained. In the country joining in is much more admired...

It'scold - I think you've done exactly the right thing by chatting to your DH about it.

Can we help you make a list of specific actions? I think that you need to start building your local network of friends and neighbours, and you need to get comfortable where you live.

These were some of the things that I did when I moved:

• got everything out of boxes onto shelves. Didn't matter if it was in the right place long term, so long as there were NO BOXES. Put the radio on / your favourite music on while you do this
• hung up all the paintings
• flowers in vases in all rooms
• bought temporary curtains from ebay for rooms that didn't have them
• invited our new neighbours for a housewarming party
• invited friends to come and visit (and laugh at the state of the house and the previous owner's choice of wallpaper)
• went to a neighbour's party we were invited to
• went to local events and chatted to people I didn't know
• shopped in the local shop
• walked to the local library and asked the librarian about what was on

I also now volunteer for a local group that makes sure that elderly people on their own have regular visitors - I go and have tea with an elderly lady once a month, which is actually very cheering.

6 months is nothing. I used to miss london (badly) and then one day about 18 months - two years later, I woke up and I guess the centre of my world was no longer london so it didn't occur to me to miss it. Saying that i'm heading back there for three days at the end of the month but i'll be glad to leave it. I just like to visit it now.

GrendelsMum thank you, you are so encouraging.

I love the fact that you volunteer and it's something I have thought I should look into. I lost my mum last year and now have no older folk in my family, as my DHs parents both died about 8 years ago.

I met a lovely 82 year old lady on a dog walk a few weeks ago and I did think how refreshing it was to talk to someone older.

You are right about the small things in the house making a difference and I should make an effort to get things unpacked.

I noticed there is a coffee morning held in the village hall and I will just have to get along to that.

I will have to get myself out there more as although our house is right in the middle of the village it has a walled garden, so you are not viewed when out in it and the front door is right on the pavement, so i don't hang around at the front I just go in and out, all my other neighbours enter their houses from another side, if that makes sense.

I have been invited to a few church based things, but I'm afraid that's not an avenue I intend to go down.

Christabel3 you are of course right it's not very much time, plus I keep going back for social things, I don't know if that helps or makes it worse.

Keep thinking "God I've turned into Daisy Waugh" who wrote a column in The Times about moving to the country, hated it and went scuttling back to West London, I always viewed her column with contempt! Now look at me

Hi itscold, I've been lurking and just wanted to let you know my experience of leaving London. After we left London, I used to miss London so badly that I'd cry as we drove past Marble Arch from homesickness. I used to wonder what we'd done, and it took a fair while to settle (that was delayed by the fact that we stayed with PIL for toooooo long while we did up our house). In fact, it was once we moved into our own house that I started to feel settled and even more once we had DD, as we started to put down our roots.

It was 6 years yesterday since we moved. I now love to visit, but wouldn't live there again. And London doesn't feel like home anymore- here does.

Hang in there and as has been said upthread, babysteps towards settling in, and maybe reassess in another 6 or 12 months.

I think GrendelsMum's list is an excellent one in terms of steps you can take to feel better. I would add the suggestion to sort out one room properly. Paint it, get a new carpet/sort the floor, get pictures up....whatever you have to do to get it roughly how you want it. Ideally living room or something - somewhere that you can sit down with DH in the evening and chill out, shut the door, and pretend that the whole big work-in-progress-that-won't-be-finished-for-ages thing doesn't exist.

Am also going to add the suggestion of visiting your local pub every week to get to know the regulars. And even if you're not into church stuff, if the stuff going on is relatively non-worship based (summer fair etc) it's still a good place to meet people from the local community.

It will take a year or two to get a new life/friends etc. Moving anywhere is hard initially. Thow yourself in and make some friends.

I totally agree with Pootlebug. One sorted room will make all the difference.

I also agree re the church. In our village, there are various events organised by the church, some of which are religious (I.e services) and some of which aren't (e.g. Fete, 'supper club', etc). I don't know if you're Jewish perhaps, but a Jewish neighbour will very happily go to the Fete, but would only go to the church in the same circumstances that I'd go to her synagogue, I.e funerals and weddings.

The same neighbour told me that there's no better way to settle into a community than by acting as Parish Clerk, though I don't know it would appeal to everyone!

Poor you! Feel for you hugely. We moved from central London six years ago. We were in a very smart but very urban area and I found the lack of greenery really got to me and we were concerned about the vast expense of educating the children in London. However when we moved an hour out of London to a very pretty village, to a large house and garden I was utterly miserable. Now six years on it is home. I still love London and go there often and possibly we will go back one day at least part of the time (still own a couple of rental properties there thank goodness as could not possibly buy our old house back now). This time of year is wonderful - can you get in to gardening? I think also meeting people you really click with takes a long time, but you will find like minded people eventually. One thing I did was to start a book group - I literally invited the six or so people I knew to join and that was great and we still meet monthly now.

Well hopefully I will come to feel like you ladies who have been out of London for longer.
I need to immerse myself in the DIY a bit more so that I can start seeing a return and feel like I've connected with the house in a more positive way.
I hate feeling like such a moaner.
My DH and DS2 are enjoying it so that's half of us I suppose.
In the big picture I have a good life and I need to make the most of now instead of looking back

Know what? I moved into town and hate it! But I moved for a reason, we lived way out in the rural area and the kids had to be shuttled everywhere. So to give them their freedom from taxi-parents we moved into town where they could do their thing.

Now that we are getting to the stage of them being off our hands we can think about moving again.
The country was a great place to bring them up, but town had its benefits. Look at the positive, make the most of the things in your new place of residence that you didn't get in London. Learn about what's not obviously there.

It's not just moving out of London - it's just moving fullstop!
I have moved 100 miles to a new build. Also feeling a massive homesickness - just finding somewhere to walk the dog is hard. My DC are at primary - when I took a breath an introduced myself to the disinterested playground parents - one told me that the dc shouldn't have been let into the class because it made the class too big. The others sagely nodded. No welcome to the school!

I work during the week (not any where near the new house) and the house we live in you enter through a walled garden too - so never see anyone.

I think it's the lack of a friendly face I miss most - when the BT man came I made him 3 cups of tea and got him to stop for 2 hours! DH works away so can't even join clubs in the evening.

Hoping it gets better but not sure how to. The tales here all sound promising.

Hope you manage to beat the new house blues.

The other thing I would say is try looking at things from a different perspective. You are only 1 hour from London. That's not far and although your day to day life will be different you can still maintain the connection to London really quite easily, it is not as if you have moved to Australia or Hong Kong. For example on Monday I dropped DD3 at the village school just before 9am and by 10.15am I was having a coffee at the National Gallery with an old friend. An hour is not a long time to travel and the benefits of a lovely house (when it's done) and lots more space outside, not to mention less polluted air etc are worth an hour on a train I think.

I think what you are experiencing is entirely normal for a major lifestyle change, though perhaps you are a bit stuck.

I felt similarly when I moved overseas though i know that is a more extreme move.

There is a recognised Culture Shock pattern/cycle and what you are experiencing sounds very similar.

Scroll down to the graph on this link and see if it has any relevance for you.

www.eoslifework.co.uk/transprac.htm