stuck, 1000s of miles away, think i might want to leave dh, not even able to work here. what to do?

[ExpatAgain]

that's it. dh and i have always had a tricky relationship after the first year. fact is i really don't love him though i like (at times) and respect him esp as the father of my dc. we were thrown together somewhat after m/c and mess up afterwards, also was rebounding from love of life scenario, or so i naively thought then. dh was safe, calm reassuring. i made the wrong judgement call...
i've often thought of leaving but now feel at breaking point AGAIN. Overseas and am not allowed to work due to visa restrictions so totally dependent on him. dc in school over here, committed to long-term tenancy, our house in uK rented out etc etc. what a mess..don't know HOW i could escape right now, feel v trapped. aware this was my choice, made my own bed etc but don't hitnk i can tolerate it any more.
dont/ know whether to post this under living overseas or relationships..

How would he react if you were to try to discuss this with him?

we're had yet another argument and aren't currently speaking. he's on a v short fuse. brought up before and he tends to be dismissive, saying how hurtful i am not really taking me seriously. we're just so STUCK here from a financial pov. it'd cost a small fortune to extracate myself and kids... and don't want them to be 1000s of miles away from their dad.

i realise i'm not making sense. jjust all such a mess.

Although you can't work officially, is there anything you can do on a voluntary basis that would get you out of the house?

Or maybe you could throw yourself into the expat social scene as there are, no doubt, other women who are feeling as you do.

When we're isolated from our usual environment and are living thousands of miles away from family/friends, problems can seem magnified especially when relationship issues compound negative feelings.

If you can make a couple of close friends in your new 'real life' it may be that things will not seem so bad as to make you contemplate uprooting you and dc once again.

Where are you? And have you moved to his home country or are you both ex-pats? How much discussion did you have as a couple before moving?

You don't have to stay with someone you don't love - nor do you need to have his permission to leave, if that's what you decide to do. Do you have relatives back home you could stay with while you get sorted?

in africa, both expats. we did discuss and I was v happy to leave uK for an adventure ..but all happened so quickly (matter of weeks, excitement took over hard thinking) plus turned out to be much longer than planned.
been a while, involved in a lot, am studying also so it's not that I'm not busy it's that i don't have any escape routes/safety valves here, long-term friends who understand, boltholes to disappear to for time to think. freedom to up and leave if it comes to it and be able to support myself.

I feel so disempowered. can't think straight, wish i could but every possible move seems so high stakes. Plus africa is often such bloody hard work on a daily basis - driving dodgy roads on the school run, violent break-ins at neighbours, nasty landlords, everything v volatile.. I'm getting my adventure but far far less enjoyable that i'd hoped..It is beautiful, the sun does shine but that seems increasingly less important..

Of course you are dis-empowered, anyone in your situation would feel the same.

I've been trapped abroad. I had money, a ticket home, but i couldn't have physically got my son and my luggage out of the building, let alone call a cab. The airport was 3 hours away.

Sod the sunshine, it's only nice if you are free to enjoy it, or if it doesn't burn you from only 30 seconds of exposure. Give me FREE rain in a safe environment every day of the week!

My advice to you love is to try to calm yourself a little, take a step back and see what you need and what needs to be done to achieve it. Approach this with cool calm and from an organisational perspective.

No, you probably can't pack a bag and get out this week. But you can work out what you need to do and we can help you organise/plan/think through stuff if you need us to.

So if you want to come home, which would be the best alternative for you, as support is easier to arrange, then start to think what you need to do.

Accommodation: Can you give notice to the tenants? Or are they still in a fixed period? Would the rent they pay be enough to cover the mortgage there AND a rental property for you, if so, leave them there!

Money: Could you get enough together to come home and not work for a while? Could you pay 6m rental up front?

School: are there places in schools nearby? could you enquire about potential spaces.

Start asking questions and inform yourself, then the task ahead of you will be easier as you will have some answers.

In the meantime, while you are planning what to do, we can help you by hand holding, and suggestions of where you might get help in the area you will be returning to.

Take one task at a time and just find out what your options are in each of these areas. Don't look at the whole task in one go, it's too daunting. You can't stay in this jail just because of schooling or the dad's access to them, he can come home too you know? It'd be HIS choice.

You can do this, you will be OK.

thank you, thank you for your kindness (and offer of hand-holding).

You really got to the heart of it with v practical advice. Am welling up here, need to digest what you said as v sensible.

i just don't know whether I could/should drag kids away now because I'm unhappy. they're settled now (finally).

However, in UK, I could just about rent somewhere small using rental money but would probably take a while to find work from what I hear about state of job market so how to support us? V naive to divorce/maintenance issues etc...
I could get a place at schools again I should think. it's a small village of aspirational couples though, would dread returning alone, anonymity of city would be easier but kids wouldn't forgive me not taking them "home" if we went back to UK.

lots to ponder when i can think straight. i need to take the task-based approach you advise, HerScaryness. Btw, you sound far too kind to justify that name - is it ironic or your dark side?!

and if I can ask, what did you do when you were trapped overseas? Sounds tough.

I'm usually Hissy, not scary, it's my halloween name

Tough was not the word. X was abusive too.

Mostly I just bided my time, DS was always going to go to school here, so the plan was for us all to return. by the time I came back, i practically hated him.

I had 8m here on my own with DS, and then X came over. I was worried, but I was determined not to relinquish the independence I had gained. I'd worked through agoraphobia as a result of not being able to get out for weeks at a time.

Gave x one more chance. it didn't work. He left and went back there in March.

My story is not particularly relevant to yours I'm sure. You will have larger mountains to climb than I did.

Take each step one at a time. You need to see what your goal is, and you need to look at what stands in it's way. Take each barrier separately and look for the solution.

Remove all emotion, just look at it from a logistics point of view.

Once you have the information as to what your options are, THEN you can look at which choices you are comfortable making.

Your 'home' village sounds lovely!

You are not returning alone you are COMING HOME with your children. You won't be the first, nor the last.

You can't remain in a place when you are this unhappy. It really has a detrimental affect on US and our parenting.

thanks again. Forgot all about hallow'een, rather low-key here thank goodness. Your situation before sounds terrible. well done for having the strength to wait it out as you needed to. Sorry to hear about the abuse, what a nightmare your X sounds. I'm not sure I have larger mountains to climb than that, dh not physically abusive but we're probably both guilty of emotional abuse atm, depending on defintion. the difference is he's got more power over here, I'm the "accompanying spouse". feels v different and feel he treats me differently because of it, probably unintentionally.

Home village v picturesque, tho rather cliquey. my true friends are scattered far and wide around London so w/o kids' demands and our house wd have no cause to go back there..One of the reasons i was keen to escape! Be careful what you wish for and all that!

Expat - does your DH have any idea you feel this way? What do you think his reaction would be if you talk to him and told him?

he does and he thinks it's just me thinking grass is always greener (some truth in that, must admit), being depressed/negative, i should try harder etc etc

I think the problem is not necessarily the fact that you're away from home - the problem is that you feel trapped. You need to find the key to the escape tunnel. It might just be enough to know that you have access to money in the bank to take that flight if you wanted to/needed to. Do you know how long you will be there for? Do you get annual leave/paid visits home?

Try to get the most out of your adventure while you're there. It is a great experience (better a bad experience than no experience at all...).

"better a bad experience than no experience at all..."

You are kidding, right?

HerScaryness - I thought about whether to put that or not, so not at all surprised at your . And I certainly wouldn't use it in the context of DV etc. It's phrase my Dad used to use when things didn't go according to plan, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders.

I put it because, re-reading the posts from the OP, she and DP discussed the move and she was happy to go for the adventure. The problem is that now that she's there, it's not quite what she thought it would be, and she is feeling trapped. I know the relationship with the DP isn't perfect, but it wasn't perfect before they left, and I think that the trapped feeling is making the relationship worse, rather than the other way round (although in reality the two are probably feeding off each other). Do feel free to tell me if I'm wrong ExPat. Therefore if she can do something to reassure herself that there is a way out (ie have an escape fund), and can try to concentrate on the positives (ie it is an adventure and that's what she wanted) then maybe she can turn this bad experience into something worthwhile.

And I do have great sympathy - DH1 was in the merchant navy when I married him, so we spent the first 3 years on a ship, basically. And DH2 and I lived abroad for 4 years. So I do know what feeling trapped is like, and I do understand the expat lifestyle. I always had an escape fund, and that helped, and looking back I wish I'd grasped the nettle more, as it were.

I too was happy to go for the adventure. He changed. I did think it would however improve things. I know now that nothing ever improves a situation like a relationship. I digress.

Once you feel trapped, that's it. There is no making the best of it. It's like resentment, mistrust.

OP needs to do what it takes to extricate herself as smoothly as possible. Hopefully her H will understand and want to come home too. It's a risk she will have to take.

Hi, just wanted to say I feel for you. I too am an expat and I know how tough and scary and miserable it can be, especially at first. May I ask how long you have been there? When I first moved to the Middle East I felt SO alone. No close girlfriends to talk to and my then-fiance was cold, distant and awful. He actually broke up with me when we have been there 4 months- 2 months before we were due to get married and just before Christmas. So I was literally totally alone in a strange country. I stayed though, made friends, made an effort to integrate myself - I was determined not to be beaten by events.

Even the strongest marriages are tested by such a huge unheaval as a move abroad, especially to somewhere where the infrastructure is poor and you can't work.

Please believe me though when I say that I have known SO many people who have HATED the place they moved to with their husbands and who wanted to leave (with or without him!) who eventually came to love their new life. It does take a long time sometimes to find and establish friendships but once you do expat friends are like no others. They understand your life and stresses like friends back home never could.

When I start hating it here again (the heat, frustrations of doing even simple things, rampant and overt racism, mental driving etc etc etc I could go on!) a trip back to the UK sorts me out. After I've got over the excitement opf being "home" I suddenly start to see all the negatives of the UK and hear from friends about their annoyances and I do realise that - as you say - the grass is NOT necessarily greener.

Have you made freinds? DO you have any hobbies or interests out there? Have you exhausted all the possibilities for improving your situation where you are? Or are you secretly being as negative as you husband accuses you of being?

Maybe you could set a timeframe - say 3 months, where you can really make a concerted effort to try to think positive, work on your marriage and try to find things you enjoy about where you live. If after that amount of time - and really making an effort - you feel the same then have a plan for your exit.

ionysis speaks wise words, OP. I too am an expat in a hard place to live (Sharia law meaning I have to be covered when outside the house; 45 degree heat every day, a lot of my initial expat friends whom I loved have now left, because the expat life is like that) and on top of that I feel like I have let my career go. But I have grown to really like it here - the friends I have made are second to none and the perks of expat living do help (cleaner, nanny etc). Do you have any perks or is it all grind?

I don't think your DH is being particulaly supportive or fair, but I can see his frustration - he has some of the hard things to cope with too, and now a DW whom originally was all for it, and now is thinking of leaving him. He must be so stressed knowing that he has to provide for everyone and make this work, but at the same time is being resented for it because his OH has changed his mind and now hates it.

Can you volunteer? I have been volunteering at a midwifery practice and local teaching hospital, in a bid to re-train to become a midwife when we eventually return to the UK. Knowing that I am not just sitting around the house all day and actually giving something back, whilst also laying the foundations for a new career in a couple of years time (and a career which I can then take around the world on all our subsequent postings) keeps me going on the really tough days..

Good luck OP.

her mind, not his - doh!

Expatagain my sympathies. I knew more than one woman whose story resembled yours to an eerie extent when I lived in the Middle East (where some expat wives were in even more invidious situations - an automatic text would go to their husbands should a wife or maid (charming equivalence, I agree!) attempt to leave the country unaccompanied by the all-important Sponsor/Head of Household.) In such situations, marriages are often at a particularly low ebb, and it can be hard to stand back and think about what's wrong with the marriage separately to what's wrong with a miserably disempowering and isolating expat situation.

How much longer are you going to be in Africa? Can you talk seriously to your husband about returning soon? Not necessarily suggesting you should stick it out for the moment if that seems impossible, but you would be able to consider your marriage more clearly on home ground, and the obstacles to you leaving would be far fewer. Based on my own experience of living in a similar situation (despite having a wonderful partner), it puts a strain on the best relationships, and isn't a position from which I'd advocate making clear-headed decisions. Best of luck to you.

How are you feeling now Expat?

When do the children next have a school holiday, Christmas? Could you arrange a 'visit' home with the children, then once you are in the UK, you could stay.

I would agree with posters suggesting you take some time to try and fit in more and you may come to enjoy living there, but, and it's a big BUT, if you cannot discuss your concerns with your DH, I would advise you to come home.