I am trying very hard not to be homesick, and realistically know our life is here, but I am dreading going home in 2 days

[QuintessentiallyQS]

I know I will have a month at home, and feel bitter sweet sadness, yet happyness at being there, and sad that our lives cant be there.

Most of the time I am ok with how life is panning out for us in the UK, but every time I go home it is an emotional roller coaster.

I have friends and family. Plenty of people to see and meet up with. Friends to go out for meals with, visit, and people inviting us for dinner/drinks. My oldest son have plenty of good friends that want to meet up with him.

We go mountain trekking, bbq'ing on the beach, wild camping with our tents, etc. With friends.

Living there is not an option. Living there did not really work out as well as we hoped, for many reasons. Our boys are reasonably settled here. Ds1 starting Y8 in a good independent, and ds2 starting Y5 in Catholic primary.
DH has good job. I bumble along, doing an MBA at a uni back home through distance learning, and try to be happy. Try to exercise, and work part time.

I dont know what to do with my life. I feel unable to rejoin the work force properly full time, and now I just wonder if should just throw in the towel and become an eternal student of long distance courses just to keep my brain ticking over.

I feel so torn! It is like there is nothing for me, and I am a passenger in my own life, facilitating all the living and fulfillment from dh and dc.

I am also from abroad, and used to find life in the UK quite hard, and had a selfish husband, and two kids, abd was depressed but did not want to take pills.

I wanted no pills, as the problem was not in my head, it was in my life, and something needed changing.

DH kept long work hours, then spent entire weekends golfing, leaving me to hold the babies yet again

I was homesick to a degree it physically hurt at times (like stomach cramps)

I had a sort of nervous breakdown and smashed plates and a chair, and having a big crisis sort of helped to really sit down and renegotiate our lives. DH had not realised I wS THAT unhappy.

If you think about it, everything can change. House, jobs, kids schools, studies, right now you are putting up too many barriers. You could live more rural, your kids could go to a new school, your DH could change job (really. Everyone can if they want), you could give the boring mba a break etc.

We moved to Hampshire, got the kids into nice state schools, got a house with a garden, a house where you can walk out of the door and be straight in the countryside (that was a requirement!), then there is the coast, the New Forest etc.

We negotiated that as I had spent 7 years unhappy in a city, to make life easier for DH, it was time for HIM to give a bit (ie commute longer) for my sake.

As to his selfishness and his bloody golfing, we negotiated that no, like you, I did not wNt to take away his fun, but I had a right to just as much time off on my own. And I took it. I tried a few things and really got into tennis, made friends there too.

Being in a small village community has been great. i now have local friends and support. We carpool like mad, to school and to clubs, it is so much easier if you have a mum network. This takes time to develop, but is a lifesaver.

I have a local part time job, not ideal, but am enjoying it.

Just wanted to say that you are not stuck. You can change everything. Sit down and renegotiate your life.

It is too important not to.

I think charity administration is a great idea for you. With your experience, you might practically be better off volunteering at a charity to get into that scene rather than finishing the MBA. If you're going to stay in London at least one of the advantages is that there's a ton of charities around.

I completely agree with your instinct that this has nothing to do with the GP. I wouldn't bother with one at all for anything psychological, mental, or emotional, short of depression that makes it physically impossible to get out of bed or stop yourself from self harming. You are an effective, clever person in a situation that is unhealthy for you. this has nothing to do with the GP. GPs randomly dish out pills which are, for moderate depression, less effective than exercise and cause greater problems in the long term.

London is a very hard place to live without having an INSANE amount of money = other resources (time, for instance = money). The school run, for instance. Dicking about in your car (stop start, stop start) for all that time every day must be absolutely draining in the medium / long term.

Basically your husband has equipped himself with the resources he needs to thrive while living in London, at your expense. It is your time and your energy and your emotional energy that is being poured into the project of livability in London, for him, leaving you with no livability left. In other words - he has made himself rich enough to live in London, by taking from you the resources that you need.

Hesterton, I really disagree with your analysis. All these little life affirming things cannot - cannot - be enjoyed while you are sick at heart with a situation that has too many ongoing things that take from you and not enough that nourish you. I used to try to talk myself into that mindset but I just cannot bear the density of London. The fact, for instance, that if you do one thing on a Saturday - just one thing - it is such a huge enormous faff that the day is over by the time you have finished it. (If you don't have a car you can't carry heavy things; you do have a car, you can't park, and half the time you are driving more slowly than walking pace, with the other drivers behaving like monumental aggressive arseholes; you find yourself trapped in nose to tail traffic on an urban red route when your child announces "I need a poo"; if you have a pram you can't manage it on the tube, so you use a sling, so you have backache and are exhausted before you have got a quarter of the way to where you are going; etc etc)

Then you go to bed and someone is sitting on the wall outside with a tinny phone playing music and talking at the top of their voice

It just never ends. If you get on with it, and enjoy it, then fine, but if you don't there is no point in suggesting mindfulness type smiley solutions to untenable situations. Which I think are damaging when they make a person feel that their responses to a situation are not legitimate

I've got to "know" your posts, too, Quint, and don't think you come across as superior or unpleasant. You sound nice, but exhausted and worn out just now.

You are a fish out of water and you need to change the water.

Give yourself a finite amount of time to change your social environment. A year to take up heritage volunteering, get back into photography, make new friends etc. Really go for it so you're not short-changing yourself.

But if it hasn't worked, you need to change your geographical environment.

This doesn't seem to be a LTB situation. Your husband is probably exhausted too, but using his downtime and his work as escapism from the daily grind (which includes childcare). You don't have an escape activity: two exercise classes a week isn't going to give you a proper break.

Just as a sort of experiment -- have a look at these charity volunteering opportunities in London, see if any of them make you perk up:

Idealist charity volunteer

For example CARE is looking for an admin volunteer for its humanitarian office in Vauxhall

This is the kind of thing that could lead to proper jobs down the road. You need to get your confidence back, of course you can get a job, you just need a strategy.

Basically your husband has equipped himself with the resources he needs to thrive while living in London, at your expense. It is your time and your energy and your emotional energy that is being poured into the project of livability in London, for him, leaving you with no livability left. In other words - he has made himself rich enough to live in London, by taking from you the resources that you need.

I agree with this 1000%

Very profoundly put

I havent really blocked all the suggestions. They are food for thought and whilst I know outright that some wont work, I am working out in my mind how can make it fit in. I have felt in a limbo for so many years with the upheavals of moving back and forth and my parents situation that I think I have lost the ability to put myself first, and it takes a while to work out what I actually want.

I agree I need to cancel trampolining, I just have not confirmed that yet.
I am thinking about the others, like what to do about the school run.

On occasion dh can take ds2 with him and cycle to school, but that means I have to pick him and bike up, but that is fine. Maybe we could have a specific day per week where this is done. The school run is a major chore. We cant carpool, there are two other parents living nearby, who could share the journey, but they are not keen. I suggested it, but they just evaded the question, and we have not spoken about it again. If they were keen I would jump at it.

Ds1 is in secondary, he goes to school on his own, and takes the bus to his activities.

I exercise outdoors. I have just given up my gym membership as I cant motivate myself for classes indoors. I do a boot camp style class which is similar to Military Fitness. I sometimes go for walks on my own.

I feel encouraged to think that I could possibly find work in charity administration. The thought that I can do that makes the prospect of volunteering for a charity much more beneficial and worthwhile.

I cant just up and move, whether it is Banstead, Hampshire, Guildford. Scotland or the Lakes, or Norway. Ds2 loves his school, and he has a nice group of friends. Ds1 is looking forward to starting Year 8 despite not enjoying Y7 that much. He is on the waiting list for CBt, and have gone for a couple of counselling sessions. We have some issues, or rather he has, that needs addressing, all related to having experienced bullying in many schools. The psychiatrist recommends stability, so not sure a new place would work. It has been amazing to see him with his old friends here, how he has blossomed and behaves like a normal, confident boy.

I have to go, my dad is calling.

ok Hesterton, maybe mindfulness proper is not what you were talking about (actually I am a big fan of mindfullness!) but I just mean that sometimes it is very annoying when you feel that someone is doing a head tilty thing of saying "it's not the thing, it's how you think about the thing" when actually IT IS THE GODDAMNED THING

On the link I posted, have a look as well at the Jobs section -- see what kind of skills they want for anything that looks appealing, and figure out how you might get whatever is missing.

There is a lot of competition for charity jobs but a lot of people who want to work for charities won't have the practical experience that you have -- that's a real edge. What you need is experience in the charity sector, which is where volunteering would be useful.

Thanks for your insights Hesterton and your offer of coffee, I would very much like that. Feel free to PM me. I will investigate the book.

I do understand what you say in drawing strength from small things in life. I love May, because of the cherry blossom and Magnolia. Just the other morning I decided to bring my breakfast to the garden to listen to the birds, I had such a good experience sitting outside in the nice weather. I asked dh to take a moment to sit down and just chill, but he was in a rush to get to work. I should be in a rush to get to school, but the moment was there.

It is something with nature that sort of resets my senses, it is like hair conditioning, but for the soul.

I need to be able to find that in London/England too. Which I did, in Alfriston, the New Forest, and walking along the coast to Eastborne. The landscape is amazing.

I have to run a couple of errands for my dad.

This thread is very me me me. Thank you, for helping me explore me.

I think my key skills would be admin, marketing, digital/search engine and content marketing and search engine optimization, it security policy, social media and strategy. A bit of a pick and mix and potato salad, really.

That is a very enviable set of competencies!

Lots of charities are trying to improve their digital strategies and online media presences so this would be very useful.

You should really see if your friend in HR would sit with you and craft a strong narrative for your experience and skills create a really solid CV because tbh it sounds like you will downplay a lot of your abilities and that's a shame.

Also, if you want to be really crafty the Norwegian government gives loads of money to charities and NGOs all over Europe if you can track down some charities in London that get Norwegian funding, they might be especially keen to have a Norwegian around.

Hello joining this thread massively late but just wanted to say OP that I am another one in your situation, exactly the same I am split between two countries. Lots of good advice already, I hope it is helping you.
Just wanted to say you must stop beating yourself up about it, this is a question of identity and values rather than being depressed. Everyone needs different things to be happy and we are not just plants that you can sow anywhere and they will thrive. Different plants need different conditions. you need a plan A and a plan B.
My plan A , to move back to the UK full time, failed spectacularly and now I am on plan B which is to spend as much time there as possible. I also have a Plan C which is a bit of a long shot but am ever the optimist. Just make plans cos you don't have to stay in the UK forever, the fjords and mountains will still be there when your DCs have left school.

I think Vezzie speaks a lot of sense here. I just want to acknowledge her post as I think it's been overlooked

Best of luck QS, I don't envy your situation and I hope you reach peace with it / the jeans to change it in time.

jeans?!?! I meant means. Autocorrect has a lot to answer of these days.

Agree that Vezzie's post was dead on.

Quint you are living a half life, and you only get one shot at it. If you aren't at the destination you'd like to be, you could at least be planning the journey.

Vezzie:
All these little life affirming things cannot - cannot - be enjoyed while you are sick at heart with a situation that has too many ongoing things that take from you and not enough that nourish you.

I agree. I have been in a similar situation to Quint's, and all those little things did was make me cry, literally. They only served to provide stark relief to the reality.

Hesterton -- I want to add I think the Kelly book is fantastic.

I think that FirstStory & Beanstalk are both looking for staff at the moment - they both have websites. The Samaritans have an office in Putney if you feel you would like to work for them, I think some of their shifts are about 2 ½ hours long but unpaid.

first story voluntary role they only want someone to come in one day a week