Resentful?

[Guest]

When I moved back to Scotland I wasn't planning on spending a couple of days a week in London - I loathed the place more than Perth when I lived there! Actually I am feeling quite affectionate towards it now which is interesting in itself but what really struck me was how at peace I felt even crammed into a tube in the rush hour, compared to how I hated commuting in Perth.

 

I think maybe I resented the fact that I had given so much up for a 'better life' only to find it wasn't at all and was far less accepting of Perth's faults (& it has many) than I certainly am now of the UK's faults. A bit like leaving your partner for someone else only to find they're not so perfect either - I've been married 24 years but my divorced friends seem far less tolerant the second (and third) time around. I was intolerant of Perth's faults because I had given a lot up for it.

 

I know the 'better life' thing is stupid and no doubt plenty would say I was doomed to 'failure' expecting a better life but why else would a successful middle age women with a family, friends and financial security give it all up to move to another country if it wasn't for something 'better'?

 

I have yet to experience any kind of 'reverse culture shock' although the fact I'm seeing London positively probably does mean this is still the honeymoon phase.

[Sapphire]

I think the majority of us think, we will have a better life, in Aus.

In hindsight,I know we were being very naive,and I think we had watched too many WDU programmes.

We did expect, very different to the reality , and I think we are maybe more intolerant,to Aus's faults, as we too gave up an awful lot to come here.

We were not well off,but we were very happy in the UK, and we had a good life, but we felt Aus could give us more.We believed that we could come here, work hard and have the big house, and be surrounded by wildlife, and everything we dreamed of, on top of what we already had in the UK.

But the reality was very different.We "rob Peter,to pay Paul", constantly.We never for one minute realised how expensive everything was here,How we would constantly struggle to keep our heads above water,How we would miss the ease of just booking theatre tickets and going into London,How we would miss shopping, and going out for a nice meal.

Being here has made us realise, how much we did not appreciate what we had in the UK for sure.

[simmo]

London: the best city in the world.

30. London

"Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists."

Boswell: Life

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77. London; Scotland

Johnson: "The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the world." Boswell: "The only disadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another." Johnson: "Yes, Sir, but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." Boswell: "Sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desart." Johnson: "Sir, you have desart enough in Scotland."

Boswell: Life

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238. London

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

Boswell: Life

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239. London

"A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves."

Boswell: Life

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260. London; Stimulation

I mentioned to him that I had become very weary in a company where I heard not a single intellectual sentence, except "that a man who had been settled ten years in Minorca was become a much inferiour man to what he was in London, because a man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place." Johnson: "A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place, whose mind is enlarged only because he has lived in a large place: but what is got by books and thinking is preserved in a narrow place as well as in a large place. A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca."

Boswell: Life

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352. London

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can shew."

Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

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[Quoll]

I dunno LR! I never got the "better life" thingie anyway! If you came from a war torn third world country then, yes, possibly, but from one first world country to another - swings and roundabouts really!

 

I don't think I resent taking the opportunities that came our way but I certainly did resent the DH changing the goalposts and trapping me there. Now 2 yrs later and "free" I'm still in the honeymoon phase!!!

 

 

I used to live in London as a student and always saw it as a bit of adventure even then - I still love it! My son, who lived there for 4 yrs and has a house there with his wife says that after London he can't see himself living in Aus ever again. I'm off on Friday o the huge craft show at Ally Pally (couldn't do that in Canberra where our local craft show was minuscule in comparison!)

[Thistle13]

I actually can't remember the reason/s why I came to Oz in 1988..... People ask and I say..better weather, more prospects for my sons etc, but I think I just wanted the adventure of trying something different. I hated it, but I did rt want to go back with my tail between my legs, the whole town were there to wave us off. I did t want to be a failure. So I stuck it out, and just became accustomed to my new life, but I never really felt like I belonged. So here I am 25 yrs later, planning on going back to Scotland, can't wait. I don't regret coming and giving it a go, but I wish I'd gone back years ago.

[Guest]

I feel we stayed just about the right time, long enough to know we weren't just in culture shock/homesick but short enough to pick up our lives pretty much as they were - friends say it's like we haven't been away or are just back from holiday and that's how it feels - other than a sense of absolute contentment that I didn't have before. When little things go wrong it doesn't bother me now - it could be worse I could be in Australia LOL.

[ali]

I feel we stayed just about the right time, long enough to know we weren't just in culture shock/homesick but short enough to pick up our lives pretty much as they were - friends say it's like we haven't been away or are just back from holiday and that's how it feels - other than a sense of absolute contentment that I didn't have before. When little things go wrong it doesn't bother me now - it could be worse I could be in Australia LOL.

 

Good to hear you're feeling so settled.

[Chortlepuss]

I actually can't remember the reason/s why I came to Oz in 1988..... People ask and I say..better weather, more prospects for my sons etc, but I think I just wanted the adventure of trying something different. I hated it, but I did rt want to go back with my tail between my legs, the whole town were there to wave us off. I did t want to be a failure. So I stuck it out, and just became accustomed to my new life, but I never really felt like I belonged. So here I am 25 yrs later, planning on going back to Scotland, can't wait. I don't regret coming and giving it a go, but I wish I'd gone back years ago.

 

Just think how much you'll appreciate it on your return! Loving these posts. I feel pretty guilty about indifference to Oz when I think of how many people want to come here. But don't dislike it - just a quiet realisation that where I'm from suits what I want in life better, even if I do have to buy a better raincoat when I return!