# Cautionary tales



## Claire la richarde (Jul 6, 2009)

From the Daily Mail, admittedly, and also about France, but worth reading if you're considering moving abroad, if only to learn from other people's experiences / mistakes.

The expat dream killed our marriages: Don't pack your bags and sell up until you've read these three salutary stories | Mail Online


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Claire la richarde said:


> From the Daily Mail, admittedly, and also about France, but worth reading if you're considering moving abroad, if only to learn from other people's experiences / mistakes.
> 
> The expat dream killed our marriages: Don't pack your bags and sell up until you've read these three salutary stories | Mail Online


yes

sadly I know of quite a few couples who have split up since they came here to Spain (or gone to other countries)

I suspect that at least a few of them would have split anyway though


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## Tallulah (Feb 16, 2009)

xabiachica said:


> yes
> 
> 
> I suspect that at least a few of them would have split anyway though


Completely agree with you Xabiachica. 

I can't understand why anyone would go to another country (assuming) they can run the business from over there, only to find "a mass of red tape" as the wife in the article put it. Who the hell moves a business with such little knowledge of where they're moving it to?? Ludicrous. And as for "large houses, BMWs and £600 on personal trainers a month" turning into sardines on bread and where's my next meal coming from - as my OH has always said, what you make means nothing as disposable income means everything and living to a certain standard also means nothing if you're earning month to month. Let's face it, it ain't complicated ... one gets through 3k per month let's say, if 3k per month isn't coming in wherever you might be, then all you have is your pot of money. And as we all know in Expatland, that pot better be bloody big if zero or as good as is what's coming in and you plan on "living the dream". Dreams have to be based on realities/practicalities. It's sad but money, vulgar as it is to talk about it, is everything when you have none. 

I also find the fact that stranded out in the middle of practically nowhere when she'd spend pretty much most of her time on the road with her job pretty telling as well. Stress is part of any relationship - get to a point where you're 24/7 in each others company is only gonna highlight that - especially in a foreign country with only each other for support and little/no-one else. 

Another interesting snippet from that is the lady who went to stay with her friend taking her kids with her after a huge row with her OH. When she came back, she found he had gone and the line appears to be "he abandoned us". OK, we don't know the details, but this at least requires a little bit of explanation or it could be seen that she had abandoned him - without clarification that she'd only gone for a few days or whatever to let off steam. Let's face it, we could really do with the OH's version here for it (the article) to stand up on its own.


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## dunmovin (Dec 19, 2008)

this happens all the time. When I lived in Hong Kong we used to call it "Husband's got yellow fever" they would leave their wives for the "exotic" woman (Chinese or Filipino) and most likely regret it very soon. I suppose to lesser extent, it also happens in Europe, but here it more likelythat they couple were just unprepared for the differences that living abroad makes to their life


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

I agree with you, Tally. I felt no sympathy for any of those women. To a large extent they are architects of their own misfortunes, as the saying goes. Money seems to be the decisive factor in these break-ups, either too much or too little.
Since we left the UK, we've seen the money we thought would give us an easy life forever drop in value by a third, like many here. Currently we're living the 'good life' but if we run on empty, as it were, we'll downsize and because we value each other's company and our long relationship more than money in the bank or a posh house, we'll be together in our hut in the campo, poor but happy.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

The part I like best are



> A day later, he rang to say his heart was set on a £110,000 four-bedroom house in Ruffec, complete with stables and barns





> Shortly afterwards, she put her house on the market for £172,000. Two years on, it remains unsold


So they only want more then a 50% gain? And times are tough? How many people would be thrilled to come out even?


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## lynn (Sep 25, 2008)

Whilst I do have some sympathy for the women interviewed in the article (and lets face it, they have been prepared to have their painful histories published for the world to see, so they must have been quite desperate), it is the children caught up in these situations that I feel most sorry for. It is a hard enough business for children to adapt to living in another country, and for them to witness the deterioration of their parents' relationship and eventual divorce, must be quite damaging without the usual network of family, friends and school around them. How on earth are they to thrive when they are left living with a mother who is so desperately unhappy and doesn't want to even be there anymore? One minute the children are being told that they are moving to another country for a better life, then they are apparently a prisoner in that very same environment without their father.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

lynn said:


> Whilst I do have some sympathy for the women interviewed in the article (and lets face it, they have been prepared to have their painful histories published for the world to see, so they must have been quite desperate), it is the children caught up in these situations that I feel most sorry for. It is a hard enough business for children to adapt to living in another country, and for them to witness the deterioration of their parents' relationship and eventual divorce, must be quite damaging without the usual network of family, friends and school around them. How on earth are they to thrive when they are left living with a mother who is so desperately unhappy and doesn't want to even be there anymore? One minute the children are being told that they are moving to another country for a better life, then they are apparently a prisoner in that very same environment without their father.


They should have shown more forethought and responsibility. I know it's easy to say that in retrospect but I bet you wouldn't have behaved as they did.
A lot of selfishness lurking there.
And I should imagine they got paid well by the DM. I'd be really desperate before I had my woes splashed all over the paper for all to see.
I take after my mother there. Once, when viewing a Bronze Age skeleton in a museum, she remarked that she wouldn't like to be displayed in a case for all to peer at....
Even after four thousand or so years.....


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