Don't pack your bags until you've read this

[letrangere]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1276829/The-expat-dream-killed-marriages-Dont-pack-bags-sell-youve-read-salutary-stories.html

I only looked in this evening to see if you were discussing this. Surely everyone knows at least one lady in a similar situation?

[woolybanana]

And chaps dear! Don't be sexist!

And dogs and cats and rabbits and horses and goats and sheep and kids and Normie![6]

[NickP]

I suppose that nobody in the UK has marriage problems then? If you have an unsound relationship it doesn't matter where you live. I find it amazing that people blame France for their shortcomings, especially when you emigrate under financed and obviously have not researched where you are going to live. Typical daily mail journalism always looking for the worst angle.

[Dog]

I liked the bit where she says she used to pay £600 a month for a personal trainer but since her aged husband did a runner she has lost 5 stone . That's a remarkable saving!

[Will]

Woolly, if you read it all - and the comments underneath - you will see that it's all the fault of these women's pathetic husbands that their French dreams failed.

[woolybanana]

Yes, Will, I did read it and wondered if it wasn't a dating site, judging by the fotos used. I remain single, willingly, in case my partner should lugger off and leave me with Sabrina, the dogs, the duck, the snake as well as the bill for their personal trainers. But then, have you ever tried buying trainers for a snake!!!!![6]

On the other hand, I do know a few couples stuck together here who would be better apart. United by a single pension, a property that has seriously devalued and a love of the bottle!

[AnOther]

Yawwwnnnnn.

Same old crud as previously dished up by the populist press, I'm disappointed at myself for reading it through.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Will"]  it's all the fault of these women's pathetic husbands [/quote]Comme d'hab....[Www]

 

[Jimmy]

Wife says to be destitute she has some fancy boots. What's wrong with sardines anyway?

[suein56]

[quote user="Jimmy"]What's wrong with sardines anyway?[/quote]

Nothing at all. Sardines on toast make an excellent, quick and nourishing lunch at an economical price - surely everyone knows that?

Sue

[Russethouse]

Nothing very French about tinned sardines on toast [:)]

[mint]

Don't you believe it, sardines are yummy.

Coincidentally, I've cooked sardines this evening.  Here's how:

few cloves garlic, bung it in a pan with approx 5 oz olive oil and the same of white wine.

Whilst that's bubbling away and reducing, cook spaghetti for 2 ( I used wholemeal).

At same time, put some pine nuts in to dry roast, either in a frying pan or in the oven. 

Then open 2 tins of sardines in tomato sauce (I like no skin and no bones) and put it in the first pan.  Throw in fistful of chopped parsely.

Drain the pasta and put it into the pan with the sauce.  Toss together, sprinkle on the pine nuts.

The dish is called Peasants' Spaghetti.  We hope we are not peasants in the derogatory sense of the phrase but the dish is filling, cheap and cheerful and a great fall back when you don't know what the hell else to cook for an OH who doesn't eat meat![:P]

[suein56]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Nothing very French about tinned sardines on toast [:)][/quote]

Rubbish IMO. These are 'Sardines a l'huile de Tournesol' bought from my very local Super U and it says on the tin: Préparées avec des Sardines fraîches' so what more could you ask for? I live here 100% of the time and ocasionally at lunchtimes I need to eat easy prepared food, and this fits the bill. Bought in France, eaten in France nuff said.

Sue [;-)]

[Patf]

Fresh sardines are nicer, and cheaper.

I'm surprised at you, l'étrangère, reading the Daily Mail [:D] Or is it tongue-in-cheek?

[suein56]

[quote user="Patf"]Fresh sardines are nicer, and cheaper.[/quote]

Maybe, but surely that depends on how far you have to go to buy them? The tin of sardines was already in my larder.

Sue

[Russethouse]

Sue, I can buy French tinned sardines in Waitrose.....nothing special, we even have Cornish sardines (so labelled) now.. tasty, but nothing I associate with a particular country (well maybe in my case, Portugal  [:)])

[Chancer]

I read the article and thought good on you to some of those guys, especially this one

I didn’t feel Peter was making enough effort to enjoy our new life and he seemed to lose his identity.’ Finally, at the beginning of 2008, Maria-Louise came home to an empty house and a note from her husband.

She recalls: ‘It simply said “I’ve gone”. He had gone back to the UK.

How much more do you expect a guy of 75 to give love?

He certainly found the motivation to leave the marriage and the country which takes an awfull lot of doing at that age.

 

[LEO]

Wow!

Maria-Louise Sawyer certainly looks " the business"

[letrangere]

Even taking into account the inevitable tabloid press exaggeration, there are things mentioned by all women that ring true with many of us surely?  Upping sticks and moving to the middle of nowhere for retirement, couples who previously only met up in the evening after work or at weekends now stuck together 24/7.  This could well be a problem for some, and where do you go to get a break from each other if you live miles from anywhere?  (As one woman rightly asks.)   Then there's the language issue again.  We all know couples where one partner speaks the language far better than the other, which can cause resentment on the part of the one always having to do the talking and loneliness/frustration on the part of the one who can't communicate.  I know thousands of us do it and many do it extremely well but if you take a detached look at it, starting to learn a foreign language from scratch at 50+ isn't the easiest of things to do, especially if there's the additional pressure to achieve a reasonably good degree of fluency.  Spending more - invariably lots more - than planned renovating the dream house.  Most of us have been there and, in addition to this, we know how miserable it is living month in, month out in the mess especially if we're also aware of our precious capital being eaten into even further.  Add to the equation missing family and friends and things from home, no steady income, the struggle with the bureaucracy and it's no wonder that moving abroad adds such a strain on relationships. 

The Mail has a massive female readership and I'd like to hope that at least some of those currently toying with making the move do sit up and take note of a few of the points mentioned here.  I'm not normally much of a fan of this newspaper but I for once felt this was quite a good piece.

[AnOther]

I have to say that in my own case, where throughout 42 years of marriage I have always worked away from home for periods ranging from days to many months at a go, and still do for 2 weeks out of 5, and with my OH working full time until we left UK, being together as much as we are has not proved a problem in the least and we both keenly look forward to when I do actually retire and am here 24/7/365 [:D]

That said we don't, and never have, lived in each others pockets and don't intend to in the future. We both have homebased and outside interests so will not be sitting around watching omnibus Corrie and Eastenders whilst supping endless cups of tea and waiting to die !

[Will]

Yes, it was an interesting piece and not bad for a Mail Group newspaper (bearing in mind that in a former life my job title was managing editor in another part of the DM Group). The discussion here is equally interesting - even the tangential bit about sardines. Of course, as I alluded earlier, being a 'FeMail' article the blame had to be laid with the husbands. Oh that real life was that simple (or even that it was possible to hold one half of a married partnership responsible for things that go wrong).

AnO's point is another good one. For the last three and a bit years we have lived with an enforced separation, and although it has been hard a lot of the time we have tried to concentrate on the positive aspects, such as they are, and have managed to survive it pretty well. I think the major positive is that we have had to live our own lives, rather than any sort of enforced togetherness in a place (rural France) where the opportunities to pursue separate interests are rather limited. When we are together on a more permanent basis once again then we will be keen to remain sane by each having our own lives as well as our valued life together - and for many reasons, including those made only too clear in the article, that won't be full time in France.