Relationship relocation: what happens when your dream life abroad turns into a nightmare? Must Read

In 2005 my husband and I quit our jobs in the city to pursue our dream life in a wrecked ruin in the South of France, which he was going to renovate, while I wrote books, and where we were planning to start a family. Friends were jealous of us; we should’ve been having the time of our lives.
In fact, our dream life was an unmitigated disaster. The renovation inched forward painfully, with lots of setbacks. At the same time we found out that we couldn’t conceive naturally, and had to have fertility
 
treatment. Months passed without a glimmer of a pregnancy and we found it harder and harder to talk to each other. For years we’d complained about not
seeing enough of each other, but now it was just the two of us 24/7, living in a soggy tent, cut off from our family and friends.
We had this vision of our idyllic sun-filled future in the French countryside, doing up the house and growing fruit in our picturesque garden. We thought that should have been enough. So being unhappy, with each other, and with what we were doing, just seemed wrong. We’d given up ‘real’ work, and without the distractions of our careers, we just put more and more pressure on each other.
We were bitterly unhappy, but we didn’t want to admit it, and carried on stubbornly. This was our dream, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t until we were back in London on a visit, sitting in the same restaurant which catered our wedding, that my husband said out loud what we’d both been thinking.
“We hate each other…”
We both looked stunned, I was angry with him for saying it out loud but I knew he was right. We both agreed we needed to do something before things got any worse so I got in touch with Relate and we started sessions the following week.
It turned out that we didn’t need a divorce – we needed a place where we could express ourselves without anger or judgement. With all the big changes we’d made in our lives something had got lost along the way, we needed to remember that we still loved each other. Although we found counselling a bit embarrassing and difficult at times, it really helped.
Ironically we started fertility treatment around the same time as we started counselling, our family thought we were mad. We knew it wasn’t great timing but we were both desperate not to lose the appointment. Going through awkward fertility procedures by day and talking about our relationship by night somehow worked. We felt close to each other again and by the time we conceived our first child we felt ready to end our counselling sessions.
Our experience isn’t that unusual. Big changes come with big expectations, and not everyone finds them easy to deal with. The truth is that just the scenery changes and we’re still the same people wherever we are. Problems at home don’t disappear when we’re somewhere else. In fact, everything appears in sharper focus, when you don’t have your everyday cares to deal with, and your everyday-self nagging you to do the laundry and get on with your job.
A relationship is work too. It’s something you have to work at, wherever you are. But that’s okay. It’s worth it.