Dealing with marital problems

Miranda Ingram interviewed Mim Kay and Elaine Douglas to help with this article but no couples were identified to Miranda by Mim or Elaine and client confidentiality was upheld throughout. The couples that Miranda Ingram interviewed have no connection with Counselling In France nor have they been seen as clients by either Mim or Elaine.
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From the Times Online website by Miranda Ingram

"With cheaper property and a better climate, France seems to offer an idyllic life for thousands of Britons. But the move can easily end in tears — and the divorce courts"

LAWRENCE and Sarah Pilgrim, both in their forties, were determined to make their marriage work, and moving to France was to be the fresh start they needed. Cracks were appearing in the relationship for the usual, depressingly common, reasons. A huge mortgage meant that Lawrence, a marketing director, was working long hours and Sarah was also working almost full-time as a PA, a job that she hated. When they were together at home they were too stressed or exhausted to do anything but niggle. Quality time with their four children, aged between 4 and 11, was almost non-existent.

Like many Brits, the Pilgrims realised that by selling their home in Britain — in their case a detached house in the West Midlands — they could buy a bigger property in France, with a huge garden, without a mortgage. Lawrence could work less, Sarah not at all and they would spend endless happy hours en famille.

So in August 2003 they joined the great British exodus and moved to an old farmhouse in the Charente to live the life that, statistics apparently show, most workaholic Britons dream about.

This summer, however, less than two years after waving goodbye to their envious British neighbours, the Pilgrims are heading back to England — and the divorce courts.

Nor are they alone. As the craze for a place in the sun drives more and more British families across the Channel, the incidence of separation, divorce and depression among expats is also on the rise.

“People see that they can sell their flat in Twickenham and buy a cheap property with lots of space, and think all their problems will be solved,” says Mim Kay, a British counsellor working in Provence. “They rush out here without thinking what their daily life is going to be like. It can be great to work less or not at all, but most people still need to keep busy.”

At first the Pilgrims were happy, Lawrence says. “I was lucky to find a marketing job with a French swimming pool company. I could earn enough to keep us comfortable while working far fewer hours. We always stopped for lunch, I’d usually be home before 6pm and I’d never work Sundays. I started to pick up some basic French and make friends.”

At school, the couple’s children — Toby, Grace, Alicia and Tally — also made friends quickly and by the end of their first year were reasonably fluent French speakers.

The more her husband and children embraced their new lives, however, the more Sarah felt left out of the family’s great new life.

“I was stuck at home all day in a half-renovated house with no one to talk to and nothing to do. The mothers at school were perfectly friendly but I couldn’t join any of their conversations as I don’t speak French. I tried to join things such as an aerobics class but I couldn’t make friends because of the language problem. I couldn’t even get a part-time job or do voluntary work just to get out of the house . The highlight of my week was a French lesson with the local farmer’s daughter. There were other Brits around, of course, but they were all very expat types. I didn’t come to France just to sit around discussing how much warmer it is in the Charente than the Cotswolds. All people ever ask each other is ‘how long have you been in France?’ and ‘what was it you used to do? ’ as if your life is already over.”

Lawrence, according to Sarah, kept telling her to “get out” and do something, to start a business or a group. “But everything has been thought of already, or else the language and the regulations make it too complicated. In the end I was watching satellite English TV all day and thinking about all the things I could have been doing, or friends I could have been seeing, if I were at home.”

Sarah, according to Lawrence, grew more listless and depressed until they were fighting more than in England. He blamed her for not making an effort and she blamed him for dragging her out to France and then abandoning her. By their second Christmas Sarah was already making plans to return to Britain.

The second year is the hardest, according to Elaine Douglas, a chartered psychologist based in Dordogne. “The honeymoon period is over and reality kicks in.”

Douglas, an associate member of the British Psychological Society, and Mim Kay, who worked for Relate, the relationship guidance organisation, for ten years, are among a number of counsellors who have joined Counselling in France to answer a growing need for telephone, online and face-to-face advice for British expats in France.

“Loss of career status, being thrown into each other’s company 24/7, having a reduced income and doing up a property can all be a huge strain on top of the problems of dealing with the French bureaucracy and language,” says Douglas.

“The language barrier is a bigger problem than people anticipate,” says Kay. “You may be able to pick up enough to make some small talk, but unless your French is good you are not going to have meaningful conversations and even then you won’t have a shared culture of books, theatre, plays.”

Even solid relationships can crack under the unexpected challenge. Jeremy and Alison Pelham, who had always dreamt of moving to France to start a family, believed their move five years ago would be easy because Alison spoke fluent French. But her language skills shifted the family dynamics dramatically.

“Before we came here Jeremy was very much the boss, the doer. When we arrived, suddenly I had to do everything — phone calls, dealing with bureaucracy and the builders,” says Alison.

“When the money started running out I was the only one who could get a job. Jeremy was totally dependent on me — even if we were invited out for dinner he couldn’t make small talk without using me as an interpreter. He was mooching about at home feeling frustrated and I was going mad because I never got time in the house by myself. We both felt trapped, and I ended up having a — very brief — fling with a Frenchman I met at work. We have come through and our daughter was born last year, but it was a very gloomy time.”

Counselling in France’s own research shows that men and women will often adapt differently at different stages of their lives. Younger women, especially with school-age children, adapt and build up networks of friends more easily than men this age who often suffer from the loss of their career or status. Older women, however, especially those who have left family and friends behind, suffer emotionally more and are constantly taking cheap flights back to the UK while their husbands are happy doing DIY, playing golf or sitting in the garden.

“Men can be quite happy to find someone to have a drink with, or just to enjoy the sunshine and simply not work as hard,” Kay says. “But this is often not enough for women who always want something more out of life. Women, especially, miss their network of friends.”

Don and Jean Timms, in their early sixties and now living in Normandy, are typical. “I talk to my daughter every day — maybe two or three times since she had a baby,” Jean says. “Don’s in heaven here, fiddling with the house, planning the garden. But I miss having things to do out of the house — voluntary work or a painting class. But I can’t do anything because of the language. I go back to England every few weeks, but Don hasn’t been back once since we moved here four years ago.”

While moving to France can be a wonderful opportunity to change your life, Douglas recommends that couples continue to look at their goals and aspirations. “Are you both working towards the same result? Have the goalposts changed? You need to know what you are each thinking and feeling and work out a compromise if things are adrift.

“If you are working together in a business or doing up a property, build in some treats. Look out for activities in which you can take part — it’s a good way to meet people and gives you breathing space from each other.”

Kay urges: “Above all, prepare. I’ve even met people who think it is sunny all year in Provence and get upset when they find it’s cold in winter.”