Lifelines: Anne Chilton on downsizing

Published on Sunday 29 January 2012 12:10

Q: WE used to live in a lovely house with fantastic neighbours. We had lived in the same place for 30 years. Everyone knew, and was considerate of, one another.

No one would make a noise late at night or park in front of someone else’s driveway. Then things changed, the recession hit and we have had to sell up and move to somewhere smaller. I don’t mind that the house is smaller. What I am finding so difficult is the new neighbours and the area we now live in. My husband seems to have adapted quite well and chats to people when he is out but I don’t want to. I just sit watching daytime TV crying most of the time.

AC: When we stay in one place for a long time we get used to the things around us: not just the people who live near us but the whole rhythm of life in that area or place; the time people come in and go out; who parks their car where; who has family visiting. This can create a security in our life. Change causes ripples in that rhythm. It sounds as if the move has created a great wave of loss and sadness within you; sadness for what you had and an anxiety because nothing seems safe in the rhythm of your life. It isn’t just the house that has changed. I guess your whole life is different to how it was before, a jumble of things that were once ordered. You say your husband has started to adapt to the move and is making new contacts; it sounds as though he is trying to fit into this new life. Have you thought of asking him to help you? When he goes out, why not go with him? He has had to make changes as well. Maybe you can help each other with the losses you have experienced and make the changes that will help you get back into this new rhythm.

ALL OR NOTHING?

Q: I quit work a while ago because I couldn’t stand the stress. I worked long hours in a demanding job, which I loved, but lost my last relationship because of it. So I gave it all up and decided I would live a much simpler life. I’d always been interested in working for myself so I sold up and started again in a new place. I am now living in an idyllic setting and running an online business which is giving me enough to live on. I have made friends and am in a new relationship, so why do I hanker after the life I had before? I’m feeling more and more dissatisfied. My friends all thought I was crazy to give up what I had before and I’m beginning to wonder if they were right. Have I made the wrong decision? My old boss has asked if I would like to go back to work for him and, though I am not sure, I am tempted.

AC: I wonder how many people, like you, have thought a different lifestyle would answer the problems in their lives. How often do people deal with a problem by just transferring it somewhere else? It seems as if you dealt with your stressful life, which wasn’t giving you what you wanted, by just changing location. This sort of solution will work for a while. However, it rarely addresses the underlying cause of the problem. In your case this seems to be stress-related. I wonder what you really want out of life? You know what you don’t want but do you know what you do want? Sometimes we just take a lifestyle ‘off the shelf’, like a cottage in the country, without really considering if that is what we actually need. From what you have said you enjoyed working in a demanding environment but maybe not at the pace you were working. Maybe you need the buzz of something that stretches you. It doesn’t mean you have made the wrong decision in moving, just that you haven’t found all the elements yet to make it work for you. You say some elements of your life are great. Maybe you need to find something that will stretch you, just not to breaking point. Maybe you could look at working part time and finding a balance that works for you.

• Anne Chilton is joint head of professional practice at Relationships Scotland (www.relationships-scotland.org.uk)

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