Some Footnotes: Relationships and Moving to Another Country

I first want to say that I understand my situation is mine and may not be of interest to most people.  On the other hand when things were at their lowest I tried to find how other couples dealt with moving to another country and wasn’t able to find much on the web.  Most people said it was hard, some said the relationship would strengthen, but very few offered any real life experiences.

My partner has posted his suggestions to making a relationship work during a move, reading his blog might offer a good alternative text to my observations.

I had dreamed of moving to NZ for four years before I was able to get on the plane.  That might not seem like a long time but I’ve had quite a few dreams, first Japan, then Jordan with the Peace Corps. Considering everything four years was a chunk of time.  I had decided that I would move to NZ by myself if needed, I understood that it is unfair to expect anyone to move across the world just for a relationship.  Most Americans want very much to stay in America.  But from the beginning I REALLY hoped my partner would come with me.

I tend to be the paper pusher in the house, so our relationship was spared most of the stress until the actual packing, a huge blessing I suppose.  I had ideas that it would be somehow romantic to sell off everything we own.  Spend the last few nights in our house empty of everything but our cats.  I definitely watch to many movies.

Moving sucks, selling everything and then moving is a hundred times worse.  Selling the small stuff was somewhat tolerable, we posted adds on Craigslist and just camped outside with beers while strangers went in and took whatever they wanted for pennies.  Selling the truck and motorcycle were the beginning of what would be nine months of worrying about money.

I didn’t have that many friends in Austin, this was part of my reason for wanting to leave so badly.  But even my partner, whom had called Texas home for most of his life was having to deal with finding out just who of his ‘friends’ can’t make it to say goodbye.  It was clear that most people thought we were crazy, or at least didn’t understand why we were going.

By the time we cleared out of our house and moved in with my partners mother for the last two weeks before our flight we had lost all romantic ideas.  We were still presenting a unified front, but private time tended to be a struggle.  There was a longing for the whole thing to be over, just most to NZ and we would be happy.

I will never move to another country without a job again.  I had dreams of working as a substitute teacher for the last few months of the year, before picking up a permanent job in January.  Looking back it only took 2.5 months for my partner to pick up a job, and four months for me.  Considering we came on a visitors visa and had no contacts, we did pretty well.

These first months where hell.  Every dollar spent was painful.  But so was the boredom.  We started to resent each other.  I felt guilty for buying a cup of coffee, and then angry when my partner would buy some beer.  There seemed to be this unstated rule in the beginning that under no circumstance should we talk about how shitty we felt.  Since we weren’t really seeing NZ, because that would be a $5 bus fare, we weren’t doing anything fun, having conversation with any interesting people, or otherwise engaging ourselves in anything but our growing discomfort with each other.

As the months went on my partner talked of going home.  Out of those conversations came the idea that we would both stick it out for four months, then part ways if things were still not working.   I’ve heard many times growing up that some extremely high percentage of marriages end due to, or during financial hardship.  Looking back I don’t know how that percentage is not 100%.  Being broke sucks, but being broke with another person is much worse.

Not my Dream Home

About a month into the move we met another American couple that had made the move the same time as us.  They also seemed to be at the same stage of a troubled relationship that we were at.  It was great to talk with her.  We were experiencing many of the same problems, the money, drinking, boredom, general annoyances.  Though as time went on I became certain that my partner was attracted to her.  I knew then that it was just that he wasn’t going though all the stress with her, but I still couldn’t get it out of my head.

When my partner got a job it only made things slightly better since we were not spending so much time together.  But again money issues were always there.  He was making the money so it made sense that he got to spend it.  I was making nothing, so I should sit down and shut up.  We never brought it up in discussion until months later, but that’s what I felt like at the time. I thought once one of us got a job things would begin to improve but that was not the case, until both of use were working, spending time away from home, and had our own money to spend things continued to suck.

It has now been nine months since my partner and I moved to NZ.  We have had many conversations about splitting up in that time.  In the end it came down to us forgiving each other.  To say that we treated each other horribly during our moving experience would be an understatement.  Neither of use had ever been through something so stressful, and we both cracked.

Before the move I read a bunch of blogs from people that had moved to another country.  Many of them mentioned it taking at least six months before things settle down.  I thought this was ridiculous. Even during the hard times I thought I was settling in faster then those people.  I was wrong, it has taken me nine months.

I won’t say that this move has made my relationship with my partner stronger.  The only thing that has gotten us to this point is the decision to stick it out for at least four months.  We have both since agreed that all wrongs during that time were do to extreme conditions, conditions we will never allow ourselves to be in again.

Moving to another country sucked.  Moving to another country with my partner made our relationship suck.  But things become normal again.  There was a light at the end of the tunnel, it was just much further away then I first imagined.

My First Week of School

Like every young kid I was nervous to show up to my first day of school.  Would I be able to find my friends in the playground?  Was I sure I knew where the bathrooms were?  Would I cry when I had to get in front of class?

First days of school are never that enjoyable for teacher or student, but I have to say this was one of my best.  My schedule is fairly light this term. I have one to two hours free most days because I’m a first year NZ teacher (7 year US teacher, but you get a lighter load your first year teaching in NZ).  The students were smaller than I was expecting.  I’d heard rumors that my new school was a tough one, but the people that perpetuated these stories have never taught in a S. Austin charter school.

The students have an extreme dress code.  Junior girls (age 13-15) wear private school knee length skirts (which Travis disapprovingly refers to as “pedo-skirts”) and collared shirts.  No jewelry, hair clips (unless they are black, gray, or green), only gold or silver stud earrings. Shoes must be black leather sandals.  The boys are much the same with shorts instead of skirts.  The senior girls (ages 16-18) have ankle length skirts, and boys wear green shirt jackets and a red tie.  The teachers on the other hand can wear jeans and a nice shirt.  I found this a strange double standard, but since jeans and a few nice shirts is all I have I will not complain.

The students were very friendly.  I can’t walk anywhere during class break without receiving a dozen or two greetings from my students.  This is a good feeling, but it makes getting from one building to another in a hurry difficult.   I was warned before I moved here that the normal passive-aggressiveness that passes as normal in most of American culture is not present in NZ.  This is very obvious when you talk to a NZ youth.  It caught me by surprise when putting students in assigned seats; if two students didn’t like each other they BOTH let me know immediately.  Quickly the class would confirm that the students hate each other and should not sit next to one another.  In an American school I would have told them, “Too bad.” and to stop complaining, but the Kiwi students weren’t complaining. They were just telling the hard, cold truth.  So I learned to make seating changes quickly and go on with the lesson.

Overall, the first two weeks of school went great.  I had a few lessons that didn’t quite make it. Sometimes it was my planning. Sometimes it was because a class was trying to push the limits, but I still feel this is the best start to a school year I have ever had.

It also helped that at the end of the two weeks I got my first paycheck.  Nothing mind-blowing since my pervious teaching experience hasn’t been assessed and counted towards my experience, but a paycheck none the less.

week 2

We have quickly settled into our apartment. We got a queen size blowup mattress, it takes up one of our two bedrooms. The other bedroom has been made into a ghetto-fabulous office, complete with a camping chair, desk (aka upside down suitcase) and an empty box as a mouse table. Really, the place is one big room with some sliding doors sectioning parts of it off.
We got a really good deal on the place because the owner is trying to sell it. That means Asians will randomly stop by and look at the place. If they’ve never seen American underwear, they have now.
Our days have been spent sleeping in late, playing the Warlords: Battlecry 3 on Travis’s laptop, exploring the city, setting up a bank account and internet access, getting a membership at a video rental store, getting a library card, applying for temporary work permits, riding the bus to the grocery store, shopping for work clothes and drinking espresso. Travis went to one job interview. It went well, but people seem hesitant to hire him because they don’t want to deal with immigration paperwork when they can just hire somebody local without the hassle. We also went to a Diwali festival. It’s some Indian holiday. And by “festival” I mean “ 3 rows of tents all selling the same Henna tattoos, spicy food, and gold chains.

week 1

Our first full day was spent finding food and getting an idea where we were. The cab driver that dropped us off the first day told us that the last ten days had been cold and rainy, something that continued for several days. Therefore, randomly walking around neighborhoods searching for a grocery store (or dairy as they call it here) was less than uplifting.
After stopping several times for a warm cup of cappuccino (Travis quickly realized asking for a simple black coffee won’t get you anywhere) we found a dairy, the place we will spend most our income. I was expecting high prices after living in Hawai’i. I understand most stuff has to be shipped in, but it still hurt to go through the isles. Travis was crushed at the price of beer and cigarettes. I guess Kiwi’s are big on sin taxes here. The tax on alcohol is proportional to the amount of liquor in it, so spirits cost several small children, and the hope for finding a cheep, high-alcohol content beer like we all did in college is never going to happen. We were also stumped at the deli. I asked for one gram of ham, the lady just stared at me. It turns one slice of ham is 100 grams, who knew.
Day two was spent in a café stealing their wireless Internet. I applied for all the teaching jobs I could find and Travis looked for places to live. We found a few that were pretty far away from the city, but we figured there are buses. It was a few hours after we set up to see some rooms for rent in the boonies that I was told the busses were on strike, go figure. Flash back to my first week in Hawaii. Plus, later that day I had a meeting with a teachers’ placement agency and the guy told us we should get a place in town, good advice but who’s going to pay the rent?
The next few days were consumed with looking for a place to live. We were paid up in the hostel until Saturday morning, and had little desire to extend our stay. I wanted to shower in a bathroom, not a kitchen. We walked FOREVER to look at several places, just outside the city. It was getting very clear that “cheap” was not an option. Either we lived in a hostel situation with no privacy, or we anteed up and got a studio in the city. You pay rent by the week here, that’s so you don’t get cheaper rent during the longer months. I wish I thought of that.
As the week wore on Travis and I were both getting pretty stressed out. We had met no one to talk to, our dreams of cheep living had been crushed, and while I hope we didn’t smell we defiantly didn’t feel clean. Our last day in the hostel we finally found a place to live. It is only temporary, the owner is trying to sell the place, but it was really big for what we are paying for it. In other words is bigger then 10 x10ft. and we moved in that night. I showered.