I hate where we live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one put a gun to your head to move here. If you were so against it, you should have never married your significant other.

It's her husband's fault of course. She has no autonomy or choice. It's all bad,don't you see, and she was forced into the situation by her misogynist husband and by the patriarchy. She's just s feeble victim.

Ok. I feel like I’m in the same situation. I have a job that I can do pretty much anywhere and can support myself and my kids.
I moved here expecting to be here only a couple of years, but now DH won’t move back.
He’s told me that if I take the kids and leave he will divorce me, fight me for custody, and make the kids’ lives miserable.

What are my options? I feel like I have no autonomy.

I’m not in the DC area but I’m in your same position. I would love to move but my spouse said no and I’m forever stuck. He works from home and it’s infuriating.

[Anonymous]

DC is a great place to live. I moved here in the mid-1980s and we raised our kids here. Good schools. Lots of free events. Museums. Rock Creek Park. Bike trails and hiking trails galore. Shenandoah National Park is nearby, as is the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We’ve moved away several times for work but always returned here.

It’s not DC. It’s you.

[Anonymous]

It’s crazy expensive and crowded here. Traffic is horrible. I can’t wait to leave either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is a great place to live. I moved here in the mid-1980s and we raised our kids here. Good schools. Lots of free events. Museums. Rock Creek Park. Bike trails and hiking trails galore. Shenandoah National Park is nearby, as is the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We’ve moved away several times for work but always returned here.

It’s not DC. It’s you.

LOL you have a different definition of “nearby” than those of us who know what it’s like to not live your life in a car!

The things you listed about DC are the things people settle for to cope with all of the horrible aspects: the COL, the traffic, the summer swamp weather, the winter cold winds and civilization ending snow flurries, and of course, the people.

I’m glad you like it, but DC is not everyone’s cup of tea. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moved here 25 years ago, girlfriend joined me, became my wife and we have 3 kids. She’s hated Alexandria since 2003 and never lets me forget it. Either move or keep cheerful but don’t complain about it every 72 hours.

Life in your town has gone on without you and your absence has been filled, friends and family have new responsibilities and tighter social circles, your return to Pottersville may not be what you were expecting.
What you may really be missing is being childless and 27.

You've put up with your spouses griping for 25 years? Sit her down and gently but firmly say, "I love you but you need to stop whining about this. Make the best of it or don't. If you really hate it here, there's the door. Don't let it hit you on the rear end on your way out."

I bet that if he would actually let her and the 3 kids go, they would be out the door.

As it is, he’s using the kids to trap her into staying with him.

No, she couldn't just take the kids with her. You're missing the point that these sorts of conflicts aren't really about where they live at all. That's just a symptom of the overall relationship dysfunction and inability to resolve conflicts. PP says he has listened to his wife complain about it for 25 years, but he doesn't want to move. The issue needs to be resolved one way or the other. She needs to stop complaining, or he needs to learn to accept her complaining as the cost of not moving. But him complaining about her complaining is pointless

I think complaining is by far the lesser evil in that relationship. So your wife has made it clear for 25 GD years that she hates it here and it has never once occurred to you to even entertain the possibility of leaving? This guy sounds abusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wherever you go, there you are.

Until you can relocate work on finding happiness here. It can’t all be location based. Go see your family if you’re homesick. Fill the cup. Find ways to connect from afar AND how to ground yourself here. Fixating on what you don’t have will make everything worse.

I really hate this phrase, because place matters. I’ve lived in two places that I really didn’t like and once I moved it made a huge difference, it was like a weight was taken off my shoulders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moved here 25 years ago, girlfriend joined me, became my wife and we have 3 kids. She’s hated Alexandria since 2003 and never lets me forget it. Either move or keep cheerful but don’t complain about it every 72 hours.

Life in your town has gone on without you and your absence has been filled, friends and family have new responsibilities and tighter social circles, your return to Pottersville may not be what you were expecting.
What you may really be missing is being childless and 27.

You've put up with your spouses griping for 25 years? Sit her down and gently but firmly say, "I love you but you need to stop whining about this. Make the best of it or don't. If you really hate it here, there's the door. Don't let it hit you on the rear end on your way out."

I bet that if he would actually let her and the 3 kids go, they would be out the door.

As it is, he’s using the kids to trap her into staying with him.

No, she couldn't just take the kids with her. You're missing the point that these sorts of conflicts aren't really about where they live at all. That's just a symptom of the overall relationship dysfunction and inability to resolve conflicts. PP says he has listened to his wife complain about it for 25 years, but he doesn't want to move. The issue needs to be resolved one way or the other. She needs to stop complaining, or he needs to learn to accept her complaining as the cost of not moving. But him complaining about her complaining is pointless

I think complaining is by far the lesser evil in that relationship. So your wife has made it clear for 25 GD years that she hates it here and it has never once occurred to you to even entertain the possibility of leaving? This guy sounds abusive.

+1.
Couldn’t you at least look for possible job opportunities near where she wants to move? Even if it doesn’t pan out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We both hate where we live but due to the housing market we feel very very trapped. We have a one bedroom apartment in the city of Alexandria it's terrible. I hate my life, my cars been broken into 3 times, the doors on our complex used to lock but have been unlocked and open for 9 months now. Sewer bill and water bill for one month was over $140. The neighbors we share walls with are rude jerks so I have to listen to music and video games 24/7, smell weed smoke, hear people yelling all the time, it's really unbelievable we find ourselves in this situation. Mind blowing really. We are trapped.

You're not trapped.

Make a plan for change and the execute it.

Stop engaging in learned helplessness. You simply try to renounce personal responsibility for the situation you are in.

Prepare to make some real sacrifices if you need to, to start making positive changes,and stop your belly aching.

Why are you so rude to this pp? Geeze who pissed in your Cheerios?

This is just typical DCUM. The majority of posters are normal people, but there are the small few who post stuff like this. I figure they’re either mentally ill, derive joy out of being mean, and/or are triggered by certain things that then make them go off like this. If the site weren’t anonymous (simply required user names like Reddit) I think the tone on here would be much different. I also think it’s possible a large portion of the over the top responses are made by a small portion of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We both hate where we live but due to the housing market we feel very very trapped. We have a one bedroom apartment in the city of Alexandria it's terrible. I hate my life, my cars been broken into 3 times, the doors on our complex used to lock but have been unlocked and open for 9 months now. Sewer bill and water bill for one month was over $140. The neighbors we share walls with are rude jerks so I have to listen to music and video games 24/7, smell weed smoke, hear people yelling all the time, it's really unbelievable we find ourselves in this situation. Mind blowing really. We are trapped.

Move! I also hated living in an apartment and sharing walls. I had moved in with my now DH and we shared his apartment because the rent was more reasonable. But I hated the location and ultimately, being in an apartment. We moved to the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is anybody else in this boat? I’m not sure what I’m looking for here…

What do you do if you’re married with kids and hate where you live, but your spouse likes it.

My husband and I have been together for well over a decade. We met in my hometown at college. After graduating we moved here - this put us smack dab in the middle of both of our families, with no support around. I’ve stayed here because I love him, and because pre-COVID he said that we would have to stay here because this was a major hub for his line of work.

We now have 2 kids and a house. And I have, at best, tolerated living here. Most of the time, I’m miserable, unable to wean off anti-depressants because I’m so unhappy and anxious here. I’ve joined clubs, church, gotten involved in my kids’ school - but it’s exhausting to make friends, only to have them move back home after a few years. I miss my family — our major source of help and support. A member of my immediate family has had numerous health issues over the last few years which has only fed into my desire to leave.

Since COVID, many of the jobs in my husband’s sector have gone remote. And they’re not going back to in-office. Since his job was the main factor for us staying, I have now begun begging to move away from here. Except he likes it here. He refuses to move, saying he “can’t wrap his head around it” and that “we had said years ago that we would stay here” even though the condition holding us here no longer exists. When I told him that I hated it here and that I couldn’t see myself weaning from anti-depressants while still living here, he was upset. I love him and my kids so much… but I don’t know how I’m going to keep living in this area with no end in sight.

Why didn't you post this in Real Estate?
It would've been much more suitable posted there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel the same, OP. I thought I'd feel more settled here in the DC area after having kids, but that hasn't panned out. It feels just as transitory and transactional as it always has--maybe even more so post-pandemic. All but one of my friends has moved away over the years. My kids' friends and classmates move away continually or change schools at the drop of a hat. It feels unstable and unfulfilling. I don't expect the same childhood experience for my kids that I had in suburbia, but it would be nice to have a middle ground--a place with a good combination of lifers and newer residents, where people view their community as their home rather than some temporary stopping point, where random encounters with the public are at least civil, where there isn't such scarcity of resources/high demand for kid-related activities that try-outs or registration requires strategic, long-term planning and ends up resembling the Hunger Games. I'm Type A and even I can no longer tolerate all of the other Type A jerks around here. I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole of rising crime and the cost of living.

I WANT to like it here. There are so many reasons to like the DC area in theory. And I did very much like it at one point. The issues that bother me now didn't bother me as much in years past I guess. On a daily basis, it's rarely enjoyable anymore and it's becoming difficult to tolerate. But I feel somewhat stuck for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I don't like change even if I think I'd like to drop everything and move across the country.

The transient nature of this area is a major reason I'm unhappy as well. Between that and the high cost of living, it can just be hard to feel settled here.

My DD's closest friend and her family (who we were all close to and spent a lot of time socializing with) moved away last year and it's been really hard. One thing I recently realized is that I think that experience has actually shifted how I think about other friends and meeting new people. I mentally prepare myself for anyone to leave, because they might. I know so many people who talk about it as a possibility, especially due to school issues (we live in DC and so many people struggle with MS/HS here) or cost of living. Plus now crime is a big factor.

And the more you get used to the idea that anyone around you might announce they are leaving tomorrow, the harder it is to feel invested in this area. I have felt my own desire to move mounting over the years and with these friends moving away, I think it pushed it over the edge.

Someone upthread talked about poverty being contagious and that might be true. But in DC, being transient and not really committed to a place is contagious too. Once you've said goodbye to enough friends you start to wonder what the point is in staying.

See I feel for you but at the same time I kind of don’t. I am a lifer. My family is from here and no where else in the world. Just here. I didn’t experience all these people leaving. Sure after high school people did but growing up that wasn’t super common. There are a LOT of people that have been here our whole lives. I feel like transplants hang out with other transplants and ultimately experience this. If you branched out and met people that are from here or have lived here for decades you wouldn’t feel like this. Growing up at my church there were transplants that left later on in life for retirement but they are still connected because they aligned themselves to a community that is from here. So they always feel this is their home base. They come back and church is still here, people still live on the same street, etc. if you aren’t from here you need to find communities like this. Because I can tell you there are soooo many black, white, Hispanic, Asian

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel the same, OP. I thought I'd feel more settled here in the DC area after having kids, but that hasn't panned out. It feels just as transitory and transactional as it always has--maybe even more so post-pandemic. All but one of my friends has moved away over the years. My kids' friends and classmates move away continually or change schools at the drop of a hat. It feels unstable and unfulfilling. I don't expect the same childhood experience for my kids that I had in suburbia, but it would be nice to have a middle ground--a place with a good combination of lifers and newer residents, where people view their community as their home rather than some temporary stopping point, where random encounters with the public are at least civil, where there isn't such scarcity of resources/high demand for kid-related activities that try-outs or registration requires strategic, long-term planning and ends up resembling the Hunger Games. I'm Type A and even I can no longer tolerate all of the other Type A jerks around here. I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole of rising crime and the cost of living.

I WANT to like it here. There are so many reasons to like the DC area in theory. And I did very much like it at one point. The issues that bother me now didn't bother me as much in years past I guess. On a daily basis, it's rarely enjoyable anymore and it's becoming difficult to tolerate. But I feel somewhat stuck for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I don't like change even if I think I'd like to drop everything and move across the country.

The transient nature of this area is a major reason I'm unhappy as well. Between that and the high cost of living, it can just be hard to feel settled here.

My DD's closest friend and her family (who we were all close to and spent a lot of time socializing with) moved away last year and it's been really hard. One thing I recently realized is that I think that experience has actually shifted how I think about other friends and meeting new people. I mentally prepare myself for anyone to leave, because they might. I know so many people who talk about it as a possibility, especially due to school issues (we live in DC and so many people struggle with MS/HS here) or cost of living. Plus now crime is a big factor.

And the more you get used to the idea that anyone around you might announce they are leaving tomorrow, the harder it is to feel invested in this area. I have felt my own desire to move mounting over the years and with these friends moving away, I think it pushed it over the edge.

Someone upthread talked about poverty being contagious and that might be true. But in DC, being transient and not really committed to a place is contagious too. Once you've said goodbye to enough friends you start to wonder what the point is in staying.

See I feel for you but at the same time I kind of don’t. I am a lifer. My family is from here and no where else in the world. Just here. I didn’t experience all these people leaving. Sure after high school people did but growing up that wasn’t super common. There are a LOT of people that have been here our whole lives. I feel like transplants hang out with other transplants and ultimately experience this. If you branched out and met people that are from here or have lived here for decades you wouldn’t feel like this. Growing up at my church there were transplants that left later on in life for retirement but they are still connected because they aligned themselves to a community that is from here. So they always feel this is their home base. They come back and church is still here, people still live on the same street, etc. if you aren’t from here you need to find communities like this. Because I can tell you there are soooo many black, white, Hispanic, Asian

DP, wanted to add I married a Northern VA lifer and we’re always running into people he knows who have stayed in the area, so there are plenty of people here long term. We live in Arlington now and aside from the military families don’t see a ton of turnover. Most people I talk to feel lucky to have been able to afford a home here before the post-COVID price spikes and really like our neighborhood schools/walkability/access to DC when we want to go out in the city. If anything, we have people leaving fliers wanting to buy our houses and none of us want to move!

Now that doesn’t help anyone trying to buy now when prices are high. But in general I think suburbs may be a little less transient because you don’t have people eventually moving for more space or better schools or whatever. I’m sure there are plenty of long haul DC-ers as well (I’m not hating on living in the city), but I think it’s much more expensive to stay in the city long term. My only friends who are still there make $$$ for private and beautiful homes in leafy/safe parts of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel the same, OP. I thought I'd feel more settled here in the DC area after having kids, but that hasn't panned out. It feels just as transitory and transactional as it always has--maybe even more so post-pandemic. All but one of my friends has moved away over the years. My kids' friends and classmates move away continually or change schools at the drop of a hat. It feels unstable and unfulfilling. I don't expect the same childhood experience for my kids that I had in suburbia, but it would be nice to have a middle ground--a place with a good combination of lifers and newer residents, where people view their community as their home rather than some temporary stopping point, where random encounters with the public are at least civil, where there isn't such scarcity of resources/high demand for kid-related activities that try-outs or registration requires strategic, long-term planning and ends up resembling the Hunger Games. I'm Type A and even I can no longer tolerate all of the other Type A jerks around here. I'm not even going to go down the rabbit hole of rising crime and the cost of living.

I WANT to like it here. There are so many reasons to like the DC area in theory. And I did very much like it at one point. The issues that bother me now didn't bother me as much in years past I guess. On a daily basis, it's rarely enjoyable anymore and it's becoming difficult to tolerate. But I feel somewhat stuck for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I don't like change even if I think I'd like to drop everything and move across the country.

The transient nature of this area is a major reason I'm unhappy as well. Between that and the high cost of living, it can just be hard to feel settled here.

My DD's closest friend and her family (who we were all close to and spent a lot of time socializing with) moved away last year and it's been really hard. One thing I recently realized is that I think that experience has actually shifted how I think about other friends and meeting new people. I mentally prepare myself for anyone to leave, because they might. I know so many people who talk about it as a possibility, especially due to school issues (we live in DC and so many people struggle with MS/HS here) or cost of living. Plus now crime is a big factor.

And the more you get used to the idea that anyone around you might announce they are leaving tomorrow, the harder it is to feel invested in this area. I have felt my own desire to move mounting over the years and with these friends moving away, I think it pushed it over the edge.

Someone upthread talked about poverty being contagious and that might be true. But in DC, being transient and not really committed to a place is contagious too. Once you've said goodbye to enough friends you start to wonder what the point is in staying.

See I feel for you but at the same time I kind of don’t. I am a lifer. My family is from here and no where else in the world. Just here. I didn’t experience all these people leaving. Sure after high school people did but growing up that wasn’t super common. There are a LOT of people that have been here our whole lives. I feel like transplants hang out with other transplants and ultimately experience this. If you branched out and met people that are from here or have lived here for decades you wouldn’t feel like this. Growing up at my church there were transplants that left later on in life for retirement but they are still connected because they aligned themselves to a community that is from here. So they always feel this is their home base. They come back and church is still here, people still live on the same street, etc. if you aren’t from here you need to find communities like this. Because I can tell you there are soooo many black, white, Hispanic, Asian

I mean, you have lived here your whole life so you don't understand what it's like to be a transplant. Yes transplants tend to hang out with other transplants, but that's not because we don't want to hang out with lifers, it's because it's harder to start friendships with people who already have their whole family plus a bunch of friends from living here for 20+ years. I have a handful of friends who are lifers and I don't know them as well or see them as much because they already have lots of other people in their lives.

Also, a number of the DMV natives I have known over the years have moved away. My two closest friends from grad school were from DC and the close in Maryland suburbs, and they now live in NYC and Boston. It's not like transplants are the only people who move away from here. There are lots of people who grow up here, go to school here, even get married or start families here, but then move away for work or other reasons.

I'm not religious so joining a church doesn't make sense for me but I can see how that would help people find more community.

You are basically lecturing me for not being from here. Well, I can't change that. If the key to happiness in DC is "be from here" well, maybe I really should move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wherever you go, there you are.

Until you can relocate work on finding happiness here. It can’t all be location based. Go see your family if you’re homesick. Fill the cup. Find ways to connect from afar AND how to ground yourself here. Fixating on what you don’t have will make everything worse.

I really hate this phrase, because place matters. I’ve lived in two places that I really didn’t like and once I moved it made a huge difference, it was like a weight was taken off my shoulders.

+1. I'm sure these posters would be fine moving to remote North Dakota, after all, they can find happiness anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We both hate where we live but due to the housing market we feel very very trapped. We have a one bedroom apartment in the city of Alexandria it's terrible. I hate my life, my cars been broken into 3 times, the doors on our complex used to lock but have been unlocked and open for 9 months now. Sewer bill and water bill for one month was over $140. The neighbors we share walls with are rude jerks so I have to listen to music and video games 24/7, smell weed smoke, hear people yelling all the time, it's really unbelievable we find ourselves in this situation. Mind blowing really. We are trapped.

You're not trapped.

Make a plan for change and the execute it.

Stop engaging in learned helplessness. You simply try to renounce personal responsibility for the situation you are in.

Prepare to make some real sacrifices if you need to, to start making positive changes,and stop your belly aching.

Why are you so rude to this pp? Geeze who pissed in your Cheerios?

This is just typical DCUM. The majority of posters are normal people, but there are the small few who post stuff like this. I figure they’re either mentally ill, derive joy out of being mean, and/or are triggered by certain things that then make them go off like this. If the site weren’t anonymous (simply required user names like Reddit) I think the tone on here would be much different. I also think it’s possible a large portion of the over the top responses are made by a small portion of people.

+1

This exactly. I know one of these posters, and they are as angry IRL as you would suspect (perhaps more).