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Confusion and depression

Quiettall
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member

Earlier this year, I took the opportunity to work for three months as a volunteer on an overseas aid project in Vietnam. I have been retired for a few years and find it is not fulfilling enough to just be at home, do a few voluntary committee board roles, and play in the garden.

My wife insisted we move back to Brisbane to be close to her family, but since moving here, we have only made contact with 2 out of 8 other siblings, due to ongoing ill-feeling over distribution of her mother's estate.

I had an interesting time in Vietnam. I felt socially isolated due to language and culture issues, but stuck it out and achieved what I set out to do and more. However, while there, I met a woman 20 years younger and over the last 8 weeks I was there developed a strong and intimate bond. I felt younger, more alive and could see a future which was much more rewarding than sitting around here listening to grievances about family, her illnesses, and watching the world go by.

I've been back 2 weeks, and tried to share my experiences with my wife and her family, but there is little if any interest on their part. I feel very lost and alone and constantly thinking about going back to Vietnam to reconnect with my partner there and try to assimilate into Vietnamese life.

I've tried showing warmth and interest in my wife, but there is not much in return. My head says stay and try to work things out. My heart says follow your instincts and take the positives of my experiences and see if I can make something of them back in Vietnam.

I dont know which way to turn, as it is easier and more comfortable from a financial and lifestyle to stay here and pretend nothing happened, though my mind constantly replays the good parts of my Hanoi experience. I try to counteract that by reminding myself of the challenges I had with language, culture etc.

23 Replies 23

Thanks Mary. The trip I was talking about is a slow and easy drive down the east coast and then call into family in Canberra. The trip would take probably between 10-12 days, giving us plenty of time to smell the roses.

The work I was doing was working with poor isolated community villages helping them to renovate the simple dwellings to provide homestay accommodation for increasing numbers of backpackers and adventure tourists. It also meant spending time training them in basic hospitality skills. This has had a huge flow-on effect, as many of the local households have decided to work together to improve their own cottages, and the income generated into the local villlages help to pay for schooling and health services for the kids as well. Hence, why in one way I'd like to go back to complete the task, but given what has happened, it is best I leave it to someone else to follow the blueprint I have mapped out.

I am thinking through a range of voluntary options locally, and will not rush into making hasty decisions at this stage. It also impacts on me that I have a wife who believes that voluntary work should be totally cost-free for me, so when I spent some of our money (all my funds have gone into a joint account, with me not having any independent savings) while in Vietnam adding extra clothes and basic school/educational gear etc for the village kids, and taking myself off to see some of the surrounding country during weekends etc, that was a "no-no" in her books. So my scope is more limited than first thought.

That work sounds exciting and profoundly satisfying and rewarding. Well done. I can see why you want to return to this work.

Why not a separate bank account for your earnings? I have found that voluntary work is never cost free. You give out of love for the well-being of the people you help. I think it is called 'paying it forward'. Perhaps you can interest your wife in volunteer work in Brisbane when you return. What are her strengths and interests?

Have fun. I will be in Melbourne at the end of the week and staying with my son. Long time no see.

Mary

Amanda_2222
Community Member
I am very like you with my relationship with my family and husband and my other friends and I need to have a brake without the hurt that I am feeling and I need to go somewhere where I can just be what I want to do I always get headaches and I got asthma as well and it is not helping me

Hi Amanda

I totally get where you are coming from. I am feeling very hurt and tired but determined to move forward.

My wife confronted me with a spreadsheet last night itemising everythng I had spent out of the joint account while away on overseas aid assignment. She has made it clear if I do any volunteer work, it should cost absolutely nothing to us, which is totally unreasonable. This is despite her squirreling her mothers inheritance away in a seperate account under her own name, promising to contribute out of it to the three overseas trips she asked me to organise last year, but I have not seen anything. Then she is constantly at doctors seeking advice for this, that and the other, and any costs for that or her cooking/craft fetishes come out of the joint account.

Other advisers have said I need to get a seperate account so I have some control over my own finances and activities, which I intend to do.

Chin up...there is always sunshine after clouds, or at least that is what I am hoping for.