Don't want to live in Dublin forever

LegacyUser

HI all. Here is my silly problem. I am from a small town in the South West. This is where I grew up and this is where my family and most of my friends still are. I moved to Dublin two years ago with my GF (who is also from home) for a change of scene.
I have a good job up here but its not the kind of job that is in demand shall we say outside of Dublin.
The thing is, I am pushing on now, 30's, and cant get the future out of my head. I dont want to stay here forever and Im afraid that if I moved home it would be very hard to find work. All my friends have houses but I am still renting in Dublin.
Should I move now and build up a career down there, or should I stay in Dublin for a few more years and make enough money to buy a house down there and then move? I just signed a 12month contract in our new flat so I kinda have to stick that out.
I guess I should get over this anxiety and just go with the flow. I suppose I could open a small business down there some time. I drive my GF mad with all this talk and its not fair on her.
Here is a break down of my problems

-Dublin is ok for a few years but I dont want to make it my permanent home
-Am I waisting valuable career building time by working a job which I know there will never be that kind of work down home
-I feel like a waister at the age of early 30's cos I dont own a house
-I am afraid to ask my GF to marry me cos I have no direction in life and I feel like Ill be stuck like this for a long time

-HELP!

JuliusCaesar

UnregHELPHELP wrote: »

-Dublin is ok for a few years but I dont want to make it my permanent home
-Am I waisting valuable career building time by working a job which I know there will never be that kind of work down home
-I feel like a waister at the age of early 30's cos I dont own a house
-I am afraid to ask my GF to marry me cos I have no direction in life and I feel like Ill be stuck like this for a long time

What's more important - the job/career you have or the location of your home?
Where does your girlfriend want to live?
Do the two of you want to stay together?
How important is it for you to own a home?

Why don't you a) either sit down and talk with her about what she wants out of life which may help you clarify what you want b) do the same with someone who has no stake in what you do eg career guidance/counsellor c) write down a long list of pros and cons for each option?

echosound

OK long winded reply coming up :

sit down with your GF and do out a list of pros and cons to both Dublin and your hometown.
Talk about what you want to be doing in 5 yrs or 10 yrs time.

Can you take a holiday from work and spend some time down home - often if you're only visiting for a day or the weekend, you'll naturally have a great time as it's a flurry of meeting friends and family without the drudgery of dreary work.

Evaluate what is important to you career wise - if you spend a long time building up your career in Dublin, you may be even more reluctant to leave in a few years time and have less transferable skills to boot if you need to change tack career wise to get work in your hometown. Is your career very important to you, or would you think you'd be happy doing something else, so long as you were enjoying where you lived and having family etc close by?

I have experience in a similar-ish situation - I lived in Dublin for 5 years (not originally from Dublin, but the south east) and although my line of work in virtually non-existant outside of Dublin, I eventually chose quality of life over career. Moved back home, have never regretted the decision, as I too never saw Dublin as somewhere to "end up" in permanently.

Took a hit in terms of paypacket, though personally speaking you can't buy happiness and friends and family etc. so the lower wages while not making me jump for joy, were acceptable. Also, the pluses such as not having to commute in nightmare traffic for hours on end to work, proximity of countryside and beaches, slightly slower pace of life, etc made up for it. Since then I have totally moved out of my field of work as there is virtually nothing going outside of Dublin, and am happy working where-ever, so long as it pays the bills etc.

As for your other worries, such as not owning a house or worrying about marriage etc - try not to panic over these things.

Buying a house at the moment, or even in the past 2 years or so would have been crazy anyway considering the market is about to go under, I'm almost around the same age as you and I've made a conscious decision not to buy yet, as the rent we pay for a lovely house is peanuts, whereas if we bought a house in our pricerange, we'd end up living in some godawful shoebox in a godawful area, with a mortgage of approx double what we pay out in rent, and zero change left over to have a life with, so save your money for now while you rent, watch your friends who own houses pay a fortune to the banks for the next 35 odd years, and buy your dream house in a few year's time when it's right for you.

As for not knowing what direction you life will take, this is all part and parcel of being human, unfortunately! Who knows what you could end up doing in a few year's time, chances are whatever it is you'd like it to be with your GF at your side so if you want to propose, go ahead and do it! Perhaps your GF doesn't know what she'll be doing in 10 yrs time either, and anyway half the fun is finding that out together. Eg - since I met my husband, we've moved house 4 times, changed jobs probably as many times between us, and he's gone back to college to completely retrain in a different field as a mature student. We're only together 5 years BTW!
Point I'm trying to make is you could end up doing something completely unexpected at some stage in the future, like go back to college, or change fields, or move back home, and there's no point being afraid to ask your GF to marry you if that's what you want, find out where you're going together