Alison20

It's a bit of a long story.. Left England in 1990 when I was 23, off to see the world. Met my husband in Miami, Florida and stayed for 30 years. Became a citizen, raised our children and had great friends. We would visit the UK frequently, although in later years more often to help ailing parents, then one day I got the dreaded phone call and lost my Dad. Mum is still alive.
After 30 years of brain washing our kids and husband that life would be wonderful if we moved to the UK, well we moved, in 2020. The kids who are both dual citizens left before us, they are now 27 and 29. My husband had to apply for a visa which took a long time during COVID.
We sold pretty much everything. After 7 months in a short term let we moved to South west Wales. Definitely not a part of our plan. We had wanted to closer to family and Mum in East Sussex but prices were out of our reach and so here we are 3.5 years later. Wales is beautiful but so unbelievably wet! We brought an old house and I started a small business. My husband got a job after 18 months. Pay here is shockingly low by comparison to England and the US.
We hadn't been back to Florida until this month. If we both come home and instantly start looking at houses for sale in Florida what does that tell you? We had a real heart to heart and both decided that we don't feel at home here. Perhaps if we could have afforded a place closer to family, where I grew up and things were more familiar.
When we went back we both just felt so comfortable in our surroundings. It's hard to explain; a bit like coming home after a long trip and getting in your own bed. After 3.5 yrs in rural Wales I still don't feel much like I belong. The people are lovely here but I haven't made any real friends. I find myself trying to not start every sentence with, "in Florida....". I've been through major hurricanes, had goats and a pig who used to get in our pool (which then had to emptied and cleaned), lobster diving, fishing on the reef, it's just unrelateable!
We've spent a lot of money making this move. My husband has just got his further leave to remain and it will be a whole lot more to get his citizenship.
I thought I'd see my family more but to be honest I see them less! We drive 6 hours each way on a weekend as opposed to the week or two when we would come over fro the US. My nieces have visited once in the time we've been here. We see are kids as they are only 1.5 hours away.

Reasons to stay:
Our grown kids are here in Wales.
GRandkids might come along, we wouldn't be a part of their lives.
My Mum is in England and 81, and may need help.
We are £££'s into the visa process.
We have a house and a dog.
Will we grow apart from our kids?
I love the mosquito free summer but it doesn't seem to last long.
I haven't made friends, lots of much older people with a friend group already.
Reasons to move back:
Husband is not happy at work. No option to move to a different job in England as housing is too much.
We are fed up with the weather, the interminable rain.
We miss our friends. These are the kind of friends that are friends for life who have been with us and know us well.
We miss the comfort of familiar surroundings.
We enjoyed coming to the UK on holiday and spent more quality time with family.
​​​​​​

​​It's tough to know what to do. When we both have the feeling of wanting to go home then perhaps we need to just say that we made a mistake, it's not for us and make plans.
Thanks for hearing me out!

SanDiegogirl

Personally, can't imagine moving from Florida to South West Wales after 30 years in Florida and I'm from the Cardiff area! (now in California for 20 years).
By the sounds of it you are in your mid 50's. I moved to California in my 50's for a job. Sold up a very nice home and good living in Berkshire and took the chance.
The grandkids would love visiting Florida to swim in the pool and go lobster diving. It's not that onerous flying from Florida back to the UK.
Take the plunge and return to Florida.......

Pulaski

The wisest advice my mother ever gave me was "You can never go back", and she was only talking about our move (at the time, a few years earlier), from Sheffield to Gloucester!

Even if you physically go back, the places (shops and restaurants) aren't the same, and the people (friends and relatives) have moved on with their lives too. So the "back" that you go back to isn't the "back that you left" anyway.

SanDiegogirl

Presume Alison20 that you are a US citizen so you won't have to go through an immigration process again?

brits1

This is a hard one, firstly Wales (lovely as it is) is not a good fit for you, homes are expensive in the south/southwest but you can still find “a bargain” and with plenty of new build homes with good options of buying schemes, could you not live with your mother or pool your finances together and buy somewhere with your mother where you may like? Last option for a stay in the UK is to look at other areas which are reasonable and with better weather than Wales ie Norfolk, Lincolnshire, North Suffolk, Shropshire even Northumberland. If the weather gets you down can you not plan on cheap breaks to the Mediterranean? Why have you not made friends… can you not join local “clubs” it’s always a good way to start. The other option is to move back to America, would your children move with you? if not that would mean you and your husband growing old together in America on your own without family there which is why the “we can never go back” is so true as America would not be the same as before when you had your children with you, if you are so unhappy and you do not/cannot want to try any longer to live in the UK then if you can afford (maybe not but you are okay with that) to go back to America and have the same lifestyle as you had (bar the children) then go for it, it’s the dilemma of an expat, remember why you left America it is like having a baby you forget the bad bits. Good luck and I really hope you find happiness with whatever you choose x

Helen1964

Retire to Spain?

Helen1964

Sorry, that sounded flippant.
What I mean is could you hang in there another few years and retire to Spain? Nice climate and you’d be able to pop back easily to see the grandchildren (if any).
I’m curious - is Florida really less expensive than the south east of England?
For some reason I thought housing and life in general in Florida was very expensive.

Thanks for the heads up on Wales. I’ll
strike it off our list of places to potentially move to. Interminable rain is not my idea of fun.

dunroving

Your post rings (alarm) bells for me. I was away from the UK for a total of 23 years, much of which was spent in warm, sunny places (and mostly in the US). I returned to the UK, twice - once after 17 years away, and the second/last time after 23 years. Ironically, in the last move back, I ended up in South Wales (more on that below)!

The first time I returned to the UK, I very quickly ping-ponged back to the US for professional reasons - my job in the US had been very rewarding, and the job in the UK was not at all what was sold to me. (General observation - working in academia in the US was more rewarding and positive than academia in the UK).

The second/last time I moved back to the UK, I didn't worry too much about the job; I figured I could always move if I didn't like it. As it turned out, I found life in South Wales pretty grim. Of course, the weather was awful compared to the sunny States, but the area was still economically depressed and depressing. Beautiful mountains and some lovely people, but just grim. Luckily, within the year I was offered a job in Scotland, where I stayed until I retired (now in the Midlands, in semi-retirement).

It's always difficult to give advice in these situations, because everyone's situation is different and everyone is different. All I can do is offer aspects of my own experience that may resonate with you, as it sounds like there are lots of commonalities.

Ping-ponging was VERY expensive, and UK houses were VERY expensive compared to where I lived in the US (I owned two houses there, over 10 years between 1996 and 2006, and the house values did not move an inch. During the same period, UK house prices pretty much doubled). When money is short, it's very easy to get trapped into yearning for your past life which of course always seems very rosy. You have other options bedsides Wales - there are places in England (and Scotland) with similarly affordable house prices.

Be very careful making decisions for other people. I agree that children are a big pull, but they may decide to move back to the US (or Australia!) in the next 5 years. If you decide to stay in the UK, it must be on the understanding that your children may not stay. I can't advise you regarding parents, because my parents both deceased long before I left the UK.

I actually tried to ping-pong a second time! I applied for several jobs in the US, and interviewed for two jobs, and was top candidate for one of them, until I sat myself down and asked myself, "What are you DOING??" I made myself consider what life would be like post-retirement, and conceded that the US can be a very bad place to grow old in. For all its faults, the social welfare aspect of the UK can be invaluable when you need it.

In the end, I accepted compromise, and finally accepted that life is all about compromises. I could almost definitely have ended up in a lovely house in the US, in a nice college town with nice weather, but with few friends (US academics tend to return to their home town when the retire, and no-one wants to hang out with retired faculty). So I bit the bullet, adapted to academia in the UK, lived frugally, saved and invested, and am now living mortgage free in semi-retirement. I'm a very active outdoorsy person, so of course if I lived in the southern States I'd enjoy the weather more, but living here in the UK is very bearable.

Lastly, I was struck by your comment regarding being nervous about starting every conversation with "In Florida ...." I can definitely identify with that. Nobody wants to hear about your wonderful life in the US, but it's all that you know! I often found myself listening to UK conversations about what I call my "culture wilderness years" - the 23, years I was away, when I had no idea what was happening in the UK, which also excluded me from many conversations. Especially in some parts of the UK (i.e., the small village I moved to in Scotland), people can be very parochial and uninterested in things outside their own little world. It takes time to adjust to the very different conversational style in the UK, but it will come with time.

Nobody can tell you what to do - but I can tell you what I would do, if I were in your situation. I'd give the UK a good go for at least 5 years (or longer). If you are in half a mind about things, you'll have a hard time. Commit to seeing what you can change to make UK life more bearable. Make long-term plans, financial and otherwise, that are based on the assumption you will stay in the UK. There really is no rush, and right now your emotions are all over the place because of your visit back to the US. After 5 years (or more) sit down and re-assess whether things are getting better or worse. Involve your children in the conversations - they will have a different perspective that might help.

Whatever you do, don't panic and rush back to the US.

Shard

Your husband is a Saint ! Interesting tale, with no easy answers.