Piff Poff

No you have not caused offence at all (not to me anyhoo). There have been times I have offered to pay my sisters flights to come out - or my Mum's and they have buggered off on their usual holidays instead (in sisters case). Mum is doing her bucket list (as well as she can, she wants to do indoor skydiving, but I don't think they'll let her, the puff will blow her right out the top of the contraption) So the lot of them came out this year (with a little help financially). We are going back for Christmas this year, not because we particularly want to, but because we need to, we need to have that memory, OH learnt the hard way.

And yes it is different if you are in the same country compared to one where realistically it's going to take 2-3 days to get back. For example if I was in the same country, I would have visited my Mum in hospital at least twice in the last month, rather than relying on phonecalls and messages from family. I have to trust my family enough to tell me the right time to go back, we've been mislead before with disastrous consequences, the fear and worry adds up over time.

Anyway that's the bleakest view. I do know couples that have split over the whole homesick thing, have a plan and an agreement in place, that's important and as I have said, be honest. I was really doubting the whole emigrating thing this year, once I got my feelings out there and spoke to OH about it and found out he was feeling the same, we were able to sit and talk about things properly. We have a few plans opening up for us now.

Lorry1

...and this is why I am OK at the moment!
During the last few months I had established a 'real friend' circle here in NS and although I was still homesick the feeling wasn't as strong.
I went home in August and everything I thought I missed, I didn't really. I went to Tesco to stock up on all my faves, but didn't even really touch them.
The 3 friends I stayed with had all moved house since I was last there and 2 of them were in new relationships. That really threw me as the homes were just not familiar.

People do carry on without you but it's weird that you kind of expect to return to the same.

Right now I know Canada is not my home but i'm not sure that England is anymore either
I feel lost.
My hubby hasn't been homesick at all in the last 4 years but he says he feels the same and knows we are not staying here forever now.

I will see how I feel in a few weeks/months.

MikeUK

I refer to this as being Mid Atlantic, knowing the best and worst of both sides and being honest about neither being perfect..

IMHO it’s a good mindset to have as its reflects reality, any choices made with this as a foundation are much more likely to have realistic objectives

The down side is; as you add locations to this mindset, your view of the world get more and more founded in reality and your tolerance level of the self deluded becomes lower and lower

trevorandjo york

Do you have kids, because where your husband and kids are, that is home. Just for the record, only one grad job vacancy for every 93 graduates in UK. Grads are now competing with eastern europeans for farm labouring jobs, many unskilled have no hope, unemployment was up 80,000 this month alone, (those that are allowed to claim jobseekers Allce) never mind those
that are expected to cope! Perhaps a move elsewhere in Canada might do it.

trevorandjo york

Hope I have not gone too far off thread.

el_richo

Unemployment figures in the UK and Canada are very similar.

People are very different so these topics are all extremely subjective.

Piff Poff

Is that really very different from the unemployment rates of the '80's?

trevorandjo york

I don't know, i was working in Germany and Cyprus. My father was a miner on strike, i sent money home to help out, pleased not to be there at the time. From there went to Hong kong and returned to england in 1993. Tried UK for 7 years and then moved to the middle east to earn some money, now looking to make our final move to canada, working, skiing and fishing, in equal dollops - GREAT. Find somethng positive about canada and focus on it, bound to be loads of stuff, travelling to the the warm pacific coast of the states for example, good luck.

Piff Poff

The trouble with homesickness, it's not necessarily brought on because you don't like your chosen Country. I love Alberta, I love Red Deer, however the pangs of homesickness I am subjected too are nothing to do with my new home. I have also come to realise that no matter how much I love where I am now, it's not my forever home.

JonboyE

I might be a bit of a fraud for posting on this thread because I haven't felt one prang of homesickness yet, and I doubt I will now. We visited the UK in 2008 and I remember, sitting in the departure lounge and looking out to the North Shore Mountains, saying to Mrs JonboyE that I would rather spend two weeks hiking through them than the inevitable round of visiting relatives that awaited us in England.

That said, I see two pieces of very good advice on this thread.

1) If you are homesick, then avoid other homesick people. You'll only encourage each other to get worse.

2) Keep an emergency fund. Most experts in personal finance recommend that even "normal" families should keep between three and six months in living expenses in a readily accessible savings account. This is even more important for ex-pats. You are not trapped here and you know you can always go back, even if just for a visit, anytime you want. And, when you get that phone call you don't have to worry about how the hell you are going to pay for it all, you just get to the airport and get on a plane.

LucyLovelock

I am very close to my mum, but we skype her most days, and shes out here right now, her 5th visit in 5 years! And no, shes not got a lot of money, but what she has got, she spends travelling to see us, and my sis, who lives in Europe.
THE best thing my hubby and I ever did, and we have a great life with our kids out here. Sure life has its challenges as it would anywhere, but I dont have any regrets.
Good luck with your decision!

smtt

Thank you for your positive experiences. I'm gonna go for it and at least give it a try x

julius smith

yes, i quite agree.
as an ex-financial advisor, i can confirm what ur saying about emergency funds...we recommended a minimum of 5 to 6 mths of your salary tucked away safely for an unknown emergency...surprised me that a majority of people never had any emergency funds at all..yikes!

anyway, getting back to the homesickness....yes, agreed again! eberyone and his auntie knows of my woes when we were in canada....i look at some of my posts now and just laugh! it seemed the smallest of odd things in canada used to spark off anti-canadian rants with me...be it canadian drivers, the way they speak, whatever!

and although our situation was exasperated by my family's back-stabbing moves back home in the uk, you know even something like the BBC world news, or episodes of The Saint or Corrie on friday night tv used to really get us thinking what the hell we were doing 1000s of miles away from home...silly really!

and yes, as u say, stay away from other homesickness people! somehow, we always attracted other homesick people...whether in the supermarkets or at the malls..we always managed to find someone complaining about canada and how they wished they were back in the uk!

as a cabbie in toronto told me (and he was inevitably an immigrant himself)..if your an immigrant in any country, you can survive, but only by literally placing a huge rock on your heart-feelings, metaphorically speaking!

in other words, you WILL make it, but only by a huge effort in curbing your instincts. we found the more we spoke to, or saw our families in the uk via webcam, the more we wanted to go back....of course they did their dastardly-best to tell us how wonderful it was in london anyway, just to stick the knife in deeper....