catpea33

Hi,

I had an experience about a year ago that made me question whether I've made the right choice in moving here. Basically I was flying home to visit my family for Xmas and the woman next to me at the airport was bawling her eyes out. Her father had died and she was telling me how much she regretted moving to Canada because she wasn't able to spend as much time with her family as she would have liked and now it was too late. I could far too easily imagine myself going through that situation at some point in the future and it really freaked me out. Even before this incident, I was aware that something bad might happen but it made me realise that this situation wasn't just a possibility, it was a certainty if I continued on this path.

I miss my parents and my sister (who is also my best friend) and, to a lesser extent, my extended family. My cousin has a baby that I've never even seen, my two remaining grandparents are getting increasingly frail, and each time I go home I'm shocked at how much older my parents look (my Dad is 65 and my Mum is in her 50s). I feel like I'm missing out on spending time with them and that one day I may regret my decision to be out here. When I think about future rugrats, it makes me sad to think that they may not know their grandparents particularly well because of the distance involved.

For those of you here alone, how do you deal with being away from your family, knowing the inherent risks that each time you see them may end up being the last time? I'm not sure how committed I am to being here with these worries constantly in the back of my head. I think it's one of the reasons why my belongings are still in storage in the UK. Also, has anyone ever gone back to the UK purely for family reasons? My job here is a good one, as it was in the UK, and I guess it's also in the back of my mind that if I go back home, I should go while I'm still relatively young (I'm 31) before my pension value becomes too much of an issue. The other part of me is thinking that I gave up a lot to come here and do I really want to throw it all away...

Any insights into how other people feel would be helpful.

Cat

Lorna at Vicenza

What do your parents and family think? Are they proud of you for moving away and making something more of your life? Do they moan that you're not back home? Do they nag you? Do they tell you to go back?

It all makes a difference - whether it be bad or good. And sometimes selfish is not such a dirty word. It's your life too.

catpea33

My parents have always supported me in my choices. My Mum says she wishes I was closer but also says that she knows that I have to do my own thing and would never hold me back. Moving back would definitely be my choice rather than something I've been guilt-tripped/nagged into doing but it's such a hard choice to make: regret going back home and leaving Canada or regret missing out on family time...

Lorna at Vicenza

Ahhhh sweetheart, you're now in the same boat as at least 90% of us. Choices and decisions. Nobody can make those for you.

Oink

If you have a good relationship with your family then I'd go back to be near them. I was lucky enough to have a job where I could go back as much as I wanted approx 10+ times a year but on reflection it was still not enough as you miss the day to day things and you'll never get that time back.

scilly

I can only tell you my experience


We left England in 1967 as newly weds, came up to Canada in 1968 and have been here ever since.

At that time, my father and brother and OH's parents were all still alive.

If I'm brutally honest, I have to say that we never thought of whether we should have stayed in the UK ............. maybe because all of them, without exception, said that they wished they were still young enough to move. Brother (10 years older than me) would have gone to NZ, someone else to Australia, etc


Yes, you do worry about that phone call in the middle of the night ............ which so often turns out to be someone trying to sell you something


Only you can decide what it is worth to stay here ..................


It was worth it for us, and also for OH's sister when she emigrated in 1970.

We had 1 child, she met her husband here and eventually had 3 children.

My father died in 1970, OH's parents visited every 2 years until the late 1980s.



Don't forget, you now have a multitude of ways to communicate that we did not have ..... especially Skype


It is your life ............... can you live here and visit home, or will you always be in two places in your head?

Tirytory

So we're 15 months in and ironically just applied for PR..

I've also just had baby number 3 and I guess it's given my husband and I time to pause and reflect. We have a nice life here but I miss my family and friends very much. I've made friends here but it's not the same and I worry my third child will grow up without that network of extended f+f that my other two have and still miss.

We could have a similar life back home but I feel like the children are marginally better off here and we're back in that position of wondering whether we should move back for people. I was terribly homesick at seven months and that passed and I don't feel that level of unhappiness at all in thinking about this. More a rational sort of debate...

It doesn't help you but I guess I wanted to say you're not the only one, and we're constantly going back and fore, trying to figure out what is best..

scilly

gosh ................


I must be really unusual, maybe even unique



I honestly never went through any phase of wanting to go back, and I'm pretty certain that OH was the same.

If we had to leave Canada, as did seem likely a couple of times in the 1980s, we would have gone south to NZ or certain parts of Australia.


Most of our friends emigrated from the UK in the 1960s, or moved all over the UK, so it wasn't as if we had that "childhood friend still living down the street"

One of my school friends stayed in the UK, OH did better than me in that several of his stayed ............ but none of them were in our home towns

Most of our university friends moved to better jobs overseas



were we just a more mobile generation?


maybe!

Tirytory

I think it is our age and stage in life that we moved.... We are late thirties/early forties, well established network of friends, my eldest is nearly 10... It was hard for me to leave in the first place. You get to this stage in life, people have their friends, they don't generally need new ones especially ones with no shared history or cultural references...

catpea33

I think that's part of what is contributing to my unsettled feeling in Canada. My friends in the UK also moved abroad, most to Oz but some to Europe, but over here everyone is already set in their friendship groups or they're married and don't really want a girls night in. I'm very aware that if I move back to the UK, I'll be closer to my family but I'll still have the issue of having to make new friends and potentially feeling unsettled there too for a bit.

catpea33

It's somewhat of a relief to know this is 'normal.' I keep saying, 'Just six more months, just six more months,' and it's been 3.5 years now. I'm not sure how much longer I should keep doing that. Maybe I should wait until I have citizenship (think I'm eligible to apply next summer) and then make a choice.

Tirytory

Like you said maybe making the move before the next part of your life might be a good idea if you decide that's the option.

I also wonder whether I am starting to fall into the camp of believing that it is more difficult to have a deeper friendship in Canada than in the UK.... I hadn't really believed it but I am starting to feel a lack of something in the friendships I have made...

catpea33

Maybe it just takes some time for the feeling of a 'lack' to go away? I went through a bad patch in late 2013-early 2014 and that helped make me feel closer to the people that stuck around. Likewise helping others through bad patches kind of cemented the friendship into something deeper, if that makes sense.

Making friends here is so hard though! I joined a pottery club, a dance group, etc. and back home it would have probably been followed by a visit to the pub but here everybody just goes home once the session is over.

scilly

it is a fact of life that it is harder to make friends as you get older ................ that seems to be the case whether you stay where you were or move.



Tirytory ............. we were 27 and 29 when we moved, so not that young.

We met at university, came from 2 different counties, and had worked in different areas of the UK before we got serious about each other, just 2 months before OH left the UK and 9 months before we got married

We did have some mutual friends from university, although we were in different years (same subject), but we each had friends from our home town, from school, and from our jobs ............

We'd both moved around and had to make friends, and get used to being away from family.

maybe that also makes a difference?

We would not have been living in either "home town" if we had stayed in the UK, that was the nature of our degrees and the jobs we were looking for.


He's better at making friends than I am,so he has more friends now than I have, we mainly have joint friends.

But then I never did have a big circle of friends at any stage.

scilly

Cat ............


the problem here is, I think, that the pub is seen in a different way from how it is viewed in the UK