itsasecret

Its been on the cards for a while, I keep having these really horrible sinking feelings for sometime that I belong back in England. Im a guy and I hope I am not alone with these feelings. we have been here (Australia) for 3.5years I have a great job etc and the wife is very settled.

Last week I had to tell the wife that I have been getting these feelings and it didnt go down too well, she said she is not moving. There is also some guilt in this, why should I ruin it for her, she's happy in Australia and never talks about England. We also have 2 young children which makes it worse. I couldnt leave them so that is most definetly out of the question and I dont want to take sanity trips back and forth. Is there any other men out there having the same problem?

YankeemovingAbroad

"she said she is not moving"

I can't understand why partners say things like "never" in relationships.Hopefully she'll come around to a more reasonable position before it creates a strain on your marriage.Would be ashame to forget those important factors which brought you two together in the first place.

As long as you two are together and willing to compromise things can work out.If either of you are unhappy in Australia the other person should make a strong effort to help find a solution even if that mean going back to the UK.Did you guys make any what if agreements before immigrating?

lil_ol_wine_drinker_me

I think homesickness is something that most of us have suffered from at one time or another, for me it comes in waves - a bit like nausea during a hangover! It definitely helps to know others with the same feelings, though try not to confine yourself to just talking to others who are homesick as it can make things worse.

Keep talking to your OH as I am sure she is probably just surprised & shocked at your recent announcement & needs time to understand how you feel. It's not only women on this forum who want to go home there are as many men too, but they are generally a bit quieter about it!

quoll

Unfortunately I dont think it is one of those things where compromise is very easy. I want to go home but my DH doesnt - if I insist then he will be unhappy and if we stay here then I will continue to be unhappy. I manage by going home every year for a month or so but he wont come (and we couldnt afford it) and I miss him dreadfully while I am there - our phone bill is extortionate even after all these years together!

I know there are some who have insisted and got their spouses to go home again with mixed results it would seem. As my DH is an Aussie I think I have buckleys of getting him to change his mind. In fact I suspect that if I forced the issue he would wave me goodbye because he knows that I wont leave him.

I think it must be much more difficult for a man because, like it or not, men do have the breadwinner/family responsibility role firmly on their shoulders and if you are depressed by being here then that is going to impact on being able to get out there and provide for your family. I think too that there is a point of no return beyond which it becomes nigh impossible to go home - the value of your assets will fall below a level that will enable you to get back on your feet in UK, your kids will have established themselves as Australian and will hate you for taking them back, you will have been away from UK for so long that there will be NHS issues (or so I read) and so you get stuck.

I hope you can sort it all out!

Twigstar

Throwing a bit of light heartedness here but wouldn't it be great if we could swap OH's for ones that either want to stay and those who want to return to the UK simple really.

And before anyone starts jumping up & down it was a joke and yes I am in that same situation. I desperately want to return to the UK (I had 4 visits back last year the last being 4 weeks in November and yes I still feel it was home there) and my OH wants to stay here (Florida). We have compromised and have agreed that July 31st will be our leaving date.

Elvira

There are plenty of people in similar shoes at BE... Take some time to read and you'll see you're not alone.

However, if your wife stated categorically that she will not even consider moving back, without showing any sympathy for your feelings of homesickness, this hints at more deeper, serious problems in the marriage.

Have you considered marriage counselling?

JustBecause

Out of interest, how long do you think it is to reach this "point of no return"?

This is something I am worried about - not necessarily only the financial side but mentally I don't want to be in the position where I find there will be things I don't want to leave & when I get home to the UK I resent leaving those things, & end up becoming a ping-ponger

jilla411

I know how you feel ,i wish my OH wanted to go back to the UK by the way it is usually the men who want to stay which is that way for us.Our son who,s 15 went home in October and me and our Daughter go home on 20th Jan my OH has told me to send everything back but he,s never going to live in the UK again.I have said that i will not leave our son at such a young age and will make the decision on whether to come back when our son is ready to go UNI,deep down i don,t think i would want to live in Aus again but i,m being forced to choose between my home and my OH.Only time will tell but i,m not prepared to sacrifice my sanity because of someone else,s love more for a country than his Family.Good luck i hope you don,t face my prediciment.

quoll

Point of no return? Hard to say in terms of years away but there are several factors - your kids begin HS so any time up until your kids are about 10 I reckon is still OK. If you get towards the 10 year mark, then I would imagine that things like the UK pension and your health coverage would be impacted should you return but you wouldnt have enough in an Aussie super scheme to be able to support you in your old age. The value of your assets being tied to the Aussie dollar has a pretty big impact after about 5 - 10 years although you can hope that the Aussie economy will weather the impending economic disaster better than the UK economy I guess (that's a gamble)

I dont know when we passed the point of no return - we were too busy trying to make ends meet, bring up kids, pay the mortgage and save for the occasional holiday. I know now that we are past it - we would struggle on our Aussie super, we couldnt really get a good foot on the UK property market without a mortgage and that would mean going from being mortgage free here. We have one kid in UK - the job prospects were better for him there than here would you believe. The other son and granddaughter are here - they contribute to the point of no return logic too. What I shall do if the UK son gets married and has kids I have no idea!!!!

Interesting that I find nothing here that I would miss if I were never to return!!! I hate the same-ness of the weather, the culture is barren in comparison, the history is negligible, the people are nice enough but not as cohesive a community as I am used to, the wildlife is alright but you can have too many screechy cockatoos and wattle makes me sneeze. Nope, not a single thing about Australia per se that I would ever care if I never saw again. The son and his family obviously but that is about it.

quoll

I hear you! My DH wont leave. He is an Aussie born and bred and plain old refuses to move. We have had many agonizing discussions but I cant live without him so I stay here. To some degree he thinks he is compromising because he wants to go out and live in the bush and be self sufficient against the day of Armageddon (he's a bit whacko!) but our compromise is that we will stay in suburban Canberra and he can grow his vegies and his chooks here and have his rain water tanks and solar hot water if that makes him feel better. He knows how I feel and he says, quite rightly that he would be just as unhappy if he had to go to UK. I can manage the odd month home on a regular basis but our phone bill gets rather scary after a month! I've been married to him for 35 years nearly and I would prefer not to have to train up another husband if I could help it. We didnt intend to settle here, it just sort of happened.

geisterbahn

HI , itsTHE SAME FOR ME ,BUT IM IN THE UK! when I think of spain all I want to do is go back for good. I do on a cheap flight now and again. so that settles things a bit. but you have to look at the long term.if its just a sickly feeling that,ll pass. if it starts to hit your mental or mood life bad ,then its time to lay your cards on the table.A mate of mine was their for 2 months , and said ....he would rather go to jail than live in oz. he hated it . and did not have a good word to say for the ozzys.ive never fancied it. spains for me .!! at least you can go out for a meal and a beer without ending up in AE OR INTENSIVE CARE. JOEY BARTONS JUST BEEN BAILED FOR GBH (THE NEWCASTLE FOOTBALLER( !!! SO ALL THOSE KIDS WHO LOOK UP TO HIM WILL BE THINKING . YEAH i,LL HAVE TO GO OUT AND FILL SOME ONES HEAD IN ,JOEY DOES IT ,SO ILL DO IT . THE UK IS NUTS MATE. THINK LONG AND HARD BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY MOVES.

JAJ

First thing you should all do is get your Australian citizenship (if eligible), it opens up more options than just being a resident.

After that? It's easy to have an idealised view of life back in England, just like it's easy to have an idealised view of life in Australia before you migrate. At the end of the day you have to settle down somewhere (and experience real life, not idealisations) and if life is good for you in Australia and your family is happy, why would you want to disturb that?

clougherty family

Interesting that I find nothing here that I would miss if I were never to return!!! I hate the same-ness of the weather, the culture is barren in comparison, the history is negligible, the people are nice enough but not as cohesive a community as I am used to, the wildlife is alright but you can have too many screechy cockatoos and wattle makes me sneeze. Nope, not a single thing about Australia per se that I would ever care if I never saw again. The son and his family obviously but that is about it.[/QUOTE]

Although this paragraph made me feel sad for you, it also confirmed for me all the reasons we returned to the UK last year after 2 yrs. I feel the same as you about Oz and luckily thought about the kids growing up and leaving/lack of opportunity etc etc. while we were still in a good position to come back here financially. I think too many people end up staying in Oz thinking it will get better and it doesn't and then it's just too hard financially or emotionally to leave. I didn't want to get to the point where the kids grew up and came to visit the UK and wanted to stay here and me and the OH couldn't afford to come back, that would be devastating.

Jo

phil01

Yes Me!

But fortunately, the wife is willing to come back too. We lived in NZ, enjoyed it for a while but I have spent the past 6 months knowing I want to go back but stuck at it, wife has a great job and likes NZ, daughter settled but no matter what people say about the UK I prefer it. Talked with the wife about it and we started looking at houses and cars back in the UK over the internet and she just said OK we'll go back then, we can always come back to NZ if it doesn't work out. We get home in just over a week now and can't wait!

But I was 100% certain that I wanted to go back and at this point have no desire to return to NZ, don't get me wrong not slating the country it's a great place, I just want to be back in the UK, I like it there!

When you get to the 100% certain stage you need to talk to her about how you feel and why you want to go back, maybe if you raise it again she will take you more seriously.

Good Luck.

billybaxter

id like to know what percentage of brits that come down to the antipodes end up moving back within 5 yrs...
ive been here 4 and will get citizenship in march/april...after that ill move back to the uk.
we just went back for xmas and it was so hard getting on that plane at heathrow to come back to the isolation that my life in oz has become.

on a side note...does anyone know how long the citizenship process takes? (once i become eligibale)?...ie, how long do i have to wait for a ceremony etc