Clarep

Hi All,

So I'm Canadian (with a UK passport thanks to my British mother) and met my British husband in England 5 years ago. We always had the intention of moving to Canada and successfully made the move to Toronto last September. My husband experienced his first winter as almost didn't make it through! I guess we also miss the English countryside and he definitely misses people understanding his dry sense of humour. After being away from Toronto for the last 5 years it no longer feels like home and my husband doesn't feel like he fits in here and misses home. I'm worried about moving back as my parents are getting older and I worry about not being there for them.

We have made the decision to move back to the UK next year, my parents don't understand as they think we should stay here until he at least gets his citizenship so he has flexibility. We don't want to wait to go through the whole process, and I have to tell my mom that we are moving back. I'm not looking forward to that conversation as I feel like I'm letting them down.

I know that there are a lot of people on this forum that are moving back to the UK after living abroad and I guess I'm just looking for support as we go through this process.

durham_lad

Shame about him not getting the Canadian citizenship, it would certainly be better if he also had dual citizenship.

shelley748

completely understand but I cannot emphasise this enough- get his CDN citizenship first- it really will make matters easier in the long run- who knows what shape the UK will be in at some point, at least you have 2 options, Canada and the UK.

Vulcanoid

Getting citizenship would take years of waiting (until September 2021 before he was eligible to apply, at the earliest, assuming no change in the law before then, and then likely around a year of processing) so if you're both unhappy already there's no sense in grinding it out. What you could consider is whether it's Toronto that you're unhappy with, or Canada. Bear in mind that Britain has also changed since you left, just like Toronto had - it's been less time, but there have been major developments since then, and will likely be more before the next year.

If you stay together, your husband could maintain his Canadian Permanent Resident status indefinitely as accompanying his citizen spouse abroad, so you wouldn't even need to re-sponsor him if you ever decided to move back again. It wouldn't really affect flexibility on that front. This would only be an issue if you separated, and he then later wanted to move back to Canada.

djsoul

I'm moving back to the UK from the US and won't be applying for Citizenship either; my reasons are different and will be turning in my green card. Don't leave one foot in the past, just move on and go with your dreams before its too late.

BEVS

I rather like that .

Rachelptbobrizzle

Sounds familiar. My husband and I moved over in Sept 2018 and now we are seriously considering moving back. Our dream was to buy land and build our own home, and this still feels attainable to some degree, but at a big cost. The main one being that my career (research, academic or otherwise) means that I need to be near a fair sized city and this kind of lands us in commuting distance to Toronto (and we both abhor suburbs). We live in Peterborough and there just aren't jobs here, though as a city we like it a lot. Also we deeply miss certain cultural features of the UK - bike and pedestrian friendly cities, the rights of walkers to ramble through the countryside, pubs, humour. We also miss the beauty of Somerset and the southwest. Despite being the poster child of beautiful landscapes, Canada (ontario) just doesn't measure up. And the cost of living is a biggie too.
Anyway keep posting on your thoughts and struggle through this... It is a big decision (on our side deeply emotional as well as pragmatic).
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