Fleaflyfloflum

I spent about 2hrs chatting to my daughter on the phone last night and it struck me just how much they under estimate the upheaval all this is going to be for me.
I am extremely lucky that i have a great relationship with both my daugthers and we are all happy to be open and honest with our thoughts, feelings and opinions.
I think she was quite shocked when i told her i was worried about settling back into UK life. She thought i would just walk straight back in and carry on as if i had never been away. Somehow i dont think this will happen. I have been away for a good few years. I am also a very different person to the one that left.
Maybe i will just fit back in immediately, but i did warn her that i might have mixed feelings and feel like a fish out of water to start with. She found it quite hard to comprehend. Has anyone else experienced this wirh family or friends?

dunroving

Sorry you have something else to add to your stress, Flea. I think that family members and friends often have very little idea what you are going through as a returning expat, especially if they have never lived abroad. Heck, most of my family and friends have lived in the same town (or even the same house!) for the past 20 years or more. I think when you (they) have lived in a settled situation for so long, it's difficult to empathise with the expat-repat predicament. I don't have a large family but the few I have just did not "get it" when I returned in 2000 and was almost immediately unappy and unsettled (ironically feeling homesick for the country I'd been living in for the past 10 years). Similarly now I am going through the same I am reluctant to even broach the subject of me thinking (again) "Oh sh*t what have I done?" (this time it's a double-whammy of homesickness for the US and being absolutely broke due to a huge mortgage).

To be fair, my (small) circle of family and friends were supportive, I just felt they did not "get it". I have discussed my financial fears with a good friend and he keeps harking back to how tough it was in the 1980's when interest rates were high and they got through it all right, etc., but he doesn't seem to twig that was 20 years ago and he got through it because at the time he was only 35. I think he is trying to be supportive by being positive, but I've been through it all with a calculator and keep coming up with the same outcome: spend everything on the mortgage until I retire in 15 years if I want to pay it off.

I don't know if it's that friends/family don't want to hear the negative, or are just shocked that you are not sure, or maybe are even insulted that being able to see them again isn't enough to make you happy. It's great that you can be open with your family about what you are thinking and feeling. That's a good start. Just keep telling them the same message and hopefully it will sink in. Good luck, and hang in there!

Fleaflyfloflum

Thanks DR.

Yes, it is hard to get others to understand a situation they have never been in.
What doesnt help is my status as the big matriachal figure within our family. Not only to my children but also extended family as i am the oldest of 3 half brother and 2 half sisters. I get the feeling that many of them think i will step back in and resume this role again. In all honesty, apart from my kids and grandchildren, i dont want to take that on again and will need my own space. Before i went i was always deluged with family problems and ended up a bit of an agony aunt to most of them. I am worrying about how to break the news that i am retired from this role..LOL
Of course i want to be involved and i am really looking forward to family life again, but how do i get it back on my terms? I guess on top of re adjusting to geography, i will need to reset some boundaries. I've already had emails from my brother asking me to mediate between him and his teenage daugther who is having the usual hormone rampages that 15yr old girls go through. I not sure i'm up for all this

dunroving

It seems that this "new beginning" situation is a prime opportunity to set new boundaries. Of course, the trick is thinking ahead of time about how you will deal with those first requests and scenarios. You have to come up with a range of one-liners and just stick to your guns when the situations arise. Maybe something like, "Blimey, now I know what those Aussies meant about whingeing Poms!" (just kidding, of course).

dunroving

You know, talking about family expectations just reminded me of a conversation I had with my brother quite some time back. I was talking about my struggles with money and he made some comment about how I'd had an adventure for the past 20 years, etc. Interestingly enough, in the almost 20 years I'd been away I'd had hardly any holidays, spent all my life savings on 6 years putting myself through postgraduate school and had since been working like a dog as a college prof in a high-pressure research environment. I gained great insight in that one conversation to how so many people who stay in the UK see the expat experience. They just don't realize that it can be bloody hard work and you can end up broke. They think you've been on some extended "free holiday"! :curse:

birdynumnum

Hi Flea

That you are aware it may take time to settle back in is really good, I think its very easy to underestimate that side of returning. That reverse culture shock article on here was really good, I definately recognised some of it from my last return. Its such a huge change going home, no matter how much you want to etc.
Re: family & friends - if people havent lived away & you go back to the same place for example, everyones life is often largely same and although you are back in familiar surrounds, you've had a world of life away so it can be quite funny in ways - like as fish out of water as you say.
Good advice Dunroving, setting new boundaries is a good plan to avoid falling into the old role you mentioned & as you've said b4, you're planning a new life for you over there - a good plan, I'm planning the same too
Shame we didnt get to meet today
Another day
Good luck heading back - enjoy
xxxxxx
T

SarahInTX

Hah! I had pretty much the same conversation with one of MY brothers. I was telling him I was struggling financially and he asked incredulously, "What do you do with all your money?" Well, duh! I pay the mortgage and car note, buy gas and groceries, electricity, water bill, etc. Car insurance, property taxes, house insurance. Don't live high on the hog by any means. Bloody nerve I thought. But wondered what planet he was living on if he thought I was rolling in dough just because I'm in the US. Like you say, some of them just don't seem to understand that you can be just as broke in the US as you can in the UK.

Shivster

I get that with friends who visit. They're thrilled that the £ gets them so much $ but don't get that I live here and really can't live like a tourist when they're over. It was the same when I lived in Spain. Actually that was worse as I was flooded with visitors.

My family are great. They've all lived overseas and all moved back because they missed England so they're totally supportive and know how hard it is.

Dave_Was

I get the same comment all the time. When I say I'm worried about coming back to the UK because of finding a similar job, etc, I get the comment but you must have loads saved now. Ususally followed by the comment, well if the company sponsored you to come over they must have paid you loads of cash. Well no, I'm just a regular bod in a cubicle farm.

dunroving

Oh Gawd, tell me about it. I'm having a Devil of a time trying to explain to folks here why I keep saying I am broke. They just don't get it.

They don't realize that just by owning a house in the UK for the past 5-10 years, their capital wealth has increased by way, way more than I've managed to save while working like a dog in the States. Sure, I was "rich" over there (almost paid off my mortgage in 6 years, purely by dint of hard work, no vacations, and saving hard), but the house I owned in rural North Carolina (while I paid at the time the same as I'd have paid for a 3BR semi or terraced here) went up in vaue by just about ZERO - so "all that money" I brought back is pretty worthless because (a) the dollar is pretty worthless and (b) it doesn't even come close to matching the rise in house prices - for example my current neighbor bought his house in 2002 for 39k (i.e., less than I paid for my NC home in 2001) and I just paid 165k for my house right next dor to his! Unfortunately, Scotland's house prices have gone a bit bonkers lately

I dragged my brother out on a walk yesterday and we talked about my situation. he suggesed downsizing (well, duh, even small flats are expensive!) and various other options that, were I in my 20's or 30's would have been fine. But being 15 years from retirement, none of these options work because they need the passage of more time than I've got. I tried explaining that right now he (we're the same age) has 5 more years in his pension fund than I'll have at retirement, that he has a 350k house with a 120k mortgage, etc., etc.

It's funny, if I had to put a word on it I'd say I meet a "resistance" to what I have to say. Responses like "I've got 120k mortgage to pay, too!" are what I keep hearing. Well, yes, but your house is worth half a million and your mortgage only has 5 years to run, and the principal left on it is only 22k! My mortgage has 25 years to run (and I'm 15 rs from retirement), is for 150k on a house that's worth 165k, and has almost all the capital unpaid. There's a big difference! Aaaaarghh!!!!

Shivster

I agree with everything you say Dunroving and moving back at the age of 40 and having to start from zero is terrifying!

But... and there's always a but... I was talking to a friend last night who had to put her father in a nursing home. It was a staggering $15k a month. He was on Mediaid and needed supplemental health insurance which can to $800 a month. She's having to pay a lawyer to fight his case to get him on MassHealth. Once they've blasted through all his money, sold his house to pay for the nursing home they have a fighting chance of getting MassHealth and him being shunted into a scabby nursing home.

At this point I don't know what's worse. Starting from scratch in England or being old in the US but the more I think about it, the more scary being here with health problems seems.

dunroving

I know, I have been gradually building up a list of pros and cons and certainly the health care/critical illness/long-term care issue is one of the biggest concerns in the US. $15,000 per month for a nursing home is crazy!!!

I think the UK is moving in that direction though, too. For routine and emergency health care and prescriptions, it is great, but I've had some conversations with colleagues recently that make me wonder. For example:

A couple with a 20-year old son who has a mental age of 18 months (essentially, he is a 15-stone "baby", with all that entails). They do not get any help with his care - and they are getting to an age where they find it increasingly difficult to lift him, bathe him, change his nappy, etc. Apparently, many of the institutions that used to take care of such people have been closed down.

Another colleague whose M-i-L was in her 90's and had to go into a nursing home. That wasn't cheap either - I don't know if such care was not available, is means-tested, or they just wanted to use a private facility, but most of the old woman's savings went on her nursing home care. Unfortunately she didn't last long but even in a short time they blew a heck of a lot of cash.

And of course there are various stories about NHS either being inefficient, certain medications not being covered, or so slow in getting to the point of diagnosis (e.g, for cancer) that it is too late to do anything.

I think medicine in the US has got to the point where death is seen as a failure. I sometimes think that if I get to the point where life is miserable I don't want them keeping me alive for another 2 years ... some countries in Europe have a much more enlightened attitude towards death with dignity.

Sorry, taking this thread a little OT. You are correct to contrast being poor in the UK with being ill and destitute in the US. If we knew what our old age held in store, these decisions would be much easier!

Shivster

I had an aunt with Motor Neurone Disease. It's an awful disease, I think the cruelest there is. This was in the 80s when going to Switzerland wasn't an option but I know that had she had the option she'd have taken that decision.

Another depressing tale ahead. My husband has a boat and yesterday we were at the docks. Our boat neighbour took a friend of his out on his boat. The man said he thought he had eaten some grapes with a spider on (random I know) and that he'd been poisoned by it. The next second he went bright red and dropped down dead. They did CPR but it was what they called a working arrest and they couldn't revive him.

Coastguard picked him up and later everyone commented that at least he'd died as he couldn't have afforded long term care in a nursing home! He was only 60.

gettingthere

well i returned to the Uk 10 years ago and never really settled earlier this year ( 6 weeks ago!) after a very difficult split with my partner i decided to stay in the UK. Weird really that now I appreciate all that i have here and feel more my life settled in the last month than ever before. It ios not easy but then I dont think moving anywhere new is easy, I now have made and rediscovered some good friends and love my life here. I have still got a hankering to travel though and take several holidays abroad a year and think that wherever I lay my hat is my home!

I wish you good luck in your move and the new chapter in you life