emiwar

Month 3 back in the UK after 6 years abroard and I cant seem to shake this feeling that I want to get back on a plane and head 'home' to LA.

We used to come home for visits to England on semi-frequent occasions. When we lived in Amsterdam (our first home away from home) they were frequent visits and we would joke about what Amsterdam doesnt have that England does. When we moved to NYC our trips home were less often but when we did make them, it tended to be around Christmas time so it would be festive and family orientated. However by this point we always enjoyed coming 'home' to New York.

Our daughter arrived last year and I guess it just planted a little seed of 'maybe we should be closer to family now'. We moved to Los Angeles last year and then arrived back in England on 1st Jan this year.

Yes its great to see family, yes its nice to have a gastro pub lunch in a little Cotswolds village and do our food shopping in Waitrose. BUT its not California, and our rose-tinted Brit glasses have been replaced with a fondness for everything that was great about Amsterdam (biking to work, boating the canals in the summer and enjoying beers on the sidewalks anytime) and everything that could have been (dare I say the american dream) in Los Angeles.

Please tell me the feeling of 'coulda woulda shoulda' subsides ??

dunroving

See my comment on this thread.

It's the expat curse. It subsides mainly if you change your mindset, and with time. From experience, fighting against the situation only makes things worse.

Three months is no time at all, so it's normal to still be thinking "What have I done?" It looks like you have bounced all over in a relatively short time so your brain is probably tuned in to the "moving around" mode. It's up to you if you stay, but I think you have to work at changing your mindset rather than expecting it to simply change with time ...

Perth

I agree with dunroving about moving around so much. Having done that most of my life I understand how hard it is to break the habit of always wanting to move on. Give it a little more time.

WEBlue

Yes, expats who have moved about the world like you have (3 different locations in 6 years?) are always in the "honeymoon" phase of international living, either getting used to one exciting new place or planning the next move to go on to another exciting new place. It sounds like you haven't had enough time in either the Netherlands or the USA to get bored with the ordinary day-to-day life there.

This makes it difficult to stop the whole process and just settle down back in the home country. Life there may seem boring and grey because it's so familiar, but I agree with the others that 3 months is too little time. See how your feelings change, especially as the Spring progresses & the weather changes.

Also, if the weather is particularly overcast & gloomy where you are in the UK, consider buying & using a SAD lamp. People moving from some parts of California & the Southwest USA become used to lots of sunshine, and can suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) when returning to live under the UK's greyer skies.

emiwar

Thanks all, I agree its early stages and I keep telling myself that. I really think that it will get better, the more we settle the easier it will become.

We have come home to rented accommodation, with only one job (my OH is interviewing curently) to an area that is lovely but isnt quite close enough to our friends and family network. Once we have the jobs in place we can look to move somewhere a bit closer potentially and have a bit more permanance. One thing that moving around has pushed us towards is the desire of having a place to call home!

windsong

Some areas around Los Angeles are lovely - Monterey, Carmel, etc. and further north, San Francisco, Tiberon, etc. I have spent a lot of time in California and really liked it - my parents lived there and I used to fly out 3-4 times a year. I did NOT like the highways, though, and stayed clear as much as I could although that is hard to do when commuting to work. The rush hour traffic in LA is horrendous! But if there is one state I would choose to live in it would be California and next to that, I think, North Carolina - I haven't been there but I have studied it a lot with a view to a possible move there at one time. It is also a very beautiful state.

Having said all that, neither of these places has the culture of the UK. They don't change what the USA is all about. They don't change the terrible state of "lack of" healthcare in this country. They don't offer the quaintness of British life - or its history - yet they do offer more, IMHO, than many other states if you have to live in the USA.

I have actually been thinking a lot about California myself recently, thinking perhaps I should move there and perhaps I would be quite happy there and for a while I was a tad torn - until I realized that it wouldn't change the USA as a whole - the healthcare, gun control, poor education standards (generally speaking), shallowness, etc. Besides, I would sooner live in the UK and be closer to the Continent and all it has to offer than remain isolated in the USA with only one or two states to choose from to at least "try" to make a home here - and then have to accept everything else about the USA.

Sometimes it is a tough call but I think this is where you need to listen to your heart, especially now that you have a child. In what culture would you want him or her to grow up?

From reading your post, it seems you have never cried tears at the airport about flying back to the USA as many of us have. Maybe it is truly that you have enjoyed everywhere you have lived and always looked forward to going home wherever it might have been. This can make your choice a lot harder, I think. It sounds as if you haven't stayed anywhere long enough for life to settle into everyday "routine".

Where do you have family? Do you want your child to know your family and to grow up alongside them? This is a big issue, too. You only ever have one family. One thing I regret is that my parents didn't live closer to our family, especially since I was an only child (have VERY distant half-sister whom I do not know). I have distant second cousins in the UK but who knows where - and they don't even know me, never met me - and so for all intents and purposes they are not family. I did find one of them through doing family history and we shared perhaps two emails - three years ago. Nothing more. If there is one thing I could have changed about my parents' choices, it would have been this.

I also think that as you get older, "home" (your roots) become more important but it is harder to move back - for many reasons - as you age.

I also think it is very early for you to decide you have made a mistake. I would give it at least a year. It is a big change and you need time to adjust Three months is nowhere NEAR enough. It's also natural to miss certain things about the place you have left. It doesn't mean your decision to go back to the UK was wrong.

In the end, only you can decide.

windsong

Having a place of your "own" would make the world of difference.

Almo

Hi emiwar,

I can empathise a great deal. We have been back since early December but December was all about a wedding and a huge family Christmas, real life only really set in in early Jan.

Only my OH is working, I am still job hunting and we are struggling with whether or not we've made a mistake too. We do know it's too early to know but that doesn't mean there aren't difficult days.

Happily, most people (although not all) on this board have moved back successfully or are looking forward with great excitement to moving back. It's great to be able to read and focus on such positivity but it can also be a little isolating to feel that everyone else got it 'right', especially when I was one of those people looking forward to it with great excitement!

One thing I do know, from reading other boards (the Australian ones, in my case) is that we need to give it a proper chance here, otherwise pingponging back will just leave us with feelings of 'what if', in the same way people that leave Aus within a few months often find themselves back in the UK wondering if they really gave it their best shot. So, we try not to dwell on things too much, we try to make plans to see friends, to explore, to do things we enjoy. We are trying to make new friends and build a life here. I think we are agreed that we will wind up overseas again, somewhere, at some point, and we have reached an unspoken compromise where we allow ourselves to talk about that, because it is vague and unknown (I'm pushing for HK though!), but we do not allow ourselves to talk about moving back to Melbourne. If we still feel like this in a year we will need to revisit things, but will need to bear in mind that as things in the UK have changed, so will things in Melbourne have done if we moved back in 2014.

Happy to PM if you would like.

J.JsOH

It subsides, sooner or later, for many of us.
I had looked forward to coming back to UK, previous visits back had been pleasant, and in the beginning was quite happy to be back while it felt like a holiday. Then reality set in, I struggled to cope with many aspects of life that affected my sense of right and wrong and conflicted with my established way of life in USA, it's taken me a long time to deal with it.

It was today in a country gastro pub after a country walk that I said to my OH that I feel I'm gradually turning the corner to be accepting (surrendering, worn-down) that life in UK is now normal to me as we approach 3 years back. Not that it all been bad so far but now I think I found my groove and can mostly ignore the rest.

windsong

My business partner suggested recently that if I want to leave the USA, I should move to Australia or New Zealand (English-speaking). I told him that after my experience in the USA and my longing to go home to the UK for so many years, that my next move would be back to the UK and there I would stay. I have no desire whatsoever to globe trot any more. I want to wake up in the morning and realize I am finally "home" and that, no matter how many things I might find to complain about there, it's still "home" and to me, inspite of its faults, it is still the best country in the world.

Almo

Perhaps I should have written more carefully as I can see it looks as if I've made a connection between not being settled yet and wanting to go overseas again. Ah, the written word! For us, the two are not connected. Even when we were desperately excited about moving back to the UK we thought it was unlikely that we would be here for the rest of our lives without at least another jaunt overseas. Wandering seems to be in my genes, less so in OH's but he has caught the bug a little.

I'm glad that you know that you will be home when you make it back to the UK and I hope you get there soon.

WhoFan63

Hi there I think that 'did I do the right thing' feeling has hit everyone at some stage in their lives, whether it was moving countries or even moving from one state to another. It takes time to settle back into the groove, but it will happen. Probably the one thing I would advise is to not compare everything to the US (or Australia, or whatever country you move from). Naturally the weather will be different, the food is different, the cost of things is different.

After living overseas for however many years, of course you will have created memories and often happy memories of places you'd visit, things you would do, the weather etc etc. Now you just have to do the same thing in a new place. Get out and about, see more of where you are, start creating those NEW happy memories. Every country has it's good and bad points, but for me personally the UK will always be home and I haven't lived there in 30 years...LOL When I was back there last year it felt like I was 'home' and was treated as a local instead of a tourist. I was always treated like a tourist in Australia and the USA, even though I'd lived in both countries for quite a number of years. It was always 'oh you're from England, what brings you here??"

I know it's easier said than done, and I'm only speaking for myself here (just so I don't upset anyone..lol), but when I get back next month I know the weather isn't going to be the same as here in Arizona (thank goodness..lol), I know I won't be able to buy certain foods. But we adapt ! I'll go out and make new friends, go see new things and begin again.

Some of us make it...some decide to move back to wherever they came from. Each person is different, but what do we have to lose if we don't at least try?? Let everything settle and see how you feel in a year!

vikingsail

Nicely put.

WhoFan63

Why thank you !!

ElizabethK

Today for some reason I'm feeling the same way (ie is it a mistake) and I haven't even left to go back to UK yet!

Whenever we've been to England on our holidays (which is a lot), we never want to return to USA, but I then wonder whether it's because we have to go 'home' to PA that makes me not want to leave UK? I've confused myself in that statement there!

We've always said that we'll go home to England, and now the time is upon us and suddenly it's real I'm finding myself screaming "shiiiiiiiit, what are we doing"

We have a lovely home to go back to, will be mortgage free and my husband has a good job all lined up there, but still I can't help thinking of what we're leaving behind (which really isn't much to be honest apart from a guaranteed hot summer and excrutiatingly cold winters)

I'm sure we'll have times and wonder if it was a big mistake when we're there, but I hope that once we're settled and life is back to normal that ultimately we'll just have fond memories of our life in USA, and we can always come on holiday over here and confirm to ourselves why we wanted to go home to UK