We moved to Alberta in 2010 as with 3 young boys we were somewhat concerned for their future in the UK so much competition overcrowding and increasing violence. We did not want to raise hard working boys who would have to spend their lives supporting what we saw as a growing number of people who have no intention of working or paying their way.

We both worked (me part time and my husband full time) and seriously had a worse lifestyle and less available time/money than many people we dealt with who had never worked a day in their lives. I worked in healthcare and my husband in security so we perhaps saw the worst of life at times. That is a brief history.

Anyway, my dilemma is that I do not want to stay here, after 3 years I know that this place will never be home and I get sadder and more unhappy with each and every passing day. I hate my job, the education system here, the lack of culture to be honest just about everything. I know I thought life and prospects for our children would be worse in the UK compared to Canada but I didn't realise the value of what I had either. So life in the UK is hard at times but it is an exciting life with challenges. I find that life here by comparison is so dull, work so much worse, and the grass soooo much browner. We have lots of friends here, have travelled about a bit (not as much as I would like but we have to work), have had jobs from day 1, have integrated as much as possible - have more Canadian than UK friends etc. It is a spectaculatly beautiful country in places. BUT it is not home, I miss family, friends, my old job, the UK sense of humour, food, even the rain and it just keeps getting worse the longer I am here. Our boys settled well here, the eldest graduate in June next year, they are not sure what or where they will go on to study. Youngest is 11. I have not discussed moving home with them yet because I don't want to unsettle them. However my biggest problem is that my husband absolutely adores it here, he has said many, many times how he would never move home and how much better his life is here. Things keep coming to a head and we have a massive row as I hate it here and he loves it and we can find no common ground. This has affected our marriage, how we see each other and relate to each other. The more I tell him how unhappy I am the more he tells me how happy he is. I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud or smiled and really meant it. I know that my mood swings and unhappiness are making his life a misery as I feel so angry at being stuck here, and I know that I take it out on him, I really don't know where we go from here.

Has anyone else on this forum had similar experiences, what did you do? How did you overcome it? (if you were able to). We had always planned to review our experience after 2 years, now its over 3. I would fly home tomorrow if I could, but it would be without my husband which is also not what I want. I want the whole family to be happy but I just can't see how I can ever achieve this. Has anyone else brought a reluctant spouse home
or left one behind. I just want to know if anyone else has faced this dilemma?

I'm not looking for answers I understand that only we can make such decisions, I just want to know if anyone else out there knows what I'm going through.

I sympathize with your home sickness, but there is nothing I can think of saying to you that will help. Have you considered the alternative of moving somewhere else in Canada? Alberta is very grim (I'm in my 8th year here -- and each winter gets worse).

How awful and somewhat familiar. Sometimes the men put on a brave face and will not admit their feelings. I don't know if this is true for yours. I recognize many of the feelings you describe. However, I don't know what you can do if your husband truly is happy there.

This is the danger whenever a couple moves country (or moves anywhere), that one will love the new place whilst the other hates it.... I feel for you.

I know a little of what you're going through because my husband & I had very different reactions to a country we lived in for a number of years. Our marriage suffered, and the impact wasn't good for the children, either, as you'd expect. It was a very difficult time, and only ended with a job transfer coming out of the blue. All I can advise is to keep talking to one another--even though it may result in hurt feelings and outright rows, it's better than not talking, bottling feelings up inside....that's what's really fatal to a relationship, IMO. As long as you're communicating honestly, there's hope of something changing for the better, or some solution arising.

I completely understand what you are going through and sympathise with your whole situation. Sometimes emigrating opens a great big can of worms!
I wish I had an answer to your question, my husband has reluctantly agreed to go home to the UK but how that will work out long term only time will tell and I hope he can find happiness with his family in the same country.
Time can sometimes make things easier, the longer you stay the more you adapt to a way of life, but I don't know whether the nagging doubts ever go away.
Maybe another part of Canada will help or a holiday to the Uk to see if he would consider a move. It is difficult to know and every relationship is different, your children's views will have a bearing too as they are older. Good luck x

Rugbymum I am so sorry you are going through this.

Been there done that.

I don't have kids but have been very unsettled in Canada - partly related to work difficulties (we moved for my husband's job and it worked out for him very well from day 1 but not for me) but also partly due to not settling into the city where we live and then a whole host of others things as well.

I tried to persuade my husband to go back to the UK but he really didn't want to - he did go for a job interview but he didn't get it and he didn't want it.

He was and is very pro living in Canada.

it ended up that we split up. There were a lot of things that contributed to it but I think, when you're a couple, and one of you is really unhappy, it does make you question where you are as a couple - for me it couldn't be about living one person's dream without regard for what I wanted out of life.

I think couples have to have some joint dreams/goals in common otherwise it gets very difficult - and the choice of country to live in is a pretty fundamental thing.

I stayed in Canada (am still here in Ontario at the moment) and, after graduating, tried to make things work but my heart just wasn't in it. I felt trapped, logged onto this board and decided (with some encouragement) to move back to the UK - which I'm going to do in April.

It's very scary. But I have a peace in my heart that I've not had for a long time.

Only you can decide what to do in the long run ... it took me a long time to leave my husband and with hindsight I should have left sooner (he moved on pretty quickly, is dating someone else and made it quite clear in the separation discussions with lawyers how little he valued my contribution to our marriage) .. I don't have kids and it was incredibly painful.

We did try couples counseling for a while - it helped a bit in terms of getting a discussion going but it didn't get us both on the same page - like I said, the country you live in is a pretty fundamental thing to disagree about.

So I feel really sorry reading your email because it's a very painful situation to be in and one I am very familiar with from my own experience.

It might be helpful if you went and had a chat with a counselor - just sharing how you feel can be helpful.

At the end of the day I think (in my own experience) it came down to how much we valued each other versus how much we valued living in Canada - and for him, Canada came first.

I can only really echo what everyone else has already said, especially WEBlue's comment about keeping the lines of communications open. I'm taking a very reluctant spouse back to the UK, I'm not even sure he'll actually come when push comes to shove. Have you actually told your husband that you want to move home, or have you just skirted around the edges? Maybe a trip back to the UK would be a solution and help you all come to terms with the idea of moving home permanently. I wish you the very best of luck, you're truly in a horrible situation that I can well sympathize with.

Oh dear! No magic answers from me I'm afraid! I tend to go with the "people are more important than the place" rationale - for me, it was that life in Australia with him was less worse than life in UK without him. However my very reluctant spouse who always declared he would be depressed in UK is behaving very much like a pup with two tails now that he actually lives here (circumstances changed and it was the thing to do at the time)

The key is compromise - you both have to feel that the other is giving something to your position. That may be a move elsewhere in Canada or it may be him ensuring you have the finances to go back whenever you feel like you need a holiday - whatever works for you!

In the meantime, if you decide that this is the person you want to grow old and die beside then it's a case of putting on your big girl panties and getting on with it, I'm afraid. There are a load of counselling tips and tricks from the CBT or ACT tool kits which can help you through each and every day so I do suggest you try counselling - couples counselling so that you are both hearing each other and working together to find a solution - and individual counselling to equip you with ways of managing to get up and function each day. Sadly, the cure for exogenous depression is to remove yourself from the situation which is making you depressed - I knew that theoretically but didn't really "know" it until it happened to me!

(((Hugs))) Rock and Hard Place spring to mind but if you both love and value each other you will work through it together.

I'm board jumping here.... I feel for you Rugbymum, and I'm worried too. Forgive me for my post on myself . We moved here two months ago, so I know it's early days. We're only on a temp work permit, and we were only coming for a year (jobs left open). I knew before I came that it was a mistake, that I didn't want to come. I thought oh well, I can cope with a year etc. But even a year seems intolerable. The last two months have gone soooo slowly.

My husband loves it here, so does my 8 yr old. Logically, I can see why they like it, skiing, weather is in someways better, lots of space around, beautiful area etc. my husband would up and buy a house and a puppy tomorrow. His work is so much better. Meanwhile I've left my job that I loved (Staff Nurse) and as we were only coming for a yr didn't try and start converting qualifications- to find out that I will never work at the level I was working at or the area that I loved. I miss home particularly this time of year, I loved the six nations rugby, loved spring and daffodils. I just miss the fabric of the place, my friends that replaced my family, tv, planning trips to France and Italy (Peppa pig taking a vacation there made me jealous the other day). I miss the streets lined with houses, being able to walk most places, going to clothes shop that I knew and liked.

Do I just ignore it all for the sake of everyone else? I have a 3 yr old also who will settle anywhere, so it's really just me. Commit to a house so we're forced to stay for a while? (Nb if he wants to stay, he's a Family Physician, so prov nomination and pr are prob a given). I'm making friends, I've met some lovely people but I just want to go home...

Please be honest about your feelings, otherwise it will come as a huge shock to him one day when you suddenly lose it and say you want to go home. If he knows you are only prepared to stay for the year he will prepare for the move back instead of planning puppies and houses.

Hi it seems that the men that come out here always settle better than us girls! My situation is similar, although no children either, in that after 10 years I finally came to the conclusion that I was not happy here and it was not the person I was with. We have had years of fights and arguments and resentments but when I think of why it was usually started by me because I could not put a finger on why I was dissatisfied with life! I found these boards and discovered I was not the only one!

In 2012 I told him my feelings and he was very adamant that he was not moving back to that "cesspit". Over the 10 years here, we both took separate holidays to see our respective families because of business commitments, one had to run the business in the other's absence! Then that year in May I persuaded him to come on a holiday with me to UK to see his family. I then planted the seed!! I did all the bookings and chose a lovely cottage on the Essex/Suffolk border where we were surrounded by beautiful farms of canola/wheat and cute villages near where his mom was living. He always stayed just outside East London with his girls, but this time we experienced England in its glory! While there I certainly pointed out the advantages, cheaper food, family enjoying us together (he always seemed to fight with his family when there alone) our old friends and the humour and friendliness and the bloody good tv. On returning he had sort of changed his mind. I kept on watering this seed I planted and we also went on holiday from here to visit my family in Cape Town which he loved. That journey was absolutely a nightmare travelling and while there I pointed out how much easier it would be from Heathrow! Again he took all this in. He also hates the winter as much as I do so it is easy to show him how we could spend 3 months in Cape Town from Jan to March thus getting away from winter here.
Because I had basically lost interest in being here, I stopped entertaining people and lost touch with everything here. Luckily he is as fed up with where we stay now as I am. I also did a reverse psychology and booked a week's holiday in Victoria over Christmas to show him I was quite happy to stay if we both liked a new area and could afford to live down there in the same standard as we could in UK. We looked at it from that perspective and both decided that it was not really where we wanted to be either. He has asked me to wait until he retires next year before we go back and I have agreed to this although for me it is just marking time!
I have just returned from a solo holiday to Cape Town with my family and he was left alone for a month and was so miserable and unhappy that when I came back I think would have agreed to anything I wanted. It made him realise that this place where he likes is not worth being here without me! Now we can plan together
I would also advise you to be honest and upfront with your family. Instead of arguing I would sit them down maybe at a restaurant where they cannot make a scene and explain how you feel and that you are trying for their sakes but you may not be able to live where you are for ever and they must take your feelings into consideration. Perhaps also book a holiday back for you to a different nice area in UK where they may enjoy themselves and see UK through different eyes.
However I would also advise you to get your Canadian Citizenship first before you move if that is what you all eventually want to do. If your older son stays it gives you more options.
Sorry this is so long winded but I want to let you know that you are not alone and there are a lot of us in the same position here in Canada.
Take care and hang in there!

Reading this thread, I feel very fortunate that my husband is prepared to go back to the UK. But it hasn't been an easy decision for either of us.

When we came out here eight years ago, I made it clear that I wasn't prepared to commit to staying permanently. I did think that I might be able to adapt. My husband is Canadian, and he has more close relatives in Canada than I have in the UK. We are childless, and I thought being part of a bigger family might be nice. It quickly became clear that was a pipe-dream. Not that his family are unpleasant, but they've not made me feel very welcome either. The one person I get on well with is his step-mother, who is English like me, but since she is almost ostracized by the rest of the family, I get the feeling that if we retired in Canada and he died first, then I'd find myself very lonely.

I said I'd stay until I was sixty, then extended it to sixty-two, but we are going back this year on my insistence. If he was on his own, I'm sure he'd go on working until he was seventy or so, and then retire to Vancouver Island where he grew up. The fact is, he knows I'd leave him if he refused. I'm not happy about insisting he curtail his career, but I have a life to live too, and I'm not living it here, I'm just existing.

Rugbymum, what a dreadful dilemma. I am just writing to express my sympathy--I have no answers, except to second those who suggested marriage counselling, urgently I would say.

You have also expressed, so honestly and clearly, the cautionary tale that many emigrants from the UK would do well to study: until you leave, you don't value what you have in the UK. You will miss things you previously took for granted.

It's so sad that your feelings are so different from your husband's. I hope that maybe something might happen to help his feelings change--as another poster described did happen to her own husband....

But at any rate, counselling is important now...thinking of you.

I would second that.
Vancouver or Toronto are surely much less grim.
Best place in Canada I ever visited - city of Victoria BC (but then I have seen only half a dozen places so I'm no expert).

I think having work you love is a key issue to feeling connected to community .. and it was a problem from the start for me as we moved for my ex-husband's job and didn't appreciate or realize the difficulties I would encounter getting employment (or my experiences of poor employers).

8 weeks isn't a very long time to decide that you don't like something - I remember being emotionally all over the shop for quite a few months after we moved. And I say that without wishing in any way to diminish how you feel because it is hard - I remember a long long period of misery at the beginning. However, if you really want to commit to trying to make it work (and then reassess how you feel after a set period of time) I would really focus on getting work if I were you - it will help foster connections in Canada.

I did a lot of voluntary work which helped and can be a way into paid work - altho' in my case it wasn't as I picked places that interested me but weren't going to open up into paid offerings (for instance I taught yoga in a prison for a while). If I had understood the way the Canadian employment system worked I would have been a bit more strategic in terms of what voluntary work I undertook - and, to begin with, I was very affronted at the idea that voluntary work was a way into paid work but it's how the Canadian job market works - they don't generally employ people unless they "know" you - it's very challenging that way.

I don't regret what I did in the prison - it led to other things and, in many ways I kind of reinvented myself, developed new skills and expanded the kind of work that I could do - so if you have always hankered to try something new, then Canada could be a way of doing that. That said, having a supportive husband with respect to finances helps - I didn't discuss this with my husband in advance and, while he was on an exceptionally good salary, I found out after the move that he resented the fact that I wasn't working/bringing in as much money - despite the fact that we moved for his job! So you really need to be on the same page as a couple with respect to finances.

You don't say where you are in Canada? Because I think the place you live in makes a big difference too. For instance, whenever I visit Toronto I'm knocked out by how friendly people are - it's a city of immigrants and people are very welcoming. I often think that if we had moved there, I might not have struggled so much to settle down - altho' I've never been very comfortable living in large cities. However, in contrast, the city I live in is not very friendly to outsiders and that added considerably to my misery.