I just got back yesterday from visiting my family with my wife for Christmas. We had an amazing time seeing my family and friends. We gorged on good old British foods (pies, pasties, afternoon teas, fish and chips, fry ups), went to lots of pubs, and I took her shopping where I went to university for undergrad (Nottingham). We spent so much time with both sets of my grandparents in case anything happens from now until our next visit as it won't be for a while! We rented a car and took road trips through countrysides. Hung out with my nieces and nephews (who have grown so much in the year and half I last saw them!). I would reminisce to my wife about places and things I would do as a kid in my area, and it made me feel glad to have had the childhood I had, albeit even if I didn't have much growing up! Overall, our trip, despite being crazy and hectic, was amazing and I am so glad we got to spend Christmas with my family for at least one year together!

On the other hand, being in my town where I spent 27 years felt a little strange and weird, for want of a better word. I felt a strange disconnect at the same time as feeling connected again with the past 27 years of my life before I came here. With my town, my family, and friends. I genuinely felt like I've become such a different person in that short space of time. It didn't feel like somewhere I call 'home' anymore, and I felt a weird feeling of having now gone down a path so different than all my friends and family ever would do or have done, that I felt a tiny bit of an outsider. I felt a bit of guilt too, as I know the longer I live in the USA, the further I will drift from my old life and connections. Has anyone else experienced this stuff, or similar when visiting home?

Obviously, I don't regret the choices I've made and I'm happy with my life here and it is going better than it would have in the UK, no doubt. I just wanted to share my personal experiences with you all, as I don't want to unload this nagging feeling onto the wife and make her feel guilty or think I regret making the move in the end, because I don't at all.

Yes, I feel exactly that way.
From Central Scotland and been here in SoCal for @ 20 years.

Lately it's been my full intention to return home to live with my wife but I wonder if it's the best thing to do after all my experience here
On the other hand, we don't need to move back to where I used to live, (Scotland seems so parochial now according to the online papers), probably go to the South of England and be able to travel around Europe much easier

@maste Similar feelings. I have lived in the US for 22 years and often feel as if I have had two lives. There was the old me who lived in the UK up to my thirties who almost now seems a different person. Moving to the USA was a big step, but absolutely the best thing I ever did and I feel much more at home here. In the UK I could never enjoy the standard of living, quality of life and success I attained in the USA. Perhaps other longer term residents have that feeling?

I enjoy periodic visits back to the UK but more and more it is not the country I grew up in. (John Major was PM when I left!) Makes one realize you can't ever really go back.

Happy New Year All!

Chris

I know the feeling. Left my home country 45 yrs ago. I don't have much family left but I visit +- every year. I enjoy walking down memory lane, eating familiar food, do some shopping, meet people I know. As much as I look forward to my trips, the moment I arrive I look forward to returning what has become "home". What once was "home" is now like a tourist experience.

This is how I felt last summer. It was great to show the kids, and have a few weeks as a tourist, but it is no longer "home".

Stranger for me is that having lived in the US for so long I actually start to feel homesick for California after being in the UK for a week or so (great as it is to be back in the UK for a visit) I guess that's what 45 years away does for you. It took me about ten years to stop feeling homesick for the UK after I came here in 1973

Yeah, I get homesick for the countryside and relaxed life, and then when I was there I felt like a stranger to it all. Crazy really. Guess I have a long time of feeling homesick coming up it seems until this feels completely like home!

I'm glad others experienced the same thing though.

That is the danger of expat life - that you never feel completely at "home" in your new country, but your old country doesn't feel like home any more either, because it and/or you change in your absence. Makes you really consider what is important to you.

That's how I feel - seventeen years in the US and I still get a comment on my accent most weeks, so I feel like a perpetual newcomer.

​​​​​​⠀‹People seem surprised when I tell them I've been here that long. I met Samantha Fish last month, and she immediately asked where I was from. Obviously she didn't mean NC, so I said "England", prompting her to ask where in England, and she said she'd be there in May. I replied that I lived here now, which, as with most people, seemed to surprise her.

I can see that, especially as I made the expat move during my late 20's, which I'm noticing is when people especially change the most back home. It was nice to catch up with my best friends back home, but they didn't feel like the best friends as I knew them or remembered them. Sucks, but that's expat life I guess! My town has changed hugely in the year and half since I left too, which shocked me no end!

At the end of the day, I'm seeing it as I'm living the life I want, with the person I love, and this weird feeling is something that goes along with making such big life changing decisions.

Made three trips back for a combined total of 8 weeks since we moved over her two and a half years ago. Each trip has confirmed the decision we made was the right one, aided I think by the advancement of technology in recent years (Skype) and the relative low cost of travel now, meaning we never feel like we are too far apart. I know I could hop back if I needed to. With friends, having reached my 40's, we were already at a point in the UK where people had moved away and get together's were becoming less frequent (my friends didn't meet-up in-between my recent two visits which were 5 months apart). The plus side of moving to where we did, by design, is that we've had the opportunity clear down debt and save some money, while getting a house quite literally three ties the size of the one we had in England. That is life changing having spent 20 odd years in what felt a bit like a battle with our own failings :-) Don't get me wrong, I know I could have moved to the North East in England and maybe done some of that, but weather was also an issue for me, seriously. Our trip back this time made me notice just how damp the UK is - I know I can get that in the USA, but my choice of location gives me greater sense of hope for the better days.

I know this isn't everyone experience, but, as with most things on the web, the world online often skews into the things that can go wrong.

Our plan is to move back in a few years once DH retires. Going back to Scotland last October, the first time in 5yrs since his Dad died, has only made that feeling more acute. He met up with a few friends who are doing all the things he likes to do, like hill walking, running and cycling but finds difficult to do in the Texas heat and roads. Also he has had several friends retire early recently and that extra 6.5 yrs of working seems daunting especially as he has so much he wants to do once he stops working. He also noted his friends looked happy and fit compared to everyone here, including himself. When he meets up with his friends in Scotland, its like the last few decades disappear.
We realise it might be a tough ride going back,who knows what is going to happen with Brexit but the other option of moving to another state with weather better suited to his activities, would also be tough. As for myself, as I make regular trips back to the UK due to family issues, I am sure I will settle really well. Have never really managed to integrate myself into the life over here although since the grandchild started school and I am the childminder, I have started to make friends of sort.

Blimey, hello stranger! Glad to have you back.