Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Can't, they've taken over. :blink:

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

I know how to do macreme... at least I think I remember...

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Sorry I'm lost.........cooking risotto so short attention span..........what is the topic now?

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Wallpapering as a cure for homesickness.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Hippies... macreme....

mmm risotto - guess I'm too later for tea then?

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Perhaps, before you throw in the towel, you could try living on the East Coast. People aren't spread as far apart there, and it's easier to make friends. Just so you know you aren't alone: I (American) have lived with my (English) husband in Hove for almost eight years. As time has gone on, I've lost touch with all my friends in the States. My husband is pretty much a recluse, so we don't really have any friends to go out to dinner with, party with, what have you. The only people I know here are my in-laws, whereas once I had a huge social circle. That would be okay if I were an introvert like my husband, but I'm very extraverted and take an antidepressant just to get through each lonely day.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

In the eight years I (American) have lived here, what's killed/depressed me the most is just how misguided people are about most Americans. It's a lonely life here.

We're not all gun-toting, war-mongering vigilantes who love to enforce the death penalty. We didn't all vote for George Bush. We didn't all see a point in attacking Iraq. (I realize that Britain's lost 86-plus soldiers to that war, but the U.S. has lost 4,000, not to mention all the soldiers who've lost arms. legs, vision, you name it.) You could easily say that the U.S. started it, so what did they expect, but think of the 4,000 or so people who died aged 17, 18, 19, or 20, whose lives should have just been BEGINNING. Then there are the TENS of thousands of soldiers who've been maimed in some way or another. You don't hear about them. Was it worth it?

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

In fairness, you don''t hear about them here, either.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Politics is not just about who you vote for, it's about the people who vote. When you hear the republicans wanting to teach 'creationism' as pure science in schools, or banning stem-cell research because of ethical concerns, you may wonder what kind of neighbors you will be living with in a republican stronghold.

If you live in a heavily democratic state, you can be at least somewhat assured that abortion clinics are not going to be besieged, that guns will be at least moderately controlled, that there will be at least some level of medical coverage for the poor, etc - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BA2RU7FG6.DTL. When Bush banned stem-cell research, California funded a $3bn project to allow such research (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6384390/). If you don't plan to actually interract with your neighbors, it may not matter, but I like to live amongst people whose values I loosely share. Yes, we pay more tax ... gladly.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

As to returning to the UK, who can afford it? How can anyone afford to live there at all? It took me a while to realize that corner had been turned, and when I go back now I stay with friends and distant relatives, but as we get older, sometimes there is more distance between people and between cultures. I watch a lot of old BBC tv and have my favourite authors and so on, but I think I'm not unusual even among people in their own countries in living in the past somewhat! And my sensibilities make me the sort of person who prefers rural life to city life anyway, and rural life has changed a lot in the UK because it is such a small island compared with the US. The whole of England would fit into Lake Michigan. Let's hope that is not what the new president has in mind... I appreciate the feedback so far. I still have a sneaking feeling that British women are really rather spectacular and improve with age. Even in the 50s and 60s I was basically raised in a school system that groomed women for service to others, but any of us who were teens during the Beatles era were also angry and bolshie and didn't feel like keeping to the rules, so we had the best of both worlds, which is a kind of multi cultural skill in a way. Happy new year.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

You don't hear about them but everyone seems to know about them.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Dear homesick in Hove, perhaps you could join some group or other. One of my favourite bosses lives there so I have warm feelings about the place. If you don't show others who you are you may not find out how they are and miss out on a new understanding of why you are on the planet. I've just finished reading "Eat, Pray, Love", a new book you might get a lot out of, about an intrepid American looking for herself in several places... Good luck!

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

In that order?

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

Really OP, I think you need to see a therapist, your husband should join you, although from what you've said I wonder how likely he would be to go.
Clearly he's not going to move. Anywhere. It honestly makes me wonder whether he is as committed to your marriage as you are.
When we lived in Holland my husband never really integrated as I did, so by the end he was pretty much like you, finding every little thing to be a great annoyance. I also refused to move back to the UK. I knew that the idealistic memories he was holding of life 'back home' just weren't true. Our home country isn't the place we left all those years ago, and the lives we left behind don't exist anymore. Plus since we both came from very different parts of the UK, with very different backgrounds, we would never have found a situation for us both to be happy there.
I think the difference between me and your husband is that I did want to eventually leave Holland. Just not to go back to the UK. When the chance to move to Chicago came up it was just what we needed. Everything in our life is 100 times better here.
I hope that you will work it out one way or another. You need to decide what your priorities are, and what your husband's are. You should be able to find someone specialised in your situation through your many expat groups I think.

Re: Homesick and depressed...
 

They both have a point imo.

She is unhappy where they are and wants to leave.
He has started the green card process and wants to wait a few years until it's complete.

Both valid reasons, again imo.

From a purely practical standpoint - he gets his green card, then they move to a part of the country she might like. However, perhaps the OP cannot wait that long.

Some marriage counseling before a decision is made sounds like a wonderful idea to me.