radion

Guys,

So I was thinking, I have read a lot on here and wanted to ask this question of you all.

Having moved to the US, would you in hindsight change anything about it, where you are now in your life,or would you do the same thing again....

You know the choice of location, initial job choice, that sort of thing.

Hope this gets a good response, its a bit different to the norm...

Manc

I really don't think I'd have bothered, given 20/20 hindsight.

britvic

I dont need to add any more.

joto

Probably we would not have chosen the area we first lived in when we got here, but we were given no choice in the matter as that's where hubby's job was based.

MsElui

maybe im a bit sad - but the only thing i would probably change is NOT to have saddled ourselves with a lease car. Otherwise we did good.

meauxna

Please don't tell your fiancee that.

britvic

Why not my husband knows only too well

lisag8070

Hmm...tricky one but only because it was always my OH's dream to work in America so when a job came up he looked at me with eyes that were lit up with excitement asking me if we could go for it...how in the hell could I say no and dash his dreams..

now many years down the line OH has been sent back to the UK with work, (I'm stuck here waiting for DD to finish her school year and for the bloody house to sell) and he tells me that he's realised that he's 5 years behind the European technology in his field...and that all the blokes that he trained up many moons ago are now seriously high up in the pecking order and he feels like he's having to start from scratch all over again..

he's not bitter towards the guys, he's still really great friends with them all..I guess its just more about the whole "If I knew then what I know now, I would never have done it" kinda thing..

So the answer to your question is no, if we would have had hindsight we wouldn't have bothered..we would have stayed with working all over Europe having an absolute blast!..

ian-mstm

I would do it all over again... in a heartbeat. I've been in the US just over 11 years now... and they've been the best 11 years of my life. I have no regrets at all.

Ian

bevinva

It was never a dream of mine to live in the US. That being said I needed to get well away from a family situation. I married someone I had seen two weeks out of a little over 2 years and came over here........he turned out to be a bastard.......two kids made me have to stay. So I wish I hadn't come here, but I wish a lot of things had been different too.

made of kent

Still in the honeymoon period, we have made tons of mistakes, not least buying a huge house, (compared to our house in the UK) which with 41/2 year old twins is starting to look like Kim and Aggies worst nightmare, I am embarrassed to admit that when I put the boys to bed today their feet where black from filth! I don't have enough hours in the day to keep mopping, and mop heads are costing me a fortune, we go through them so quickly! actually, I possible do have enough hours, but that would mean ignoring them and the garden which we all enjoy! oh and curtains! why oh why didn't I bring them with me?

dbj1000

Whoa Radion, that's a big question!

Six years down the line, I can look back and say that I would do it all again, and that more importantly my wife probably would too... but there were two or three years when we deeply regretted coming over.

Like lisag8070, I had always wanted to work in the US, and had assumed that it would happen at some stage. In my case work turned out better than I could have hoped for, on the whole.

...it was all the other things, like culture shock, my wife being unable to work, the stress of being on an H1-B and trying to get a Green Card, family health issues back home... the list of things that we weren't prepared for is pretty huge really!

But, as I say, now that we're settled, happy and firmly rooted here in Texas, I'd do it all again.

caleyjag

Everything has worked out pretty well for me and it's all been pretty organic, with one job flowing smoothly into the next, so no, I don't think I would change anything.

I am totally confident that the West Coast is the place to be, so I don't think I would even say maybe I should have tried somewhere else within the US.

Probably my only regret is that I didn't discover Seattle sooner.

I was thinking today that it could be reasonably argued that over the years I maybe haven't given the American ladies the effort that they deserve. I'll be back in California in a few weeks and I promise to do my best to rectify that particular situation.

Mummy in the foothills

Sounds about right for me too.

CitySimon

Good or Bad, every decision and choice I have made in my life has led me to where I am right now. I'd not undo any of my decisions I've made simply because without them, I wouldn't be who I am today.