Am I a complete weirdo for contemplating moving to America?

OP you will be fine! Your husband is a pilot.

As you know they have their own immigration queue. Regardless of heritage or ethnicity they will not arrest a pilot passing through immigration.

Regardless. I am more worried about your title asking whether you’re a weirdo for thinking about moving, It sounds like you’re already mentally on the back foot. To move to any country you need a huge amount of resilience. And no amount of preparation will prepare you for the changes - it’s a huge amount of admin you won’t get, process that are baffling and lots of comparing to back home for first few years. The culture shock is what will get you not whether your Indian heritage husband passes as ‘white’ or British. Despite being a pilot.

If you’re serious about this even in short term you need to reframe your thinking and be more realistic. Think about whether you are up for the adventure whatever it brings. And properly run the numbers and then double it. I would say my husband earns double what he would earn in UK but for us - due to other costs doesn't mean we have more disposable income.

When it is good, US healthcare and public education are both spectacular. My daughter just got an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon, an MRI, and physical therapy, all same or next day, all excellent. The physio spent an hour working with her and was extremely thorough and knowledgeable, nothing like the half-baked and extremely delayed physio we got on the NHS. There is a copay for some appointments, usually $25, but there is a lot of choice of providers, and I think the copay is worth it, considering the quality and availability of care.

The public schools can be terrible but they can also be utterly fantastic. The inequality is partly down to funding which is (unfairly) based on local property taxes, so there is a town in CT which spends more than $49,000 per year per student- the schools are great. A good American public school can be truly wonderful.

I don't know anyone who has a gun or who votes for Tr*mp.
I live in NY, but brought my 3 kids up in the UK.

And you think ICE gives a shit about nuance? A popular Indian name that many British people share? Does the name sound American?

Foolish

*sadly lacking here

I’d absolutely go in your position. I just got back from a different east coast state and (even though I lived in the US in the past in what feels like another life!) I was blown away by the positivity of Americans, the lifestyle, the get up and go that so many people have that seems sadly lacking. It doesn’t surprise me you’d be better off - the statistics are scary how US salaries have gone up and up while in the UK they have completely stagnated.
i had some chances to live and work abroad when my kids were small and we didn’t take them. I really regret it now. Grab it with both hands OP. You can always come back, but the chance may not present itself again!

Sounds like you have made your mind up - not sure what you want out of this thread 😂 - fwiw I have friends over there and they cant want to move back… they say it’s not all that (I don’t know as never lived there)

I had a Green Card. I allowed it to expire. I've lived in 5 different countries. Guess which one I hated the most and never want to live/work in again?

Hmm I’m American, and I am super down on the UK right now, but I’d never, ever go back (and I’m from a blue state). It’s great until it’s you who needs the social safety net. I didn’t think I would in a million years.

I love that my children are growing up with kids from so many other countries, that they can holiday in such diverse places a short flight away, and that this place is so full of history.

How many weeks holiday will your husband get?

You could get a job in the uk then you'd have more money.

But you've already made up your mind so just do it and hope that you and dh never split up or you might find yourself separated from your children.

Bloody hell OP, why would you even consider it?
And your husband is half Indian ? Bonkers.
ICE is terrifying and they’ve only just started . You think money and your husbands blue eyes will protect you?
Why in earth do you think you’re more special than the innocent people being plucked from the street and disappearing?
AND your husband entering/ exiting through airports?
So if he did get taken, and his ability to earn money is impacted, you would be absolutely fucked. You and your kids.
Extraordinary that you would willingly put yourself in such a position for a bigger house.

Cost of living is much higher than UK - food, hair, nails, restaurants, clubs for kids, child care, healthcare etc so 3x salary might not feel like it.

Do it!!!! You can always go back if you don’t like it. We have the most amazing life in the US! We have a beautiful house with loads of space, both inside and out. We did rent for the first 18 months to make sure that we liked the area. Buying was super easy and we closed within 60 days! Food is pretty expensive here, but things like gas and electric are not, so it balances out ok. Everyone is so friendly! They love the accent too. We don’t live in Connecticut so I don’t know anything about the state, but you can trial it and see. We love the schools and our kids are thriving so much! They do lockdown drills etc, but thankfully there has not been anything to worry about in regards to intruders etc. Moving here is honestly the best decision we have ever made! It did take me a few months to adjust, and I was very upset at first, but I realized that I had to stop comparing it to the UK, and look at all the wonderful advantages that the move had brought to my family. The homesickness went away and I don’t miss the UK at all now.

I find your comment a bit odd, and think I may have misunderstood. Are you saying that things feel more uncertain politically in the UK than in the US? This would be a bit of a niche position at the moment I would have thought.

Certainly there is some change and uncertainty atm in the UK, but we have not needed to close down government due to failing to agree the budget, and air traffic contollers get paid even when there are political disagreements. This sort of thing would directly impact your husband's airline job if you lived there, and possibly increase his risk of being made unemployed.

I think you need to factor in day to day cost of living in the US - it's crazy expensive, even groceries.

As an Anglo-American couple, we could go there too. The Anglo doesn’t want to - despite the ‘Connecticut mansion bought outright’ temptation. The American, on the other hand, feels that the UK is in a parlous state, that things are only going to get worse here and that the only option we have that’s more worrying than staying in England would be to go back to America.

So as someone who lives in the UK as a foreigner absolutely not.

Living somewhere is completely different to visiting. You have absolutely no idea what it so like.

I know many many many expats who are homesick for years (7 is the average), can’t get used to the culture, find it very hard to make friends and you won’t be able to work .

Please don’t romanticise things either - beside the list you have included you forgot expensive healthcare, very expensive uni of out of state (and even then) etc etc.

You may be able to live in a nice house in a gated community but you have to go out into the world and there isn’t any amount of money that could pay me to move to the US right now.

This post makes it sound like a very risky proposition though!

We lived somewhere previously where it was legal to sack an employee for no reason. However, this was backed up by a very generous unemployment safety net as long as you had been employed longer than two years, so we were happy to take the risk. The US sounds like a different kettle of fish completely!

YANBU to consider it. But please really research it first. You would definitely be able to afford a far bigger house because there is space out there. But a lot of things are way more expensive - food definitely is - and the quality is not so good. Everything has tax on top of advertised prices. You would need premium health insurance - although the airline might offer that for all the family as part of the package. Look into schools, weather etc. A US friend of mine returned to UK, moved back into her tiny house here, from their mansion in US, but said she still prefers it here - the climate, the social life. Where she lived was too hot and humid to ever be outdoors whereas in UK we often sit out in summer, eat outside, have drinks in pub gardens etc. We can walk everywhere. They drive everywhere in most US cities. It's just a very different lifestyle.

I've lived in the Tri State for years and absolutely love it but you'd have to pay me to live in CT. I completely irrationally can't stand CT! It's just one long traffic jam. Plus, for a pilot, it's not near any of the NYC airports which I'm presuming he'd be working out of.

Also, it's not apples for apples so it's hard to compare property values to what you have now. Presumably your council tax isn't $25k a year? And as a newbie, you're not eligible for a lot of mortgages. Add in healthcare and cost of living, the US is not a cheap area to live, especially in the NYC area. So make sure you do your research because those big salary numbers don't always go as far as you might think. But if you go for it, I hope you love it as much as I have!

That's a whomper of a house to heat in Conneticut's sub-zero winter temperatures! I'd want a cleaner/housekeeper too for a house that big tbh.

Is this a joke, or are you genuinely defending moving to the US on the grounds that your DH passes as white?

Because if it's genuine, you couldn't have found a way to shout louder that the US is a racist country but you could have a pool, so...

And have you taken into account that Connecticut is an “at will” state in employment law? So DH’s contract can be terminated for no reason on no notice and he loses his not just his job, but also his healthcare and, if it’s tied to his job, his right to be in the country. Suddenly he (or you, or heaven forbid one of you and child/children) are ill/injured and out of work, no health insurance and on a deadline to leave (within 30 days I think?) or become “illegals”. USA is the most amazing place to live when all is going well in life, but the flip side of their ‘every man for himself’ attitude is you are on your own when the chips are down. Medical bankruptcy is very, very real.