Moved to Australia

[MrsT87]

Myself and young family (hubby and 2 kids age 6 & 2) have recently emigrated to Perth Australia. I am feeling extremely homesick and feeling like I’ve made the worst decision ever. I’m wracked with mum guilt for taking my kids away from everyone that loved them. I’m already planning on returning in a few months time. My hubby while he is amazing just doesn’t feel it in the same way I do. Guess I’m just looking for a bit of reassurance that I’ve not failed if I chose to go home.

@DaniD1980@MrsT87. Hi both. DH and I were in Aus a few years ago. I felt like yourself @MrsT87but eventually settled. It took a couple of years. We then ended up returning to the U.K. due to work etc and it was the biggest mistake ever. I bitterly regret it and we were heading back last year but career offers have held things up as DH got offered amazing opportunities elsewhere. But we are returning soon..I’m determined as the U.K. is totally and utterly broken. I hate it and how we are taxed to absolute hell for the most dreadful public services ever.

I hope you don’t regret it like we have

The Tories? Look what Labour are doing and are about to do.

Stay there. I would!

Yes it has, entirely. The NHS doesn't work, there are not enough police, the penal system is ridiculously underfunded. Farmers are being tested to the point they will stop actually farming. The water companies are appalling, the electricity costs an absolute mint, the roads are more holes than roads and public services like swimming baths and libraries are way in the past. Pubs have had to shut. Shops have had to shut and the litter and lack of funding for keeping the country looking respectable is gone.

Everything that makes this country worth living in is either gone or is so diminished as to be unrecognisable.

You can't contact any company without waiting in a queue for twenty minutes minimum and more likely an hour and customer service across the board is way in the rear view mirror. You have to fight tooth and nail to get the most basic of service in this country. It is not and has not been run for the people in generations.

I used to be proud to be British. The country is a joke now.

I spent 6 months in oz years ago, considered it. My love for Europe is far greater. I have family in Italy, Scotland and South of France. Kids are on the asd spectrum but we are lucky to be invited and travel within 2 hrs the furthest from these beautiful places and it’s easy. My kids love it. The flight alone makes me sick thinking about Australia lol. Oz was ok, I had a lovely time but it lacks culture, and doesn’t have the vibe and history I love. I’m sorry you’re having a hard. I only moved 3 hrs away from my parents and I find that hard as they such good support. Good luck

Had you ever visited Perth before? If you want to get away from it all Perth is your place. Maybe factor in a visit back home? Or get busy so you are distracted.

Totally agree. Anyone not seeing this has total rose tinted specs. I spent 54 minutes waiting in a queue last week to speak to someone at HMRC after having tried writing, also the online app (no facility to message except in very specific circumstances) and resorted to phone. I’m now trying my MP.

Also tried for a GP appointment. Can’t ring anymore so have to upload a request form. Requests are only allowed between 8-12 each day. Guess what, they closed it at 9.30 due to “high demand”. If this isn’t a broken country where you can’t get basic medical care I don’t know what is.

My friends in Aus can get same day appointments and follow up investigations within 24 hours.

You probably have made the right decision. I have been here in Australia for nearly 28 years. The first 10 years went well - I was never homesick and I took to Australian life. But after I had kids, I wished I had family around as life got harder, especially after my marriage ended.

With the way the world is now and the unpredictability of everything (look at the US!) it’s not a bad thing to be close to family for emotional and practical support.

I think UK people are overly negative about the UK and think that life has deteriorated only in the UK. It’s deteriorated everywhere, including here in Australia with the cost of living crisis - people are not able to buy a house. We also have the same inequality problem. Our natural events are getting more severe, heatwaves, bushfires, floods and cyclones! Same shit, just a shinier bucket, as they use to say on the expat forums.

Living here is like being in the Circumlocution Office on a daily basis.

You can't drive directly anywhere without being in endless polluting traffic. Trains are filthy and don't run on time if they run at all. Buses may not arrive. Town centres are full of flapping plastic and hoardings where thriving shops and offices used to be. If you have a cat, you will have to pay thousands for the repair of a fractured femur in a cat using a procedure that actually takes less time than a spay surgery. Parking anywhere costs a fortune. Everyone is so stressed they can barely think straight and whilst a lot of people are getting paid very well for doing very little, a lot are struggling to get by each month without going to a food bank (full of pasta and tinned tomatoes). You take your life in your hands if you choose to ride a bike. The NHS is fucked but people don't care of themselves and a lot of them have almost zero understanding of how their body works and what the sugar, pop, pies, cakes, chips, sweets, syrupy expensive coffees, massive intake of alcohol, toxic cracked seed oils, flour and salty sweetened frankenmeats full of e numbers are actually doing to their metabolism or tissues on a cellular level.

If you have a car, the cost of repairs are at piss take levels as is the running cost of fuel but if you don't have a car, unless you live in a very well provided for city, your life is filled with difficulties just getting around or transporting shopping and goods that you need. If you live in that well provided for city, the air you breathe will likely kill you slowly with dementia in the mix on the way.

The general mood is of doom and more doom to follow because the country is not run for the people but for the institutions and the elite and if you get ill or need a dentist, you will struggle to get seen unless you can pay a lot of money.

If you get injured by a health care provider, the chances of them having any sort of come back is practically zero because the system cannot or will not lose them even if they are genuinely shite at their job and complaining about them is pointless, They are protected by a ring of steel and a closed shop.

If your house is broken into or you have anything stolen, you are very unlikely to get it dealt with properly. You will get a crime number and you have to sort your insurance even if the scrote left his blood all over the broken window and DNA can be taken. You have to beg the cops to come and investigate.

If you have a stroke, despite all the TV advice about getting an ambulance and the 'golden hour', you will likely be left on a trolley with no clot busters. You might go septic but getting immediate antibiotics is a lottery and any investigation afterwards is pointless because no-one carries a can of any sort and no professional body seems to learn lessons.

I could go on but I need a brew.

Six months isn't enough to bed down in a new country. As you say, excitement takes over, and you find it's much harder than you anticipate.
But, it really does get better. Kids make friends quickly, their social circle will expand far mor quicjly than yours!
When I moved, there was no facebook or social media. It was airmail letter and 3-monthly phone calls that had to be booked via the operator! So very primitive in terms of staying in touch, etc.
Please don't let these early days poison your mind. Persevere. You're in a better place!

I grew up in the states and my husband and I immigrated to Scotland about 20 years ago. Pre kids so didn’t have that to consider but we have 2 kids now and have raised them without any help. It’s a much, much better life than we could have given them back in the states and I don’t regret prioritising that. I am sorry they aren’t close with any of their other family and I do worry that they’ll be all alone eventually, but there are tradeoffs too.

my best friend stayed where we grew up and lives within a half hour of her parents and sisters and in-laws and all sorts of family and she has a lot of challenges with that too. So much interference and a lot of responsibilities and all the other issues with being in the states too. So there’s no right or wrong with what we’ve both done, just different pluses and minuses

it took me a good year to stop crying regularly but now I’m unsettled when we are back in the states - it doesn’t feel like home now. And I don’t regret this decision at all.

I feel for you OP. I think people get swept up in the excitement but don’t stop to think about the repercussions. I think taking children away from family who love them is really cruel (sorry!). It would devastate my parents so I would never consider doing it for that reason. Can you treat it more like an adventure? So more of a gap year of exploration and adventure with a view to then moving home?

I came to aus 17 years ago backpacking with my husband.
we are since divorced and have a 11 yo son, this is his home now so I couldn’t think of moving him right now.

Having said that, I still miss my family, I occasionally feel homesick, and really do understand how you feel.

i think you need to go back to the list of things you were looking forward to, was it beach life? Sign up the kids to nippers, they encourage parents to take their bronze medallion to be able to help out the kids training in the water. It’s a great way to meet other parents with kids a similar age, start heading down for a sunrise dip, make things like this part of your daily routine, after school, take the kids for a swim, there’s still an amazing feeling of heading straight to the beach after school, it feels so fortunate.
invite family and friends to visit, travel with them in Australia, enjoy making tourist memories together, it’s a long trip so people often come over for 3/4 weeks at a time.

there are plenty of ex pats and people who have been and felt exactly like you do now, open up and tell them, you might find it brings you closer to friendships forming, people are kind and understand, they will want to help you feel at home.

I could go on, but only you know in your heart if you have given it a real go at building a life here, if you head back without really trying, that will be a regret you have to live with too.

happy to chat more, and wishing you the best.

[removing my comment after realising how old the thread is!]