Should I move to America or stay in U.K.?

[LittleGreyGoose]

Hello,

I am applying for a fiancé visa to move to America (once granted I would emigrate, marry my American fiancé, and then adjust my status to permanent resident). I would love some perspective, not only from those who have moved / already live there but also anyone who might be planning (or dreaming!) of emigrating. We could try to settle in the U.K. instead so I want to know I'm doing the right thing, purely from a geographical / political / future-proofing move. I'm trying to look at this dispassionately but I’m sleep-deprived and dealing with post-birth hormones so I can’t think straight!

For context we have a baby and a toddler and would be moving to a liberal city but in a republican state. He has a house there already in a good neighbourhood. Currently I’m renting.
For more context he’s great but I’d be foolish to not consider what happens if it doesn’t work out (I do know that my resident status would be permanent after a few years and not reliant upon being married, for example). For even more context, I have lived in other countries before and am an adventurer at heart so the move itself isn’t an issue! Just now I have children so don’t want to mess it up.

Some initial thoughts:

• I have plenty to like about the U.K. but it feels like we are on a steady and slow decline. This makes me feel emigrating is the best option but I also foresee America having its own wobble. Am I naive to think that America is still a land of opportunity or should we go with ‘better the devil you know Britain’?

• while I have no faith in British politics any more, and still rage about the foot shooting mess that is Brexit, it's not exactly rosy in the US either and if Trump gets back into the White House then will I have just jumped from the frying pan into the fire?

• Or, am I just being melodramatic?! I do worry about forthcoming political and social unrest in America and joke to my fiancé about getting 'militia ready' and how I’m lucky I still have my collection of 90s grunge army jackets, but there are credible murmurings of concern for the stability of the country. At least in the U.K., even if everything is a bit shit, I don't worry about this.

• on a more personal level I’ll be leaving a job that I love and will have to wait until I’m given a green card before being able to work in America (which could take up to a year after we get married). This is fine, in theory - it'll be good to spend that time adjusting with the children, and I may even retrain into something more AI proof (currently in comms / writing). I guess I'm just nervous because I'm choosing to leave employment and a career (albeit temporarily) and be reliant upon someone else.

• and finally, I guess there are all the potential administrative and logistical complications of joining forces with a damn yankee (otherwise known as marrying my fiancé). The kids already have American and British citizenship / passports, U.K. bank accounts, and NHS numbers as well as American social security numbers - I want them to have options to settle in either country as they grow, but am I missing anything?

Thanks for reading of you made it this far! Any insight? Anything I haven’t thought of? Am I focusing on the wrong things? Please be kind. I’m at the tale end of PND and catastrophising like crazy!

@lankyhanky
"I'm not sure wide roads would be a good enough reason for me along with a lot of those listed..."

The irony being my American fiancé LOVES the windy country roads in the U.K., would take endless videos as we drove through narrow lanes 😆 I would similarly miss them, but there is something quite nice about big American roads... and equally big car parking spaces! I nearly cried the other day trying to park in a tiny car park made for toy cars 🙄

It's not that I want to, it's where he's made his base in recent years and has a house there. It's a great city though, quirky and diverse and friendly, although have just read a comment about how the state is squeezing liberal cities so that's something to keep an eye on.

It was in Indianapolis.

Does that really matter, @HopelessEstateAgents ? I imagine Apple Pay isn’t accepted everywhere in many countries. Is there something wrong with every country that doesn’t accept Apple Pay everywhere?!

We had no family nearby when we moved to the US with 3 small children, so I immediately worked on building a support network. I actually found it quite easy as the Americans I met were generally very friendly, especially those with small children. I'm still good friends with many of them 15 years later.

I've made a lot of friends since then through work, volunteering, friendly neighbours, and just being approachable. You sound like someone who will make friends easily so I suspect you'll be just fine on that front.

You can use Apple Pay or Apple Wallet on every public transport system I've ridden recently.

And as I said, the only place I've been unable to pay for other things with Apple Pay recently has been Walmart.

Personal opinion only: but no one could pay me enough to live anywhere in the US. The UK might be (is) a total shit-show, but to me the US seems far far worse

Oh, just go. You know you want to. You're an experienced traveller so you know what you're letting yourself in for. You're not burning any bridges because you can all come home.
Go and try it and see. No one's lived experience on here is going to be exactly the same as yours so it's never going to reflect exactly how things will be for you.
Give it a go and let us all know how you go on. 🙂

I’m all for living in different places but I wouldn’t do this, if you separate and want to return you may really get into trouble.

Apart from that, I really like the US and have lots of American family scattered East and West coast and also Austin. Theu have almost all applied for their UK passports in the last couple years (having never bothered before) so they have them if they need them, which I think tells you what you need to know. Britain is in quite the pickle right now, but the US a good bit more unstable.

Wouldn’t move to the US in a million years. Great country to travel through but would never want to live there.

You seem a bit blasé about the reproductive rights issue. Are you sure you could get the healthcare you needed if you had something like an ectopic pregnancy?

@ZZTopGuitarSolo Look, we just have to accept that we live in the shithole of the universe and that we’re completely potty to have voluntarily moved here and like our lives.

According to some MN’ers who don’t live here.

Thanks for this. Wrt employment I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I work in comms, which is a relatively easy job to get into as well as being quite a good 'all-rounder' skill. However, I'm aware it's not AI proof so am thinking of retraining... but yes, the career side step is definitely something to consider. I just find it hard to think about with it being all in the future / when green card is granted! Also, to be honest I've done a few career side steps in my time and it's probably made me a bit blasé - not a good thing now I've got children!

Re friendships, I'm similarly maybe being a bit blasé about how I'll create a network - I'm finding it hard enough here making new mum friends (I am definitely not as cool as I once was!). But I figure baby / parent groups + volunteering + blatant "be my friend" requests will be a good start.

Some good points in your post, thank you.

I haven't read the whole thread - but I'm probably going to be going against the grain here. We moved to the US from the UK a few years ago and love it here. However we live in a wonderful blue state on the west coast in very affluent and comfortable community with easy access to beaches and mountains and outdoor activities, especially in the summer months. So it CAN be great. I would say our kids have a much more enjoyable and varied lifestyle than back in the UK and they love school here - it's much more informal and less stressful. And your standard of living will likely be much higher. That's not to say there aren't problems though.

The education system is very different, but that doesn't mean it's bad - some state schools here are more like private schools back home, particularly at high school level.

Having said all that, under your circumstances, I would be a little bit wary as if, for whatever reason, your relationship doesn't work out, you'll probably be unable to leave with the children back to the UK. So, for you, you need to feel like you could live in the US at least until your kids are college age..

Financially you will need to set aside money for college, healthcare and childcare fees - you will likely be working longer hours than in the UK with less holiday. (But... I have plenty of friends here who work very flexibly and are available for school field trips, take long weekends and have around 4 weeks of paid time off a year - so some companies are changing their policies slowly).

However, there are definitely states I would have no desire to move to particularly Florida, Texas and most of the southern states. Mostly for their politics and also extreme climate which is likely to get worse. And if Trump does get in, it will be awful - sorry!

To all of you commenting about abortion/ body autonomy / women's rights, this is a huuuge issue for me. My lifelong feminism has only crystallised further since becoming a mother and this is something I will be considering - not only for this move but just in life, in general, forever. However I am not having any more children (with two pregnancies late in life I am taking no more chances, I am knackered!) and my daughters are still babies so it's not an immediate issue.

However, I feel very strongly about it and will find some way to be part of the resistance because fuck that shit.

But serious point made. And as I mentioned just now, although won't affect me immediately it is something to know and consider if things keep getting worse.

All good points. Just be aware (mainly bc I wasn't initially) that most people hiring want to see a resume with companies they know. My resume was very UK focused (lots of govt positions) and I found I was loosing out bc noone knew how to judge my experience against someone with US based companies. Once I had some US experience it became much easier but that's the main reason I ended up going back in my career. In terms of jobs, most "professional" roles will provide decent vacation, sick leave and since covid, some flexible working. Parental leave is still a bit hit and miss but the larger firms tend to be decent in these areas. I'd def look at what is available work wise around Austin as starting point.

I would also elaborate on education, which from my experience (personal as well as comparing US nieces/nephews with my own here in the UK) is generally much better in US than the UK. As with most things in the US it can vary widely from community to community since school funding is largely local (meaning some have far more resources than others), but my experience in pretty average US schools was head and shoulders over what I have experienced in the Uk. Another poster upthread said private Uk marginally better than US state schools in primary, but US state secondary would be preferred over ANY UK option - I would agree with that. Some of it is funding (assuming you aren’t moving to an impoverished inner city school district it will probably be better resourced than your uK school), but beyond that I think the US system is better at engaging students, meeting them where they are (including SEN adaptation) and helping children achieve their individual potential.

lots of posts (by people who have never lived in the US) center around the gun issue when it comes to school experience. I don’t want to minimise that as a societal issue (like most Americans I am staunchly pro greater gun restrictions), but I do think media here overplays the influence in a student’s day to day experience, and also gravitate towards the most extreme examples (armed officers on campus, metal detectors, etc which are NOT the norm.) I grew up in a very conservative, gun friendly southern state and my family live in similar now, but had / have no day to day experience of firearms outside of hunting season (and then in a very controlled fashion). I probably see more guns in a year in my rural UK village (lots of hunts here too!) than when I lived in the states. There were active shooter drills, but they aren’t called that with the kids, and were often done alongside tornado drills. Many parts of the uk also do active shooter drills, again under a different name.

So you have had 2 kids with someone who you do not live in the same country as.......

Thanks for your comments re healthcare. This is definitely something I'm not familiar with so I've asked fiancé to give me the whole rundown and I will look into it. I am lucky in that I am healthy and rarely need the doctors but I am also getting older and so who knows if that will change. I shouldn't be complacent. But it's good to know that it's not all scare stories.

Also, we have started to look into schools and we are in a good area, with good results. But yes, researching was crazy with the disparity - far more than in the U.K. which feels more standard in many ways? We have also discussed though returning to the U.K. if we feel education becomes an issue, especially around secondary, although we're some way off that!

Noted re the violence. Yeah I do worry I'm stuck between reality and hyperbole - I read credible news sources but also susceptible to the social media scrolling. I should know better, having lived in some Middle Eastern countries, but the news didn't fit with my experiences.

I am with you 100% on women's reproductive rights.

And thanks for the interesting points about custody. I've mentioned that I wouldn't want to deprive the kids of their father by returning, but it's interesting to know about courts granting permission / geographic boundaries.

Thank you again - all these posts are definitely giving me things to, if not make me change my mind, to put my ducks in a row in a more knowledgeable way.

Most American women (and men) would agree with you! Abortion law in the US varies from far more permissive than the UK to far more restrictive. It is a moment of great turbulence in this area of law at the moment, and I do think that in the long run the US will end up in a more moderate status quo where abortion is legal with limits. That is what the majority of the population wants, even in ‘red’ states, it just might take a while for legislatures to catch up.

I've never even been to America except once when I was 2 years old, so I won't comment on that at all.

One thing I will say is that I'm an immigrant and I know a lot of other immigrants. I would advise anyone to think very carefully before emigrating for a partner, rather than a love of the country and a desire to actually live there that comes from YOU, not based on your relationship. Always the most miserable immigrants are the ones who have moved for a relationship. Not all of them by any means! But the ones who really hate their new lives made the move to be with someone. The love of your fiancé/husband will not be enough to sustain your happiness if it turns out that the actual country and lifestyle there is not for you.

Have you ever lived in America before? Be careful.

Ah! I hadn't seen that forum! I shall indeed make my way over there - this thread has been great as I guess I wanted to hear from people with varying opinions... and that I definitely have 😬 But yes, direct experience would be great.

Thanks for your correction re the K-1 visa, and now you mention it I recall that being mentioned by our immigration lawyer (but really, this process has taken so long I can't remember what has been said! A backlog due to covid apparently, it's been nearly two years just to get to the interview stage). I will add that to my list. I will still probably take some time to adjust and settle the kids but might scope out some jobs in the knowledge I won't be completely unable to work. This is great news that I have flexibility.

Thanks for the rest of your post too - there are quite a lot of 'don't do it!' posts that it's good to be reminded that there are positives to the move! Ultimately yes, I think it's going to be what I make of it and I will certainly be giving it some welly.

The funny thing was I moved abroad a while back and had no intention of returning to the U.K. Then I returned, had a child, then another, and am feeling nice and settled... so the moving isn't the issue, just feels like I'm finally starting to put down roots again. If I leave now though it won't be so bad?!

Just a quick word about the 'active shooter drills' - they do not call them this in elementary school. They are called lockdown drills, and even UK schools are doing them now. My kids have done, earthquake drills, fire drills and lockdown drills - no big deal to them. I get your concern about school shootings - it was a big concern of mine before we moved here, the probability of your children being affected by one though is very very small.. (about 10 million to 1 chance of being killed according to one article I read). Honestly, car accidents are more of a likely threat I think. But only you can weigh up how much risk you're comfortable with.

All good points. I do feel the quality of life will be better - the neighbourhood we'd live in is family orientated and there are lots of outdoors stuff round the corner. I also love the fact the schools are much more sporty (unless I've just got that from watching Hollywood films?!). But it would be a different kettle if fish if things don't pan out / get tight and we need to downgrade. So again, something to consider and put on my list :)