To be fed up with 'expats'...

[EveWasFramed72]

I am an American, living here in England with my British husband and children (who have both nationalities, but have only lived in England). I've been here for 4 years, and when we were first here, I was miserable;I was at home full time with a new baby, then preganant running after a toddler, basically no close friends, etc. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and got myself a life: went to uni, got a job, driving licence and created a life for myself outside of my husband. Now, I love our life here, I have loads of friends, a job I like, etc.

But...I am part of a group of American women living in the UK, some of whom have been here longer than me, married to British men. They won't drive, work, survive without several care packages of food from home(because they can't possibly eat what's on offer in England), basically, they sit around and moan about England, and how much better EVERYTHING is at home.

Now, I love my home country, and I do get homesick sometimes, but I just find myself fed up with these women who have given up on life because they are living abroad (and didn't they REALISE that marrying someone from another country means living in said country at some point???). When they aren't moaning, I do enjoy them...it IS nice to have home connections, but this attitude of deliberately NOT acclimating drives me nuts , and I feel like they make the rest of us who enjoy life in England look bad!!!

Rant over...I know, you're going to tell me to cut them off...and I have largely...just not completely.

I just want to know if this is 'typical' expat behaviour?????

Boffin
That is terrible. Is there anything you can do about it?

I have just had a little google and found out that it is possible to have dual nationality with EU country or Switzerland.

I think it depends on birth dates. And it changes very often. I still have no idea about what is allowed and I woukd like to as I'd love DD to have British nationality as well as German.

I really like the phrase, "Wir jammern auf sehr hohem Niveau" which means that we are very lucky, we complain from a position of great privilege.

You should write to Angie, Boffin. And to Ursula von der Leyen.

Oh, yes, Psycho, there are some words and phrases, too, that just don't translate.

Boffin, that is shocking!

I know a couple where the mother is English and the father is German and they only got their children German passports because they were cheaper than British ones!

Well if anyone would like to help me work the dual nationality thing out I would be very grateful as I find it quite upsetting.

This is what I am battling with.

www.london.diplo.de/Vertretung/london/en/07/other__legal__matters/Citizenship/German__nationality__descendants__DD,property=Daten.pdf

Boffin, is it because you were born outside Germany?

American Expat in the UK for 3 years

I have a couple of other American friends, but the rest are from all over. When I do get together with the other expats food invariably comes up. I have several theories:

1. There is the hope that someone else has found a decent substitute for whatever it is I'm missing. This is how we found the BEST MEXICAN restaurant in London. Crazy Homies in Notting Hill, if you're wondering.

2. Misery loves company.

3. I actually don't have that much in common with these people. If we lived in the same town in the states we probably wouldn't be friends. Our common bond is our nationality. If all you have in common is your American-ness, than it's easiest to talk about American things. Politics can be dicey. Regional difference can prevent comparisons with "home." But everyone eats.

4. For long term expats it's a way to "help" (or show off) for the newbies. "You can find peanut butter at this store but you must got to this store to get maple syrup." All the while they are really saying "I've been here longer so I know the ropes, kid."

I love being an expat but I know it's not for everyone!

My DH is English, and every time he's asked if he'd go back to live in London, he says no. He really does love living here in Ireland, whereas I wouldn't mind moving to England.

And Arses, I can't believe you missed out the last of the holy trinity!

sings Kimberley, Mikado, and Coconut Creams......

Yes, I was born in England.

They use a principle of law called jus sanguinis, in that you can only be German if you have German relatives, and before 1975 women didn't count.

They also introduced something called jus solis after 2000, where children born in Germany can adopt German nationality after 8 years and then decide at 18 what nationality to be.

My parents had a window of about two years in the 1970s when they had to decide what nationality we should be, and they thought it would be better if we were English as there was a risk of ending up stateless if we weren't careful, given the way German law was going.

It's all very messy.

See, my ex had German nationality, and his brother, although their mother was German (she is now deceased) and their father American. They were born in Germany and brought up there.

He did say, however, that she had to register him. I thought he meant as for the birth certificate but he said no, as a German.

I didn't quite get that, reading that link it makes sense now.

EveWasFramed72

I'm an American by birth (though I consider myself more a Londoner than anything else) as well with a British DH and what will be a British small one on the way.

I came over to Britain when I was 23 (29 now) before I even knew DH existed because I never felt that I fit in with US culture and had a feeling that Britain might suit me better. Which it really really does. I may not have had as much trouble making friends because my temperament suits what's already here (DH says I was just born with the wrong colour passport).

I wonder if the women you speak of just find British culture very hard to adapt to especially if they've come with their partners and not entirely voluntarily. My cousin is studying over here for a term and she is finding it v. difficult in many ways.

In a sort of related note, what often gets to me is when people find out I'm from the US, they will ask if I plan to go back and when I answer "No, home for me is here", they look at me as though I've sprouted two heads. Does anyone else get that or is it just me?

I'm Canadian, been here 6 years. I definitely have a tendency to complain more about the aspects of British life that irk me when I am with my Canadian friends, but I think that's pretty inevitable. It's mostly good natured grumping. We all love England, but sometimes you yearn for home, and sometimes it's fun to do us-against-them.

When I go home to Canada I complain about plenty of things that irk me there too. The chain restaurants are terrible! Where's Carluccio's and Giraffe when you need them?!

I think the misery loves company thing was a very acute observation about all this, actually.

And I think LLKH has a point. Do these women really want to be here? You can love your husband without loving his country or realizing what you were getting yourself into when you married him.

I also moved here on my own, and have always been an Anglophile, so it's easy for me. But if you don't feel that way, it can be terribly hard being so far from home.

I think I'd slot in wherever I was, although I wouldn't enjoy living in another place without reliable water and power supplies .

I get 'What are you doing here?!' LLKH.

You are also quite right about being a 'Londoner', I am a Londoner and an Aussie at the same time.

I get what are you doing here and how is your holiday going all the time after 9 years.

But, I can also easily fob off chuggers and bargain with service providers by telling them I'm only here temporarily.

Gets rid of cold callers easily as well.

For Brits the nationality laws mean if you were British born in the UK your children automatically have the right to British nationality - so you can just forget to tell anyone they're British - even if they're born outside the UK. No need to register and pay the FCO vast amounts of money...

Abs - I'm in the French DOM not too far from your native country.

Expat life I'm afraid.

I've been an expat but I have to say I integrated just fine once I'd got to know the language but of course I did miss about home.

My dh is from overseas and not one day passes when he doesn't have a moan and don't get me started when he's got his nationality friends here - it's huge group moaning.

But then again when I'm in his home town (to regularly for my liking) I moan there every day and I don't even live there! And in the summer there are lots of people from London there and us foreigners also get together for a hugh multinational group moan (the only thing we have in common).#

When I lived in spain I moaned alot about the lack of having a social life if you were a vegetarian and the fact that men thought it absolutely fine to shout at me names relating to my considerable wieght. I did really moan about that - quite a lot.

Then I came back to the UK and even more gripes living back here as everything was so much better in spain!

Tis to be expected.

Oh yes, I would say I'm (at present) a Londoner more than anything else.

Despite being in the UK for over a decade, I still find the British mystifying (though MN has been very useful in providing in an insight into the UK psyche/psychosis).

I've noticed (French) DP is now getting more remote from his home country. He goes back VERY regularly (including last weekend), but he does seem to be more distant from it. For e.g., we went to a party and I was the only non-French person there, which DP found super weird (he's used to London, where in any given room there's at least 6 nationalities - two of which are mine ).

Expat
I use that too, Je suis desole, I don't speak French - almost always works.

Boffin
Hmm, so it is only your mum who is German? Have a look here, this Behörde is responsible for Equal Rights.

I assume that if anyone one were to legally challenge the law, that they would be successful, as you are being discriminated against because it was your mother and not your father who was German. I am not a lawyer, but it might be worth getting legal advice.

Depends how much time and money you want to invest. Or you could go to the press.

I still have moments where I curse this country :o.

Eve Culture shock also takes people different ways. I'm a Brit and I've been living in the US for 5 years now. I think I got through my culture shock relatively quietly, but when DH came out here to join me (at the height of the Healthcare debate) he was very upset and angry pretty much all the time. He's a big ol' Lefty, and the Dems are only really as far left as the Tories - that made his brain boggle a bit. Eventually I had to make him promise not to talk politics with my american friends, because even though they were as frustrated as him, and wanted the same things as him, when HE ranted about it, he sounded like he was bitching about America and saying how shit it was. And that's fucking annoying to hear, day in, day out.

Things I miss about England are Ribena (and other squash), Jaffa Cakes, Radio 4 and the NHS. I can get Radio 4 online and I have good health insurance here - but having recently given birth to an American baby, while I got great care in hospital, I was worried ALL THE TIME that it would bankrupt us. Not having to worry about the cost of healthcare is a luxury I will never again take for granted.

I love living here. I love how polite people are in day-to-day interactions, how un-sullen compared to England. I'd sooner buy a sandwich in New York than London, any day of the week, for example. I don't miss the British tendency to gloom. But I do miss the British tendency to riotiousness. The people that I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh with, over here, are often Brits or other Euro-expats. I have some close, and very lovely American friends, though -and I noticed that the thing they all have in common is we share a slightly weird sense of humour.
Probably not a national thing, probably just me! :)

I do find the social conservatism very odd. Back home, being gay seemed just.. not a big deal. The struggle for gay acceptance over here makes me very sad. And oddly concerned that my 3 month old baby might grow up gay, and be made to feel bad because of it. I have been known to lean over his cot and promise him that he can serve in the military and get married in ONE of his home countries, no matter what his orientation. He tends to grin at me and fart, so he's probably not that bothered about it...

boffin just read that all the way through and it's a stupid, stupid rule....