AWBU to go home?

[Fanton12]

We currently live in a sunny Med country - been here 15 years... Have our own successful business, nice house, car, pool etc. Neither of us are from here, both DCs born here (primary age now). So we have what many think is a great life in the sun... but we have no real friends even after all this time and although we have material things and are busy with the kids (who are bi-lingual) etc, life can be a bit empty. So, we now have the option to wrap things up here and go to a village in the north of England, near where I grew up many years ago (some family left, no friends). We have a rent free house lined up, good schools - but no work - we have savings, but we do need to work - only mid-40s!... Question is AWBU to jack in a perfectly comfortable but lonely life for the possibility of a new life in the UK that we are imagining will be more socially rewarding, less material luxuries but the more important things in life covered off? Both torn - are we seeing the UK through rose tinted specs and will we be OK? Gulp! Any views much appreciated!

YWNBU.
We are also in another country, we have been here for 17 years. We don't have any real friends either. There are people that we know and that we chat with but nobody that I would call a real friend. Not a language issue but definitely a culture issue! We know a number of other ex-pats here as well but we don't seem to fit in with them either, where they are thrilled to be here, we are not. Unfortunately our children were also born here and are older, they've never known anything else but here...can't bring ourselves to drag them away from everything they know.

Just to reiterate we have been here 15 years! In that time lots of people have come and gone... We do do social things, but somehow it's not 100% right... I cant put it into words. We are in an awkward bracket I think - older parents and with a business to run - and we live in a small local village. We both used to love it here and love our lives here but now we're older I think we both crave a less lonley situation... The only expat things to do are bingo and bowls etc (retired to the sun people generally) and I just cant go down that road yet!

RosieMapleLeaf - you sound exactly like me! Is it OK for me to uproot our perfectly happy kids so that me and DH can have a better life (not guaranteed!!). It's such a dilemma - I cant tell you how terrified I am that we'll make the wrong decision...

Difficult one. I sometimes think I don't have many friends but I do have parents down the road, get on with my neighbours, still have 2 close friends from school locally that I see a lot, am friends with my kids friends parents (that I do stuff with but don't feel that close to). My close group of uni friends are spread out across the country.

If your children are at an international school, are there not any other families there that you get on with from there? My parents were expats and met a lot of other British people abroad that they had a close bond with due to being away from home. Is there an expat community that you could be more involved with?

Also, maybe look, or post, in Living Overseas on here, you may get some good insights from those who are either abroad currently, or have gone home.

Why don't you come over for a couple of weeks and see how you feel?

Sorry just saw your next post! Are you sure there are no younger expats out there like you. Sounds like work and kids make you so busy that there is little time to focus one yourselves - it will still be like that here believe me!

You need to find your tribe, OP! It doesn't matter what the weather's like, you need to be amongst people who understand you (in all ways.)

I know what you mean about the difficulty of finding real friends when, although you speak the language, you don't speak it like a native - you can't really be yourself when you are far less articulate than you are in your native tongue, you feel slightly slow and stupid...

However what makes you so sure you'll find real friends in your northern village? It tends to be a lot harder to make friends as a part of a couple and family unit in your 40s than as a social butterfly in your early 20s or younger! Most people in small northern villages probably already have a friendship circle, possibly dating back to their own school days and involving blood relations like cousins as well as people they've known since they were at primary school themselves, people they met when they all had babies at the same time etc.

You may unfortunately find that although you have the almost physical relief of living in your native language, you remain in a situation where, for different reasons, people are friendly but not friends...

You will always be an outsider now, having lived abroad for a long time, you will always be "other"... if you are very unlucky or don't try hard (use the local school, join local clubs, go to the local pub, don't get bitter and imply to your kids that your family are different due to your wider horizons when your kids aren't getting invited to parties because all the other mums are long term friends and the kids have all known each other since they were babies and most of them are some convoluted type of distant blood relation to one another) so will your kids...

I know absolutely from personal experience where you are coming from, but think you may not be being realistic about what returning to the UK - especially to what might be rather a closed community where everyone will probably be friendly but not looking for a new friend from "outside" - would really be like.

I also think it may well be considerably worse for your kids to return to the UK than to stay where you are - my kids are firmly part of our local community and bilingual too, and I know their worlds would contract and suspect they'd be less well accepted in the UK (I remember even being an "incomer" from "down south" in a northern English village as a child and we were never really totally accepted as locals, we were always "incomers" / "not from round here", other, outsiders...)

We did it. We were abroad for 8 yrs, kids born abroad, bilingual, lhcury life style.

We swapped it for muddy England.

But we had a job to go back to.

Our kids were 5 and 3. The first year was hard but we made friends quickly through things like volunteering at local cricket club. It has been great for us all to see family more as well.

The kids refused to speak Spanish after a year back though, and are no longer bilingual . They both struggled with English at school and keeping Spanish up in the face of so much resistance from them was just not feasible in the end.

We are happier here though, and it was the right decision for us. By miles. But we are the sort of people who like muddy country walks, I think that is essential . And we could finally get a dog!

From what you've said, you've already decided to come back. You are now seeking approval for your decision from a bunch of strangers on the internet.

I give you permission to come back. We all do. It seems you have thought it through, you have a plan and you have your kids best interests at heart.

So get on with it - mumsnet is waiting for you.

It really depends on the age of your children. It's easier for kids year 5 and under. We moved catchment for our 9 year old socially outgoing dc and he really struggled for the first few months, but is fine now. It also depends on the child - some kids have an easier time with it than others by virtue of personality!

I have one kid who I would never have dreamed of moving unless I absolutely had too after the age of 10. It would be truly selfish.

Having done it - moving internationally is not for the faint hearted! I assume you've tried finding an expat group.

Do your children have friends and s good social life where you are now?
What made you move there in the first place?

I'd say I would come home but then I wouldn't move that far away anyway! That probably makes me sound very dull and unadventurous but in reality, I place a huge value in my family and local friendships that no amount of sun/scuba diving/sand castles would make me want to leave.

You can't put a price on being amongst people who get you

This!

Also, I grew up in the North and don't mind UK weather at all. Never bothered me. Think it's great actually (apart obviously from this winter), perfect climate.

I was brought up with 3 languages in a different country to either of my parents' and yeah, there are benefits of course, but problems too. I recommend Third Culture Kids (book) for an insight into some of them. Would not say that the benefits always outweigh the disadvantages.

There's no place like home!

I think the clincher would be the age of your kids - primary age could be 4 and 5, in which case accept you are doing it for you not them, and go into it with eyes wide, wide open to the fact you are going to work very hard to make friends and carve a life within a community who already have their own lives and friendship circles without a specific gap waiting for you to fill - aside from your own immediate family nobody is waiting for you with open arms, people may well be friendly and chatty but the real friends you crave are not guaranteed just because you share a language, your accent and / or your DH's may mark you out, your kids almost certainly won't sound local even if they do sound English...

If your kids are 9 and 11 I'd say don't do it.

Imagine the worst case scenario - kids not accepted at school and struggling with written English perhaps, struggling to make friends, home sick for where you've lived all their lives, you and DH jobless and slowly realising you are probably not going to find anything, or working all hours to set up a new business and commuting back and forth to your old business, draining funds and leaving even less time to provide your kids with support through the transition... and its raining the whole time and the crowded smelly local council pool reminds you of what you've left behind, kids Skype old friends in their birth country and hide in their rooms crying to go back...

It could be wonderful or awful - in reality it will probably be the same sh*t in a different place...

I wouldn't move if your oldest is over about 6 unless they are unhappy where you are... I would be concerned that you are looking at the UK through rose tinted glasses especially because of where you are thinking of moving back to. If you were thinking of moving to a multicultural UK city I think you'd have a much greater chance of finding what you are looking for.

I suppose it does also depend on the village and whether there is much population movement, or whether all the kids at the local school are basically cousins...

Thanks for all your input! I think we have more or less decided to come back... and as radiohelen said I am seeking approval from a bunch of strangers on the internet - but that's what mumsnet is for isn't it? And of course, I have no one to discuss it with here. I am conscious of not going back and going on about living abroad - I know someone who did that and still does 15 years later and people get annoyed - its a kind of covert bragging on her part, that she had a broader life than those around her... our life here has been very pedestrian really... anyway - thanks to all - still scared, but at least some people thought it wasn't such a bad idea! Neither of us are scared of hard work and it will be worth it if we can create a good life in the UK - and we will still have the house and business here for some time so we have some insurance if things don't pan out...

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne - the children are both under 5. The place we are moving to has some other bilingual children at the school (Danish and another European country I think) so it's not quite as Royston Vasey as it could be!! Your worst case scenario might come true - but my current worse case scenario is 2 lonely people in a culturally and social barren lifestyle... I'm not looking for instant best friends, just a bit of socialising, a chat over a drink type stuff...

We've been abroad, mostly in one place but with some bouncing around, for nearly a decade. It really IS rough no matter sunshine/bi-lingualism for kids/etc. etc. etc. And you will probably never speak the local language "like a local". I think this is made even worse if you're used to being very articulate in your mother tongue - going from "crafting" what you say in your own language to "making yourself understood" in another is an alienating and frustrating experience!

That said. We've also flirted with the idea of going back from time to time - and never do. There is a good deal of rose-tinted-ness that goes on when you're lonely and dissatisfied abroad. The charms of being able to natter without thinking terribly much, finding home comforts easily at the shops etc. all fade very quickly. And by the sounds of it your reality once the honeymoon period ended would be a rather stressful, and time-critical, look for work + stark lifestyle change + uprooted kids (how old are they?).

I'm not UK bashing at all. But the issues you've mentioned just don't sound like ones that could be resolved by moving back - despite the language barrier now. It sounds like you just really need a social life where you are.

Are you deliberately trying to avoid the expat bubble? I went cold turkey from it after DD left babyhood in order to make local friends who weren't always going to be shooting off wherever Ericsson's whim took them. I went to university locally and made friends that way. Are you rurally located or in a city? Could you do some sort of course? Even a language course would put in you in contact with like-minded foreigners?

If you're not too fussed about locals or expats as friends, could you get involved at the school? Are you a joining-type generally? If the local culture makes it hard to make real friends (it does here too...it took a long time, and they are still just a few, very good, friends) maybe focus your efforts on other expats to begin with - just to give yourself a bit of a social life. And then reassess. Right now I think you're looking at apples and rose-tinted pears.

I live in a sunny med country. 12 years now. I cant imagine ever living back in the UK (am also from the north).
When I land back here after a trip to UK I could kiss the tarmac at the airport.

You sound homesick, simple as. I love visiting other cultures, travelling etc, but there really is no place like home. I think I'd struggle with living abroad - I'd miss England and Englishness - even our crummy weather - and yes, people that really 'get me'.

Can you arrange a long-ish visit back to the UK, to the town you would be living in, visit the school etc? The only thing I'd be wary of is that I've heard of people moving to small towns/villages within the UK and finding themselves friendless too. Either they are have their friendship groups, and have all known each other since school, or they're all related Be careful that where you move to isn't a place like that.

It's a tough choice.

Ah then Fanton you have a fighting chance :o

I'm projecting a bit - sometimes I'd like to live my life in English again, I recognise your feelings and situation. But my parents also moved me and my siblings to a northern village as a child and I never felt at home there, my kids are so "at home" where we live that I'd never inflict the village I grew up in on them, and I know that for all I like the lady at the Tesco checkout chatting to me helpfully on our annual visit to the UK it would get old quickly :o

My kids are a few years older and go to the local schools - they are so much more part of the forrin' community they are growing up in than I ever was in the northern village my parents moved me to when I was juniour school age, and the "northern village" in my background much more Roystan Vasey as you say! :o

Good luck! Hope it works out for you

On my way to work at the moment so no long post, but just a quick note to say we moved back from a sunny Med country a few years ago and have never regretted it. We were lonely out there, too. We now both have jobs and friends and still smile whenever it rains!

If you come back and are anywhere near me I'd be a north east friend 😄 We're south of the Tyne, Gateshead way. I've a primary schooler as of Sept this year too. Just an aside...

Really though. If you want to be home you'll sort work once you're back. Being where you want to be will be valuable. Even if you compromise and take work that's not ideal in the short term at least you are starting from the point of being 'home'.

Your children are young enough to adapt easily if you do come back.

But also, as they get older, you might find you get more involved with clubs etc where you might find more of a social life.

I am not sure I could tell anyone to come back here after the winter we have had. I normally love the UK particularly for its seasons.

But all this raining is giving me trench foot.