Please help with this life changing decision

[TravelDrift10]

Hi Mn, i did post previously but am struggling with this.

We have the option to move back to a country that we previously lived in. We moved back to our home country when we had dc and thought it was best to raise them around a good support system. We moved back and that support fell through in a bad way. We have also experienced so much unhappiness here but im wondering if i am allowing these issues to cloud my thinking.

Home country is a developing country.
The biggest PRO is our financial situation. We were able to save alot in the UK, and have purchased our dream home outright. DC(4,2) are going to the best private schools. And we have the best private medical care. Dc school is a 2 minute walk and DH is a 5 minute drive from work. I am a sahm with a live in housekeeper. We are financially free and could retire right now (both 40). My dc and future gc will be financially set up. It sounds absolutely crazy to leave this situation.

BUT

The country is crime ridden. We are able to afford the very best of security and convenience but I will never go anywhere alone with my dc. For most people I know that live here, they go about life because they havent had another experience to compare to. I lived in the other country, and felt safe. I can take a walk to the shop. I wouldnt dream of doing that here. As a female, I wouldnt even dream of going out at night.

Secondly, since we have moved back we have lost so much. Friendships, relationships all non existent. It seems us moving away and coming back to suddenly afford a very good lifestyle created alot of resentment amongst those closest to us.
We also lost a child late into my pregnancy and the reactions from our closest people just broke us.
I feel like there isnt anywhere to turn here, but i dont want to partly base this decision on people who have hurt us.

For us to move back, we would have to give up most of our financial security to start again. And my dc and I would be going over on my dh visa, should anything happen to him we would have to leave so that is a huge risk as well.

Would you give up so much and take this massive risk for a fresh and hope for the best or just stick it out

I would stay put personally. Surely you knew about the crime rates etc before you moved back?

I would definitely definitely leave. I couldn't handle not having the freedom to go out for a walk alone. I wouldn't want my children to have that either as they grow up. If crime rates are much higher then your children are more likely to be victims of crime surely?
Money isn't everything. I would leave

I would move to where my family was safest. Quality of life is everything. A gilded cage is still a cage

@Cheeseboardandmincepies yes to be fair I did know that but I have to say that it has ramped up in the last few years exponentially. With covid and the economy failing it is getting worse.

It is difficult because im struggling with taking a risk because we are dependent on my dh visa.

I'd be gone in a heart beat

Yes we are very much leaning towards leaving. We have done the cross continent move before and it was massive. Just thinking of it now with dc in tow and starting over seems so overwhelming.

I’m so sorry about your baby loss. That grief must make everything else harder.

Are you able to say which country? Eg South Africa I’d suggest leaving as nowhere will offer you the sense of safety you want; India I’d suggest relocating within the country.

Hmm I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. I've seen this situation countless times within my own family and extended friends. My parents and others came to England in the 50's. All came with hope of a better life and worked themselves into the ground to do so. Many built houses to retire back to. Some never got there except for the odd holiday and the kids then sold it. Some lasted a couple of years before returning and the more rare settled and were happy. BTW the country we were returning was Ireland, and out in the sticks of Ireland. Myself I am desperate to return, I want quiet, nature and different pace of life. My sister gives me a year. I was meant to be moving last April but became ill. I'm aiming for next Feb.

@inchyra thank you, it has been very difficult. Yes its similar to moving anywhere within the country, the crime is everywhere.

Could you mitigate the DH visa risk by keeping your property in your home country to return to if the worst happened?

I'd leave as I value freedom and safety. Will your DC grow up healthily if they cannot experience life?

Good luck.

Could it be that you’re very sensitive to the perception of crime?

My family who don’t live in London think I inhabit a warzone with stabbings on every street corner and actually as a local I find it very safe and predictable because I know my patch and whaere and what to avoid. Are your family who stayed on of a similar mind? They may think your perceptions of crime are exaggerated and you’re criticising somewhere they love living.

Financially where would you be if you left again?

@Feelingconfused2020 There are loads of places in the first world you couldn’t safely walk alone. LA was the most unsafe-feeling place I’ve ever worked in.

I've lived in different countries, some with high crime rate.

I think there are some other things I would be thinking about.
So, your current support circle has collapsed. What is the possibility of building a new one? Do you have access to new people who could become friends? being without friends is a pretty lonely way of life. How was your friendship circle in the UK? How easy was it to make friends? Either place you are basically stating from scratch again, where is that easier to do?

What nationality is your DH? Why are you dependant on his visa? Will he even be able to get a job again in UK now? How long until you could get settled status, can you ever get settled status? Where were the kids born, what are they eligible for?
Worst case scenario, you and dh split up and you have to up roots and leave again.
Or you never get more than a visa, never get settled status, and your kids have to leave aged 18. These are massive issues and must be part of the consideration.
Can you work on dh visa? Can you build up anything for yourself? If you have eg 5 years until settled status, can you then work?
How secure is your relationship with dh?

I think the money is a red herring. If dh and then you can get decent jobs, then you will build a new life. Safety and freedom are hard to quantify, but worth having.

What are the long term options for your kids where you are? If the country is a developing country, are their opportunities for them in the future? If they trained to be eg a doctor, how widely can that qualification be used? Only in that country? Would they want/would you want them to have other opportunities outside that country?

Why does it have to be either / or? Could you maybe look at locating to a different country entirely? Somewhere with a good quality of life / lifestyle but where you would feel safer? The world is such a huge and varied place, surely there must be somewhere you could feel at home yet have a good quality of lifestyle?

Are you in South America by any chance. I’ve lived there and we were very settled and happy, but now I’m back in uk I can see how much living with the threat of violence, overshadowed our life there.

These are really difficult decisions. I would think long term about what you see for your children in their young adulthood - do you imagine them staying in your home country? Going to university there? Working there? Would you be happy if they had the same lifestyle you do? Are there issues of race/racism that play in if you relocate?

I think if you're imagining your children will have a wonderful life because you have financial security and they're privately educated, but you also imagine they might go abroad for university, I would consider whether you might not be better to move now so they can build friends and their own network somewhere they can stay longterm. But I would also factor in how different the lifestyle will be - i.e. would you be moving to the UK, both working, kids in childcare, paying a mortgage till your 65? Which is fairly 'normal'. Or would you both need to work v long hours, rarely seeing the children, precarious rental situation?

For me the main deciding factor is whether you could get permanent residence and citizenship, even if it took a number of years. I have a friend who is from an immigrant background, her uncle decided to have his youngest kids born at 'home' and for various reasons, even though they were raised in the country the family settled in, he never sorted their immigration status as minors and when the eldest reached university age she was treated as a foreign citizen and had to pay international fees, get a student visa, etc. It has been resolved now but she was briefly looking at having to relocate to a country she had never lived in and where she barely spoke the language.

Equally, I know parents who moved from Australia to the UK (where they're from) with a nearly-teen who has never settled and made it clear she will go back to Aus as soon as she's old enough to study, so they are facing a family divided across continents long term. Your children are young enough you can make this decision now, but I think you have to be happy yourselves, that is the biggest factor that will effect their happiness long term. Private education and wealth won't make up for miserable parents.

I’m assuming South Africa?

I’m married to a South African and I would struggle to bring children up there. Yes it’s a beautiful country and it absolutely has plus points but not enough.

Getting a visa for the uk is an absolute bugger though. My husband is in the process of getting citizenship but it’s been a long expensive road.

thank you for the replies.

@steppemum very valid questions and much of which we have been thinking about. I dont see us building a support network here. We had a group of lifelong friends and have lost relationships there, it has actually become toxic.

It was difficult there to make friends in the UK and build support but it was easier in the sense that there wasnt a history to start from.

It would take us 5 years to get settlement status. And me being dependent on his visa. I am a sahm and been for a while. Everything we have is joint and he has placed alot into my name because of this.

We have come up with a back up plan to leave money here for 5years should anything happen and I need to start again. I could work and do everything possible but dc and I are entirely dependent on his Visa until settlement status.

Good question. We have thought about that and the economy here is fast deteriorating. I cant see my dc getting jobs in the future. But i am basing that on whats happening now.

@Sexnotgender Correct.

To be honest here, i Have huge regret. We were previously in the UK for 4 years and so damn close to settlement status and we left. I cry myself to sleep with such regret. We have this opportunity again and Im just scared of taking this risk and being so stressed till we get settlement again. We now have two dc to consider. And should we have to return, it is like failing twice.

@inchyra

Could it be that you’re very sensitive to the perception of crime?

My family who don’t live in London think I inhabit a warzone with stabbings on every street corner and actually as a local I find it very safe and predictable because I know my patch and whaere and what to avoid. Are your family who stayed on of a similar mind? They may think your perceptions of crime are exaggerated and you’re criticising somewhere they love living.

I'm from London, too..and never really felt unsafe. It seems to be young males who have a lot more aggro than women.

However, if OP has to live somewhere with a walled compound, like Brazil, one only has to see the insane level of violence there.

I was attacked in a bakery in UK by a random woman, {middle of afternoon} and while recovering watched a lot of 'Active Self Protection' videos on you tube... {ASP}

The amount of shootings/stabbings in Brazil was really alarming.

Judging from your description I’m guessing South Africa, although I see others have beaten me to it.

I grew up there, and while it is a beautiful country I’ve seen from friends over there how much the crime rate has escalated to the point where most people live in gated communities and in some parts even driving at night and stopping at traffic lights is ill advised.

Thing is, if you’re South African then making the conscious decision to leave is never going to come easily, especially when you have family there who, although might not be supportive, you are going to be leaving behind in the same crime-ridden parts as you are deliberately running away from.

I would think about it like this though.

You say you moved back because you needed a greater support system, and although that didn’t materialise in the way you hoped, you left the other country for a reason, and clearly you didn’t have the support there or you wouldn’t have felt the need to leave.

Be careful not to be so blinded by the positive memories that you lose sight of the reasons why you left.

I’ve lost count of the number of expats I’ve known who went back to their home countries, hated it and then came back only to realise that most of the wonderful things were in their memories and that life had moved on without them while they were gone and was no longer the same.

We were previously in the UK for 4 years and so damn close to settlement status and we left. I cry myself to sleep with such regret.

I think this says it all! You want to be here.

I have to say though, the UK might change massively next year, with Brexit. Is there anywhere else you could go? Somewhere else in Europe? Or Canada..?