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

From your posts, it seems that the thing that is making you cry is the regret you have for leaving to return 'home' when you were so close to settled status. That tells you everything you need to know. If you could turn back time, would you have stayed? I think that if your answer is yes, then you should return to the country where you felt safe. Yes you'd be starting again, but you'd be starting....

The other thing that jumped out for me was that you can't see future opportunities for your DC where you are.

So you say it's no way to live, there are no prospects for your DC and you feel unsafe?

But you have a nice house and luxuries. It sounds like you are the kind of person who values freedom, safety and opportunity above silk sheets and fancy cars. I'd return in a heartbeat.

@2Zebras

long as one dresses sensibly???

Please explain what you meant by this? Are you suggesting that if I go out at night with revealing clothes I am inviting men to attack/rape me? You are disgusting!!

It is common sense.

Walking home through urban areas in club wear and high heels is going to get all sorts of unwelcome attention.

Who needs that hassle?

One has to be realistic.

Be my guest if you want to get lots of unwelcome attention if you miss the last bus home.

Sensible footwear so one can run if necessary is just common sense.

If you think this is ''Disgusting'' you clearly haven't been hassled by men.

Please come back here to the UK. You may not be as well off as you are in SA but you will not be poor and will know which areas to avoid. I live in London and there is very little crime in my immediate area, none violent.

Weigh up the benefits, there are many.

Good luck.

In your shoes I would leave and return to the UK

I would far rather have a lower standard of living and less luxury and live in a country where I feel safe to walk to the shop than live like you are currently doing

What exactly are your children financially set up for?

If you’ve got enough money to think your children and even their children are set up for life, then you’ve got enough money to move back to a modest property in a cheaper area of the UK.

What are your children going to say? Oh I don’t work, became I live off bank of mum and dad. I’m not lazy - it’s just, there are no jobs here. So I’ve got fucked up self esteem just sitting around bored shitless doing nothing in a compound I’m too scared to leave. Is that really set up for life?

Come back. 5 years will pass quickly. Even if you have to go back in another 4.5 years - that’s 4.5 years that you could wander out to the park with your kids without fear 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just return, @TravelDrift10.

It wasn’t a mistake, you needed time out to recharge as you said. Now it’s time to get moving again.

As a very eloquent poster above has written, people leave for a place of safety with only their children all the time. Most of them abandon homes and fortunes (it usually takes big money to emigrate). They start again.

If you were thriving once, the same skills and tenacity will come into play again. You can do this x

I can understand how conflicted you must be over this OP. I'm not sure what I would decide. I know a few people who have relatives in SA, who moved there from the UK 30+ years ago. They have what's effectively a millionaire lifestyle, living in huge properties, with staff quarters. They have been there so long I don't think they would be able to contemplate a return to the UK, living in a much smaller property and much worse off financially. The crime is for them a trade off for the lifestyle.

Conversely I've also worked with a lot of people from SA and Zim over the years, not one I can think of has ever returned, they still regard it as 'home' even after decades in the UK, but feel that the UK - for all it's many faults - is a better and safer place to bring up children, even though they are financially much worse off than if they went back to SA.

I agree that "a guilded cage is still a cage" and that staying where you are isn't a good idea, but I don't think that staying put or emigrating to the UK are your only options. There are thousands of places in the world to live, and millions of options you could pursue.

Firstly, think about other options within your current country - is it all as unsafe as you describe, everywhere? Or are there safer areas you could move to? If there is nowhere in that country where you feel you could thrive then look at other countries, but not just the UK. Think about your priorities and which countries you could consider - where you can speak the language is important, where you and your DH can earn a living, where your children can be well educated, safe and happy, and where you all can already have the right to live (or can reasonably easily acquire that right).

You seem to have a very luxurious life there and I wonder if maybe you feel more vulnerable to potential crime because your lifestyle is so far above the lifestyle of so many others nearby, so you feel likely to be targeted? Could you manage to live a lifestyle that is more "average" for the area - and would that then be a bit safer? possibly taking on some work yourself as well rather than being a SAHP, and put all the money you can save into investing for the move to somewhere else, so that you don't have to start with nothing when you move?

It's difficult to advise without any specifics but I hope this is helpful.

I would move back to Europe in an instant. SA is beautiful but the lack of personal safety is awful. It’s no way to live, especially as a woman.
Is it an option to move to the countryside? I know you still wouldn’t be able to go out at night as a lone woman but you might have a little bit more freedom during the day. Sorry if this is an ignorant question, I’ve only been as a tourist years ago but there did seem to be a big difference then between city and country.

Can I ask where in South Africa?

I’ve got family in Johannesburg and Cape Town. I’ve also stayed in Pretoria. I felt more safe in CT and Pretoria but certainly not comfortable. Johannesburg scared the crap out of me though!

I would leave. I have to admit (and perhaps I am being very snobby here) I wouldn't ever even visit South Africa now. I remember reading in the paper about 3 of the most horrendous and violent crimes involving women there in the last 5 years, the kind where you wish you had never read the article and they still haunt me now. The crimes always seem to be violent burglaries and horrific violent rapes against women and beatings of men. I couldn't live there. Unable to drive at night without worrying about stopping at a light

In your shoes, I'd either move to the UK or somewhere with a big expat community that was safe. The best schools and housing don't compare to personal freedom.

I made friends with someone in my local baby group who had lived in SA. The level of security precautions they had to take was insane. There were always horrific crime stories. I can see how living somewhere like that would really get to you over time.

I'd definitely leave for a safer country, especially as you don't even have the support networks in SA that you were hoping for. But don't limit yourself to the UK - look carefully at whether you might have any rights to residency anywhere else based on your parents/grandparents' nationalities. Also if moving back to the UK, look outside the South East! Other areas are so much cheaper to live in. Given the working from home revolution you might find that you could live in a cheaper area and DH work from home most of the time, even if his job is nominally located in an expensive city.

You all have given me alot to think about and in fact alot of what was in the Back of my mind, I just dont have anyone besides DH to sound it out with.
Also living away from here, I did get to experience a life of reasonable safety, freedom and opportunity in the UK so a part of me knows there is a difference and once you know that, its hard to unknow.

I think we are going for it!! Financial wise, we just need to work out a plan B for here. DH still has his UK pension, we still have savings and investments in the UK.

If you already own a home outright in the UK you are very well set up.

Kids do not need 'the best' private schools, but IMO will thrive better where they can have a degree of independence and a great network of friends and a sense of being secure.

You can take out a life insurance policy on your DH.

(Are people from SA not entitled to work here due to some ancient commonwealth rights? I know loads of SA who have just come over to work ).

Were your children born in the UK? They would not deport the mother of a British children, especially if you have the means to support yourselves.

You need to be happy, if at all possible. Not everyone has the chance to be happy, so if living in relative safety and amongst a community will make you happier...why live in unhappiness?

I am so sorry about the loss of your baby and the way you have been left abandoned by people who should have supported you. Bitterness is a terrible thing.

It sounds like you massively regret leaving the UK. That tells you everything you want to know. Stop beating yourself up about the choice you made at the time. Hindsight is a glorious thing. I could be a millionaire had I done what I could have in my 30’s. Had I been stronger with the doctor, I wouldn’t have had 3 major surgeries as my issues would have been addressed earlier. Life is. 🤷‍♀️

Come home. Your life here is waiting for you. The physical move Will be hard. But once it is done, it is done.

@RainingBatsAndFrogs they need a work visa.

In Jhb.

Crimes are horrific. I have already ready of a few murders since this morning and rapes of children. Having a dd as well, terrifies me that she will have to live a certain way of life.

@AlternativePerspective

Thing is, this isn’t a decision you can purely make from your heart.

While posters here are saying that it’s all about your happiness and money isn’t everything, reality is that money is going to have a huge impact. Last time I checked the rand was 18/1 against gbp, that means that for every R1000 the OP brings out of the country she will have just £50. We’re not just talking having to reduce a lifestyle, we’re talking having to give up a house for nothing. If the OP is lucky she might have enough money to move and to stay here for a few months, assuming her DH gets a job. When she says it would mean starting over financially it would be like becoming bankrupt and having to rebuild from scratch.

Added to which we are in one of the biggest recessions in history - worldwide. Chances are you will find it difficult if not impossible to get another job in a country, any country, where unemployment is now at an all time high.

I can absolutely see the incentive for wanting to leave SA, and I have friends who I have advised to think about doing the same. But it’s just not going to be that simple, especially now.

Exactly this. I can absolutely see the OP's situation.

I have a lot of South African friends who have left (the ones I met when I was living in the UAE literally never stopped talking about feeling safe and being able to park their cars freely, though I did point out that this is because the poor in the UAE are by and large confined to labourers' camps and only trucked into urban areas for work and taken back again afterwards -- even if you are in serious want, burglary or car stealing is not really a possibility). Others (the mega-rich ones) have stayed and apparently are so used to their security arrangements they are no longer bothered by them.

It's not an easy decision at all, and I don't think that a lot of the people who are advising the OP to 'just leave' would themselves voluntarily deprive themselves of the vast majority of what they own in order to move across the world and start again in a country where they don't have settled status.

Best wishes in your decision, OP. My only advice would be to try and think beyond the friends and family you feel have hurt or neglected you in SA. We recently moved back to our home country after 20 years away, and even without such an income disparity as you describe, relationships can't be simply picked up easily after years of separation and change. Some of it has been very disappointing.

Leave. Whether it’s for the UK or elsewhere.

According to my sister many of her friends are considering Namibia. Also have a look at Mauritius, 3 hours from Jhb if your husband can commute to his job. Malta and Cyprus basically sell passports under the ‘investment’ guise. There was an article in the Economist about it recently, have a scroll on their facebook page.
The UK is a great place to live if you can come back. There is a future and opportunity here. I am grateful for every day I open my eyes in this country and do everything I can to integrate my children into society and culture so that this becomes their home as much as SA was mine.

[quote oakleaffy]@2Zebras

long as one dresses sensibly???

Please explain what you meant by this? Are you suggesting that if I go out at night with revealing clothes I am inviting men to attack/rape me? You are disgusting!!

It is common sense.

Walking home through urban areas in club wear and high heels is going to get all sorts of unwelcome attention.

Who needs that hassle?

One has to be realistic.

Be my guest if you want to get lots of unwelcome attention if you miss the last bus home.

Sensible footwear so one can run if necessary is just common sense.

If you think this is ''Disgusting'' you clearly haven't been hassled by men.[/quote]
I agree.

Women should be safe wearing anything they want to - but they aren't. And as Oakleaffy says - you want to be able to run like buggery if you have to.

No woman "asks" to be raped - I'm not victim-blaming here, but in the same way that for a soldier to go into battle without body armour and a protective hat would be taking an unnecessary risk, going into a rough area in skimpy clothing and stilettos means that you are in much greater danger.

@RainingBatsAndFrogs we are not citizens and was previously over on a visa as well. As we did not reach settlement, our dc could not claim citizenship.

I think you should move back, it is not about lifestyle or luxury - it is about safety and staying alive and well.
Your children are young now but in order to thrive they will need to explore and become independent, how will that work where you are now? Also jobs, future all of that hangs in the balance where you are.

I would choose somewhere very friendly in the UK - make plenty of new friends - and enjoy your life in safety and without fear, knowing your children have the best future too. There is no recession at this very moment, and depending on dh work skills he may work in an industry where it is possible to easily work.

SA is a beautiful country I have travelled across SA maybe 15 years ago, and at a different time you would of course stay there, but safety and security must come first. It will only take one mistake and it could be life changing - come back and make it your home. Throw everything into it, and this time even during bumpy times remember how you are feeling now.

Thank you, leave leave leave leave. I absolutely couldn’t stay in JHB. Other cities maybe.

You made the decision that seemed right at the time don’t beat yourself up over it.

We host foreign students never forget two lovely girls from Brazil. When I explained about bus stops what to do in town etc they looked horrified. Sensible 16 year olds but at home dad had to drive them everywhere they had no freedom whatsoever. They stayed a month and left in tears as they had loved the freedom here (we live in small posh safe city). My girls now mid teens and love the freedom they have to go out and about with their friends. As your children get older this will get more important.