To want to leave the US but DH is dead against it?

[BotAsp]

Bit of a rant tbh. We’ve been in the States nearly 6 years now (moved for DH’s job), and I’m just so done. The politics, the healthcare stress, the guns in schools — all of it. DD is 4 and starting pre-K in Sept and I’m lowkey freaking out. It all feels so alien and I just want her to grow up somewhere I don’t have to worry about lockdown drills or insane medical bills for a cough. I miss the NHS like mad.

DH thinks I’m being dramatic. He loves it here, his job is good, we’ve got a nice house, etc etc. But I feel so trapped. We barely have any proper support, I feel like I’m constantly having to translate everything — culture, language, even bloody humour. I’m homesick and just want to be able to pop round to my mum’s with DD and not need a 10-hour flight and 3 weeks off work to do it.

I’ve tried talking to him but he shuts it down every time. Says I’m not thinking long-term and we’d regret moving back. But honestly I don’t see how it’s worse than this? I’d take a smaller house and rain over anxiety meds and school shootings.

Has anyone been in this boat and come out the other side? Just feel like I’ve got no one to talk to here who gets it. Don’t want to drag DD back and resent DH forever but don’t want to stay and go quietly mad either.

Is it me? AIBU?

If you’re working remotely I can imagine you must feel quite lonely and isolated. Can you get a job in the US where you’d be out of the house seeing people? I’d give it a bit longer and really try to make a huge effort to integrate more (apologies if you’ve already done this) but you need a network of friends there. You’d just be swapping your misery for DH’s misery if you came home so it’s worth at least trying.

I'm originally from another country and moved here to the UK. I was homesick for a very long rime. By 6 years here I still wanted to go home but my DH didn't want to move. Our dcs were young and we moved to a different part of the UK where I became much happier.
Is that an option for you, to move to a different part of the US?

I've now been here over 20 years and consider this my home. I feel British. I seem British to anyone meeting me for the first time.My children are British.

I see the faults and knowing our quality of life would have been better in my home country, I sacrificed a lot for my DH and family. It wasn't easy in the beginning and I really feel for you.

It's possible your DH just needs a bit more time and he will come round but you can't live waiting for that to happen.

This will no doubt be a horrific thought to you as I know it was with me 6 years in, but it is possible that your feelings might change as time goes on.

My year 6 primary school child came home only yesterday and told me there had been one that day. Apparently it's a directive from the government that all schools must now do this. According to DC the following procedure was pratised in the event that an 'intruder' was detected: an airhorn was blown, the door was closed, lights turned off and windows and blinds closed. Then all children hid under the tables so it would look as though no one was there.

What a world.

As to OP's question, a lot likely depends on where in the US you live. I lived in the New England region a long time ago now with my ex: no children were on the scene, and we were much younger without healthcare necessarily being the immediate need it would be now. We were very happy there at the time. Our return to the UK was made in a quandary: at that stage neither of us really wanted to return, but after weighing up many pros and cons we reluctantly did so. As events have transpire, even given the state of the sector I work in and UK politics are far from perfect, I couldn't be happier to have made that decision. The US currently resembles something more akin to Gilead.

I'm sorry you are in this position, OP. It really does leave you little in the way of autonomy and I'd be looking to return on whatever basis you can wing it. The idea of ceding over my agency with your DH effectively in control of your destiny and lifestyle choices would not sit easily with me even if I were as happy as larry. That he's as unbending as this is concerning.

You can't live your life as a passenger on his journey.

I haven’t read every reply, but this from @HiRen stood out. Your DH is shutting down any discussion about where your family should live, but this is just as much your life as his. He doesn’t have the right to unilaterally change the terms of your stay and just refuse to discuss things. it’s your life. Where else in your lives does your H show up like this, @BotAsp ?

Presumably you both have family back in the UK, and friends- could you call on their support in at least making him see that he needs to have the conversation with you?

Finally, and really this is just out of interest- if you both visit the UK and then you don’t go back but stay here with your dd, where do you stand then in terms of The Hague convention? I’m not suggesting this, but it would be a question in my mind in your situation.

The truth behind the moaning Brit trope that many Aus and US friends had teased me about became very apparent.

Yes to this, @BakingBreadInRome. It's thrown into stark relief every time I spend even a short time in the US or on the continent.

Public services across the board in the UK are subject to savage cuts. Our university system - world class as recently as 25 years ago - is in free-fall and effectively ruined. School standards appear by my observation to be lower than in the US. The NHS is chronically funded and demand is infinite. Women's rights are terrible - albeit not so much as in the US currently - but women are still prosecuted and persecuted for termination and being fired from their jobs and persecuted and threatened for knowing that they are the demographic more at risk from men, and by asserting the reality that it's now taken the highest court in the country to point out to us. There is also a worrying swing to the political right on account of the fact that the left has failed its bedrock supporters on so many fronts, and asserting freedom of expression can now see your name entered onto a Kafkaesque 'black list' even if you haven't been convicted of a crime.

I've spent 15 or so years hoping eventually to move back to the US. I've no idea how the UK arrived at the awful state of affairs outlined above. It's a shit show. But, even in spite of all this, I'm now still glad to have moved home when I did.

I cannot believe that major London secondaries don't have lockdown drills.
My kids West Country Village primary did, as does their small town secondary.
They are normal in the UK.
Are you a teacher?

I’ve lived both sides of the he pond, had kids both sides. This is one of those decisions that logic can’t settle and there is no objective right/wrong.

But I do understand that the pull to "go home" is strong, just be aware that re-entry is hard and it takes time to settle. You do not step back into the same life or the same country you left.

Miss the NHS 😂.
Sorry but that’s gone the way of the dodo. If you have any medical needs you have to go private. The private healthcare system realise they are onto a good thing and have bumped up their prices accordingly.
Just something to factor into you costings if you are moving back on a reduced salary.

Lockdown drills are the norm in the UK too, both state primary and Indy secondary for my kids do them and have done for years. The knife crime epidemic in this country is out of control and spreading - it’s no longer London centric so it’s not some utopia.

Yep. Our London secondary does an annual lockdown drill and says it's DfE best practice and lists some of the reasons a lockdown might be needed - disturbance outside or inside the school, intruder, environmental or severe weather hazard, dangerous animal etc.

Pretty sure our primary do them as well alongside fire drills.

OP, shutting you down needs to be addressed.
The years will go by if you allow this to continue.

I wonder if this is just more about having your mum - and safety net than loving British culture.

In the same schools where they do fire drills. Always better to be prepared.

( pays off too, we had an accidental fire alarm alert during an OFSTED, the inspectors mentioned in the feedback how impressed they were by the children's response which was exemplary. To be honest we were amazed too, “Who ARE these children?” one of my colleagues muttered to me as we stood in the playground in front of perfect lines of calm children waiting to be allowed back in the building! )

The thing I love about American culture though is the ingrained idea of "standing your ground". No self respecting conservative American would let themselve get robbed. Here in the UK you give them your stuff and say "please don't hurt me." In America people shoot and kill thieves.

Think pretty much every primary school are required to rehearse lockdowns. My son’s school have. Not necessarily about shooters but more emergency scenarios like intruders. They practice sitting quietly and sitting on the floor under desks with the blinds down etc

I have never been told by the schools about lockdown drills, so that's probably why lots on here are adamant that their children have never had them, although likely do.

I only know about them because they have had actual lockdowns, so the parents were informed.

I had a text exchange with one child during one of them, as he was concerned but it was quickly over and they were reassured. The other child (who attends the same school but doesn't take his phone) didn't even mention it when he got home as it was a non-event. The children were never in danger, but the lockdowns were necessary precautions.

OP, I've lived abroad with my DH and 3 DC for nearly 13 years. We originally planned for 5 years, and with each visa extension (3 additional years) we discussed it at length and ensured that both of us wanted to remain. We are now both ready to move home, and are making plans to do that in the next 2 years.

It was CRYSTAL clear from the beginning that if either of us was unhappy after the 5 years, that we'd move home. I think that the 6 years you've done is already a really long time. 3 years is the average stint for expats in the city where I live, and most of them are done and ready to move home by the end of the 3rd year.

I would be really upset about my DH moving the goalposts regarding how long we'd live there. I completely understand you wanting to move home, especially regarding the schooling system. It's the main reason I want to move home for my DC. The homesickness has hit me like a bus over the last year, and I can completely understand the anxiety you're feeling.

It's not ok that your DH is unilaterally deciding this. Would he listen to you if you explained the extent of your homesickness? Would you consider marriage counselling?

From my experience it is common on london (I’m a teacher!). We call it ‘shelter drill’, but the same as a lockdown drill.

I had no idea that lockdown drills were a thing here! My DC had an actual lockdown a couple of months ago (nutter in the woods, helicopters, police on premises - turned out to be a harmless nutter with no interest in the school but still). How interesting.

YANBU at all - i think the root cause here is that your DH and you agreed to 3-5 years, you're past that and now he won't discuss. Presumably you went for his (career) benefit, not yours.
I thin he is being massively unreasonable to not consider with you properly.

I have a British friend who settled in the US about 12 years ago and is so depressed with the situation she has just come back home without her DH and kids and is currently trying to sort out a house and job etc with the view that DH and kids will follow later this year. For similar reasons to you so I entirely get it

As others have saidd though, the grass is not entirely greener. Politically a bit more stable here (for now) but I think the political future looks very uncertain indeed. NHS is a mess. Far more visible poverty than there used to be. All public services in a bad way. etc. I know where I'd rather be though.

Can your husband get a job in the UK easily?
Can you afford to buy a home near your family?

I agree I would be worried about my daughter growing up in the US and what is being discussed/happening with women’s rights for a starters.
As a women and mother I don’t feel you are being dramatic. My daughter is 5.
With the plan to be 3-5 years….and it’s now 6 it sounds like he’s moving the goal posts.
Im in the north east of England and unfortunately they have lock down drills here which unsettles me.

I would get some research done and see what the figures look like and then have a sit down discussion about it

I absolutely love America - or I did, before F**Wit became president again. I think the opportunities there and the beauty of the country as a whole, the positive attitude of MOST people, the can do attitude, have it head and shoulders above my park of the UK where most people are pessimistic, bored, down on the weather, lacking in opportunity.. but I may be romanticising it based on the many great times I've spent there. I've never actually lived there, but I'd be wary about throwing away future opportunities, maybe to move to a different, more progressive state, and your daughter's future - although if she is an American citizen that means she can basically go back at any time.

To add some context (no opinion on whether the US is right) but in the primary school years it’s very easy to move children. They’re so adaptable. We’ve done it twice with zero issues settling in/making friends.

It's worrying that your DH refuses to discuss your concerns but I agree with PPs that you seem to have a rather over optimistic view of life in the U.K. at the moment.

Post Covid Britain is a third-world shit hole, it's easier to see a vet than a GP or dentist, crime is everywhere and the police do nothing, but you can bet they will pay you a visit if you misgender someone.

The grass is always greener OP.

The schooling isn’t as good (in the UK)

This is not true. Everyone I know who has experience of both UK and US schools says the educational standards are much higher here in the UK. I have never seen this disputed. A Levels, for example, cover material not studied in the US until the students are at college (university), and even for young children our standards are higher. And I’m talking about state schools, not private ones.