Am I a complete weirdo for contemplating moving to America?

[Frinkleg]

It’s always been an option as dh is a pilot. He’s spoken to an airline out there and would be able to secure a job with 3x the salary. We would actually be able to feel a little bit more than just comfortable.

I actually really do love the UK. I enjoy village life, British holidays, Brits are just funnier etc.

But the money is just too much of a head turner.

We could afford a gorgeous home in Connecticut with a pool.

We spend a lot of time in the states but only as holidaymakers. It would certainly be an adjustment.

of course I fear guns, American politics re female rights, I’m by no means pro Trump. The ICE raids are horrific. But we’d have some bloody money. And a nice house.

I can’t imagine the US ever feeling like home that’s the only thing.

We visited Connecticut last summer. People were lovely and very friendly. we visited Madison which has a lovely beach and visited some of the local areas around there. We had a tyre losing pressure in our hire car, stopped at a local garage who helped us without expecting payment (we did tip). And then we went on to Mystic which was very really lovely. Small community feel to some of the towns.

Very Gilmore girls feel to some of the towns. I didn’t like New Haven where Yale is based, they had a high proportion of homeless with some suffering mental health issues.

I would go for it, if I were you. It’s largely a democratic state and I am a person of colour so if I felt welcome then you should fit in fine. I like America it is a beautiful country and largely it’s the state and district politics that will impact you most. And if the democrats win back the house in the mid-terms that will help too.

I am someone who got homesick after 10 days in Florida! I think at the moment there seems to be a talk down of our country if that makes sense .Maybe because of a right wing press I don t know. Everyone is different although I think being away from familiar faces/ ways /customs is often downplayed .Can you have a long 6 weeks say or so .get to have a look close up as it were .

Do Americans really think nothing wrong in not having free healthcare ? while the rest of us can’t comprehend why certain groups in the US are in constant danger of losing their insurance , The majority of Americans seem to think it’s fine and it’s actually the fault of those individuals for not working harder not finding a job or not being paid enough.
it’s a broken system.

I would be tempted to try it given your circumstances. Presumably your DH would have no problem getting another pilot job back in the UK if you move and hate living in the States? My DH wants to get out of England and he likes the idea of moving to America. Our situation is very different though, neither of us have sought after professions, so it sounds like we'd be paying out a lot of money to move out there and neither of us have even visited the US!

Your kids can stay on your insurance until they turn 26.

If they are at college, the college will also have a health insurance plan they can buy if they prefer.

Not really. The USA is a huge and very diverse place. Moving states can be like moving European countries to an extent.

Have you included a buffer for inflation? Trump's trade war is causing costs to spike (when even Marjorie Taylor Green is complaining about it, it must be bad). The ACA is toast now too so health insurance premiums are about to go through the roof.

I wouldn't consider moving anywhere where I couldn't walk to the shops or get public transport somewhere. That does limit options in the US, places like Boston and Chicago aren't exactly cheap to live in. McMansions in suburbia may look attractive to you but it can be very isolating.

The ACA itself is not toast - the subsidies are, for now.

At one of our open enrollment meetings the other day someone asked if the loss of subsidies for people who get their insurance via the ACA marketplaces would push up everyone else’s premiums and the answer from the benefits specialist was ‘not a great deal’ FWIW.

Hahahaha. Yeah I’m very aware of the size of the country and distance and different in states being from NA. Ive seen gated communities in New York State, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maryland etc. They do exist - a simple google will tell you that. I have been to people houses in the eastern seaboard in gated communities.

See that’s what we can’t comprehend. Just why?
Healthcare should be freely available specially to those who can’t afford it. and going private should be a choice .
I know the NHS gets lots of hate and no doubt it is really struggling but honestly it’s an excellent system that does not discriminate.

Social healthcare is communism but they don’t seem to mind state education. (Before anyone says anything there was a youtube videos of Americans aghast at the idea of social healthcare for everyone, admittedly they were quite old, white and obviously not poor but it was a strange reach to think that way).

Personally if I had to live in America then East Coast/New England would be my preference. I do really like that Connecticut type home interiors, the dark wood and light furnishings. I also very much liked Newport in Rhode Island and parts of Cape Cod were gorgeous.

I have this thing though where I’d hate to live in a big country, I like small countries. It’s probably a bit unusual to have that as a requirement to move though.

Let’s leave aside the ethics and look at this purely in terms of (economic and other kinds of) benefits for you personally:

College? That would be incredibly expensive
Lack social security if anything goes wrong

legal protection in case of death or divorce: would you need a post-nup?

Did you consider custody? Would you accept being potentially trapped in the US (seeing as you probably couldn’t leave with your children unless your DH agrees)?

Social connections: do you have family and or friends in the UK? How would you feel losing these connections? For your DC to not be close to aunts, grandparents or cousins (if that would be the case in the UK)?

I'd go for it, why not give it a try, we would if we had the opportunity. MN often views the USA as a similar sized and controlled country to the UK, often forgetting that it's actually 40 times larger and so it's stupid that there's a single president 'in charge', he isn't, every state has its own Congressional institution that basically runs things and if they disagree with the president then they can keep their own laws (very basic overview) I'd definitely choose my state carefully.

1100sq ftage of house here is considered large, a 'small' house in the US is around 1500sq ft.

We live in NE England, and my 2 primary aged kids are doing lockdown drills at school including having to hide under tables and in cupboards, this has been going on for at least 3-4 years now, and I know the local senior carries them out as well.

Connecticut has the strictest gun laws in the US too.

Over 12,000 people have been arrested so far this year in the UK for social media posts, so the talk of no free speech in the US isn't exactly any different to here atm - if anything you won't get arrested in the US for posting something on X whereas you can be here.

I wonder if there would be as much negativity if the op was asking about Dubai, other middle eastern countries, countries in Africa. Is it just the USA that is to be avoided?

MN often views the USA as a similar sized and controlled country to the UK, often forgetting that it's actually 40 times larger

Do they?

In 18 years on MN, and frequenting similar threads countless times, I'm struggling to see how anyone could assert this POV, tbh.

You'd have to be pretty ignorant of an entire smorgasbord of very obvious information to think that the US is a similar size to the UK. Separately, most people know that the political/administrative/socio-economical make-up differs to the UK.

Generally speaking, and different opinions aside, MN posters aren't quite that thick.

I’m an American Literature academic with a keen interest in the culture and the politics. I would like to live there one day but definitely not under Trump.

Gated communities exist in London suburbs and the home counties. That does imply London is a variant downtown JoBurg

@Cleikumstovies I take it the Dubai threads have passed you by then?

A man in Tennessee got locked up for six weeks for posting a meme about Charlie Kirk. Nothing extreme (no threats of violence or anything), just a quote of Trump saying "we have to get over it" [about an Iowa school shooting] with the caption "seems relevant today".

Eventually of course he was released without charges because it was obviously nonsense. Yet he still got remanded for six weeks on a $2m bond. I'm sure he will be suing because this textbook 1st Amendment breach cost him his job.

In the UK, social media posts are only going to get you locked up if you actually incite violence. Bail bonds don't exist either, the court either considers you a flight risk/risk to public safety, or it doesn't.

I've read many of the comments on this thread, but wanted to wade in with my personal experience.

We spent 6 years in the US (south west Ohio). The first two, we were new grads; the four years, DH was on a very swanky international contract (nominally 3x his UK salary, when all the bonuses were added in).

I would say that on both stints, we weren't any better off there than here. Some things are more expensive, other things are cheaper. It really is swings and roundabouts. We didn't let money burn a hole in our pockets - our trips were very modest as we had five kids and going away was a military operation. What I do remember is that our trip to Cape Cod was eye-wateringly expensive. Apparently, the labour costs there are high, so the costs get passed on.

One of the weird things about living in the US, is that you pretty much live among people of similar status. That will dictate where you actually live rather than what you can afford on paper. We actually did choose a lower ranked house than DH's colleagues as we felt that was better for our kids. We certainly weren't going to rent a McMansion 30 miles from downtown that we would not have wanted to fully furnish (due to returning to our house in the UK four years later).

I liked a lot of what we had in the US, although a lot of it was being part of an expat community. Saying that, our neighbours were really friendly, and one had the right amount of cynicism and got my jokes. I liked the real weather - snow in the winter, beautiful autumn colours, hot summers (although a bit too humid). Spring was probably the worst because the weather couldn't make up its mind.

The worst part was the very real racism (although we are both celtic white). My son invited his school friend over one Saturday - he was black - his dad said this was the first playdate he had ever had at 10 years old. My son played in a black football team. When I suggested to a neighbour at having the team and their mums over for tea, I was told not to - they would steal from me! I wasn't happy when my neighbours said they had guns - my kids never went to their house again.

Another thing is the distance that you drive for day to day stuff, and the absolute need to drive. I hardly ever use my car here in the UK as everything is on my doorstep, and there are buses and trains.

In my US neighbourhood, very few people had their own pools. They could afford them, but we had a very good private pool club where we would hang out all day every day. The kids had their swimming lessons and then played, and the mums chatted.

What makes me happy is that my eldest (now 33) really cherished his time in the US (3rd - 6th grade) He has good memories and when he has gone back as an adult, he was researched his trips and really made the most of them. He got married this year, and had a quiz at his wedding. One of the sections was about Cincinnati - so I think that's a good sign.

My DH is about to renounce his US citizenship.

And yet despite the OP making it clear from the get go that they would be moving to democratic, liberal Connecticut and on a professional salary we see poster after poster insisting they they will need to live behind barred doors and die in the event of accidental/ectopic pregnancy.

For me the big difference between here and the US (and I have spent time living/working there and visited many times) it that it is a country with extremes, life is more gentle (on the whole) here

take the wealth and poverty, the homelessness is many of the larger cities is beyond shocking, the areas of poverty are larger than we get here and are really depressing, the politics particularly at present, the drastic differences in nicer areas and poor areas, even how the news is reported

I always feel so British when I am there 😁 but there are certainly positives.

Health care is certainly an area you really need to fully look into, my brother and sister are paying out huge sums of money to cover themselves and their children (on top of the cover they receive from work) and its getting harder, the healthcare system provides choice but you are always having to pay

and the cost of living, as with here, has gone up considerably but wages are higher and tax lower

Do you really know what "the majority of Americans think"? I don't either, but I do know that every single one of my friends here believes that the US system is appalling.

that's exactly my point, you can travel to a different state and experience what can feel like an absolute different country and yet 90% of comments on here are about US gun laws and US abortion laws, not the states own sanctioned ones.

also - @DdraigGoch a very famous example in the UK, Graham Linehan was arrested by 5 officers at Heathrow airport (any need for 5 of them really?!) for posts on X quite recently for saying he agrees that women should challenge a man in womens' loos and if he retaliates with anger or violence maybe they should punch him in the balls.

Ah yes, I've heard of the "part-time worker" scam some employers have. They refuse to give their employees extra hours because they'd have rights (FMLA etc.) if they were considered "full-time". There's no obligation to pro rata these benefits.