AIBU to be considering moving home from the USA to the UK

[MaineRedneck]

I am getting pressure from my parents to move back to the UK. She is lonely and complaining that the kids don't know who she is. I am finding myself looking at options.

We are a family of 4 DD1 is 3 DD2 is 6. We moved here 12 years ago and set up a good life. We have a home, a weekend home. We shoot, fish, ride ATV's, and in general are outside the majority of the time. I don't know if we could do that in the UK anymore.

DH has a good job here equivalent of £85k, however in the UK he would get £50k, assuming he could get a job. I currently don't work but I am assuming I would have to if we moved back.

If we sold houses cars etc, we would be coming back with £500k and a 20ft shipping container. I don't know if we could get a decent house for that.

DD2 has spent a total of 12 weeks in the UK visiting family, DD1 obviously less. The UK is a foreign country to them.

Both countries are declining fast so I don't think we will be better in the UK

I don't know if this is a non starter, and I should just grow some balls and tell my mother it's not happening.

Er, no?? It's a no brainer.

I think you could have a fantastic life here, though you’re probably going to want to work.

We make probably about what you would if both of you were working, roughly £100k give or take depending on the year. We didn’t have £500k of equity to put in a house, but we did have a very nice deposit on an £800k house. We have 5 bedrooms, huge gardens, formal gardens and vegetable patch, 5 acres of paddocks and outbuildings. Our mortgage is £1600 a month. Bought post-COVID so a new ish to us house. We hunt and fish and drive ATVs and have a Land Rover for off roading. I have a horse. Dc go to state schools, but lots of activities. We live in a beautiful part of the south west, lots of hiking, rivers to swim in, beaches. We do lots of UK and European travel.

You absolutely can have a lovely life here. I moved from the US for exactly that reason. Obviously I’m now settled here and it’s been awhile since I’ve been back, but my cost of living was definitely lower in the UK. It’s safer. The healthcare is obviously more affordable and in my experience of 20 years in each healthcare system, also better.

That doesn’t mean you need to move home and live next to your mum. But you can have a great lifestyle with here with your above average salary and £500k cash to buy a house, definitely.

Your mum missing you doesn’t seem a good reason to return to the UK.

Do you have the right to remain in the USA indefinitely?

Yes, we are all now US Citizens

Could she move to you?

No she has no interest

@mindutopia Thanks for the insight. Safety isn't something I am currently concerned about. Is it a issue in the UK?

The you should do what is right for your family - not make a move that is primarily to please your mother. How does your husband feel?

What state are you living in?
I wouldn't want to raise daughters in the USA.

@Periperi2025 we are in Maine, it's a large fairly uninhabited state. We are way out in the woods.

Why wouldn't you want to raise daughters here out of interest?

@dammit88 he wants to stay in the US he thinks moving back to the UK would be a backward step

There was a thread on here yesterday by somebody asking the same about moving from the UK to the US. Mixed opinions but voting showed a clear consensus that she was mad to consider it.

In your case, I think a move back to the UK could work out very well for you, if you (and perhaps your children) can adapt to the change in lifestyle. If you have plenty of savings after having worked and earned well in the US you may find life in the UK more affordable than those of us who have been here all along!

ETA: Have just reread your post and taken on board the money. For £500k you can buy a very nice house in most rural areas of the Uk. If won’t get you much in London though, or other expensive places like Oxford or Cambridge or many other leafy places in the South.
If you were to look at the rest of the country though that will get you a lovely home in most areas.

Presumably because of the attacks on women’s rights over there. Maybe not such an issue in Maine, I don’t know.

Because in a little over a decade they will be young women with an ever decreasing amount of agency over their own body/fertility. I wouldn't want to be a women of reproductive age in much of the USA.

Do you WANT to return, or do you feel guilt and obligation to your parents?

If the latter, think it through again and don't knee jerk into it. If deep down you don't really want to return, well that's your answer.

Have parents visited you in the US? Could they go over for longer periods ( may be still working).

Don't base your decision on feelings about your parents, make the decision based on your gut, your family and your DH's feelings too. It's not your parents' lives and futures.

Trump will be gone before the girls go to high school.

That's all there is to it really.

Where abouts in the UK is your mum? (I guess you want to live pretty close by). House prices vary hugely, where I live in SE 500k will get you a small 3bed semi near a good school..

You can not move here just for one person in my opinion, what happens when your mum is no longer around? Will you be happy to stay? You have a settled life already. What does your husband think?

This is your answer.

Why would you consider disrupting your happy family life for your Mum, when she won’t consider moving to the US?

How can she ask that of you but not even consider it herself? Unless, she has other family members to consider too?

Either way, I wouldn’t move back to the UK for that reason alone.

Yes... I would move away from the UK if I had the chance. Sadly I don't.

My sister lives in the states (Texas) and has done for 34 years. She loves it even though her children now live here (24&29).

Then stay!
Moving back for someone else is not a good idea, and you’ll just end up resenting her and/or each other.
You sound happy and settled, so why come back?

Which part of the UK would you be moving back to? There are parts of Scotland where you could live a similar kind of life, though whether you’d be able to get work there is another matter

It won’t though. I live in rural area, you are looking at over a million for same lifestyle as you have there. Land is £8000+ an acre.

My family are in Surrey. DH's work is Nuclear Power, so is limited to where we can go