AIBU to stay in the UK rather than move back to Switzerland?

[Swissandconfused]

I've been living in the UK for 12 years with my husband and DC . I'm originally from Switzerland, came for Erasmus at uni, met my husband and got a job....the usual! We live in a lovely part of the country in England and are very happy.

However people keep saying to me "surely Switzerland is much better, why would you stay here" etc etc..
I'm starting to think it might be better long term but we're so happy here, my son has lots of friends and we both have good jobs. AIBU to throw it all away? I'm really really scared to mess up the good things we have. I'm from a small alpine valley which is absolutely beautiful but the people can be very very insular and close minded and this bothered me my entire life when living there. I find living in the UK quite freeing. Also job wise it would be difficult. My son is bilingual so that would be fine but I'm afraid he'll find it hard to integrate.

although Britain has its issues, it is one of the most tolerant countries in the world

Couldn't agree more. Thank you for saying this.

My husband is Dutch. He came here as a graduate student and has now been here over 30 years. He sees plenty of advantanges to being in the UK over the Netherlands. Obviously one of those advantages is me and I don't whether he might have returned by now if he had entered a relationship with a British woman, but he has never once given any indication that he might like to return to the Netherlands, even though in many ways it has a higher standard of living.

Is he very tall?😁

Also former CH expat. People have a very naive view of Swiss life. It is not all Heidi-esque, mountains and wooden chalets. Yes it is green and clean, outdoorsy, quality seasonal food, trains run on time but it comes at some cost, financially, socially, politically and living under strict rules which are all too easy to flout inadvertently. Summers hot and winters harsh and bitterly cold. Diversity and tolerance are not universal sadly.

Going by what statistics?

There have been a lot of anti-immigration protests in England, in the last couple of years.

I’m English and used to work for a global company that is headquartered in Switzerland so have spent years working with native Swiss people as well as non-Swiss (living and working there). When I first started that job, I was very open to the idea of relocation at some point and had no real expectations of what working with the Swiss would be like. But I’ve lived and/or worked in a number of other countries (from China to France to the US) so I was pretty relaxed about the whole thing and thought how hard can it be?

What I learnt from that job is that (most) Swiss people and I do not get along well. I find them very rigid and lacking in creativity with completely closed minds. There is the Swiss way (as is detailed in a very extensive manual somewhere) and no other way is ever considered. I’m not sure some of them even acknowledge other ways of doing things actually exist. I have no doubt that they find working with me as frustrating as I find working them. The idea that we can do a good job and have fun at the same time is completely alien to them. Quite frankly, I found it much easier to integrate into China!

As a lot of people said a lot of people have a very idealised view of Switzerland. My mother is Swiss so have relatives there and have spent a lot of time there.

It is a beautiful country but eye wateringly expensive and as other people have said generally a very rigid and conservative country. The fact that women didn’t get the vote until 1971 says it all to me!!! In fact it wasn’t until 1990 that women in Alpenzell gained full voting rights. 🙀

And? There have been loads of pro-Palestinian marches and the vast majority of the country are not pro-Palestinian.

None of my Indian National, Romanian, Polish, Spanish or even Korean friends have ever mentioned anything anti-immigrate being said to them, or their kids.

Are there incidents taking place? Of course.
Is it as bad as you seem desperate to prove, no.

You have given no reason to move back to Switzerland, other than that people (who probably have never lived in Switzerland) think you should. I mean, that's just madness - why would you even consider it just because people say you should?

It raises the issue though of language expectations, requirements and fluency in respect of your husband. Will he be able to settle, legally and culturally? Is he fluent in one of the languages spoken in Switzerland?

I get that all the time from English people. I think England is great, but get asked, ‘if you’re from X, what are you doing living in this shithole?’

And I talk about my career and university life and freedom of expression and science and the vibrancy and historical buildings and archaeology and culture and landscapes and music and humour … but I visit the home country when I can because it’s a jewel in many ways. But my DC are most definitely English!

By comparison. Cast your gaze wider.

Every country has its own problems and many people think that the country that they are in has the worst problems.

To me it sounds like you have built a happy life here and should stay. You have no way of knowing if you and your family would be happier over there. Personally I would be ignoring everyone questioning you as to whether Switzerland would be better or not.

OP,
Having travelled widely and lived for years as an adult in Belgium, France and two parts of Germany, after having
grown up in London in UK (and having been a student in Manchester) I think you are spot on about being concerned about the narrow mindedness in small villages in Switzerland (and other rich European countries like Germany) which I have experienced as well.

It's not nastiness but you will find yourself feeling very different to them. I noticed they tend to be quite rigid and complain when everything isn't done by the "rules".

It's a major thing and would probably be very hard to deal with. I live in a very multicultural European city and I cannot imagine being happy in some picture-perfect isolated small village.

People who say that you should go back to Switzerland are thinking about the wealth and "clean" image it has. They have not experienced life there I suspect.

I remember hearing that during the breakdown of the Soviet Union many educated Russians decided not to go back to the Russian countryside despite the fact there was more food available because they needed the intellectual and social stimulation they would get from the city life, even an impoverished one. I think it's the same idea.

A lot depends on where you are in the UK. IMO you'll find 'Northerners' tend to be far friendlier than 'Southerners' and I'm a brit, a Southerner to boot. That said I've actually spent most of my life living in various countries overseas Italy, Belgium, Singapore, UAE, USA and once out of the expat bubble haven't found it any easier to make friends integrate with the locals than it is with Brits.

Based on what you've written, you have no reason to move back. Don't overthink it based on what other people say. You know your own mind.

The trouble is you are coming across as vehemently anti-British. You are criticising an entire race of people based on a couple of interactions that you've had! We all.know there's some arseholes in the country but you don't push the idea that everybody born here is shit because that is a form of racism isn't it! I spent many years working in the railway infrastructure industry and a few in the steel industry and that involved working with many people from different parts of the planet and nobody was unfriendly with anybody! It was a great atmosphere! Again i'm in the North. You've developed this generalised hate based on two encounters! Does this make you unpleasant towards British people because you are certainly giving us a hard time on here and people are going to struggle to be friendly with you if you are making it clear that you don't like them in the same way you are on here!

In terms of taking jobs, there is an element of truth, when i was made redundant from the steel industry in 2024 and was trying to get safety and compliance roles in the local factories it was soul destroying because these places have become almost exclusively Eastern European and it feels like if you are British, you struggle to be accepted for a role. I can understand how that can soul destroy low skilled locals who can't even get a job on the process lines to pay bills because it's all Eastern Europeans and the interviews are done by Eastern Europeans. I love Eastern Europe and I love travelling around it and meeting the people and I would like to live there somewhere when I retire but at times I've definitely felt like I'm competing with men and women from that part of the world for health and safety work in some industrial settings.

Why do so many people from other countries live and work here if we are such intolerant scumbags! Look how far back our diversity goes! Americans don't even understand why we are diverse but we are because we've embraced it! Your refusal to be tolerant to any British men and women is the issue!

My partner and I went to Seville recently, and yes we felt some anti tourist sentiment, we on a few occasions had to get up and walk out of places where they just weren't interested in serving us or acknowledging us, we had a homeless woman in a park start screaming at is and hurl a bottle of pop at us. But we didn't turn against the Spanish because the vast majority were perfectly fine but you would have hated the entire race for it. If you really don't like Brits, then why are you here?

Have you noticed the election results? What does massive uptick in support for Reform party mean to you? I’m afraid your sheltered monocultural upbringing has made you completely oblivious to issues of racism - and the massive difference to your experience as a Western European white person in UK, and frankly anyone else atm, especially outside of the big cities in the UK.

I've stated above that I'm very aware that there's problems everywhere and of course I know about the election results. If you look at other countries though there is much more of a racism problem, way way higher than over here. I have many non white friends who all say the same, that they feel much more comfortable in the UK than other European countries.

This has gone off a tangent now so I'll leave it at that. Thank you all so much for your replies, lots to think about and really interesting replies. Wishing you all a great week ahead 😊

A very rational outlook. Of course there is racism in every country, some a heck of a lot worse than here. OP’s thread has become a bit hijacked when all she meant was she has found British people to be, on the whole, kind and friendly.

It’s not OP’s fault or responsibility if others have had a different experience.

If you're happy in the uk, both have good jobs and your son is happy and established then don't move! People are hugely disillusioned with the uk at the moment due to a, the media, and b, the horrendous cost of living.

But for you personally, life sounds like it wouod be worse in Switzerland?

Keep it as a potential option if anything changes, and somewhere lovely to go on hol.

But - I am envious you have that option! Lucky you. 🙂

@BunnyLake ”Of course there is racism in every country”

Not least of all, Switzerland!

People just say stuff to make conversation.

You have a 12 year old. It would be terrible for his schooling to move. Another 5 years and he's off to uni. Although uni years are expensive so that's another 3 years you can't risk your jobs by relocating. Then you can do whatever you want.

I'm also from another country and on paper yes, I could have a much better standard of living there. But I've been in the UK 15 years, I like it here, moving back would mean starting from scratch and I can’t be arsed.

Thank you! There is a huge amount of racism and xenophobia in the UK.

I want to leave the UK because of it. I like a lot of things about the UK: the nature, the beauty.

But the racism and xenophobia here is too much. Not all English people are like this, it goes without saying. But the ones that do it, are very cruel

One thing that I noticed recently. My workplace plays games on team bonding days. We have played a version of ,'the traitors game' (from the tv show) 5 times. There are good and bad people in the game, and you have to guess who the bad people are.

Every single time that we played it, the English people in my workplace voted off all of the non - english people first - for looking suspicious. Every single time, of the five times.
Every time, white English people were the last people remaining in the game.

This was pointed out about the UK traitors show that was on TV aswell. It was pointed out that they often vote out the black people first. For no reason