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.

I find it so odd when people have strong opinions on where you should live. It is not unique to brits, it is all over europe of you're considered to be somewhere "nice". People have tons of reasosn to move and there are pros and cons to every place and it is all very personal where you "fit". If you're happy I the UK, that's great! I doubt Swizerland is going anywhere so if you start feeling some sick.

My fave was this Romanian woman I met. She didn't really feel like Romania was for her. She read about different european countries and decided on finland. She hates loudness, constant kissing and hugging and later dinners so figured Finland would be a better fit and loves it there. Sometimes your home country is not for you.

Maybe if someone wants to offer theit opinion you can say "oh, wasn't expecting you to tell me to go back to where I came from". 😃

My brother moved to Zurich and loves it there. If you did ever move back I reckon Geneva or Basel but definitely not some alpine village! I think both Geneva and Basel are more liberal and international now. Also aren’t unis largely almost free in Switzerland? So your DS could go later or even for a Masters.
Can totally see how Manchester to alpine village would not work!

Same with Germany. I mean totally one thing living in Berlin or Munich vs living in a small South German town. If you are moving from London or Manchester or even Liverpool or Newcastle you are going to have to pick a city that suits you.
I have some friends who moved back to Warsaw and love it, but no way would they have been able to settle somewhere rural in Poland. Best to stick to cities with significant universities.

I did the Switzerland to UK move. The small alpine valleys are just as insular as you remember and now everything is expensive as fuck. Does your DH have Swiss citizenship as well? If not, he’ll need to pass a certain level of language exam to be resident (French in Geneva canton; I think German or French in Zurich canton; often German in the type of the valley cantons you’re talking about), to even be employed under the Swiss system, he’ll need to be fluent in one of the four official languages (English isn’t one, which I’m sure you know), and a Swiss citizen himself as any job he applies for, the law is that citizens get preference. Unless a company is willing to employ him directly with a specialized job description. If you can survive Swiss prices on your salary alone, and your children and husband are multi-lingual already, it’s a good move. Otherwise, it’ll be messy as fuck.

I'm not having a go at you, it's great that you're defending multicultural values in the UK as someone who has experienced what it's like to grow up in a completely insular society, but what you misunderstand is that those multicultural values are not 'innate' to British friendliness. They have come out of decades and decades of anti-racist struggles linked to a long history of immigration to the UK, which in turn is linked to British colonial history ("we are here because you were there"). I'm also proud of growing up in a multicultural city in the UK, but am aware that the values that were fought for since the 1970s are under increasing attack, so to assume that British friendliness overrides it all is very naive (I'm not doing down British friendliness but of course it's not inherently anti-racist - I was born in the 70s and old enough to remember the signs on pubs saying no blacks, no dogs, no Irish).

Also, you personalised your response to someone who has experienced anti-immigrant abuse as "I think you have been really unlucky there to be honest", which is lacking basic awareness. There is clearly rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK on a massive and frightening scale and so this person you were responding to was not "unlucky" but rather you haven't experienced this rising trend as a Western European white person. You can enjoy living in a racially diverse and inclusive society but part of this is acknowledging that your experience is not the same as others. You should not have implied this person was "unlucky", or even worse (in a previous post) that perhaps they weren't being friendly enough themselves, which suggests - deliberately or not - that they somehow deserved the abuse.

That all said, your perspective on UK multicultural values as a Swiss person is important - you should respond to the people who tell you go back to Switzerland exactly why you don't want to. Funnily enough, I literally came back from Geneva yesterday, which is why this post caught my eye. It was beautiful but I'd never live there, and you'd be mad to uproot your happy, carefree life. You might even want to get involved in defending the values you care so much about.

I agree. To say that I was "unlucky" was not the correct thing to write. There is a huge amount of racism in the UK. Many news stories will tell you that.

The OP, as a person from Switzerland, is not going to be a target of the same amount of abuse. Switzerland is perceived to be a rich country.

It is only usually the people who are seen to be from poorer countries, that receive the abuse in the UK.

There is a huge amount of racism and xenophobia in England. I would say that it is mainly targeted at Asians, Africans, Eastern Europeans, Irish, and at the descendants of people from those countries.

Thank you all again and I'm sorry if I've caused any offence whatsoever. I didn't mean to and I'm well aware of problems that you write about. However my post wasn't about this and has somewhat be derailed.

I wont be revisiting this thread so wishing you all a good day.

I wouldnt agree that it was derailed. You talked about living in the UK versus Switzerland.

People then came on to write about which of the countries is a "friendlier, more acepting" country. I replied to the poster that first wrote about this on here

One of my sisters is living in Switzerland. Told her about this thread. She says she doesn't find it insular nor feels stared at