If you've emigrated and consider your adopted country home - tell me what this weird identity crisis/ missing the north sea / Atlantic coasts...

[notnowmaybelater]

I looked at the homesickness threads but that's not it.

I've emigrated, I have citizenship, I've lived in my current house longer than at any other address in my entire life and in my current country for slightly more of the adult part of my life than the UK. My family moved around England and Wales when I was a child and no one town or area of the UK is "home". I know it's not the done thing to admit it but I don't miss my family and stopped missing my friends years ago - the lovely supportive group I had when we left the UK are all geographically dispersed now anyway, I know you can't go back because things change.

I have 3 lovely tween/ young teen children and we live in the EU country of my husband's birth, in the countryside, I don't have contact with ex pats and the other foreigners I know here are Croatian or Russian.

After 13 years away I suddenly feel utterly - exiled?

I miss the sea. Nobody here understands that a tame domesticated lake with grassy banks is not a sodding sea substitute. The Adriatic and Mediterranean are all very nice (nearest coasts) but they're profoundly disappointing when you want the north sea or the Atlantic.

Local radio gives me the rate. Everyone here seems to spend their lives exchanging platitudes and conversations seem to be collections of cliche. The humour is crap - it's an awkward point when people realise that you understand, but you just don't find their comedy amusing. Why are Bavarian comedians all middle aged white men?

I'm a bit overwhelmed atm because I'm doing too much - working, studying, 3 kids all at important stages atm needing support, smallest having some possible specific issues - or maybe not - eldest constantly tired and stressed by the school system although doing very well. Middle one has important decisions to make but just wants to drift and has no sense of urgency.

I feel adrift. Exiled is dramatic but sort of how I feel. Alone. Disconnected but at the same time pulled in 18 directions with too many demands. Every WhatsApp I get requires something time consuming of me. I speak the language but still everything is harder than in English, I make more mistakes and am less eloquent and less literate. It's fucking humbling living your life in a language you didn't start learning until your 30s when you've no talents for languages, and who likes being humbled every day?

But there is no question of going "back" let alone "home" - I'm as home as I'll ever be, although when the children are fully launched and independent I'd like to live near the sea...

Tell me I'm not the only one who feels like this and what it's called?

I think I feel like Ford Prefect (does anyone know what I'm talking about?) ...

*rage not rate. Local radio gives me the rage. It's on everywhere. It's cheesy strings of oily clichés and discussions of tired old topics linking cheesy, whiney songs together.

Yep same here expect I’m in the UK as an eu citizen.

The difference is that the U.K. was ‘home’ for me whereas now it isn’t. It’s just where I live. The connexion i once had for thé country has been smashed to pieces by the last 3 years.

I dint have any answer unfortunatly. I think that as you live abroad you ‘loose’ some of your old identity and ‘gain’ some new one but never be one or the other. It’s more like youve become both at the same time.

Hi there. I am Irish living in the US for a long time. I consider it home but I can relate to what you mean about feeling exiled. I haven't been properly homesick for a long time but it still - years and years later - comes and goes. The thing is you can miss a place - the look and the feel of it - as much as you miss people. A friend of mine who moved back to our home city after years abroad said this to me recently - that she just loves the look of the place and I feel the same. Also living your life in translation is hard. I find it hard sometimes even in the US where we share a common language - but not a common idiom or style so I can imagine it is even harder with a completely different language.

I wonder though, if what you are feeling is being exacerbated by the stress you are under with work/studying/worrying about children? And maybe you need a couple of english-speaking friends to give you some relief? Also on a practical level, I go back regularly? Can you do that - pick a place in the UK you'd like to visit and start having holidays/weekends there? (luckily the radio here in the US (NPR) is superb :))

I am US living in the UK and consider this home. That said, I have so much sympathy for your post. I have friends that have ended up in South America and Europe after marriage and I know I have it easier than they do, by some margin.

They would relate to this part of your post:

Every WhatsApp I get requires something time consuming of me. I speak the language but still everything is harder than in English, I make more mistakes and am less eloquent and less literate. It's fucking humbling living your life in a language you didn't start learning until your 30s when you've no talents for languages, and who likes being humbled every day?

I think that Pallisers is very correct that you'd feel a lot better if you could find a few good English speaking friends. I have lived in other European countries before the UK and found I did need that.

The different stages of assimilation are interesting. The Brexit vote was another stage for me, even more than getting my citizenship. I am a Remainer but I feel like what I had signed up for was sinking in. I was slightly overwhelmed by how overwhelmed I was, if that makes sense. For better, for worse sort of thing. Conversely, there are lots of articles about Brits leaving the US after Trump (having gotten US passports.) So - there does come a time when events can have that impact and you just NEED to pick up and go.

The language element makes all of this more complicated. When you get to stage of fluency where you understand everything that is going on around you properly...how people THINK and SEE things, not just what they mean. Properly understanding the mindset...yes, it would be a wake up call. Especially after all the effort to GET FLUENT in the first place.

Thank you for replying CanIHaveaDrink and pallisers

I think the last 3 years have made it worse - Brexit means we couldn't just move to the UK as we could have done before the referendum because DH is an EU citizen but not a British citizen. Although I'm sure he could get work permits as his job is always in demand he wouldn't want to - the referendum is a big fuck off to eu citizens really. I was shocked by the referendum result.and shocked by how much it upset me and that's only got worse. It must be so much more personal to an EU citizen living in the UK of course CanIHaveaDrink - are you married to a British citizen? British children? Your identity crisis must be worse than mine :(

pallisers you're right about missing a place. I feel like an elderly person missing the sea, I don't know why particularly but it's sort of embarrassing... That's where my mind goes though.

You're right I'm sure it is exacerbated by stress, and that a native English speaking circle of friends would be really helpful, but I don't have time to go looking for expat friends - the solution to every problem is time and there's none spare. I've lived overseas during other life phases (totally different time limited stretches as a childless single when younger) and was aware before we moved that fellow English speaking foreigners are essential companions to weather the first year or two, but I lost touch with those circles (which mainly revolved around small children and English speaking toddlers groups) years ago. People were mostly intending to be here 3 years and talked about "going home", used the international school, many were very wealthy trailing spouses - our lives were so different and friendships transient.

Living your life in translation is hard. I can see that there's be a big element of that living in the USA too, with different cultural references and humour. I hate not being able to convey subtleties of meaning quickly and spontaneously.

I'm going to the UK on Saturday but just to sort something out, back on Monday night. It's just more stress atm fitting it in between work, study and family commitments. Also there's the expectation that visits to the UK mean visiting family - I'd like to rent a cottage in Northumbria for 4 weeks and just chill out there or work on my essays, but there's zero time and not justifiably enough spare money for that!

OVienna thank you. You're so right about the stages and about the language stages. I'm in a doctor's waiting room about to be called so can't do your reply justice just now!

Yep BRITISH husband, dual national children (but really they are BRITISH first and foremost). And PIL who are conservative leavers giving long discourse to my dcs on how the UK needs to get rid of immigrants :(.

The thing is ‘home’ isn’t home at all. My parents have lived overseas for 40 years before moving to the U.K. (to be close to me and the dcs) and then back to our ‘home’ country. For them, as for me, it is now a foreign country that speaks the same language than us (even that can be hard - I have lost my fluency in my own mother tongue).

When you get to stage of fluency where you understand everything that is going on around you properly...how people THINK and SEE things, not just what they mean. Properly understanding the mindset...yes, it would be a wake up call
That is a big issue for me atm. I think I’ve reached some level of understanding of the BRITISH and English society at the same time than Brexit. It hasn’t made it a nice mix I have to say. And yes it does sometimes feel like this is not what I had signed for. To th point that I wouod have considered getting the BRITISH citizenship before but not anymore.

Interesting the comments about the stages of assimilation and the effect of brexit. I can really relate to it. The trump administration has changed something in us too (and we weathered the bush/chaney years and the iraq war already). It was like I just didn't recognise the country I was part of anymore - something really ugly was revealed - although it has very little effect on my life as we are in Massachusetts. As a result of that we made sure all of us had our EU passports and are considering buying a place back home.

OP, one thing which was an game changer for me was the realisation that visiting family is NOT a holiday and there are times you have to prioritise yourself. You are entitled to go on a holiday to Northumbria and see family for a day at either end. Or not at all. We are going back for a quick weekend visit in a few weeks and we won't travel to see MIL at all - I love her but we see her a fair bit and that weekend is to spend somewhere else.

CanIHaveADrink your exile-esque type situation sounds worse than mine - your PIL sound awful My MIL's situation wasn't that different from mine - she moved here from southeastern Europe as a young woman and when DH was young only went back to visit every 2-3 years. She died just over 2 years ago, and after initially being utterly devastated at the loss of his wife of 45+ years FIL is having some kind of horrible cringe inducing very very late midlife crisis/ second teenagerhood and totally lost interest in his son and grandchildren except when he wants something. This is doubtless also all part of it - mil and I didn't always see eye to eye especially when the children were babies (she saw breastfeeding as a rejection of her) but she was always there for the children and loved them so much, and I'm shocked by how much I sometimes miss her out of the blue, on my own behalf but more on the children's as they no longer have much of a grandparent relationship. DH doesn't talk about her much and I feel as though I should but rarely do.

On the way people think I was sitting in a cafe trying to work the other day and it was busier than usual and so I was closer to tables of groups of people than I'd usually choose to be when sitting alone trying to work, and I kept accidentally tuning into different conversations and they were all so dull and formulaic. It was as though everyone had a call center type script of clichés and clichéd superficial conversations, it just struck me how bana, formulaicl and thought free all the conversations were. I must admit I used to make a lot more effort with the children's friends' parents in years gone by but avoid them now because I feel as though I've had every conversation before and things never move on... That's a bit better at work and college but still... Something's missing. It's not really a political division as in UK Brexit, although casual racism quickly covered up is a feature here too, just nearer the surface than in polite society in the UK...

pallisers I agree absolutely that visiting family is not a holiday, I did realise that years ago but nobody in the UK will accept that - your parents live in a lovely place, have room etc. I remember trying to explain to someone that it costs more in flights, hire car and unavoidable wet weather entertainment than two weeks in Italy to go and sleep on a mattress as old as I am in my parents' spare room and wake up every day with backache and the task of stopping my then small children breakin themselves or anything else in their understandably exciting but wildly unchildproof house. Everything so interesting but so breakable, especially my dad's expensive collectors model vehicles arranged as art pieces over every surface throughout the house, even the bathrooms... or drowning in the multiple ponds etc in their garden or any one of them being left unsupervised with their dogs while I was supervising another, or just generally being loud or wild due to boredom and annoying my dad, or upsetting my mum because her food is unfamiliar to them even if I cook something similar and the sausages from her absolutely beloved local butcher are weird and not like the ones they're used to... Nope, blank looks, but you get a free holiday in such a lovely place and your parents to help with the children...

DH doesn't want to visit the UK though, and seems to rather resent me going, it's hard to justify trips other than to visit family once or occasionally twice per year. Visiting the UK always somehow ends up incredibly expensive, more so than going anywhere else, especially as it's not a holiday and DH doesn't want to go... We have commitments in DH's mother's home country too, to complicate things further, and ended up going there twice earlier this year.

I think I have too much going on for the next 6 months but after that, if I get through the qualifications I am stupidly trying to take in my second language, and don't crack, I should have both a bit more money and a bit more time and maybe the consequences of stupid, stupid Brexit will somehow be clearer (they won't, will they?) and I can think more clearly about how to at least get some time on some remote windswept but of British coast from time to time...

I've been reading an AIBU thread about sharing what you like about the UK, and I'm realising that I actively dislike some of the things mentioned, especially the huge numbers off barely trained off lead dogs everywhere... So that's helpful. The last time we were on an English beach my youngest was knocked over and unintentionally scratched (claws drew blood) by an off lead dog - friendly but totally out of control, owners miles away. One of my children was also bitten by a relative's dog let into a house where it was totally unexpected - it was made very clear that this was just one of those things and anyone making a fuss or expecting the owner to take responsibility would be a monster. The British dogs before people and general inability to train those dogs and tendancy to own so many of them is certainly something I don't miss...

I have to say, the news today have made things much worse.
Not looking forward to see PIL this afternoon.

If I had let DH have his ay, I am not sure I woud ever have been back to my home country!
Same than you, doesnt like going there, finds it a chore because he doenst speak the language etc... I had to fight for that, incl to go and send christmas with gran when I knew fully well she had very few years left...

@OVienna, I agree with you about the citizenship/feeling you cant stay etc... A few yers ago I contemplated getting the british citizenship, mainly because I wanted to vote. Now I feel like its the last thing I want to do. However, I have two dcs doing their GCSE so moving away is just not an option atm. But yes, as Ive tried to explain to my MIL, the UK used to be home. Not its just a place where I'm living until I can decide to just bugger off if things havent improved by then

I should say that I don't feel like I can't stay in the UK. I am psychically destroyed by politics at the moment and fearful. But I have no plans to leave. When I go to the US, ten days is more than enough for me. On balance, culturally things drive me mad there and one of the reasons I have probably stayed away as long as I have is I didn't quite 'get' the cultural cues either. It's very odd. I'll have to return later to this...

I miss the sea. Nobody here understands that a tame domesticated lake with grassy banks is not a sodding sea substitute. The Adriatic and Mediterranean are all very nice (nearest coasts) but they're profoundly disappointing when you want the north sea or the Atlantic.

I do, even though I'm Bavarian and love our lakes! But yeah, sometimes, only the sea will do and I agree with you that the Adriatic and Mediterranean are beautiful, but not a patch on the North Sea. Is your husband set on spending the rare holidays you do get in warmer climes or could he be convinced to go to somewhere like northern Germany or the Netherlands (or even to move there more permanently)? Lots of beautiful beaches, no obligation to visit family unlike in the UK and easy enough to get to. Amrum is a favourite here, but for example Darss (Baltic Sea, but still wild and romantic) is also gorgeous, really cheap during the off-season and easier to get to from Bavaria (if that is where you are...just guessing from your initial post).

I obviously realize your complaints go much deeper than just missing the sea, but as someone who also needs a regular windswept coast fix (and has no solution to the bigger issues), I had to chime in. Oh, and for local radio (again, I agree with you) try EgoFM for something less cheesy and clichéd if you can get it where you are.

PurbeckStone thanks for your post, it's nice someone gets it yep you're right about location - for some reason I mentioned missing the sea at a work Christmas event last year and my boss went on and on about the Chiemsee being exactly the same, only better...

We won't be moving anywhere til the children are all through school, it wouldn't be fair on them, but yes, perhaps one day we can move to the north sea coast in northern Germany or the Netherlands... I heard that they aren't very keen on foreigners on the German North sea coast though - do you know if that's true? I didn't start learning German until my early 30s and am not one of those musical types who picks up accents like spare pairs of gloves - I'll never lose my strong accent realistically so don't really want to settle anywhere openly hostile to foreigners obviously! Bavaria has always been very welcoming on a social level, the only xenophobia I've come across has been in the education system tbh.

DH isn't fixated on warmer climes, actually he wants to go to Scandinavia in Pfingsten, although I have exams so it might not be realistic this year. There are just family duty pulls from the South East of Europe as well as from the UK and we are stuck contributing financially to the upkeep of a house in probate there so there's the feeling we should go there for holidays to get something for the money we have to send and to check in with the extended family on DH's side who keep an eye on the place and to on the state of the place... Depressingly the probate situation might drag on for many years and is difficult to get out of without cutting all ties to that part of DH's family.

I got a little fix of north sea during my very short visit to the UK at the weekend, and also a reminder of the downsides - even on a cold December day the seafront was really quite busy, I do always have a sense of space where we live now and consequently the opposite in the UK compounded by the narrow roads and traffic...

Never happy I guess, but the 48 hour trip at the weekend put things in perspective a bit I think.

Maybe a long-term plan to move to the German or Dutch coast in ten to twelve years or so is the answer...

I et the issue with the sea. Except that, for me, its the other away around. I miss the Pacific and the Med and the North Sea cant make up for it!

I have probably stayed away as long as I have is I didn't quite 'get' the cultural cues either

There is that but also the fact things have changed a lot in the last 10~15 years.
My analysis (and please if I am completely worng, correct me!) is that a lot of the things I see now and despise were always there. But they were deeply burried because of societal pressure.
When I arrived, racism, xenophobia was a big No-No. No way woud people be seen saying or hinting at racist ideas. It was nearly feeling too much for me (as in 'why on earth are they not expecting immigrants to fit in, at lest in some ways, in the country?' Being very aware of all the cultural and religious difference as to not offend etc...). And then it changed and small comments started to come out, usually along the lines of 'I'm not racist but...'. And it just got worse and worse.
So maybe the last few years have been giving a thumb up to being more obvioulsy xenophobic/racist. Maybe its because I (and you?) get the small print better. I'd say its a bit of both :(

I totally get what you are saying and was actually thinking of posting something very similar today. I have been away from the UK for 15 years now, living in my current country for most of that time, have citizenship here. Don't feel at home here, but feel like a foreigner in England too. Lovely quality of life here on the outside, children very happy, etc. But I have no close friends, and language will always be an issue - there is a dialect here which is different from the official language and I am rubbish at both. Going to the doctors, dentist, hairdresser always a struggle. Find it difficult to communicate well with children's teachers.

Christmas makes it much worse, I miss the English carols and nativities and traditions. My mum struggles to get about now and is flying over for Christmas - not sure how much longer she'll be able to do it. Feeling very sad today.

I totally understand what you're all saying too. I'm also in Germany and feel that Brexit has really amplified feelings - I feel utterly disconnected from the UK now and certainly don't see myself moving back. But, then, as much as I love Germany and consider it my new adoptive country, I worry that I will never feel truly at home here either. Language is also my main barrier and I can really relate to the comments about how waring it is to live your life in translation. I've not got any natural ability for language learning either... I keep plugging away, but it's impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't also experienced it how exhausting it all is.
But, I'm not homesick either...it's a feeling that I can't quite put my finger on. I think the key to being a happy immigrant is probably to accept the feeling of never being truly 'at home' (whatever that means) and to give in to the feelings of being equally at home and not at home - someone said that on a thread recently and it really struck a chord with me.

Weirdly, Brexit was one of the triggers for seriously thinking about returning to the UK... it had an emotional impact on me that was far greater than anything that happened where I was living. Much as I was horrified by the result, it felt like 'my' fight.

Plus older parents, plus the educational system here not working for DD2, plus DD1 leaving home for Uni, so we're in the place of 'move now', or don't move for another 7 or 8 years. So we're moving now - well, between Xmas and New Year.

It was strange, as soon as I realised that there was this window in which we could decide to return without disrupting DDs' education/life in general, everything dysfunctional here began to eat away at me. On a daily basis, I started getting the rage about other drivers pushing in at the same point on the school run, where previously I had just rolled my eyes and accepted the cultural difference.

Of course, in many ways the UK will be a different country, I can't 'return', and the DDs have never lived there. We're not burning too many bridges, but have decided to give it at least 2 years and assume it's a 'forever' move.

But I came for a year, and that was back in 2006! Plans can and do change in unexpected ways.

thisisminnie I struggle with the dialect too - it is far, far harder to learn than the official language and even the pitch and tone of people's voices changes when they speak it - it seems people automatically speak in a low, gruff drawl when they speak the dialect, so that it becomes difficult even to differentiate where one word ends and the next begins. It's a thousand times harder than the high form of the language for me, and although there are people who only really use dialect it does make me feel unwelcome and as though my life is deliberately being made harder when highly educated professional people speaking to me 1:1 (a specialist doctor recently for example) who could not have completed their studies without being proficient at using the high form of the language, decide to growl at me in dialect. I know everyone is meant to unconditionally love and embrace dialect these days, but there's a time and a place... Also it changes if you travel 30km! The dialect in the small town I work in 35km away is different from the one in my nearest town! I hate it mostly, though it's deeply unfashionable to admit hating dialect and finding it exclusionary. I'm not expecting anyone to ever speak English, just speak the fucking national language, because I know you can! To be fair most people do, and on the positive side at least we can self refer and swap specialist doctor at will here unlike in the UK...

TheHoundsofLove I really recognise what you're saying. For a long time I was fine with "wherever I lay my hat" and not really feeling at home anywhere, because I never felt at home in the area my parents moved us to and did the nauseating "forever house" thing in when I was primarily school age (never had the right accent, always felt transitory even - or perhaps because - my parents claimed their adopted region with the zeal of the convert and will never have anything but gushing enthusiasm for the area they live in).

However unlike Allington Brexit hit me a huge personal rejection and the fundamental realisation that I really genuinely and permanently can "never go home". The difference between leaving home as and living your adult life knowing that your parents and family home will always be a safety net you'll never use unless totally unforseen circumstances hit but nevertheless that they'd give you and your family a temporary roof if you were in need, and your parents dying and the house being - not even sold but repossessed. A door slamming and then being permanently bricked up...

The difference is partly because I'm married to an EU citizen, so we genuinely will never live in the UK again. Making that choice is one thing, having it made for you is another.

I do think that the UK has cut off its nose to spite it's face by sending a big fuck off to the internationally mobile, generally well qualified, self motivated, relatively energetic, hard working types who are the sort of people who take the initiative to work in other countries. In the case of both EU and UK citizens the Brexit vote has told a valuable pool of qualified workers they aren't welcome, to pacify a lot of people who contribute far less... It makes me ashamed of my country and makes me feel my family and I are unwelcome. It doesn't make me feel I belong to my adopted country any more than I did before though.

I can understand that notnow. I think it was appalling blinkered, jingoistic, and disrespectful of the many people born outside the UK who have contributed to its wealth and standards of living for centuries. The UK, overall, is still in denial about that.

I work in the non-profit sector, campaigning for, and providing, services (and rights) for children and families in need. It seemed crazy (and a bit hypocritical) to be doing that overseas, when in the country where I am a citizen these are under attack.

Plus, sadly, my daughter (who is black) will probably experience less racism, and have more opportunities, as a minority in the UK than as part of the majority here (South Africa).

All that is a bit off the point of the OP!

I suppose what I was trying to say was that length of time is not the only way we can feel settled or unsettled. I never felt SA was 'home', but I was happy being here as an outsider for 10 years. Then a combination of factors meant I wasn't happy being here, none of which were related to any changes in SA, but to do with family factors plus the shock of the Brexit referendum.

I suspect living in the UK, after so long away, will not always feel like 'home' either.

Battery failing so will be back later but wanted to say I would love to chat OP! I feel much the same..about the sea...about Brexit...about Italian doctors!

smemorata just seen this - I think you were on a bilingual thread this evening too? I'm about to go to bed but yes, let's chat soon :)