Moved to my homeland & not feeling home

[Babibel]

Hi, I was an expat for 18 yrs: Germany, London, Stockholm. Now moved to France (my homeland) in a new city. It’s been one year and although people are kind, city is ok, I don’t feel good. I have felt very isolated and lonely with my child as husband would go back and forth between countries.Dealt with admin, new school, new work, all at once by myself, no family to help.
Now H wants to commit to my homeland and rent a house. I’m scared and sad, mourning the previous city (Stockholm) where my child was born and was a baby. It was a very cute environment. I had friends in the french community - not a single swede.
It was initially my wish to move to France and I made a massive push to make it happen.

Any comforting thoughts welcome. Or similar stories. x

Moving back to your home country after a long time away is always difficult. A year isn’t enough time to really make a call, especially if your DH hasn’t really been there. Is there a reason why you have chosen this specific city?

I moved home after 25 years in 2019 and would say I’m only feeling settled now.

Thank you so much for your replies! Did you move back to your home town?
I chose that city because there is an international school and our child can learn both french and Swedish. The small city is near Paris, people are polite and nice but it’s just a bit sleepy and not trendy.

Not immediately. We had a house purchase fall through just before Covid hit, so actually lived nomadically for a year before settling in my home town, which was pretty trying. Can’t you move to Paris, if where you are is too sleepy? Do you really want to return to Stockholm, or is it more than you’re not settled where you are?

I keep comparing what my child had in Stockholm with what he has now. I feel so guilty

I would not live in Paris, my child feels better with some nature around him.
I’m about to do all the administration to secure a house, by myself, husband is abroad and pushing for it. And i feel completely overwhelmed.

But what do you want? You keep talking about what your husband wants and what your child needs. You exist too, and you know France better than your DH, and where you live needs to work for you. It also sounds as if part of the reason you feel unsettled is because your DH hasn’t been living FT in France? I wouldn’t make any longterm decisions until he’s spent a year living in France, too. And he should be sharing in the —insane French— bureaucracy!

Thanks for understanding how I feel. The French bureaucracy is awful. It’s more work than anywhere else I lived. And the flat where we live kept having problems.

I don’t know anymore what I want, that’s part of the problem. I pushed for France and now i don’t like it. Or maybe i was too lonely like you suggest.

If we commit to France now, there is no way i move anywhere else after, I’ll be even more burned out.

It’s very brave of you to have moved back to your hometown. Maybe it’s not small?

Expats are a tribe of their own. They share the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. They make friends quickly with those in the same situation.

They also tend to romanticise the country they came from and to remember it as it was when they left and not how it is now. So I can understand your shock when you realise „home“ is not as great as you remembered it.

I do not think you will find a similar tribe in a small city in France. There may be a handful of people with children at the international school but I presume that most of the parents will be sending their children there to learn English. So you will be mixing generally with people with whom you do not share a common experience. Does being French in France outweigh that?

Have you moved back to a town where you have school friends and family? Sometimes that will compensate for the loss of the international tribe. Do you have interests that will allow you to make new friends? Sport, language classes religion, book clubs, culture etc? Can you seek out others with an expat history where you are? Can you attach yourself to the Swedish community there?
Have you considered moving to a bigger city?

I can understand why you feel unsettled especially when you are there on your own without your DH. Where is he working? Would you want to move there?

I think it will take time before you feel fully settled anywhere. But as you get older there is a huge advantage to being in the country where you child(ren) live and work. That is often not the case for people who have moved around a lot as their children will often choose to settle in other countries.

I won’t lie, it’s been strange to keep encountering the ghosts of my teenage self and running into people I went to school with in the 80s! It’s not big, it’s a small city of about 220,000, but it has a vibrant cultural scene and is surrounded by very beautiful countryside and is right on the coast. Plus, unlike you, I hated the last place we lived (for work) overseas, so leaving there was a very easy choice. And we did it the other way round to you, as DH had to move here ahead of us to start his job, while DS and I had to finish out the academic year (I’m an academic).

I lived in Paris years ago. French bureaucracy still blows my mind.

I'm from the UK but moved to France and I wonder if I would feel the same as you if I ever tried to move back to the UK.

The fact is that 18 years abroad changes you irrevocably as a person. You're not the same person you were when you left France and that's why it doesn't feel like coming home. France will also have changed in your absence. And also, you're in a new city.

I sympathise about the bureaucracy, it is truly awful, especially when you're used to living in places where things just seem to function without you having to fill in 25 pieces of paper in triplicate. But I do feel that it is sort of front loaded. Once you get to the point where you've rented or bought a property and you've got all your health insurance and taxes and everything sorted, it does calm down a bit and doesn't feel so overwhelming as long as you keep on top of it and don't let it get out of control.

You say you pushed to move back to France. Why? There must be some positive things about France which made you want to raise your child here.

Personally I think there are a lot of very positive things about France and I feel very happy and settled here, but it has taken a fairly long time to get to this point.

Feel free to send me a PM if you want to chat. I might not even be very far away from you.

I think the reality is that in the time you've been away you became a parent, time passed and you changed as a person. So coming back to France feels alien to you. I would agree with a PP that it probably is a case of needing more time. That said, as you're not in your home town, it's very possible that the current part of France you're in just isn't right for you. In general though, when I've moved it has sometimes taken a number of years to really settle and form friendships. I would suggest give it another 1-3 years and reevaluate.

I suspect I know where the OP is and I think there are unlikely to be the sort of schooling options she wants for her child in another part of the country. But it should definitely be possible to find her sort of people there. It just takes time.

It's hard going "home", but is this more mourning the move out of a city? Stockholm to a regional French city must be a serious shock to the system.
Is your DC at school yet? Once they start your days will full up with sports clubs and afternoon activities, and a small city will make these things easier to get to (hopefully!). Waiting outside swimming lessons is boring anywhere in the world!

I agree with the pp who said the bureaucracy will calm down (or it should!) after you’ve got through the worst of it at the beginning. I’ve been in France for nearly 20 years and am self employed and the admin isn’t a problem now. Although I still have a paper driving license which is falling apart and I’m putting off renewing it because I can’t be bothered! If all else fails, a few years ago there was a politician who got done for tax evasion and said it was due to « phobie administrative » 😂

How did you feel the other times you moved countries? Just wondering if maybe you had expectations of France and found the reality to be different?

May your new city just isn’t the right fit for you and you’d feel better somewhere else. What did Stockholm have that this place doesn’t?

Thanks all for your fabulous support. I feel understood here!

Yes we will not try another city in France as this is the most international city (Saint Germain en Laye). So we actually meet a lot of expats but they don't have the same background as us. Still easier to connect with them than fully French people. This city attracts a certain type of people as it's expensive. I would need to go to Paris to see people who work like me but they are usually child free.
We are friends with two other families who come from Stockholm but they aren't French-Swedish so it's not the same challenge. It makes more sense for them to be in France. We don't have family in the city so that's another negative.

I get tearful when I think my child used to play in the snow (...I was complaining about the snow when we lived there!). Is that 'The grass is actually not greener' experience?

The reason why I initiated the move to France? I was scared of growing old abroad and being stuck forever. I was a little angry at the langage that I don't master. I wanted to 'try France'. I feel very selfish for that.

You guys, your questions are so spot on. Thank you so much.

The administration in France isn't a joke. I just finally (almost) sorted out every documents that I have to deal with renting a house now. I would pack my luggage and move back to our flat in Stockholm in June instead of dealing with this.
I feel like I had a smaller mental load in Stockholm as the husband was taking care of much more admin than me. I had to take care of the school admin, homework and cook/tidy.

I feel this. Sometimes I feel irrationally angry with my husband about the paperwork because I feel like he should be doing it because we are in his country and we wouldn't have to do any of this shit if we were in the UK, but he's no better at it than I am.

Agreed. Binational children often move away. An international school might inspire them even more.

I was scared to become old in Sweden and now I am scared to become old in a small city.

He should be doing most of it. He is very lucky that you are in charge!

He does do most of it, to be fair. But sometimes he gets it wrong and I have to help, which I feel unreasonably annoyed about!

What does Stockholm had and this city doesn't have?
-Art - I am from the art field, and this is pretty much non existent here. Obviously I saw that before moving here but I was obsessed with moving to France.
-Family, we had Swedish family in Stockholm
-Culture and Nightlife, theaters and museums, galleries

I thought that I would create connections in Paris. But I am most of the time stuck in the small city.

@coldandfrostymorning23 is spot on. We create a community and connection when we are in a foreign country that is not representative of the reality back home. This is why you are feeling more connected to other expats where you are because you had a shared experience.

French bureaucracy is a nightmare and it is unbelievable the steps you have to go through to rent a place, so I feel your pain.

For us who have like you lived in many countries over the course of years and decades, it becomes harder to feel at home anywhere. In our mind, we create the perfect place with bits from every country. The older we get, the more moves we make, the harder it becomes. The novelty of moving to a new country fades, and we go straight into the practical aspects, we are older and people our age already have friends, and don't feel the need to make an effort to newcomers.

Focus on the good. You were longing for home. If you are not in your home city, a new city in France will be as hard as a new city in any country because everything is new. Part of your struggle might be the surprise that you are struggling.

You are also making an irrelevant comparison. You are comparing Stockholm with a sleepy town. Paris has everything you long from Stockholm . There is plenty of green in the 16th arrondissement .

I made the same mistake. When we moved to Sydney, I wanted to live by the sea, so we opted for the Northern Beaches . Talk about sleepy! Everyone is in bed by 9pm! Restaurants close the kitchen at 8pm or 8.30 pm except in Manly. I didn't want to live in Maroubra where the French Lycée is as the water too polluted, so I am far from the French community and yes, at first , I was like you. But then I stopped looking at what I didn't have and enjoying what there was.

And you are also very spot on. Thank you so much!
Only here I found the support I needed: being understood.

Maybe I didn't pick the right city. The choice was only motivated by the swedish section in a french (international) school. And also because it isn't far from Paris. But I actually don't use Paris as much as I thought. I don't think any other city would work for us though, we need expatriates around us.

You called the city 'sleepy' and maybe this is one of the roots of the problem. We used to live on a street with restaurants. Nobody would talk to us but it felt lively. Here it's the opposite, people are chatty but everything is dead after 7 pm.

I now wonder if I should push for another year in this city or move back to Stockholm so it's less hard for my child (7 yrs old). He can just go back to his old friends. He did say he likes his new school though.