I want to come back to the UK

[abitlostandconfused]

But can't seem to put my reasons into words to explain to a husband that is happy here (Australia).

I am just not settled.

We're here on temp visas until October 2011 when we can apply for PR but the thought of staying beyond then fills me with dread.

I feel that if I pressurise him into coming back to the UK it will finish my marriage but at the moment I just can't find the words to explain why I don't want to stay. He asks me too and then just says I need to make more friends here! Christmas was bloody horrendous. We were with his family (they are amazing) but it was their Christmas and not ours. DSs 2nd birthday is probably going to be the same. If it was the UK our garden would be full of family, loads of friends and a bouncy castle. It just doesn't happen that way here.

The pull of family and friends is just too strong.

I am going back for a visit in September.

See what I mean? I just can't explain why this doesn't feel right to me.

Has anyone felt like this before?

What did you do?

I am in Connecticut, TadJennyP.
I think one of the problems is I am always holding back something of myself - eg I never talk about going out on the piss with Americans that I meet, in case they think I'm a raging alcoholic. So I'm not really myself, and I think people pick up on that. I am trying to learn to let people in a bit more, but it's hard.

Connecticut is not very close for a meet-up! I am feeling more and more shy as the time goes by, so I know how you feel! It's really not easy leaving existing family and friends to come so far away. Anyway, I'm feeling sorry for myself today as the kids are tired and really playing up!

abitlost, and savoycabbage - Any time you want to moan, come and moan to me! I've only been here since last August so still in the first year and have moments of bleak despair. The rest of the time I just meander on through. I can't say I'm happy here but I am with DH and DS and that makes me happier than if I weren't with them both.

DH is Australian, which is why we're here. He told me that we would give it 3 years here, until DS is 5 and then make a decision whether to stay or go back to the UK; but I know he will still want to stay and I know that he expects me to want to stay too.

Where we are, we have a lot going on really - mountains, Lake Macquarie, 2hr train ride to Sydney, Hunter Valley wine region... but it doesn't make up for the day to day contact with friends and family, being able to walk to local fenced-in play parks (although to be fair I have just found one in walking distance - the only problem is that the gate has been nicked!)

I think that I have been lucky with my play groups - I am starting to make friends, maybe it is that I am older now so more inclined to talk to anyone and everyone, or maybe I really have just been lucky - being in a smaller "country" town might have its benefits after all! (We're not that country, not really, only to Sydney-siders!)

Anyone who needs a break and wants to come and stay, let me know - I'll put you up for a weekend! (I know you're a long way away Claudia but still, offer stands)

I just don't know how I will feel in another 2 years time. I am still battling constantly with the things I can't get here that were so easy in the UK - but there are things I can get here that I can't get in the UK that pissed me off enormously when I went back there in January, so that's a bit half and half.

I have found a relatively local shop that sells Boursin though, so that's made me happier!

abit, I think it is at least partly a matter of mindset. If you do close yourself off because you are feeling down and homesick, then others will pick up on it. Perhaps, if you haven't already done so, find something that you can really throw yourself into and maybe it will help.

Having said that, the friends I have made so far have, I believe, picked up on my Englishness - one of them was born in the UK and came out here aged 8; the other one has English parents who moved out here a long time ago and English relatives who she hadn't seen for a long time (they visited recently and have just gone back).

I am not going to hype Australia - there is so much here that winds me up (see my thread on redbacks) but I don't hate it either. Can't ever see me thinking of myself as Australian though - I will always be British through and through.

Thanks for the invite thumb - I would love to come. I go nowhere - which is actually one of the things that drives me batty about living here. When we were in the UK I was forever popping up to London or Cotswolds or FRANCE to see friends etc. Here I am always bloody stuck in the same place.

howdoo, what you said about friends being out of sight, out of mind really rings true for me. It\ was so sad for the first couple of years that most of my UK friends - even my closest ones - seemed to think that once I'd got on that plane then pretty much contact was over - bar a few emails and random phone calls. It used to really really upset me. I've rather got over that now, I just think most people (me included, are pretty unimaginative and crap ).

I used to have this thing when we first moved over . . . I used to imagine that dh had dropped dead (ghoulish I know) and I measured my homesickness by the time it took me to book an imaginary flight back to the UK. For the first couple of years I always thought I'd be booking the flight tickets the moment I heard the news, but now I might even stay.

I've been in Australia for over ten years now. My husband is Australian. We have two dcs. I just want to go home. I miss my family so much. I have never "settled in". But my husband's business is here and that's it. I can't even go home if we get divorced as it would be unlikely I would be allowed to take the children with me.

Oh God, what am I saying! I've just seen that John Lewis Ad and now i'm desperate to go home

I was with a bunch of friends last night and we all had a theraputic cry about missing home. It seems that however long you've lived here, those feelings never really die...
My only concern is that most people I know (including myself) are staying longer because DH and/or kids are happy here....when do we start to think about ourselves? Surely how we feel counts?

Claudia - I also think about what if DH dies or we divorce - positive or what!! The worst thing is that I think I'd STILL have to stay here, as I'm not sure I could uproot the DCs again.
I dream that when DH retires - retires FGS! - and the DCs are at uni/post uni, maybe we can go back for longer periods.
Ferfer, that's so sad for you. Have you found good friends that you can talk to? I don't really miss family, just friends, but if you have a close knit family, that must be so much harder.

Good point Brighton.

Do you think we are conditioned to put our own needs last? I really struggle with this as I am deffo making the best of being here, but would really rather be near my mates and family. I have rather got used to the sunshine though, I would miss that.

Perhaps we just all need oodles of cash to get us back to blighty for a couple of months a year to get a friends/family/culture fix.

I hate to say it but I think once you become a mother you tend to put yourself last. I've always been very independent and forthright about my feelings, but somehow have managed to keep very schtum over here because I've seen how happy both DH and DD have been.

Tell you what though Claudia, I'll miss the sunshine too...and the birds...and the beaches...and the living outdoors all year round.....

Oh, I'm so sorry for all of you! It's terrible to miss home.

Redflipflops, where are you in the states?

Claudia - say the word when you want to come and we'll arrange something.

I am still in the "if anything happens to DH I'm offski" camp - but then I would be anyway because I'd get thrown out (only on temp spousal visa at the mo) and DS would come too because there's no way I'd leave without him.

I do like the house here and the garden space - but if we did go back to the UK, DH has sworn we'd have to get a bigger house anyway, with a bigger garden (I had a postage stamp garden) so that wouldn't matter. In another couple of months I might be more anxious here again as it is going to get pretty cold - little insulation in this house and no heating, we'll be using electric heaters everywhere - so no doubt I'll be whinging as much about that as I did about the heat!

The birds are rather good, aren't they?

oohh so glad to know I am not the only one who feels like this (but sorry anyone feels sad and homesick at all) but was beginning to think I was the only person in the whole world who has moved abroad and is struggling.

We have relocated for dh's job and he is living his dream - big house, sun, no DIY (this seems to be a big issue for him!) and I am totally miserable. I know it is my attitude that is contributing to my difficulty making friends, I try too hard, or give off miserable vibes and I am missing my friends and family so much that I don't even try to call them as it upsets me so much it is counter productive - denial is my coping strategy. We move every few years, but before has been within the UK, dd has been to 6 schools and is only 12. I have alsways struggled with change but this is different, my life is so easy out here, no need to work (no need to do housework/childcare if I wanted as everyone, but us, has live in maid/nannies) and I feel disloyal to my dh that I don't appreciate the rewards of his hard work - but I want to go home - now. There are dreams I had for bringing up my family and when we had our first dd they seemed so far away, but we worked and I felt that we had come very close to the life I had hoped for, a job I loved, a good house and great garden near (dh's)family, but not too far from mine, kids in great local state schools doing well.

We moved which I was not at all keen on but dh was determined and now I am miserable and he is happy and as someoneelse has already said there is no compromise position. There are no jobs for him where we were, his old one would have gone eventually anyway, and I am unwilling to move dd school again unless it is back to her old uk one. So here or there dh unhappy or me, younger kids are ambivalent oldest wants to go home but then what 12 yr old doesn't? Know I am doing a rubbish job helping them settle as well and then feeling guilty.

Cheerful post this isn't it? People keep telling me it will get better after 6 mths and I am desperately hoping they are right, but also worried as if it doesn't our house will be rented out and there will be no school place for my dd2 who will be in reception in Sept. I also feel that to ask dh to go back to UK will finish our marriage, perhaps why I feel so trapped. Keep booking flights home for me and kids online but not actually paying for them - is this normal?

CheerfulYank - I'm in California (Central Coast), a really beautiful place.... I should be loving it!

Haystack - Hello and sorry you're so homesick. I think it is hard moving with DH job because it's never an actual 'choice' you made. I think you end up with a different attitude and in my case I've been a lot more negative from the beginning. I loved were we were before and had lots of friends - that's what I miss. A bigger house doesn't make you happier!

I also look at flights and rightmove all the time.... none of that helps me settle in to new life of course!

I think it often boils down in the end to the people where you are. If you are lucky, you are somewhere where you feel liked and where you in turn genuinely like the local population and are happy to belong. If you are unlucky in that respect, you can throw yourself into frenzied activity etc but tbh I think it isn't going to improve.

Abitlost, maybe if your dc were at school, you would have a way in that you do not really have atm with random toddler groups?

it's nice to have a big house, it's nice to have someone to do the housework for you, it's nice to have sunshine and bright flowers and a beach nearby and many other things too.

But you can be unhappy with all that.

Australia has a lot I like but it definitely isn't Europe, it is really something very different. A lot of people from the UK seem to be unhappy in Australia and many seem to be happy there. Why it works for some and not for others, I don't know. But if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't. I wonder if people find it so hard there - or in other English speaking cultures because the language is the same, yet so much else isn't. Indonesia for instance you would expect to feel totally different and strange and I think possibly other English speaking countries just jar with their differences instead of feeling pleasingly exotic

Australia is just so far from everywhere.

Hello I'm completely new to mumsnet. Must have been living on Planetzark as I only discovered this a week ago Haystack and redflipflops....you could be me! Have been moving internationally ever since our DD was born 12 years ago, also have DS age 10. Living in California for 5 years. Recently the pull to England has been getting stronger and stronger. I'm pretty close to my family and speak with Mum and MIL every day! Trouble is don't feel American when i'm here but feeling less British when we go back to visit twice a year. DH has great job, we have beautiful home, great school. Realistically cannot ask DH to give up job, and when DD recently heard my DH and I talking about my homesickness she burst into tears at the thought of moving again...(Haystack like your DD , also about 6 school changes). DD adores her cousins, grandma's in England but loves her new school since we moved within state a year ago. Thought I was the only one feeling like this....so glad to see others out there as I am starting to sound like broken record when talking to DH. I'd always imagined living in the English countryside (we were) with 4 DC around the farmhouse table, chatting over cups of tea with my mum. Feel somewhat (very) ungrateful as my life is very blessed as it is...but it's not 'home'.....

I often feel the same - but it's not an 'I want to go home', it's an 'I don't want to be here'. I feel lucky(?) that it's just for 2/3 years and then we won't be here any more but I don't know how I'm going to get through that sometimes. I've not once felt 'yesss I really love it here'.

It's the feeling of being trapped - we literally can't get away - and the loneliness - I have 1 and a half friends here! Family I'm not so worried about, as I'm not that close to them but I just don't like it and I want to go home.

It's different though, because at least DH hates it to. But then that means I don't feel like I need to make an effort...

FrakkedUpTheElection - you made me think, maybe I don't really want to go 'home' as I feel we have changed, friends have changed/moved on....and we go back and visit the UK and moan about how much it has changed (for the worse)...Family does still remain strong pull for us. ...and yet if I don't feel settled here where do we belong?...think I am in strange place of limbo land which seems very unsatisfactory.

Have told myself for years about how an expat life and travelling to different places has been great and been envied by many friends as they long to leave rainy shores of England....now I wonder if it was worth it as it's left me in this strange place of wondering where do they scatter my ashes when I pop my clogs! Where do I belong?

BTW Savoycabbage if you're still tuning in, how are you? I read back through this thread and could have cried with you. I hope you are hanging in there. Come online any time and moan and chat away. XXX Can't pop over to check in on you but can give encouragement on MN. Wish I had this kind of forum for my first overseas posting 13 years ago...felt just like you are feeling.

Ignore any mean spirited posts. This should be a support network not a bashing network, you never know what turmoil people are going though. Speaking from experience, just a few sympathetic words can make the difference if someone is having a crappy day...where's the sisterhood these days?!! Hang in there. XXX

Sorry, had to write one more post...REREAD thread again and see there are so many weepy lonely Brits out there . So I'm sending massive amounts of hugs and love over the MN today and hope you are all getting through the days.

Anyone want to moan, go ahead. That's the beauty of MN...all anon. (well, kind of) so no shame...XXX