How did you deal with this?

a_bit_stuck

Hello, I'm sure there are others who have been in my situation and I'm hoping you could give me some help as to how to deal with it.

Basically, several years ago I moved a long way away from the area I originally come from, for a job because there weren't/aren't many in that area. I had no definite plan that I would stay away forever or that I wanted to return.

Shortly after that I met my other half and we have been together since. Our relationship is great and I don't want it to end or lose him. He is from the area we now live in.

My problem now is that I have recently started to feel that I really want to go back to the area I'm from and live there permanently. I am badly missing the area itself and the family I have there and longing to go back. But BF doesn't want to leave the area he is from or his family, and I can't ask him to do that when he doesn't want to, it would be so selfish of me just to put him in this position instead of me as even without him saying he doesn't want to I know he'd be unhappy.

I think I know deep down that really the best option for me and others involved in my situation is I stay put and learn to like where I am again, it is nice and I do like it but just it isn't the other place. But at the minute I'm just having a bit of trouble with that, so if you've been in a similar situation I'd really like to know how you ended up being happy where you are and stop keeping on having the feelings of wanting to be there instead of here.

BitterAndTwisted

The only true way to be happy where you are, rather than hankering after where you were, is to really commit to the life you have now. Having a career and a relationship is a very big part of it.

The absolute truth is that you moved for a reason, a very good one, and should you move back those reasons will make themselves apparent very quickly. Thankfully, I've never been in your situation as my family travelled for reasons of my Dad's career, so we never lived in the same place for longer than two or three years at a time. The key was to accept the situation for what it was and try to make new friends and build a new life. Keeping in contact with old friends is easier now than ever before now that we have things like email, FB and Skype. And the money to visit often.

Dunroamin

I think that it's rarely a good idea to go backwards in life.

jackyann

Yes, I have felt that, in a similar (although not exact) position; and I was not actually very far away.

Dunroamin - I wouldn't look at it as "going back"; for me I felt a deep sense of "belonging" (not surprising given my family history) that I could not replicate elsewhere.

I dealt with it in a few ways: I learned the local history and listened to old people's stories, so that I got a sense of my new home as a real place, not just somewhere to pass through.
I talked to OH's family and others about the courage of people who travelled to new places for work or love (I am still in touch with my mother's best friend, a GI bride aged 19!). I was living in an area where many had come to look for work over the last century - leaving places that they loved, and bringing their stories with them.

I noticed that I felt worse at "critical" times - and I wonder whether something has happened in your relationship or work to bring this to the surface.

So I learned to appreciate - if not love - my new home; and I waited to see what life would bring. Now I have retired to my "real" home and I look back and say "I am glad to have returned, but I am also glad I spent x years in y place because I learned a lot there"

We are all so different, I don't know if this will help.

balletshoes

as others have already said, you moved away for a reason.
If you moved back home, what would you do about work? Would you be able to be supportive for an extended period of time if you did persuade your OH to move back home with you, knowing he wasn't happy about it?

The grass is rarely greener, you've said yourself you like the area you are in now.

I lived all my life in one place, until I was about 35. I moved to another place 10 years ago, and I'm not finished yet, I will be moving to yet another place in the next 10 years. I love going "home" to visit my family, but I don't want to go live there again, because its not the best place for me, my partner and my child to be, and it won't be in 10 years time either.

I'm maybe not the best person to give you advice, because I've never considered "home" to be a place, or bricks and mortar etc. Home really is where your heart is - my heart is with my partner and child, so I don't hanker after the place I grew up in.

What do you like about where you live now? Enjoy those things that you like and that you don't have in your home town, explore your new home more, maybe do some touristy things there too, we did that a couple of years after moving and we really enjoyed it.

Kanichen

Haven't gone through this myself - but watched 2 close friends go through it recently. Sadly one half of the couple was not as sensible as you and asked her OH to move 'home' with her. And he agreed. They resigned from their jobs, sold their flat (at a loss) and moved in with her parents as a short term measure.

They are still there 8 months later, as neither of them has yet found full time work, not paying for any food and board as they can't afford to and with little to no social life other than her old school friends.

Its been deeply frustrating to watch and I can't help but worry that their marriage may suffer because of it.

If you do decided to move, be very confident that you can ALL fit into your old life before doing so.

mishmogs

I moved away from my home town when I was 19 with my then new husband. We moved about 250 miles and it was always going to be temporary, we stayed 5 years and then moved back and I hated the moved back as I found I had changed but places and people hadn't. Roll forward another 6 years and I moved again (this time on my own) about 200 miles and after the initial settling in, had homesickness feelings so I went back for a weekend to visit and knew I had done the right thing. I have been in Suffolk now for 23 years and would not live anywhere else.

I think its a state of mind and adjusting your lifestyle to your surroundings. Could you visit your old town and look at objectively? and then see what you feel like.

Good luck!

Errata

Places change, friends move on or away, parents can be visited. Stay where you are.

podperson

I moved away from my home area several years ago. There are times when I do miss it, especially friends and family there, but then I try and focus on the reasons why I moved in the first place and the ways in which I'm better off in my current area.

I also tend to find that I miss it more when there's something 'lacking' at that moment or when I'm going through a tough time, eg if I'm feeling a bit down then I miss having some of my old friends to cheer me up.
Is there something at the moment that you feel you're missing out on from your old area? Could you do more to work on that - eg make more of an effort to visit family or get them to visit you, try to get more friends in your current area, take up a new hobby, join a club etc.
Try to get out more to appreciate the area you now live in - eg are there lovely nature areas for walks or local history spots you could explore?

a_bit_stuck

Thank you everyone for your comments. I think this has been triggered by having gone back recently to visit with my OH and I didn't want to leave, that's normal to think you don't want a nice thing to end but the feelings of not wanting to be away haven't gone away and it's got to the point where periodically I am still in tears due to missing it and feeling stuck. This needs to stop! I'm usually a happy person!

I too feel that I am part of the place I'm from, and that it's part of me, in a way that I don't get with this place. I also would like to move back there when I retire, well I say this now but that's a long long way off so when that time comes I might not want to anymore.

I'm wouldn't just up and move and risk being jobless for a long time, I would get a job in the area before moving like I did before. I have seen jobs advertised that I could do and would like to have, before I moved I didn't have the necessary skills, but have worked up and think I could fit the criteria for some of them now. But even if I thought I could persuade my OH to move too, and we could probably manage on just one salary there for a while whereas here we need two, I wouldn't do that because he wouldn't be happy. Basically he'd just be in the position I am in now, only it was never his choice to move originally so it probably would be worse for him.

I dislike not spending much time with my family, we're close and I keep thinking how no ones getting any younger and worry this being away could be a big regret if and when anything happens to them. But then say I did give up what I've got here and go back there, that's going to happen anyway and then I could be left regretting giving up what's here.

I think I've made the decision that I'm not going to move back any time soon as it wouldn't be right for us. So pros of being here:

1) Closer and easier for places to visit and events that otherwise I might not go to or it would be much more difficult to go to. I still go to some attractions there as well on visits so that's not much different, in fact I may go to more than I'd bother with if I lived there because of being on holiday there and taking Oh. Maybe I could plan us a nice day out to something here, that might help cheer me up.

2) I probably wouldn't have ended up with OH if I hadn't moved, it is a bit weird it was like events conspired so that this series of coincidences happened so we ended up together.

3) I/we would need to have a car back there, but around here we are managing without one. I'd like one sometime though.

4) I like our flat, even though I sit sometimes pretending that there's a different town outside it and I really have to not do that...

5) Err, I don't bump into people I went to school with who I don't especially want to see?

Person_one

How far away are you from your hometown?