Ever feel like you don't belong where you are?

madget_2

I had exactly the same feeling when we moved to France to live for a couple of years. Bizarrely, I had been reluctant to go there, but felt immediately at home as soon as I stepped off the plane and set foot on French soil.

We encountered some frustrations with life in France (mainly on the bureaucratic side), but I loved being there so much that I cried almost solidly for a whole fortnight when we had to return to the UK. It took me ages to get used to being back in England and I even found it very difficult to speak English properly again! (I still sometimes dream in French.)

I had a similar experience when we visited (but didn't live in) Quebec, the Francophone province in Canada. Except for Montreal, which I oddly took an instant dislike to because it felt so damn suffocating. It was such a relief when we hit the road out of that city. I still shudder to think of it!

Hermia

BritAbroad wrote: »

I think the feeling of belonging is much more about the people in your life and whether you feel fulfilled with what you're doing, rather than about a place.

I am not sure I agree. Different countries do have different cultures and values and sometimes a particular country may just fit your personality. I have friends who have absolutely blossomed abroad and I think it was just because of this.

BritAbroad wrote: »

In my experience when you move abroad your problems move with you and can be compounded because you've left your support system behind. And with respect to the OP, summer camp is vastly different from real life in the US. Three months in, you're still at the 'everything's a novelty' stage. It's new, it's exciting, it's challenging and it's fun.

I do agree with this and this is why I think people really need to try living in their chosen country for a while before making any permanent moves. I lived in America too and whilst I enjoyed it, it wasn't without its problems. When I hear people I know say they dream about moving to America they place they describe is an imaginary place.

jaffacakegal

Wales for me too, I always feel at home as I pass the sign! Maybe it's because my grandma grew up there. And because I love the Welsh accent

his_missus

My SIL moved to Australia and is the happiest she's ever been. She's a nurse and says the working conditions and expectations are much better than working for the NHS. She's developed an interest in hobbies she would never have experienced here and she has found a group of like-minded friends she feels are like a second family to her.

The whole lifestyle just suits her and makes her a much more mellow person than she was here.

miss_independent

I do know how you feel, for me it was Florida which I first visited 20 years ago as a child. By the time I was 12, my parents owned their own home out there and at one point I was going every six weeks. Returning to England I would get terribly homesick and felt like I fit in better over there. Looking back now I think I over-idealised Florida and thought moving there would solve all my problems. We had real plans to move out there after I had finished A-Levels, I'd even started filling in application forms to do my BA out there but then my Dad lost his job and had a major heart attack and our plans fell through. We didn't go back until I was 21 but during that time I had planned to do Camp America every summer and do my second year of Uni in San Francisco. However, I was working full-time alongside uni in a very good job (for a student!) and I knew I was on too much of a good thing to let it go. I was headhunted in my second year of uni and offered the chance to move to California permanently but it would have meant dropping out of my degree and leaving all of my family/friends behind and starting a life totally on my own which, at 20, I'm afraid I didn't have the guts to do.

After uni, I've continued to visit Florida and the US a lot (between once and three times a year, for up to a month). We have friends out there and a routine and life we fit into when we are there. However, by the time I was 22 the desire to move out there permanently had left me. This feels like home now and Florida is my "other" home. I don't think I could give up a life here permanently. Dating an American who was living here but wanted to go back and settle there within a few years helped me be honest with myself about whether I could see myself out there forever. I'm happy with the way it is, spitting my time between here and there and consider myself to be privileged to have had a life which allowed me to do that. I do get very torn and homesick for the US. Leaving Florida last week and especially friends knowing I wouldn't be back for possibly a year was not easy and each time I know it could be the last but I have a life here I would miss more if I moved out there permanently. Tbh, if I did move to the US, i doubt I'd move to Florida permanently anyway. I felt more "at home" in California but the state taxes are huge, traffic in SoCal is a nightmare and cost of living I found to be higher than FL. I also don't like the fact that you have to drive everywhere, the healthcare costs, the bureaucracy, the fact it takes ages to get everything done out there (bank, tax, office, DMV) and part of me still fears someone could just whip out a gun at any given opportunity lol.

BritAbroad

Totally understand what you mean miss_independent. The little things can really wear you down. It can take hours to go to the bank, the post office, the supermarket because you have to drive everywhere and wait in lengthy queues. Yesterday I have to go to two shops directly across the road from each other. I would have loved to just walk - it should have been easier. But because of the stupid way the road system is I had to get my car and drive half a mile in one direction to turn and drive back the half mile to get to the other shop. Walking across the road is impossible as there's no pedestrian crossing or pavement and it's so busy you're virtually guaranteed to be run over. And daft road configurations like that are very common.

I find the US is progressive in some ways but very antiquated in others. Anything that involves bureaucracy will be as laborious and time-consuming as possible. If there's a way of doing it more quickly (i.e. online) it will cost you more money (sometimes a lot more). It's as if they don't want to simplify or streamline things. If the powers-that-be, such as the DMV, make a mistake, YOU have to pay to have it corrected. Getting anything delivered takes a week at least (except for Amazon Prime).

People are only superficially friendly, they don't really want to socialise - I haven't made a single American friend and it's not for the want of trying. I don't think I'll ever belong here.

miss_independent

BritAbroad wrote: »

Totally understand what you mean miss_independent. The little things can really wear you down. It can take hours to go to the bank, the post office, the supermarket because you have to drive everywhere and wait in lengthy queues. Yesterday I have to go to two shops directly across the road from each other. I would have loved to just walk - it should have been easier. But because of the stupid way the road system is I had to get my car and drive half a mile in one direction to turn and drive back the half mile to get to the other shop. Walking across the road is impossible as there's no pedestrian crossing or pavement and it's so busy you're virtually guaranteed to be run over. And daft road configurations like that are very common.

I find the US is progressive in some ways but very antiquated in others. Anything that involves bureaucracy will be as laborious and time-consuming as possible. If there's a way of doing it more quickly (i.e. online) it will cost you more money (sometimes a lot more). It's as if they don't want to simplify or streamline things. If the powers-that-be, such as the DMV, make a mistake, YOU have to pay to have it corrected. Getting anything delivered takes a week at least (except for Amazon Prime).

People are only superficially friendly, they don't really want to socialise - I haven't made a single American friend and it's not for the want of trying. I don't think I'll ever belong here.

You could be describing my life in the States lol. In fact we had to go to Florida this time for the simple reason that to open a certain type of bank account (which was needed for IRS purposes to do with the house) we had to appear at the bank in person to sign the forms - they couldn't be signed and faxed or filled out online, we couldn't use a notary public. We had to travel 4000 miles to sign a document :cool:. Whenever something has needed doing to do with the house (from accountant to IRS to paying off the house) my parents HAVE to go together as they are co-owners - even when my Mum wasn't really fit to travel - my Dad would just get blank stares when he suggested she wasn't fit to come. The having to drive half a mile to make a U-Turn to get to the right side of the road gets old really quickly...and after 20 years, I still don't quite understand the US postal system!

I have to admit most of my friends in the US are a lot older than me, they have children my age or older so I can see that it is hard to make friends - tbh it's hard to know where to start out there. Depending on where you are, I find that there isn't a sense of community at all, despite the fact that people are more likely to start conversations out of the blue than they are here. I think I also have found it hard to make friends my own age out there because a lot of Americans seem settle down to marriage and kids earlier in the South and so by my age (just turned 30) their lives are very different to mine and they don't quite understand or want to know someone like me. I understand the superficiality comment and agree (especially sales assistants who say things like, "Oh your dress/hair/purse is SO cute" when sometimes I genuinely feel like they are just taking the p*ss lol) but I have also found that the friends we have made out there can be quite demanding on our time, making plans for us without consulting us and don't take no for an answer. Our American friends have been very generous and hospitable but seem to expect us to spend nearly every waking hour with them when we actually really value our space. So maybe you aren't missing out! At the same time, I understand it must be very lonely feeling you don't fit in, not really having friends around you and being so far away from "home" .

All that being said, there are a lot of things I love about the US and I am a different person out there, I'm sure there are big pros for you too! I hope if you're not already at this point that you will eventually get to the point where all the good things outweigh the niggles!

eskimo26

Always had this thing for Canada since my teens [decades ago]. Just a romantic thing. But practically speaking it's VERY cold and i have CFS so i don't do well with the cold at all.

It gets all in my muscles and stuff but I think I can tolerate very cold and frigid days, it's more to with with rain I think. When it's wet and cold it can affect muscle conditions and stuff.

I've looked online at Canada places, There's Vancouver but the climate is similar to the uk and I think i would prefer some of the other places i've looked at weather be damned.

BritAbroad

miss_independent wrote: »

You could be describing my life in the States lol. In fact we had to go to Florida this time for the simple reason that to open a certain type of bank account (which was needed for IRS purposes to do with the house) we had to appear at the bank in person to sign the forms - they couldn't be signed and faxed or filled out online, we couldn't use a notary public. We had to travel 4000 miles to sign a document :cool:. Whenever something has needed doing to do with the house (from accountant to IRS to paying off the house) my parents HAVE to go together as they are co-owners - even when my Mum wasn't really fit to travel - my Dad would just get blank stares when he suggested she wasn't fit to come. The having to drive half a mile to make a U-Turn to get to the right side of the road gets old really quickly...and after 20 years, I still don't quite understand the US postal system!

I have to admit most of my friends in the US are a lot older than me, they have children my age or older so I can see that it is hard to make friends - tbh it's hard to know where to start out there. Depending on where you are, I find that there isn't a sense of community at all, despite the fact that people are more likely to start conversations out of the blue than they are here. I think I also have found it hard to make friends my own age out there because a lot of Americans seem settle down to marriage and kids earlier in the South and so by my age (just turned 30) their lives are very different to mine and they don't quite understand or want to know someone like me. I understand the superficiality comment and agree (especially sales assistants who say things like, "Oh your dress/hair/purse is SO cute" when sometimes I genuinely feel like they are just taking the p*ss lol) but I have also found that the friends we have made out there can be quite demanding on our time, making plans for us without consulting us and don't take no for an answer. Our American friends have been very generous and hospitable but seem to expect us to spend nearly every waking hour with them when we actually really value our space. So maybe you aren't missing out! At the same time, I understand it must be very lonely feeling you don't fit in, not really having friends around you and being so far away from "home" .

All that being said, there are a lot of things I love about the US and I am a different person out there, I'm sure there are big pros for you too! I hope if you're not already at this point that you will eventually get to the point where all the good things outweigh the niggles!

I'm glad it's not just me!

I'm married, but definitely seen as an alien species by the few people I do know because I don't have kids. It seems that the norm here is 3 or 4 kids before you're 30! I'm the wrong side of 35 and happily child free - I don't think they know what to make of that! I totally get what you mean about the lack of community - it's very cliquey. My OH had a really bad accident recently and the lack of any support is very noticeable. And don't get me started on the crazy healthcare system!

view

Grew up in Oz, age 25 travelled to UK. After spending one day in the North knew it was the place for me. Moved over after a year, have now been here for coming up for 14 years.

It's not odd, it just 'is what it is'. Some people never leave their town and feel a need to live next door to their families. Some people, like me, love to travel and live in different places around the world.

Have you looked into how you would obtain a visa/green card?

How is your relationship with your immediate family?

You could be looking for 'something' or running away from something. Most folk who move fall into one of these categories. Me, I was looking for adventure and exploring another country.

Moving to another country, despite what many people think, won't change your life and solve your problems. You won't become soul and life of the party if you're not that type of person to begin with. Your children won't magically become the most intelligent and well behaved, if they're not. I hear loads of stories about people moving to Oz thinking their lives will change miraculously all because of that big ball of yellow in the sky, it's nowhere near that easy and day in day out of hot weather becomes tedious after a while.

People can find it hard to separate that 'holiday' feeling with real life. You most likely will still have to set the alarm, go to work, suffer traffic jams, have to pay bills etc.. etc..