wattsy1982

I think the main reason was last time I was missing things that we used to do here but since moving away and then coming back we dont do anymore. I can hand on heart say I didnt throw myself into it last time, kept working my UK job remotely for the duration of our stay so was mainly speaking to UK people and worked funny hours to mirror the hours. Anyway, now off to watch football (Ipswich Town V QPR) as me and my 2 boys have season tickets which is something we really enjoy doing here together. Happy new year to all. Heres to 2024.

For what its worth I think you should go for it again. I think once you know you know. We moved to Aus is 2013, then back to UK in 2018. I was homesick for the UK most of that time and in we returned. I knew we'd made the wrong decision before our furniture had even arrived back from Aus but just kept face as it was my decision to return home. In the end (after we'd been back about a year) I told my wife I thought we'd made a mistake and as much as she loved Aus and didnt want to leave she said she couldnt face the upheaval again (at that time) and risk me being homesock again. Life took over and here we are, still in UK, having been back 5.5 years but I miss Aus most days. The weather, opportunities, beach, less stress (rat race) things that I didnt appreciate until I moved back and probably wouldnt have done if wed stayed. In the last couple of months my wife and I have started mentioning returning to Aus and it seems more serious now, not just a throw away comment. Our kids are 14, 11 and 6 so were conscious of the 14 year starting year 10 in (sept 2024 in UK or Jan 2025 in Aus) so need to have made a decision by then and I personally feel thats our last chance as by the time eldest has finished school the middle child will be in year 10 and so on with the youngest. Its a terrible quandary to be in and say most days I wish we'd never gone in a way as we would never know what it was like but hey ho, the curse of migrating etc. Who knows what 2024 and beyond will bring but like I said at the start of this post I think once you know you know but you have to all be on the same page so resentment doesn't set in. I wish you all the best in whatever you choose and hope it works out.

Hi @Marisawright Good to hear from you. I guess with settling, if it was meant to be it would have just happened and I wouldnt have had to 'try' to settle. I can honestly say though that I never lived in the moment in Australia, when we did anything good, nice etc I was always thinking about something else back here so did that cloud the opportunity of settling there...maybe. Its made me appreciate the good things of the UK and also the good things of Aus, which again creates a pull in both directions. The main thing is that we are all still together and have a nice life here too.

Evening @Macho man just read your story and the replies and can relate to parts of it. I don't recognise your username on here so assuming you might be new? Ive been on (and off) here since about 2012 and have many highs and lows and re-reading my posts I sometimes cant remember posting them/writing it/ feel that way but I obviously did. Very quick back story, we (myself, wife, and 2 young boys) moved form UK to Australia in 2013. My wife was the driving force to come and although i wasn't reluctant I didnt really ever settle in our 5 years there. Looking back I can now see that I never tried to settle....something I regret now. My wife loved Aus from day 1 until we moved back to uk in 2018. In our time there we both got good jobs, 2 boys started school, we built a house, had a daughter and all became citizens. Over the 5 years there I wore my wife down to the point of her agreeing to move back to keep us together as a family and to save our marriage. The initial few weeks of being back was great (early july), nothing like a UK summer but come a cold, grey, wet August bank holiday and i started to have doubts and feel ready to go back to Aus, like being back in the UK was a holiday. Due to how much I drove the move back to the UK i didnt dare mention any of my indecisions to my wife but after being back about a year things came to a head, my wife was resenting me for coming back, I was struggling with the guilt of bringing them back, not trying to settle there etc and things became pretty tough at home. I went to see a doctor and my wife and I had a few...tough conversations and im glad to say that 6+ months on we are still together and all in a better place. Weve both agreed to give it a good go here and discuss whats next when our eldest is due to start high school and our youngest is due to start primary school which is about 16 months from now. I can now see the good points to Aus, as well as here and just think and have that feeling that all round that Australia might be best for us all in the long run. I NEVER thought I would say that and over the next 16 months this may change many times....who knows. The kids have been great and so grown up about it all but my eldest 2 struggle with the weather, cold, wet etc. Our garden is like a a swamp and they cant play football in the garden which they arent impressed with! Day to day life here is good, we have a nice new house which we designed and bought, we both have good jobs and the 3 kids keep us busy with clubs, partys and play dates..... all in all we have achieved the same back here as we did in Aus but it just feels more of a slog here and that mon-fri is just work and school and then the weekend is time to do things where as in aus we would always do things after work and school in the week too. Who knows what the future holds....... All the best to everyone in a tough situation. Dan

I needed to come back to compare like for like. We didnt have any kids at school in uk first time etc, different life situation

Hi @Alex jamieson I can relate to part of your situation. We moved to the Gold Coast as a family of 4 in 2013, we stayed 5 years, built a good life, jobs, cars, friends, schools, lifestyle, we built a lovely house near the beach with a pool etc but during this 5 years i never felt settled and missed 'home' and the feeling I had there. Fast forward to 2018 and we are a family of 5 and we moved back to the UK in June last year. After the initial 'honeymoon/novelty' period was over I started to doubt our choice and that has only increased during the winter. I/It doesn't feel like it did before we moved, we've changed and what used to appeal/please me then, doesn't now. I keep saying it but its just square peg, round hole scenario now. We've found our old friends here quite boring, moaning, no ambition and unless we talk about stories before we moved etc we don't have much in common with them now. We find the indoors winter lifestyle very claustrophobic and our 2 eldest children (9 and 6) are really struggling with the weather and being indoors so much. You might not have changed that much in the short period you've been away so this may not apply to you but this is how we feel. Looking back I can now see the main reason I wanted to move back was the guilt i was feeling for my parents and my kids that they wouldn't grow up near each other. We find day to day life harder here, live for the weekends and then are restricted in what we can do once the weekend arrives. We are really looking forward to the summer but has discussed moving back to Australia. Good luck in what ever you decide!

Thanks again all, i appreciate your support/advice etc. We will certainly be giving it longer, even before this original post it was never a case of we were going to jump ship tomorrow. Funny, an old friend/boss of mine in London messaged me out of the blue last night to say hes started a new company (conference/corporate events company) and having helped him set up his last one back in 2009 would i be interested in meeting up with him to discuss a few things....that has now given me something to think about and focus on which will take my mind off the weather as well as working to build up my own business. Head down/bum up until may....

Thanks everyone for your comments, advice etc. Funny that old posts of mine were brought up as i regularly read then when i'm having up and/or down days. I can relate to pretty much all still. For the first time I can see the positives (and negatives) in living in both countries but I think it comes down to what I stated in my original post in this thread. We've changed. After all the dust has settled after the move i look at it now as I wanted to move back to uk for me, my home, my childhood memories etc but now im thinking about my kids and their futures. There is no right or wrong answer and one size doesn't fit all. I can remember writing all the previous posts, the feelings that went with them etc but I kind of feel that we've done so much in our lives to end up back where it all started and the experience has changed us but the place hasn't changed (not that it needs to) but the 2 (us and the place) just don't quite click anymore. I now need to think about the kids and whats best for them. They are really struggling with the cold and mud/rain. My middle child though is just praying for snow where as my eldest is about ready to hibernate i think.....i feel bad/guilty for bringing them back but like i say, at the time i was thinking about my home, my wishes etc (selfishly maybe) but i needed to do this to see/compare both places. I don't know what the answer is, where we will end up, im certainly not booking any flights any time soon and have things booked for September etc so we are at least 'living here' and trying to settle. Like others have said, i think it will be interesting to see if we remember winter once spring/summer comes and whether the thought of another winter is as daunting as the first one is or will we be more acclimatised to it. Looking forward to May onwards tho!

She LOVED Australia, the weather, lifetsyle etc so i feel really bad about driving the move back here but once we had our daughter in oz in 2017 and we had 2 new born nieces back here too she was on board and willing to move back...at the same time not wanting to leave Aus. She's a very positive person and is a hard person to read, never shows her feelings and sometimes does things just to save face. She's finding it cold and grey and misses the beach and the kids being outside all the time. She's thinking that 1 year back here might not be enough and maybe 2 would be better. There is no right or wrong answer i guess.

Thanks for your replies and input @Quoll @tea4too @Amber Snowball and @Toots Its certainly a tough decision but I think if I stay here it will be more because I think I should and be it for other people rather than myself/us as an immediate family of 5. Theres no doubt that xmas', birthdays etc are much better here with family around for the kids but for the remaining 360 days of the year day to day life is just easier/'nicer' in Australia. I'm not the same as I was 6 years ago when we left here but the UK is so it just feels like square peg, round hole i guess. Not that its not nice here or its not a good place to live but that it just doesn't satisfy/suit me anymore. Im happy to give it a year+ (june will be a year), see the summer out here and then either move before kids go back to school here in sept or stay. Its taken moving back here to realise and prioritise my immediate family and whats best for us, especially the kids, rather than pleasing grandparents etc and trying to re-create my childhood for my kids. Who knows where we'll end up...

Hi @Entity just came across your post and can kind of relate. We moved back to the UK last year after 5 years in Australia. I can now see that my main reason for moving back was for my parents and the guilt of them not seeing my kids grow up and the kids not being round them either....i wasn't thinking what was best for then or us as a family of 5. I can now see that aus is probably the 'best' option for us but that will come at the cost of grandparents...its a tough choice for sure.

Funnily enough it kind of feels.....good, to feel like this.....like a can draw a line under it, accept it and move on. I would NEVER have settled there without coming back here so its far from a waste of money/time etc. Thanks for your kind words @ramot

Its 'worked out well' on the basis of jobs, school, old friends, family, lovely rental house etc......but the 3 main things are weather, opportunities and the kids growing up. So many people seem to wish the year away for "wait til spring or summer" surely you can't go through life wishing 75% of it away??

Once a year would be too much but once every 2 years would be fine. We could then pay for our parents to come out every other year. Cheaper than a family of 5 going back and less upheaval with school and jobs etc. My wife has said maybe we should give it 2 years here, im thinking see it out until september this year then head back after summer holidays. Curse of a migrant i guess!

Hi, Ive not been on here for well over 6 months, probably nearer 9 months if I'm honest. Some of you will know/remember me and some won't. We (myself, my wife and our 2 young boys) moved to Australia, Gold Coast in 2013 after my wife got offered a job as a midwife. It came at a time where id had enough of commuting to London for work and things just felt a bit stale so when the chance to emigrate came about we though why not, our boys were only 3 and 1 at the time. The initial job contract was for 2 years by which time our eldest would have been starting school whether we stayed in Australia or came back to Uk so the timings worked well also. Those 2 years flew by and we decided to stay 'a bit longer'. Shortly after making that decision in 2015 we got the opportunity to build our own house, something id always wanted to do in the UK but it was just never possible. We moved into the house in March 2016 and then came back to the UK for a months holiday in july 2016 for my sister in laws wedding. The holiday was great and we forgot how much we'd missed the late summers evenings....the kids asked "does it ever get dark here" Once we got back to Australia after the holiday we settled back into normal life after having our 'family fix' but by mid 2017 (after the birth of our 3 child, little aussie daughter) we started talking about moving back to the UK to be nearer to family etc. Like anything, once you mention it it doesn't go away until you do something about it...so in July 2018 we sold our house, made a good profit and moved back as a family of 5 with an aussie dog in tow too! The UK summer of 2018 was amazing, we didnt have any rain until early october and the days seemed to go on forever. We visited the in-laws in France and all was good. Then October came and boy had we forgotten the grey, cold, wet, mud, darkness and the depression that comes with it. The kids are really struggling with the weather and when they do get outside they hate the cold and mud.......and must agree with them! Were trying to buy a house with the large deposit we brought back from Australia and we just can't find anything we are content with to pour our life savings into...YES WE'VE CHANGED! I never thought I'd changed after being away but what most people I know here put up with/accept i just can't bring myself to do it. The kids (eldest 2) miss the beach, sun, parks, our pool etc. I was the driving force behind the move home. (I can now see it was because I was feeling guilty for my parents not seeing the kids grow up) but at the time i thought it was the right thing for us a family.....now i don't think it is. My eldest child (9) said "dad, i don't think ive got another winter in me" It doesn't feel the same to be back, i don't feel settled like I though I would. What used to make me content before we moved now doesn't. When we lived in Australia we never felt we needed a holiday but after only 4 months back here we were craving a break, something to look forward to and some warmth on the skin! Some of you may know I was the most pro uk person but even I am now seeing it through different eyes. Not sure what the future holds for us but lets say we are all looking forward to the spring/summer! ...and yes, we are all Aus citizens so that leaves doors open that might not have been before. Thats about it from me for now but I look forward to hearing others thoughts and comments.