Lucia

Thank you for your responses. I'm so sorry that others feel trapped too - it's truly awful.

I've now had four sessions with the psychologist and she is great. She can't give me the answers but she's telling me I need to take note of my body and my heart - I'm all head really as I keep saying - house, money, mortgage, superannuation etc. She's told me that I need to soothe rather than bury the feelings, but I'm unsure of what I've been doing these years. How do I know I was burying rather than soothing before? I've thrown myself into everything whether it's making new friends, work, exercise, camping holidays etc, but the thought of my kids having such a limited existence in Perth makes me feel sick. Perhaps it's rose tinted glasses, but I want them to have the opportunity to go away for uni - halls of residence etc. I want them to go up and down the country for music festivals and nip over to Europe for a weekend etc. What the hell can they do here? Marry their childhood sweetheart who they met in Year 11? Go to uni and live in the family home? Go to Rottnest or Busselton for the weekend...then where? I'm just bloody bored of it all. I find Perth so limiting

Thank you for your replies.

I must say, my husband can't be entirely to blame in all of this. He's not a monster. It was me that decided we should stay after all and buy the house so we could truly say we'd tried. I think if we left after renting, I wouldn't have felt we'd truly lived our lives in the way we wanted. I just don't think I was in the best frame of mind to make the decisions.

I've been counting down the days to my next psych session and did suggest that my husband and I should go together at some point. She agreed but said I need to sort my own stuff out first.

I definitely feel like it's a now or never with the kids being 8 and 10, but I'm really trying to weigh it all up. I read all the positive stories of being in Australia as well as the 'going home' ones. For me, I'm getting to the point of thinking 'enough is enough' - I've done my time here, I've tried my very best to settle, I've had a great materialistic life, I've made some wonderful memories, but I'll always wonder 'what if?' if I don't go now. I've joined a couple of facebook groups and have seen that there are a few others moving back with an 8 and 10 year old so I'd be interested to hear their stories. My kids only know Australia really.

What doesn't help my husband is all the doom and gloom stories of VAT increases, energy bills, crap wages, expensive houses, struggling NHS. I just wish the UK could sort its shit out and it'd be a much easier decision.

I fear that whatever decision is made, it'll split us up at some point. I'd like to think we're strong enough for that not to happen, but resent is an awful thing. I think I'd begin to resent my husband and his family for encouraging me to stay here, or resent my kids purely because they're Australian and have no real tie to the UK. If I upheave the family purely for my own feelings, I'm sure they'd resent me.

If I had my time again, I wouldn't have moved to Aus in the first place.

I'm properly messed up.  

Hi All,

This is my first post in around 8 or 9 years. The last time I posted, I said we'd made the decision to return to the UK. I see my 'sticky' at the bottom says we'd return to the UK in 'Easter 2014' - I can't believe I'm still in Perth, in the same house and it's 8 years later.

Life has peddled on by. My daughter is now 10 and my son is 8. We've obviously since been through the process of primary school, sports, clubs etc. We made a few more friends through school etc, my husband was hugely promoted and I began at a new school last year. Life has been pretty good on the whole. We started going to Bali and on caravan holidays down to Busselton. My husband's parents moved out here 4 years ago too. I'm still not sure how I feel about that one as in all my previous bouts of severe homesickness, it was my MIL talking us into staying - telling us how bad the UK was etc. I feel now there was an ulterior motive. It was inevitable really as my husband's only sibling lives here with his wife and kids too.

We were only ever supposed to be in Aus a year and I think my issues stem from this. If my husband had said back in 2008 that we should move for good, I would have refused. I obsessed over this site, watched all episodes of Wanted Down Under and couldnt bear to watch the family messages part. I only agreed to come to Aus on the basis that it was for one year. That one year has just rolled on the the next and the next as life has chugged on by. I realise I occupy my mind with obsessing over things...first it was wedding forums, then getting pregnant forums, new baby forums, this forum when down, buying and decorating a house, getting fit, cake decorating, quitting alcohol. Don't get me wrong - I still have a life. I have friends, go for weekends away etc, but I can see a pattern in my behaviours and I think it's all a coping mechanism. I've been 'coping' for almost 14 years and now I feel too much time has passed. Great jobs, excellent salaries, good school for kids, a lovely house on which we are way ahead on the mortgage and a whole lot of other things. Is it all materialistic or is it realistic? I still can't shake the fear of growing old or even dying here. I cannot handle that my parents don't really know my kids. I've stolen that part of their lives from them. I cannot handle my mum becoming too old to fly here. I cannot handle that I've missed weddings, births, funerals. As always, I bury it.

Anyway, I've just recently been back after 4 years of being trapped here. I desperately wanted to return to see my Dad whose health was deteriorating, but I was too late. Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly at the end of Feb. Because of Covid, I hadn't seen him in such a long time.

As always, I didn't want to get back on the plane to return to Perth. Of course, I wanted to get back to my husband and kids, but I felt I could have happily stayed and built a new life back in the place I still call home. It's so strange that after 13.5 years, UK is 'home' and Perth is 'back' or 'over there' or 'Australia.'

My homesickness is constantly buried deep down and rears its head every time I go home, or every time my Mum visits. It was so bad back in 2019 that I started seeing a psychologist and I only stopped my sessions because of Covid. I started seeing someone else just this week and I made it very clear in the first session that I would have been sitting in front of her whether my dad had recently passed away or not.

I've spoken to my husband about it, and although he will discuss it, deep down I don't think he wants to leave what we have here. Why would he? His parents are now here. His brother and family are now here. He has an excellent job and salary.

I suppose what I'm hoping for is to either make the decision to move back before the kids are too old, or to be able to put the homesickness to bed. Is it actually possible? I've seen many posts on here advising psychological help, but has it ever worked for anyone? Can a psychologist help me to bury the homesickness even deeper? It would be easier for everyone else if I could.

I feel I'm rambling now and things aren't making sense.

Thank you for reading if you have managed to get this far. I'd better go and change my 'sticky' in the footnote  

If you ask, "what's wrong?" Aussies take it quite literally rather than it meaning "what's the matter?" Similarly, I've had strange looks from school kids when I've asked, "Did you do something wrong?" as in "have you been naughty?" They seem to think I'm asking if something is incorrect or if they have done something incorrectly.

By law you must wear a helmet when cycling.

Don't roll over/give way at stop signs...You actually have to stop even if you can see for bloody miles that it is clear to go. You'll get a hefty fine if caught and possibly a couple of points on your licence.

Public holidays mean 'double demerits' over the whole weekend (in WA anyway). If you're caught speeding between midnight on the friday until midnight on the tuesday, you'll be given double the usual points for such an offence.

courgette is a zucchini

butternut squash seems to just be pumpkin

The Aussies were horrified when I said "fannying about" as in "I was just fannying about". They asked if I was aware that a fanny is a vagina! Haha!

Break time at school is recess and the staff like to have 'morning tea'

They pronounce derby 'durby' rather than 'darby'

Tonnes is pronounced 'tons' as opposed to 'tuns'