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On 24/04/2020 at 10:22, Tjsmum said:

Just a bit of input from my situation (similar to yours)

I have been living here for 10 years now, (married with 2 boys, one has a different dad).
I 1000000% understand how you are feeling! I get homesick at least once a month, it really isn't easy being on the other side of the world so to speak, when you have your own children and you want so badly to have your parents and family members present in your child's everyday life, for me i have come to accept the fact that my family back home will see my children every 2 years (flying home to UK is expensive!) and that when my eldest turns 18 he can choose to stay in Aus or move to the UK, for many years he has told me he wants to move to london and live with nanny when he's older (which my mum is ever so happy about!).

If i were you, i would get citizenship of Aus (like i have, if you don't already have it) as a back up in case things don't work out in the UK, go back home and give yourself a time frame, say if in 5 years of being home in the UK it doesn't work you can always go back to Aus.
You should also take into consideration the Pros and Cons of life in both countries, would being back with family outweigh all the benefits of living in Aus?

I tell myself every time i get homesick, that my boys have a better life here in Aus, and that when my eldest is 18 we will move back home and see how we go, that my family is only a phone call away, the other thing that helps is that my family supports me being here and that it is the better choice for us at current.
I know that when we move home, it will be hard to adapt, Financially and lifestyle wise, but having my heart complete again (being back with family) would be worth it!

 

Thank you Tjsmum. Luckily we have our citizenship so could always come back. We have started to discuss a move in about 12 months but not sure if that is feasible with covid now. The homesickness is still here worse than ever. It’s my little girls birthday on Tuesday and it feels so sad having nobody to celebrate with (we are allowed to have gatherings up here now) and even though I met some nice mums through mums group I don’t have any close friends I would invite over.

Darwin is definitely a place you either love or hate! We have loved it because it is so different and it has been quite kind to us - work is really easy to get up here and we love the tropical holiday feel. I definitely know it’s not a forever place for us though!

On 03/03/2020 at 00:40, Antipodista said:

Hi OP, I was the same as you, never really really “settled” before baby but thought Aus was ok and worth it to be with hubby. After baby number 1, mother in UK with breast cancer (thankfully fully recovered) and father with kidney cancer (sadly passed) the pull home became unbearable and when the time came to get back on the plane to Aus I couldn’t do it. It was awful and led to the breakdown of my relationship but in my experience those nagging feelings are nagging for a reason, don’t ignore them.

If your husband wants to return too I wouldn’t wait. You could always rent your Aus place out? In 4 years who knows what your situation will be...don’t wait. 4 years is a long time to want to be somewhere else.

feel free to PM me of you want.Best of luck xx
 

I’m so sorry to hear about your dad Antipodista and that your relationship broke down. I definitely am with you on 4 years being so long! I don’t blame you for not being able to get back on that plane. It’s a shame because Oz is such an amazing place and will always have a piece of my heart but to me family is so much more important xx

11 hours ago, Toots said:

The opposite end of Australia to you.    We are in Tasmania.

Lovely! It just be beautiful there! Unfortunately it’s even further away for us from family so we wouldn’t move there but if we were staying in Oz we would pick tassie!

9 hours ago, LKC said:

I started to feel that tug home at around the seven year mark. We came over to thee UK on holiday, and I literally told my OH that I wasn't going to go back, and he should leave me and the kids, fly back and sort things out. In the end, we did go back to Aus, but within a year we'd moved back to the UK because the pull was so strong. Even though our marriage has broken down since we got back, I am absolutely sure that moving back is the best thing I've ever done! We moved to Scotland (where we'd never lived before) rather than England, but I've never regretted it even for a second. The kids settled easily, and it has been an amazing experience!

I’m sorry to hear that LKC but glad to hear you have had a good experience overall. Interestingly hubby has spoken about moving to Scotland. We have spoken about that or the South West (we are originally from Manchester area). 

3 hours ago, Home and Happy said:

Hi, the move was fairly easy, lodged with family for a bit, then bought a house ....we are very settled and felt settled the day we came home, jobs were fairly easy to get.  Hope you get your place sold and don’t take any financial hit. Your happiness really  is what counts first.  

I am pleased it was all so smooth for you and you are feeling settled! I totally agree about happiness! 

21 hours ago, Toots said:

Where do you live?  The houses around here are selling like hotcakes.  One of them sold on its first open day.  It had been on the market for 5 days.

Toots we are in Darwin! Where are you? 

10 hours ago, Home and Happy said:

You are 100% correct if you are feeling so unhappy.  We only stayed mainly because the house prices rises meant it was financially the best thing for us to wait and see where it all went and plan a good exit. We could cope with it only for that reason and we had good enough jobs to pay our way and get by well enough.  If the housing market had been flat we would have bailed in the first few years..who knows probably less, as neither one of us really liked it that much.  Luckily we have no kids, just sell the house, pack up and go. Flogged the house contents in a garage sale and gave the junk away, binned most of our clothes. Shipped a small amount of personal stuff only

Home and Happy the house market is super flat where we live now and one worry is we won’t be able to sell or will sell at a loss. My husband is hoping it picks up in 4 years but I’m not optimistic! 
how have you found the move back to England? Do you have any regrets?

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the feedback. My husband wants to be back in the UK eventually as he misses lots about England. He is just more head and I am more heart. He wants to save money and work towards it whereas I would rather just get on with it. We don’t really have any savings and own a house in Oz so me just wanting to get on with it probably isn’t very well thought out unless we have jobs lined up.

I just don’t think I’ll ever fully be happy here and never fully able to put roots down as I’ll always be thinking what if we move back. My parents aren’t getting any younger too and I want my daughter to grow up around her family as I had a big family growing up and lots of lovely memories.

For those who moved back, did you get a job first? Do you mind me asking how much you saved? We could live with my parents at least temporarily.

Thank you Marisa. Have you made the move back yourself? My baby is almost 2 now and it has been very very tough. I am going to seek help from a counsellor but I agree with you. My husband gets long service leave in 4 years but really I don’t think it’s worth 4 years of unhappiness for a small amount of money. 

My husband and I have been in Oz for 10 years this year. Overall we have a lovely life here (it’s taken time), we bought a house in 2017 and welcomed our baby girl in 2018. The tug has always been there to move back home but lately it has gotten so much stronger and I’m not coping well as a sleep deprived mother without my family close by.

I just wondered how you made the decision to move? My husband wants to wait another 4 years but for me that is too long to be unhappy. 
 

I’ve really struggled with the transition to being a mum without my own mum close by. The guilt of being so far away is also quite terrible and how much they are missing out on. On the other hand I didn’t particularly love life in the UK and I know Australia offers us a lot and our baby girl is thriving here. I have tried hard to make new friends and I do have some good friends here but it’s not the same as my family.

Id love to hear from anyone who has been through this or has any advice?

Thanks thinker, I had to attach a letter outlining everything with my citizenship application and I included evidence of the date I applied etc. If they ask for more information I can show them a log of the repeated emails and telephone calls we made to them as well. Its really annoying because we were just unlucky in that we applied for our 187 visa during that timeframe that there was a system error. It already caused us a lot of stress at the time (my partner nearly lost his job because he didn't have a valid work visa, and it was right in the run up to Xmas) and now it is coming back to haunt us!

Yea I've got an email from immigration stating that due to system errors they are unable to grant bridging visas for applications lodged between 27 October and 23 November. That's all I have really though proving it...

Has anybody applied for their citizenship and had to use the administrative error category to ask the minister to exercise discretion?

We have been in Oz 4 years yesterday (first 2 years on a working holiday visa, then rest on a bridging and 187 visa) and went to apply for our citizenship but it kept saying we weren't eligible. I called immigration and it turns out we are not technically eligible. This is because when we applied for our 187 visa there was an error with immigration granting our bridging visa (there was a period of about 4 days where everyone who lodged their visa over this period did not get their bridging visas granted due to a system error). This meant that our working holiday visa expired on 3 December but our bridging visa was not approved until 18 December despite us putting in our 187 application in November so we had a period of time that we were not legally in Australia.

Does anybody think this will be a problem? The way I see it we did everything we could to remain in Australia legally by applying for our visa on time and we were even calling immigration on a daily basis to find out what we should do etc and if we should leave the country but nobody was giving us an answer and just telling us to wait.