samt4

i asked him to tell me honestly if he can’t see himself in the uk to just please tell me now and he said that he cannot tell me it’s a definite no because he can see us living there under the right circumstance and that he does like the country. But I know the pull of his career plans here are strong and he says its something he can’t do in the uk. A part of me thinks I may be relived to go back and end this but a part of me thinks I will regret that and be heart broken. Yes, perhaps I am still young enough to meet someone else but realistically it will take several months to get over him, more months or years to find someone new, then at least a year to really know if I want to start a family with this new person, then time to get pregnant, be pregnant, etc … I will be 40+ years old! When I was recently at home I was so much happier but I think because I know I still had my partner. If I was to break things off and go back home I am not sure if I will feel as happy still.

our situation is not the best to move to the uk as we wont have any money, and i will get a job at best around 19k which isnt much. We simply cannot afford the uk at the moment and even living in oz will be hard. i just cant imagine a life without him but at the same time i cant imagine only seeing my sisters once a year and basically raising my family on my own over here. My mum was the one to encourage me to come back here as we would have a little more money and basically that i 'cant have it all'. I dont want to leave him and start all over again, one becuse i love him and i do think we have a strong relashionship and i can see myself growing old with him, but also becasue it terrifies me to start from fresh as well. I cant imagine being with anyone else, and it takes me a long time to find someone. my age is playing on my mind too, not that i am settling. I just dont want to be trapped here and i suppose i will have to be here for now and hope that one day we can afford to move back home.

thank you for your honesty, but how do you know whats best?! I could leave now, go home on my own, take years to find someone else and then its too late to have children, or there will be complications, etc. I suppose I will have to take his word that he is willing to go to the UK at some point and work my hardest to make it happen. Otherwise I am back home, with the parents for a while, and single at 34, and heartbroken. Its a choice that I just dont know how to make. Having a family of my own is everything to me but I simply cannot choose between my partner and my family! its so hard.

This response sounds exactly like what I have been saying myself and how I feel, so thank you, it is nice for someone to recognise these feelings! He is a very loving and kind man and just wants me to be happy but he has career (property) plans he wants to pursue here which he thinks will be a better opportunity or life for us. The thing is like you say, a better life is not worth it, if I still feel sad, and he cannot get his head around this. He wants me to show him how it will be better for us in the UK but of course we will most likely has less money over there and a smaller house. He says its possible he would move the the UK "if it was right for the both of us" but its looking at the moment 75% OZ (his words). It doesn't fill me with confidence. I am not sure how I would feel ending it with him and moving back alone, I'll end up more depressed! I do want to spend my life with him and have kids with him but I just can't commit to a permanent move but he is always trying to change the way I feel about Oz and tells me I can't have in my head that we will move back to UK in a few years. I feel like time is running out to have a family and I don't want to be in my 40's having a child so this is the pressure. I know having a baby like this won't also be good but what do I do?! If I know that we will have a baby here then have a plan to move in a few years before the child starts school, then at least maybe i can enjoy things a bit more knowing i will be going home, i just don't have confidence that he will come. I feel stuck. Sorry for long reply an dthank you for listening/ reading my post

I understand how this sounds from an outsiders perspective, but it is not as easy as just leaving him. I am in love with him and can't really picture myself with anyone else. I am not sure I would be able to just take the kids away, even if the worst does happen and we separate. It does scare me though the feeling of being 'trapped' here.

Hi everyone, I am from the UK and have been living in Oz now for almost 3 years. Before I moved here, my partner agreed that if I wasnt enjoying it after 2 years then we would give it a go in the UK. I have been extremely homesick the entire time I have been here, it comes in waves but there is a constant feeling of loss and sadness just sitting in the background, every day. I do still have times when I like the life here and the little things me and my partner do together, but then this sinking feelings starts creeping back again. I try to think positivley and about how it is nice to live here but then for a few days straight I might feel super depressed and cry everyday. Then the feeling subsides and I start enjoying life a bit more, but still with this grief-like feeling that never really seems to go away. I have recently returned to Australia after spending around 6 months back home in the UK. The aim here was for me to find a job in the UK in order to bring my Aussie partner over so we could give it a go over there. Thing is, I don't really have too many 'skills' and have only really worked in hospitality (something I have been out of for a while now and don't want to go back into). In Oz I have been freelancing writing some blog posts but I think I got very lucky here and I don't have the skills to get a job that meets the financial requirement for the UK visa. I tried when I was there to look for work but I have a huge confidence issue with applying for new jobs and just feel scared to try anything new, as I don't belive I have the skills for the things I am applying for. Even if I did manage to find a job that meets the £18,600 salary, this still wouldn't be enough for me to afford a place to live and support myself and my partner in the UK (he would not be able to work on a tourist visa). Basically my partner has just got a new job in Oz which pays around $47,000, which is fairly good, so I kinda had to come back because it was the sensible thing to do. Thing is my partner I know doesnt really want to move to the UK. He always says things like "its a potential", or "yeh maybe, in the future", and I just feel like he's telling me what I want to hear. He keeps saying he needs a better option and for me to tell him exactly how it will work over there, which I do understand but he is quite intense sometimes and likes to plan things out. Thing is, you can't really plan out life and I don't know if the UK will be better for both of us, it definitely won't be better financially but for me it's more than that. He and I think very differently about life. I am laid back and take life as it comes, I do have an idea of what I want for my future but he is way more serious, puts pressure on himself and gets highly stressed and always needs a plan. He is constantly thinking about things, always on his laptop, doesnt switch off and gets quite snappy and irritable. This brings me down and sometimes I dont feel myself becauae I try to be more 'happy' and not take life too seriously. You would think these personality types may compliment each other but we end up clashing all the time. When I was back home these last few months I felt so much happier. I felt like myself again, I had my independance back as I could get the train to London (I live in great london), or go for walks in the English countryisde, just basically all the things that I love doing and have missed so much. The main reason why I loved being back though was meeting my two nieces for the first time who were 3.5 months and 5.5 months when I first returned. I love being an aunt so much and visited them as much as possible to get some expereince for my own future children and to expereince being an aunt, helping out my sisters with childcare and just playing with them and getting to know them. I have built such a lovely bond with them that yu cant get over a screen. These are memories you just cannot get back and I want to be there, and watch them grow and be a 'real' aunty. I want to go through motherhood with my sisters together, and be able to meet up with them and expereince/ make memories together, not just through a screen. Now I am back in Oz and my sisters keep sending my videos of the babies I just get so upset because I am missing out on everything and they are growing so fast. I know I need to think of creating my own family, but my sisters are a huge part of that and I don't even feel like this is my life over here, I'm just sort of existing day by day. The probelm is, is that I want a family of my own and I'm 34 this year. If me and my partner were 10 years younger then we would have time to give the UK a go, see if it's better, and then decide where we want to live. But I am so desperate to start a family and if I was to go back to the UK to find a job (which I would need to be in for at least 6 months before applying for UK visa), then a couple of months waiting for the visa desicion, then my partner would need to find a job, etc... it would mean putting off trying for a baby for at least a year. I know I am not super old but I really don't want to put it off for much longer, especially if I want 2 or 3 kids, I am thinking I will end up nearing 40 and I am just nervous about the increased risk. So we are currently back in Oz, living with my partner's parents and trying for a baby. My freelance work is very unstable and I usually go weeks without income, so I am trying to look for work but it is hard with my lack of skills and confidence. Yes, I could go to a counsellor but I just feel like I know what they would say, I know the steps to take, and that I need to make friends and find a hobby etc, I just cant seem to make to move to do these things. Videoing my family back home just makes me more upset after we end the call and seeing pictures from back home makes me feel like I am missing out on 'my life'. I am excited to try for a baby but I am also terrified of being pregnant and homesick and feeling like I may be stuck here for several years at least, before there is any chance of moving back home. I already feel very isolated, even though my partners family is nice and I get on with them, they are also very different to me and I feel a bit odd one out sometimes and no one can relate to how I think or view things over here. I don't want to be here in 10 years time saying the same things. I feel like I am a different person here sometimes and feeling so homesick makes me angry, weepy, depressed, and thats not who I am. I want my partner to see me being happy as it makes him sad when I feel like this and it takes its toll on the relashionship. I feel so alone, and can't really talk to anymone but my partner! I sometimes talk to his mum but find myself holding back on some things as I realise its her son I'm talking about. I just don't want to live like this anymore and I can't do another 3 years here but I almost feel like it's a choice between having a family or moving back home and risking that. Thank you for reading, any advice is welcome, :)

Hi everyone, I’m a 31 year old female from England and have been living in Brisbane for 8 months now, whilst awaiting a decision on my partner visa. I have been dating my boyfriend for just over 2 years now, after meeting him right at the end of my working holiday visa. After a couple of long stints apart (me in the UK, him in Oz), we have been living together in Australia for 8 months now. However it feels completely different from my working visa, because I know it could be permanent. I am missing home a lot, mostly feeling disconnected from my family and friends but just as strongly missing the English countryside and London. I had both on my doorstep back home and I’m missing my countryside walks, as well as the culture/ history/ excitement of London. I don’t know if I’m looking at the UK with rose tinted glasses or whether I will feel like this permantely. I realise that 8 months is not long enough to really know, and plan to give it 2 years at least to see how I feel after that, however I feel like if I was to have children (this is something I really want and preferably no later then 35 ish, so not much time left!), then I would want to go straight home to where I have support from my own family, am familiar/ comfortable with my surroundings and for my kids to have a British childhood. This is hard for me as I love the lifestyle in OZ and think its great you can get outdoors and active with your kids, but how much good will that be if I feel depressed about being here away from everyone I know? I am undecided on the difference of raising kids in the UK vs Australia- if any parents have any views or advice on this I’d love to know! I’ve read a lot of posts already and views are mixed. I guess both countries have good education systems and pluses and minuses, etc so I guess it’s where the parents will feel happiest? Ok I rambled in that topic for a while- what I am really feeling is that I will still feel like in wont want to be here in say 2 years time and I am struggling as my partner has his whole life here and I guess more to give up. He works in business/ property and has plans to develop some land, which is basically his life’s dream and he has all these long term plans for the future which would mean we would have to stay here. He said that it’s the only thing from holding him back and that if it wasn’t for his work/ re development plans he would already be living in the UK. But he did say he would give everything up if necessary. Thing is how could I ever ask him to do such a thing?! And he says he likes the UK but I know he also loves the sunshine and blue sky (which we don’t get much of in the UK) and he gets kinda miserable when its cloudy. I also think he would find it hard to adjust to the UK (more people, the mindset of the people there, the weather, far from family). I’m not sure he realises how tough it is to move and I would feel horrible to make him give up all that he’s worked for over the past 10 years or so, building his business/ plans up from scratch. Do I sacrifice my happiness for him? Or does he do the same for me? I’m worried that I’m getting older and I would like to start a family within the next few years but our living arrangements might alter that and I do not want to wait until im in my late 30’s to start having kids (especially if I want more than 1!). My partner is not even thinking about proposing, let alone kids but I feel like we need to think about this as I would like to settle somewhere first (and soon). I have spoken to him about all of this and he feels bad that I’m having a hard time adjusting but realistically there’s not much he can do. I feel a bit up and down, sometimes depressed when he works a lot, as I am on my own otherwise. I have job from home and have made no friends, so I feel bored and isolated here. There’s not a huge amount to do in Brisbane it seems. Everything is at least an hours drive away which is too far. I’m a bit sick of going into the city, with about 2 shops I actually buy clothes from, and going for the occasionally walk in the bush- I miss the culture and pretty villages of the UK. Thing is it’s like I don’t want to make friends, I have no energy to put on that smiley face and get out there. I know it will help me but its like I don’t want to try because I don’t want to settle here in my heart. I realise there’s lots of things could be doing such as joining social clubs, sports groups etc but I can’t bring myself to do those things just now. I feel detached from my family, even though I’m probably messaging them more than I would normally do if I was back home. It’s like I’m not part of my family anymore. I miss everything about home and it is really where I would like to raise kids, to be able to see my sisters children if they eventually have them. But then someone is going to have to give up their whole life- how do you decide who?! Could I live with the guilt if I asked my partner to move to the UK? If anyone ese has had this struggle and come out the other side- or who has moved back home, then I would love to here your thoughts and advice! Sorry for the long post!