US friends reacting negatively to your departure plans

Not sure how widespread this phenomenon is, but I am about 10 days out from leaving the US and really beginning to feel this weight of sadness and abandonment from nearly everyone around me. A few people have wished me well, but I am getting so tired of people I really care about giving me this kind of mock-scowling version of the stink-eye, usually accompanied by some well-intentioned version of "Well it's really sad for us and we're going to miss you."

I know this is all done with kind intent -- as a way of voicing sadness at my departure (and that of my wife and kids) but it is sort of beginning to feel like the dark side of neighbo(u)rliness. It's really not helping at this point -- I want to enjoy the last few days I have here, but they are all weighted down by such sadness and woe, that I just want to climb into the shipping crate when the container guys come to load it up tomorrow, so I can escape all this guilt I am being handed. Again, I have to stress that none of it is snarkiness: it's all delivered in the spirit of 'we're your friends and we're really going to miss you' but it really adds up and I am sort of bent double under the weight of it all.

GAH! Sorry. Had to vent.

It is a hard thing, what you're doing. That makes you officially A Person Who Does Hard Things.

I take comfort in that, myself. When the going gets especially hard.

Ugh, yeah.  I have already been through this once and now in a couple months I am going to have to go through it again.  I can totally relate to how you feel.  For me, the guilt that my friends and family laid on me right before I left, made it that much harder for me to adapt when I got to the UK.  I really wish people would just wish you well and be happy for you.  I am not sure how I am going to deal with it this time around.  Anyway, I  totally feel your pain

I experienced that, too.  It seems like a way of easing the separation for those who are staying behind.  If they give you some version of "go on, get outta here!", then it's not so hard for them when you really do go.  My workmates and bosses were the worst at this - they'd guilt trip me big time on the weeks leading up to my departure.  And my friends weren't much better.  My best friend, who had met my then-fiance several times and thought he was just great, would jokingly talk about how mad she was at him for "taking me away from her."  It didn't make it easier for me (or you, from what I read), but if you try and accept it for what it is - a coping mechanism - then at least it's a bit easier to understand, if not endure.  Best of luck.

I had this too.   Finally got past all the hard work and annoyance of packing and moving only to be hit by a wave of sorrow and guilt, self inflicted as well as pushed on me by friends.  The leaving was much harder than the arriving.

Hang in there.  You're on the home stretch.

My husband's and my friends from the UK are the ones giving us a hard time about leaving.  Every time we bring it up, there is some sort of negativity about moving back there.  However, the ones who are older and closer to retirement or are retired are planning to move back and generally have good things to say.  When we ask the younger ones about their future plans, they say to retire in Britain, of course!  Meanwhile, they have a laundry list of complaints about living back home, and they sound just like the social problems we have here in America.

The hardest thing for me right now is telling my parents we are actually leaving.  They still don't know.  My husband and I have been considering moving back for about a year now.  I have been going through a grieving process, trying to decide to leave or to stay, feeling guilty for leaving my parents in the golden years of their lives.  I go over and over in my head the reasons I should leave for Scotland or why I should stay in America.  For one thing, my husband is now 47 and sees no prospect of retiring here in the US.  In the 10 years we've been married, he's only seen his father once in that ten years and his mother, twice.  I fear I will not be able to see my parents again.  I will miss my family.  I will miss sunshine.  I will miss mild winters and long summers.  On the other hand, I think I will be giving my children a good education and a unique life experience in a beautiful country their father talks about.  I also think about how I am starting my life fresh again.  I am excited to perhaps go back to school to get a masters degree (that is if they honor my bach.)  I will be able to experience something few people I know have been able to say they've done, which is live abroad.

Then here comes the downer...Telling my parents.  I have been bringing it up quite a bit over the last several months.  I recently had a baby in March.  At one point I refused to let my parents buy any more large items for the baby because I knew we had plans to leave as soon as the baby was born.  My parents went crazy! I felt like I was sixteen years old again.  They were telling me it was pregnancy hormones and  I needed something from the doctor.  It turned into a major emotional ordeal.  Another time I mentioned leaving (after the baby was born) they blamed it on post partum.  I can't talk to them without crying and sometimes raising my voice.  I am hurt that they are afraid to lose me and their grandchildren.  They are retired doing their own thing, living their lives, travelling when they want to.  Why can't they see I need to do this for my husband?  I can't expect him not to take care of his parents.  I can't expect him to work until he's 75 and still not have enough Social Security or retirement to live on.  He'll never be able to have the lifestyle my parents are enjoying now when it is his turn to retire.  I can't expect him to continue to be miserable here in America.  

So here I am about to apply for my spousal visa and my parents are oblivious to the fact that we are serious about moving.  

Everytime I talk about moving or Scotland in general, my parents always have something negative to say.  They've never been there and my mother would barely look at our pictures from our visit. How can they judge something they've never seen or experienced?  They said the "magic" would wear off.  They said we would regret it.  Well, I hate to tell them but this is not about magic or enchantment.  This is about taking care of the needs, dreams and desires of the man I vowed to love, honor and cherish.  There will be regrets, but how can I live a life of "what-ifs?" all the the time?  It's certainly not living!

I can't say sorry for needing to get that off my chest. I'm just wondering if anyone has had similar over-reactions from anyone- family or friends.