Longing to get back to the U.S.?

My husband is a prince! I love him more than anything but at the time I blamed him for bringing me to this "God forsaken place" 

LOL!  How dare he! LOL

Hmmm I have thought about this a million times.  I really enjoy living in the UK and my husband and kids and I are a very happy little family.  I would miss walking everywhere and my wonderful 7 weeks paid leave a year if we went back to America.  The problem is I miss my family like mad.  My husband doesn't have any family in our corner of the UK so we don't see anyone. I feel really alone and I am horrified at the thought of my kids growing up without any extended family around. In the last 5 years my dad and my sisters all got married and I missed all three weddings.  My sisters kids are my kids ages and it would be so great to be near them for birthday parties etc.  I'm going broke flying over there constantly just to be able to have breakfast with my dad and go shopping with my sister.

This gets me down to the point that I'm just completely miserable even though I actually prefer UK life to the US rat race.   I don't think we can afford a transatlantic move anyway so I will probably be here awhile.  Hopefully I will just get over feeling like this and not be so torn up all the time.

My kids are only little. They do have dual citizenship but who knows where they will end up.

Hear hear!!!  Four months (give or take) and I will FINALLY be on the right side of the pond!!! 

 I'm right there with you... I keep thinking.. I'll be HOME soon 

And as far as dual citizen children like Mindy's and Pebbles' and eventually my own - I think it's far more beneficial that they can move to anywhere in the EU without visa problems rather than having the *opportunity* to live in the US.

I agree.  And if that had been the question I'd say that I think it's fairly likely that at least one of my kids will move or work in Europe at some point.  They've had as many holidays to Europe as they have to the states over the years.  Our middle daughter used to say when she was really little that when she grew up she wanted to be French and live in a caravan. 

I think the thing with the States is that it probably seems very exciting to them and since they've never actually lived there they would probably like to.  I know that on this forum there are quite a few people with British parents who grew up in the US and moved back here.     It's nice that they can do that without worrying about visas, etc. 

I'm not sure what I mean.  I guess that it feels like a huge culture shock when I go home.  Everything's so big.  The people are weirdly friendly.  Everybody knows everything.  The cars are big, the fridges are big, the stores are big.  I just feel overwhelmed.  And there seems to be such a culture of keeping up-like you're freaks if you don't have hte latest Little Tikes contraption in your back yard and your kid doesn't excell at five million activities.  

This is me too Mindy. I suppose the longer you're here and the less frequently you go over (or afford to go over), the harder it is to deal with when you get there. Size of cars especially freak me out. And the thing that annoys me the most is the fake-friendly service people, especially waiters. Yes, I know they're living for their tip, but I don't want a best friend and I don't want the fake routine that seems to come with every meal. Some places I feel like i'm in the middle of a stage show (LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT OUR SPECIALS!) 

Having said that, I think English sales service is appalling the opposite way so perhaps i'm searching for a perfect medium.

I think I could be happy in either place.  I didn't leave the US for London because I was unhappy with life there - I just happened to find a job here that sounded utterly awesome.  If I had found a job in the US which was great before I found this one, then I'd still be in the US and probably just as content.  I have happened to find a wonderful man to date who I'd love to marry some day, am enjoying my job and haven't found it tough to adjust to my life here.  I've lived in US cities so the life here is quite similar.  More expensive in some ways...but my life isn't all that different in many ways.  I would miss being able to play field hockey and cricket in my 'old age' in the US (just hard to find club teams), would miss the pub culture and the ability to travel more cheaply to foreign countries.  What I miss in the US are my friends and family - but I haven't lived within a 4 hour drive of family in YEARS and would have moved from Boston anyway to get a new job...and thus moving from friends.  So.  I guess I'm okay regardless.  No plans to leave any time soon, though who knows if my job contract will be renewed in December? (I hope so!).

No. I'm longing to get home to the UK... only three and a half months to go!!!

I'm one of those people who sits firmly mid-Atlantic.  There are things that I love and miss about England and while in England, there were things that I loved and missed about the US.

We've been back in the US for ten months now.  When we first got here, I felt very much like how Mindy and a few others expressed how everything was so big and vast.  Silly things caught me off guard and I felt like I had to "learn all over again", just as I did when I first moved to England.   (The card swiping at checkouts instantly springs to mind...)

I often wonder that if my personal circumstances were different, if I'd have done better in England.  Unfortunately, two people I loved dearly passed away during a short period of time while I lived there.  I know that this consumed me and how I dealt with things. 

I'm getting very settled here now.  My kids are happy and well, my husband loves his work and I've re-connected with my large, extended family and friends. 

We're getting to know our neighbors.  Many of our new neighbors have lived/worked abroad and a few are international marriages like ourselves.  This has been a wonderful bonus, having others to talk to who are in similar situations and appreciate life/viewpoints/culture outside of the US.
 

When I was a teenager it was my dream to live in London. But after living in the UK for almost 5 years it has shown me, in my opinion,  that  the U.S. really is the greatest country in the world to live in.   I had been studying here when I met my husband and because of financial reasons we stayed here.  However,  my British husband are moving back to the U.S. in early 2006.  We can't wait to move and are counting down the months,days and hours.   
 
Everytime my husband and I have visited the U.S. we have seen how much better our life can be there and there are many reasons for us moving to the U.S. but these are our top reasons:

1. Being able to a 4 bed 2 bath house for less than the price we paid for our shoebox London flat.
2. Being able to commute to work by car and not having to take the miserable London Underground and worrying that myself or my husband will be blown up.
3. More job opportunity for my husband as we can move any where in the U.S. to find work.
4. More choice in the supermarkets.  We are so sick of going to Tesco/Asda and them not having one or two items from our shopping list not in stock and even when the do have it there are only one or two brand choices.
5. Amazing choice of restaurants that offer food that taste good and having excellent customer service. Every time   we go to the U.S. we eat out every chance we get to try the wonderful food choices there.
6. If we have to go to the hospital not worrying about getting MRSA.  I am expecting a baby in September and am terrified myself or my baby getting MRSA.  Also when I have our next child would like to be able to have private room instead of having to share with 3 other people.
7. Having AIR CONDITIONING!!!

When I was a teenager it was my dream to live in London. But after living in the UK for almost 5 years it has shown me how the U.S. really is the greatest country in the world to live in.

No offence to you, but some of us who are happy here might take offence to such a sweeping statement made as though it were fact and not simply your opinion.

I wasn't stating any facts just expressing my experience and opinions as everyone else has done in reply to the first posting "Longing to get back to the U.S?   If they are happy in the UK good for them but I know that my husband and I will be happiest in the U.S.

2. Being able to commute to work by car and not having to take the miserable London Underground and worrying that myself or my husband will be blown up.

I can understand and relate to your choices, except the above. One could turn around and apply the same logic to steering clear of New York and Washington DC.

I can understand and relate to your choices, except the above. One could turn around and apply the same logic to steering clear of New York and Washington DC.

I agree. It sounds like your beefs are more to do with big city living than the UK per se, Cat. Am I wrong?

2. Being able to commute to work by car and not having to take the miserable London Underground and worrying that myself or my husband will be blown up.

No, you just have to worry about being crushed to death by a Hummer driver talking on their handheld whilst you're commuting in your tinier SUV, or smashed by a repeat drunk driver. 

They have hummers here now as well and drive just as crazy or worse.  At least if I was hit by something in the States I wouldn't have to worry that if I survived the crash I could get MRSA in the hospital.