How Long before You Feel at Home?

I'd like to hear from any of you Americans who have lived in the UK for a long time now, as to how long did you live in Britain before you finally started to feel at home with the place?  At about what point in time did you finally start to think of Great Britain as your home?  Did it take years or months, and about how long after your initial arrival?  I'm sure you all went through at least a period of mild home-sickness; at about what time did that set in, how long did it last, and how did you eventually rid yourself of it?  Are you now at the point that after you go away on holiday, you look forward to returning "home" to your place in Britain, and not still think of your home town in the USA as the only place you'll call home?  That's what I'm asking about.  How long did you have to live in Britain before you finally thought of the place as your home?  Thanks!

well, maybe i'm a weirdo, but i've been here two weeks shy of a year, and i feel very much at home.

i think it's all about effort--life's what you make it, you know? 

I'm going on seven years and i HATED my first two! I hated everything about England. I was bored, lonely and lost. But I got over it, got on with it and now I'm HOME!!

I'm back and forth on this one.  Sometimes I feel settled and don't want to leave, other times I feel misunderstood, annoyed and plot how to make a change. 

Generally my bad days relate to people and their reactions to me.  However, my happiness in general is certainly not based on that. 

I had a rough time for maybe... 10 or 11 months? In retrospect I realise it was to do with 1. growing pains in my relationship and the move from LDR to living together 2. lack of independence and 3. the weather - I came here at the end of summer so it was an instant education in long, dark nights. But having said that, I never felt as though I wanted to leave.

By the year mark I knew I wanted to stay permanantly and by two years I was totally comfortable and feeling as though I belonged.

Now it's four years and I can't really imagine not being here.

i think it's all about effort--life's what you make it, you know? 

Amen, sister! 

My situation is a little different since I was born in the UK and have lots of family here (although I've spent most of my life in the US). This is and always has been home to me. But I think that whenever you move somewhere new - whether it's to a new country or just away from your hometown - you're going to experience homesickness at some point. Even after you've been here years and years, every now and then something will pop up and make you miss where you used to live. It'll happen less and less as time goes by, though.

If you haven't been here very long, I don't think it's a terrible thing to let yourself go through a homesick stage ... as long as you don't let it consume your life!

If I'm honest a year and a half to three years.

I was about a year.

OK, scratch that.  I was about a year and a half two years.  Reason being most of the first year I was here on a visitors visa and could not work.  As soon as I had my Marriage Visa I got a job.  Things started getting easier after that.

2-3 years

Two years for me and Ive been here for four years now and happy. 

In addition to the earlier comment about life being what you make it, I think the other big factor is your support network and how quickly you can integrate into school/work/community.

I am very lucky. My in-laws live right next door and have provided an absolutely fabulous safety net/support network for us all including my 'other' kids. We see each other almost every day. Share resources when and where necessary. And do all those wonderful family things like holidays. Not at all like Everyone Loves Raymond. Of course unlike many others, my family relations in the US was strained. My family lived on the other side of the country. I am actually closer to them here than in CA.

The other thing is integrating. I was lucky in that my field (fundraising) is more in demand here than in the US. So I have quickly found posts that has given the ability to meet and network with people. I have also made the effort to volunteer in my community. I am on first name basis with the local grocer and butcher; something I absolutely adore after the Super Wal-Marts and Seven-11's of the US.

So for me...about two months...almost immediately after I found my first job.

I've been here two years, and I've felt at home for quite a while now. I am in a weird situation, though, in that I haven't been able to return to the US in that time, for personal reasons, so I've been more immersed in the UK culturally then I probably would have been if I'd had the opportunity to visit the US and compare and contrast US/UK life.

I've been in the UK since September, and in that time have moved house, planned a wedding, had said wedding (back in the States), and started job hunting.  I've also been back to the US three times since I moved (in October, to pick up my cats; in December, to visit the family for Christmas, and in March, for the wedding), so each time I come back to the UK, there's a bit of an adjustment period.  And although I've lived in several different cities and states, my hometown (where my parents still live in the same house I lived in for the first eighteen years of my life) will always be home, no matter that I've not lived there for nearly ten years!

That said, I did have a brief flash of "thank goodness I'm home" when we got back to the UK after the wedding - walking into Sainsbury's and knowing that I could get this food or that detergent, hearing familiar adverts on the telly, etc.  I'm not sure how much of it was related to just being glad to finally be home after all the traveling we'd be doing, and how much of it was specifically that I felt like I was home - being reunited with my cats certainly felt like a homecoming! 

I think it's definitely gotten easier, recently, to see the UK as home, or home of a sort, anyway - now that we're in a nice house, in a friendly area, and I'm getting to know the town, and it's staying light out later and later, things have been much easier than they were this past winter, when it got dark at 3pm and we were all cooped up in that awful little flat and I missed my family (and Southern food and weather!) like crazy.  We'll see how it goes later this year, when it's been six months since I've been to the US and the days are getting shorter and shorter....I may be telling a different story, then!

I only intended on staying for a year or so.  After about 6 months, I was in the London groove and felt quite at home, knowing that it was only temporary.  Then I met my OH, got pregnant and moved to Scotland all pretty quickly.  Then I felt so out of place again and it took me another 2 years to feel really at home.  I have been having really, really bad bouts of homesickness recently and we have been talking about taking a sabbatical for 6 months so I can spend the time with my family. 

Well, I've been here nearly 2 years and it still isn't home. There's plenty of things I love about the UK, but 'home' will always be the USA. I've just come to accept that the UK will never truly be home to me.

I think it's just a personal choice though. I've chosen not to let go, not to allow myself to call the UK 'home'. I always refer to it as England or the UK. Even when I'm back home in the States visiting family I'll say, "I'm flying back to England on Tuesday..." or "When I get back to England..." I can never bring myself to call it home.

I don't think you can put a time limit on it. It's like loving someone, you have to make a conscious choice whether or not to do it and then stick to it. Best of luck though. Honestly, it really IS a nice place to live. Don't mind grumpy old buggers like me.