Second thoughts on moving?

[ellh90 3]

Hi all,

My fiancé and I have been together almost two years now, just like everybody else on here we have been through more than we ever thought possible with the back and forth between countries and visas, applications, long distance relationship etc. On my last trip to the U.S (on a B2 Visa) after applying for the K1 Visa I found out my mum had cancer and had to make the trip back to Australia to be with her. We had talked for months about what we should do but decided to wait until we found out how my Mum was at the end of her six months of chemo before we made any decisions. The chemo ended up being successful and my mum is now in remission which is great news! But I decided I needed to stay here to be with her.. We had a terrible relationship before her cancer and it was one of the reasons why i was completely fine with living in another country although this seemed to change everything between my family and I.

It was obviously a very hard decision to make.. Choose my family who i have only just begun having a great relationship with or choose my fiancé who has never ONCE mistreated me or made me feel anything less than perfect. My decision to stay here obviously did not go down well and although we had discussed it over and over and over again him moving here was not an option for him for the same reasons.. he couldn't live without his family. We received the K1 approval letter last week and that has just made things even harder.. Of course every second of the day I'm wondering if i've made the right decision, if i'm giving up my chance at starting my own family with him for my family who have already started theirs with their own partners. To add to this my family were never supportive of the move.. Basically saying that if I was to leave it would hurt them too much for them to attempt to maintain a relationship with me while I was there.

There would be no issue with me moving there if it wasn't for my family.. I know being homesick is normal and that with his help we could get through it. I guess i'm just scared that I would regret my decision of leaving my family later on down the track and neither of us can imagine anything worse than having children and us ending in divorce and attempting to be parents from two different countries.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Or does anybody have advice? I know everybody goes through the homesickness and that there are solutions I guess I just need to know what those are.

[Kumi and Drake 14]

I do feel the same way and being the worry wort that I am, I always tell my fears and concerns to my fiance. It's a very big decision and step to take and I know in my heart I love him and would want to spend the rest of my life with him but change always makes me feel apprehensive. I would be leaving a job that I love and leave my family here. And I feel uncertain in finding a job in the US, even with a college degree, and I'm scared of ending up in a job I don't like. However, I am willing to take that leap of faith for both my fiance and I know we will be both helping each other out whatever the situation is when I'm finally there. If it comes to a point that we really can't make ends meet in the US or if it just isn't working for us there, he's more than open to either live in my country or we could move somewhere else.

Living in another country wouldn't mean losing ties with my family back home. I would definitely make sure I keep contact with them, as you should too if you guys decide to go on with the petition. Make the decision for yourself, and not to appease other people. Your decision should be something which would make you happy and not fill you with regret. I'm glad I saw your post. I thought I was the only one who feels like this!

Edited July 9, 2013 by Kumi and Drake

[Caryh 5,206]

My wife had a hard time choosing to leave her country and family to come here. There were many discussions about who should move where. Her living in the Philippines, pretty much meant my career would be over, its just not needed in her country. She was very very close to family. As in her and her sister lived together and ran a business together. Where they lived was just blocks from their mother's home, and blocks from their brother's home. A very tight knit family with pretty much daily contact.

Life away from her close knit family has been hard for her to accept. There's many times when the hard homesickness hit where she wanted to move back. Its taken a lot of support on my side as she has very slowly overcome those feelings. Learning to live with American work rules, starting from the bottom again in a work path, loosing the fresh foods she was used to, all these things haven't been easy on her. She's had a much larger adjustment between her culture than you're going to have coming to the USA from Australia. But she's done it, although its take more than a few shed tears. After almost two years here, she's on the upswing in the adjustment stage. The sad days missing family and home don't happen now. She's found she's still close to her family in spirit, if not in person. And she knows when I retire, I'm willing to move to her country and she can act as my support as I adjust to there.

But the real thing is we're happy together. We enjoy supporting each other while we go through daily life. We have fun on our weekends, and have our little rituals of bonding all week long. We're completely dedicated to each other, and there's a comfort in that beyond anything your parents or siblings can ever give you.

Yes you're probably going to be homesick, most people have it to some degree. My wife's homesickness was one of the bad cases, and it took time and a lot of understand and support from me to help her through that. I never would have guessed it could be so hard. Other people have came here and barely had any homesickness at all. Wish that was the case for my wife, but its just not who she is.

Its totally normal to start worrying when the big move starts looming. Its normal to starting worrying when soon you're going to be married. Its completely normal to worry when ever big changes are coming up. Its normal to want to hold on to what is most familiar, and give it qualities it never had to you before. Seriously if your family would reject you because you moved to another country to be with the one you love, they're going to reject you for some other reason some day anyway. I'd seriously discount that fear, its not real or poorly placed. What you should possibly consider is if your husband to be is really the person for you. Will he be there and support you when you're at your worst and not just when you're at your best? Is he willing to live a less comfortable life for maybe quite some time while you rebuild a career here? Are both of you really dedicated to understanding and listening to the other even if you don't like what you're hearing? And even after that, still committed to doing what it takes to have a good marriage and life together? I think many make this move and get married things will all be puppies, kittens and balloons on the other side. But its a heck of lot of work and pain to adjust both to each other, to married life, and to a new culture by one of you. But maybe you know that, and that's your real fear, you've just failed to give it a voice. Think about it, talk with him real and from your heart of what scares you. Don't put decisions in the talk, don't put where or when or ifs, just talk about the feelings and fears. You might find he's all there for you and you should go, or you might find it wasn't right in the first place.

Good luck to you.

[ellh90 3]

Thankyou to you both for your help and advice I know I have a lot to think about as overwhelming as that may seem.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

My opinion is this - while your relationship with your family is good now, it's a bit sad that it took a situation such as your mothers cancer to make it get better. I know that's common, that stressful situations bring people together but when that "together" is them telling you that if you leave they won't stay in contact... that doesn't make the relationship better. It just means they have a different "in" to manipulate you.

To me it sounds like your family is not supportive at all. Do you really want to give up your chance at happiness, to be with the person who has ALWAYS loved and supported you, for people who are simply biologically related?

I understand the stress of moving away and wondering "what if?"... but I had a supportive family back home. If you can't tell yourself the same thing, then I think you know that you SHOULD leave. The fact that your family is not supportive should not make you want to stay closer to them, in fact it would make me want to move away from their poison.

I actually built up on several friendships with my real life friends, via facebook. There are places to buy the food we miss (some substitutes we can recommend).

Relationships are a gamble, nothing is certain... But it's up to you to decide whether or not to take a chance. I certainly would because this is YOUR life and YOUR future, but it's totally up to you.

[rjm_cmyk 75]

Hi all,

We had a terrible relationship before her cancer and it was one of the reasons why i was completely fine with living in another country although this seemed to change everything between my family and I.

You asked for views so with the benefit of the effective anonymity and distance a keyboard and screen provide I'll give you mine.

I can completely understand why such a dreadful experience - watching your mother potentially die , would affect a relationship. For some it will strengthen a great one, for others it will turn a bad one around and for other it will induce feelings of guilt about never having had a good relationship.

I have no idea where you fit in that range. I don't know what your relationship is with the rest of your family. Illness does not always bring out the best in people and if they've manipulated you before they may well try again.

What I would say is you need to know where you are in that range before you make such a potentially important decision about a future with your fiancé , wherever that might be. And you need to be damn sure that it's not an excuse not to commit to him

I will be moving to the states later this year to marry the woman my mother has been saying I should have married 20 years ago. My mother is in her 80's frail and in the early stages of Alzheimers. It would be very difficult if not impossible to leave her if I did not know that she was in the care of my sister and brother but she fundamentally would want me to go and has said so repeatedly.

[J & L 10]

I think at the end of the day you're the only person who can have an answer to that, and you'd probably be better off talking to him about your relationship and why you feel indecisive about moving. Confronting your partner about it may be hard, but I think it'll be worth it, or if you'd like to, you could isolate yourself and think about it and try to come to a conclusion. After all it is your relationship and you're the only person who can tell whether there's more positive or negative aspects in your relationship.
Of course being indecisive and scared is normal: we're all humans and we get used to routines and find comfort in our everyday life, so moving to the other side of the world is definitely a scary thought, so maybe you could ask him to be a bit more supportive (given that's the problem) or you could try to make more 'concrete' plans to see if that convinces you a bit more.

Well, good luck with your decision and if you feel like sending me a message to talk about it or vent you can do it any time.

[Kajikit 65]

Your K1 visa is good for six months. You can still go... and if things don't work out in the US you can always go back to Australia again. And once you have the right paperwork done you can go back to visit. It doesn't have to be a one way trip. My parents were against my making the move and I was tearing myself apart trying to make everyone happy until I wrote my mother a long letter and told her that if it had to be the choice between her and my fiance I was going to choose him, but I really didn't want to have to do that... it hurt her to hear it in black and white, but because she loved me, she understood that I had to live my own life, not theirs, even if it was going to be in a different country. YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY.

[Ozz777 23]

I think that most people who choose to move to a foreign country are going to have many adjustments to make and hours/days filled with questions and doubts about that move, no matter how loving/understanding their spouse or extended family is, or how "great" the new country is. I know I did, and I'm sure my wife will, once we get to the US.

The question is, do you need to find/build the positive relationship with your birth family that you missed out on more than you need to create your own family with the man you love? To me, one is looking backwards and one is moving forwards, and I always move forwards.

Only you can answer that for yourself.

[rlogan 2,036]

This is a no-brainer for the fiance. He needs to leave you. The family you had a terrible relationship with, and who you were perfectly fine with leaving can guilt-trip you into breaking a lifetime pledge with the person who never once made you feel less than perfect.

Personally I wouldn't take you back even if you changed your mind again. Because marriage is for people who have the strength of their convictions and don't vacilate back and forth, most especially for the sake of people who they had terrible relations with. It is a bad sign having a family that doesn't support your decisions. If what you say is true about relations changing, then they would be cheering you on to be with the man you love. Instead it is their painfully transparent reward for you falling for their manipulation. My mother had a radical mastectomy and chemo back when it was much tougher to deal with cancer, we both loved each other dearly, and neither of us even gave a thought to me moving four thousand miles away the next year. I just came back from visiting her, which cost me four airline tickets from Alaska to New York.

This would be EXACTLY the time to come through for the fiance by demonstrating that you would not waver no matter what. You already blew that. A drama queen takes the opportunity to drag the fiance up and down the roller-coaster, harping on how difficult it is for her, and then expecting the fiance to be eternally grateful for her highness choosing to be with him. What this man can expect if you decide to come is to be guilt-tripped about how much you gave up: a Cinderella story with your evil family back home turning into the knights in shining armor.

If he lets you play this game then he has taught you to treat him like a second-class husband and he's a fool. So the right decision is the ultimatum: fulfill your promise or it's over. Proverbs says frankness is better than flattery, and although I am not a Christian that is just to point out how ancient that wisdom is. Good luck, and I hope both you and your fiance make the right decision because you are absolutely right about having children and being married to the wrong person.

We had a terrible relationship before her cancer and it was one of the reasons why i was completely fine with living in another country

[ellh90 3]

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what I've been through and I have no idea what you've been through.

Your personal opinion is exactly that - your opinion but you have absolutely no right to call me a 'drama queen'. I'm utterly disgusted by your response.

And to say 'good luck' after that? Good luck to you in life pal when you have opinions like these.

This is a no-brainer for the fiance. He needs to leave you. The family you had a terrible relationship with, and who you were perfectly fine with leaving can guilt-trip you into breaking a lifetime pledge with the person who never once made you feel less than perfect.

Personally I wouldn't take you back even if you changed your mind again. Because marriage is for people who have the strength of their convictions and don't vacilate back and forth, most especially for the sake of people who they had terrible relations with. It is a bad sign having a family that doesn't support your decisions. If what you say is true about relations changing, then they would be cheering you on to be with the man you love. Instead it is their painfully transparent reward for you falling for their manipulation. My mother had a radical mastectomy and chemo back when it was much tougher to deal with cancer, we both loved each other dearly, and neither of us even gave a thought to me moving four thousand miles away the next year. I just came back from visiting her, which cost me four airline tickets from Alaska to New York.

This would be EXACTLY the time to come through for the fiance by demonstrating that you would not waver no matter what. You already blew that. A drama queen takes the opportunity to drag the fiance up and down the roller-coaster, harping on how difficult it is for her, and then expecting the fiance to be eternally grateful for her highness choosing to be with him. What this man can expect if you decide to come is to be guilt-tripped about how much you gave up: a Cinderella story with your evil family back home turning into the knights in shining armor.

If he lets you play this game then he has taught you to treat him like a second-class husband and he's a fool. So the right decision is the ultimatum: fulfill your promise or it's over. Proverbs says frankness is better than flattery, and although I am not a Christian that is just to point out how ancient that wisdom is. Good luck, and I hope both you and your fiance make the right decision because you are absolutely right about having children and being married to the wrong person.

[kitthekat 1,317]

I'm glad to hear your mom is on the mend and I hope her health only improves.

When I told my mom about my fiance about a year and a half ago, she insisted I end the relationship immediately (partly due to the distance, mostly due to differences in culture/religion). My mother is not in the best of health (hasn't been for the past 6-7 years) and is always saying that she doesn't have much time left, etc. One of the most hurtful things she said after I told her about J was that my grandparents were heartbroken when my aunt married her now-husband and moved to the Netherlands, and that they passed away shortly after. To me, that was the height of emotional manipulation. I realise she was angry and desperate to stop the relationship, but it is not fair to place that sort of guilt on anyone. My family still isn't supportive of me moving to the US. In fact, I haven't even told them that my move is something that's going to be more of a permanent one!

I am definitely worried about the "what ifs" involved in moving over. Lots of worst-case scenarios play out in my head - what if AP takes forever and there's an emergency back home. What if I can't get a flight or we have no money to buy tickets (a real possibility, yikes). All these awful thoughts adding to what is already a stressful immigration process.

I've come to realise that there is no "right" choice in these situations. Listen to your gut. My fiance (love that man!) is willing to wait for me, if that's what I choose. But I don't want to take the chance that our relationship would not survive the uncertainty, and so I am going.

You have lots of options - you have 6 months till your visa expires. You could delay going. Your fiance could consider moving over to be with you. Or you could go. I'm sure that deep down you already know the choice that's right for you, perhaps it's just being crowded out by all the other worries/uncertainties. Best of luck and if it helps at all, you're not alone.

[Merrytooth 5,748]

I'm glad to hear your mom is on the mend and I hope her health only improves.

When I told my mom about my fiance about a year and a half ago, she insisted I end the relationship immediately (partly due to the distance, mostly due to differences in culture/religion). My mother is not in the best of health (hasn't been for the past 6-7 years) and is always saying that she doesn't have much time left, etc. One of the most hurtful things she said after I told her about J was that my grandparents were heartbroken when my aunt married her now-husband and moved to the Netherlands, and that they passed away shortly after. To me, that was the height of emotional manipulation. I realise she was angry and desperate to stop the relationship, but it is not fair to place that sort of guilt on anyone. My family still isn't supportive of me moving to the US. In fact, I haven't even told them that my move is something that's going to be more of a permanent one!

I am definitely worried about the "what ifs" involved in moving over. Lots of worst-case scenarios play out in my head - what if AP takes forever and there's an emergency back home. What if I can't get a flight or we have no money to buy tickets (a real possibility, yikes). All these awful thoughts adding to what is already a stressful immigration process.

I've come to realise that there is no "right" choice in these situations. Listen to your gut. My fiance (love that man!) is willing to wait for me, if that's what I choose. But I don't want to take the chance that our relationship would not survive the uncertainty, and so I am going.

You have lots of options - you have 6 months till your visa expires. You could delay going. Your fiance could consider moving over to be with you. Or you could go. I'm sure that deep down you already know the choice that's right for you, perhaps it's just being crowded out by all the other worries/uncertainties. Best of luck and if it helps at all, you're not alone.

Kitthekat, if you could get out of Singapore, don't turn back!

The situation in Singapore is not getting any better under the current foreign trash loving government.

I definitely don't like the idea of 6.9 millions population whitepaper.

[kitthekat 1,317]

Kitthekat, if you could get out of Singapore, don't turn back!

The situation in Singapore is not getting any better under the current foreign trash loving government.

I definitely don't like the idea of 6.9 millions population whitepaper.

Agreed - but I'm not sure the US (or anywhere else in the world, really) is going to be any better. In spite of the crowded trains, the soaring prices, the baffling politics, I love living in Singapore. It's 'home', just like that cheesy Kit Chan song that keeps playing on TV these days.

[Caryh 5,206]

Agreed - but I'm not sure the US (or anywhere else in the world, really) is going to be any better. In spite of the crowded trains, the soaring prices, the baffling politics, I love living in Singapore. It's 'home', just like that cheesy Kit Chan song that keeps playing on TV these days.

I designed a couple machines that went to Singapore last year. They sent over numerous people from the plant there to see and learn about the machines before they were shipped. I think only one of them was native to the country. All of the rest came different countries in the region, and were working and living in Singapore. I found that rather odd.