JudeB77

Glad that you had the talk.  Communication is everything.  Great that you have at least a mental path forward.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my post and to share their experiences. It really does help.
 
My husband and I had a long talk yesterday and I shared my many frustrations with him. It felt good to talk about these things, even though they weren't necessarily the most complimentary things about his home town and the people who live there! But he understood, and in many ways shared my feelings (he admitted there were people he's friends with - real Trump supporting, right wing racist rednecks - that he wouldn't be if he met them now and hadn't grown up with them). He wants to get out of this town almost as much as I do, so the next step is to work out where we want to move to. It's not going to make the time until I can work go any faster but at least it gives me something to work towards and to focus my mind on.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my post and to share their experiences. It really does help.
 
My husband and I had a long talk yesterday and I shared my many frustrations with him. It felt good to talk about these things, even though they weren't necessarily the most complimentary things about his home town and the people who live there! But he understood, and in many ways shared my feelings (he admitted there were people he's friends with - real Trump supporting, right wing racist rednecks - that he wouldn't be if he met them now and hadn't grown up with them). He wants to get out of this town almost as much as I do, so the next step is to work out where we want to move to. It's not going to make the time until I can work go any faster but at least it gives me something to work towards and to focus my mind on.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my post and to share their experiences. It really does help.
 
My husband and I had a long talk yesterday and I shared my many frustrations with him. It felt good to talk about these things, even though they weren't necessarily the most complimentary things about his home town and the people who live there! But he understood, and in many ways shared my feelings (he admitted there were people he's friends with - real Trump supporting, right wing racist rednecks - that he wouldn't be if he met them now and hadn't grown up with them). He wants to get out of this town almost as much as I do, so the next step is to work out where we want to move to. It's not going to make the time until I can work go any faster but at least it gives me something to work towards and to focus my mind on.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to respond to my post and to share their experiences. It really does help.
 
My husband and I had a long talk yesterday and I shared my many frustrations with him. It felt good to talk about these things, even though they weren't necessarily the most complimentary things about his home town and the people who live there! But he understood, and in many ways shared my feelings (he admitted there were people he's friends with - real Trump supporting, right wing racist rednecks - that he wouldn't be if he met them now and hadn't grown up with them). He wants to get out of this town almost as much as I do, so the next step is to work out where we want to move to. It's not going to make the time until I can work go any faster but at least it gives me something to work towards and to focus my mind on.

*hugs* I feel for you - and yes, it will get better, somewhat.
 
I have been in the US now for 3.5 years and the first 6 months were a complete nightmare - I would never do a K1 again in hindsight. The AOS purgartory was horrendous - not being allowed to work, travel - like you I had given up a fantastic career back in Europe and was going stir crazy. Now, I lived (and still live) on the East Coast, barely an hour outside of Manhattan, which definitely helped. I can't imagine having moved to a tiny place in the backend of nowhere - maybe this is something to discuss with your partner from a long term perspective point of view? I spend 5 amazing years of my life living in London - a town in Mississipi, with presumably rather conservative world views, must be an immense culture shock.
 
My husband has been incredibly supportive throughout, but I know he struggled with the guilt of seeing me so unhappy after I moved here.
 
For me things looked up once I had my Green Card and found a great job and subsequently got my career back on track. After about a year the homesickness subsided and I like my life over here very much. I still have twinges of missing Europe - certain aspects of life in the US just don't measure up. Other, however, are much more exciting over here than back home.
 
So it all comes down to accepting that homesickness is normal, adaptation takes time and your new life will never be exactly like your old one. Easier said and done, but try and embrace it and look at the opportunities rather than the things you can't recover.
 

OMG my husband too. Everytime he feels homesick he grills chicken outside to remind him of the Mediterranean cook outs they had with kabobs and such (but the only thing we can afford with his daily cookouts is chicken so chicken it is) and I'll tell ya.. I am POSITIVELY going to grow feathers here pretty soon if I have to eat one more grilled chicken. lol
 
OP,
 
I'm so sorry you are having a hard time and I know it's hard to see it know but it will get easier and the way you are feeling is completely comprehensible. My husband had the worst time when he arrived 2 months ago, mostly with our food (I'm Mexican and we like spicy lol). He went through a rough time a few weeks after he arrived but just this morning he said "It's gonna be weird going back to Lebanon to visit and eat without tortillas or salsa. I think I'm gonna take some with me." My Mom almost choked on her water and I almost cried in pride. haha
 
Staying home has really worn on him, so we make a plan to go out on the weekends when I'm off. Even if it's to a nearby park or a new place he hasn't seen. I know you mentioned the financial issue may be a bit of a pickle, so if planning a trip home right now is too much to budget for, maybe discovering nearby places or states would be fun. As others said, staying busy makes time fly. Try to dissect the culture in your area and really get to know it. You might find things in it that you find enjoyable and that's the key to starting to make that place feel like a home away from home.
 
I wish you the best of luck!

I don't have a whole lot of advice here, but I do want to say that I sympathize with your situation and like others mentioned - your feelings are 100% valid. My husband is homesick often, and how could anyone not be? He gets through by staying busy with work, enjoying our life together, and meeting handful of new friends, but it will never be easy. As long as we live in the US, he will always be away from his family and from his home which is a really difficult thing to grasp.
 
I admire the strength in all of you who moved here to the US. A lot of people outside of this process judge and assume people WANT to come here because, "duh..it's the USA!" But those of us going through this process for the genuine purpose of being with the one we love recognize how difficult of a sacrifice you are making to be here. Just continue to remind yourself why you are here and that if you were back in the UK without your spouse, you would be longing to be back here with them. I know it's hard, but at the end of the day it should always be worth it. Once you get your AP/GC you will be able to visit and I'm sure that will help ease the intensity of it all. 

Also, from the petitioner/USC spouse perspective, it brings on a level of guilt that I never thought possible to feel. I feel so guilty that he had to leave all of that behind to be with me, but at the end of the day we chose a life together and made the decision together that US was best at first based on our situation. However, if the day comes where he tells me that it's too hard to be away from home and he wants us to live in his home country instead, I will drop everything and make the same sacrifice without hesitation. I think that's the important piece in these relationships - that each individual in the relationship be willing to make the same sacrifice.
 
Anyway - I truly hope that it gets at least a little bit easier for you as time goes on! 
 

Aw, I really feel for you. ❤️ I have the flipside of your experience -- I went to the UK to be with my husband (now ex-husband -- we were fiances only back then) as a six-month trial run before we decided where to live. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I hated it! I had lived over there for almost a year on a junior year abroad, but it was a COMPLETELY different experience just being over there and having nothing to do (obviously I couldn't work, I was a tourist). When I was a student, I had classes and classmates and homework and projects and a big social life, and all of a sudden I had one person who was the focus of my whole life. It was better when we were in London because I had friends there and obviously (as you know) there is so much to do and places to explore, but I also spent a considerable amount of time out in Suffolk in the countryside, living with his parents. It was... not great. I am a city girl and I went a little crazy during the times I was out doing nothing but going for long walks down to the sea. It didn't help that his work took him away traveling frequently (which is why I ended up in Suffolk, he was worried I'd lose my mind living alone but honestly I think I would have been better off in London during those times!).
 
Learn from my mistakes! I would have done better by speaking up for myself and making it clear what I did and did not want to do to cope with the feelings of loneliness I had. Living with his parents for example was not a good idea in reality, though it seemed like a good idea on paper. After the first horrible time, I should have said no instead of letting it happen again (and again 🙄). I didn't make it clear to him how much I needed him to be around more for me (this was an ongoing problem even after he settled in the US). Keeping the lines of communication clear is so important! Sounds like you have that covered so yay!
 
I also should have made more efforts to take part in local life -- there was a Women's Institute out in the country I could have joined, but I thought they wouldn't want me, and there were ample opportunities to volunteer that I passed by. I was way, WAY too shy and I thought everyone was judging me all the time for my accent. (American accents tend not to create the positive reaction over there as any of the various British accents do over here, in my experience.) I don't regret not making the move over there, but there were so many ways I could have made it easier for myself.

I don't want to quote a bunch of your stuff, so I'll just kind of broadly reply:
 
I've been in your shoes before and it sucks!  This was about 7 years ago when I lived in Scandinavia, but I just wasn't having it. It wasn't that I was homesick as much as that I didn't like where I was. I'm kind of a wanderer, so I don't mind moving somewhere new, it just has to be somewhat suitable.
 
Which brings me to moving. You and your husband should definitely come up with a plan to move somewhere else. About 5 years ago, the husband (immigrant) and I moved to a small town in the Midwest and while he loves it, these are not my people and I've had the itch to move for a little while now. It is becoming unbearable. I too am a homebody and the more I get to know people (which is a lot now), the less I like it. I thought the opposite might be the case, but nope. I don't know their second cousin who lives on the farm outside of town, or like hotdish, or even dress the same as them. Annnnd there is no diversity of thought, or appearance, or in general. 
 
I'm struggling, and I'm trying to balance my chances of getting into med school as a preferred local applicant in a few years, versus just moving. Fudge, even a trip to Fargo is exciting, if that says anything.
 

Haha! Not with the weather we're having here at the moment. Back in London it rained a lot but it rarely rained too hard. Here we've had thunderstorms with torrential downpours almost every day this past week. I didn't fancy swimming home on my bike!

Thank you all for your kind words and your suggestions and advice. It does help to know that I'm not the only one to feel like this, and that it will end - eventually. 
 
I've started talking to a local non-profit organisation about possibly doing some volunteer work for them, so if that comes off it will keep me busy and should also help with getting to know some more people. I also just took my bike out for a ride for the first time in a couple of months. I used to love riding my bike back in London and it was great to get back on it, even though my ride was curtailed because it started to rain. 

Hi all. I've been over here in the US for almost four months now - I arrived on March 4 on a K1 visa, married April 3, filed AOS at the end of May. This is meant to be what I wanted, and what I waited for for many months. I love my husband dearly. But I'm homesick.
 
When I say I'm homesick, I mean that I'm crying every day because I miss my home, my friends and my family so much. I lived in London for 18 years before coming over here, where I had a job that I (mostly) enjoyed. I had my life over there. I'm now living in a small town in Mississippi where there's very little to do, and there's not a lot to distract me from thoughts of home.
 
I'm trying to do all the things I've read that you're supposed to do to stop feeling homesick. I'm trying to keep up with hobbies, I'm trying to be social, to accept invitations and to meet new people (my husband knows a LOT of people) even though naturally I'm more of a homebody. But I can't stop thinking that this has all been a mistake and that we should have done things the other way round and my husband should have moved to the UK. 
 
Not being able to work and not being able to leave the country are making things worse. Some friends back home have said I can stay with them if I want to - and knowing that I can't is just killing me. Looking at photos of back home on Facebook just brings on more tears.
 
My husband is being wonderful and supportive. He keeps asking what he can do to help, and says that we can move wherever I want to once I'm able to work. But that's going to be the end of the year at the absolute earliest and I honestly don't know how I can wait that long. All I can think about is that I want to go home.
 
I guess I'm just looking for reassurance that this will get better. If you were homesick how did you cope? How long until you got over it? 
 

Thanks. Alas I've never been into sports - at home or here - so I can't see myself being sucked into going to baseball or American football games.I'll just have to find a different way to wind people up 😂
Anyway, it's great to hear from someone else who moved over here from London. I'm not going to pretend I loved everything about living there but the good stuff always outweighed the bad, enough for me to have stuck with it for 18 years. I sometimes think I'm crazy to have given up living there so it's reassuring to know there's life after London. 

Funnily enough right now I have our cat sitting on my lap trying to 'help' me to write this reply. I agree that having a pet around during the day does help. It's nice to feel useful, even if that is only as the cat's servant 😂

I'm with you on that! It does make me feel so much better to get out of the house. The problem I have is that I'm used to just being able to walk out of the house and get to wherever I want to go to, but I can't do that here. We're three miles out of the centre of town. There is a bus, but it runs once every half an hour at best and is rather unreliable - not to mention limited in where it goes. I can't walk to the store as it's about four miles away. I can get on my bike, and I can cycle to the park to read my book, but as it's hot and humid here (and only going to get hotter and more humid) I don't always want to! Walking has always been my therapy, and I miss being able to do it. I've told my husband that we have to move somewhere more walkable.  

What helped me a lot to keep my sanity,  was forcing myself to get out of the house every single day. It's so easy to just sit at home when you feel miserable, but just sitting at home just made me feel even more miserable. It made my world very small.
During the first month, when I did not have that rule yet, I would sometimes pick fights with my husband or just be very difficult. He'd ask me if I'd left the house at all that day, and that made me realize I'm a much nicer person when I get some time outside of the house. It could be anything: a walk to the store, a yoga class, a bike ride, or just reading a book on a bench in a park. 

Uh, depends on what she sounds like now to the Mississippi natives... might need to hire an interpreter.  

Funnily enough right now I have our cat sitting on my lap trying to 'help' me to write this reply. I agree that having a pet around during the day does help. It's nice to feel useful, even if that is only as the cat's servant 😂

Hey! We have similar timelines. I am probably opposite to you in the sense that I moved from the countryside in England to Manhattan, NYC so that in itself was a shock to the system 😂 I’ve visited here loads over the years but it’s totally different living here! Also I am such a social person and not knowing anyone has been such a struggle. My husband is the opposite to me and is a homebody. I really struggled with homesickness to the point where I was crying all the time and I felt really bad for my husband as he felt so guilty. 
I decided to try and refocus my thoughts and embrace my new life here, look for things I enjoyed doing even though it was by myself. I didn’t focus on being lonely instead, I focused on exploring and embracing the city. I joined an expats group on Facebook and I am meeting a group of girls on Thursday evening which I am really looking forward to! 
Not being able to work has been tough, not financially but mentally but I keep to a routine like getting up when my husband does, go to the gym everyday and plan something for everyday even if it’s something small. 
Facetiming my friends and family is great and they have also visited or will be visiting. Not being able to leave the country is tough but maybe try and plan a vacation within the states? I know it’s not the same but something to look forward to and there are so many amazing places to visit! 
 
You are definitely not alone and from the looks of the other experiences here it does get easier. Just embrace what you have and try and keep a positive mind ♥️ 

Funnily enough right now I have our cat sitting on my lap trying to 'help' me to write this reply. I agree that having a pet around during the day does help. It's nice to feel useful, even if that is only as the cat's servant 😂

I'm currently going through AOS too, something we weren't planning on doing when I got here in late April for what was supposed to be a visit. I am VERY relieved to not have to say a painful goodbye at the airport next month now that we have filed (got a text notification on Friday from USCIS) but I definitely feel some homesickness. Today is my nephew's 6th birthday and watching him open his presents via video call just now was a bittersweet experience. BUT I have been working on expanding our friendship group here in small town Oklahoma for the past two years and my husband's family are lovely when we visit them in Arkansas. 
 
I don't love the fact that I feel pretty bloody useless at the moment, and church bells chiming the time make me cry because that feels SO English to me! But I keep reminding myself that this is where I have been the happiest I have ever been. That the person I love is here, and I get to go to bed beside him every night now, for as long as we will have each other. That's why I'm doing this, and it's why it's worth the sacrifice of my life in England. 
 
I really believe it will get better and for me at least this isn't as bad as being away from my husband, wondering when I will see him again. 
 
As for coping, I am doing the things you talk about - seeing friends I have here, making new ones, keeping up with hobbies (I have several penpals and writing with them is something I can do from anywhere in the world so it feels nice and familiar), planning little days out for us on weekends. I may see if I can find some kind of distance learning course to keep me occupied too. Or maybe have a go at writing a book, why not! 
 
If you ever want to talk to someone who is going through all of this right with you, ping me a message 😊 
 

When my wife (also doing K1 -> AOS) feels homesick, she makes food from her home country. I'm not sure if that makes her more or less homesick 🤔  but at least it's delicious. 😆

She also recently started taking some English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at the local library, and enjoys that as an activity to do and as well as to meet new people.

While that wouldn't necessarily make sense for you to take as a class, maybe you could volunteer your time as an ESL teacher at your local library/school? Or if you want to lean a new language (and as people said, it seems to be a university town), maybe you could enroll in that kind of class (or any kind of class)?

Volunteering and exercise were going to be my top suggestions. Both of those really helped my husband to not go out of his mind. Another thing that really helped was having our dog at home for company during the day, although I realize not everyone has the time and resources that a pet requires. Volunteering at a place like a homeless shelter/soup kitchen/food pantry can really help get your mind off of your homesickness and refocus on being grateful for what you do have.

Didn''t want to admit it at the time (the ex said I was a typical English male in this regard) but I was rather homesick while my AOS was progressing. I'd left a full social and work life in London, and now here I was in Pasadena, CA with little to do and no friends. Wasn't a big fan of most of her friends either, but I was able to forge a strong bond with her father, which kept me sane. In London, I was constantly moving and in California... stasis. I filled the time with reading, primarily American history books to get a sense of how this country essentially created itself out of the wilderness, and I eventually let myself be dragged to an expat meetup where I connected with a couple of other recent immigrants from London/the Southeast.  Weekends were spent travelling and exploring Southern California, plenty to see around here. Keeping busy and active, and planning on next steps are key to combatting the malaise that inevitably sets in. Having a supportive spouse -- which you appear to have -- can't say enough for it. Though my ex and I split on terms that were not the best, I can't fault how she listened to my every gripe and whinge at the time, and did whatever she could to keep my spirits up. As soon as AOS was complete I went back to the UK for work reasons, spent six months there in total, and while it was comfortable to be home, it threw the aspects of life in America that I did enjoy into sharp relief, not least the lack of cameras everywhere over here! I had utterly forgotten how I was constantly under surveillance in London under the guise of security... and wanted to come back to where I felt much more free.
 
It does get better, can't disagree. Been here 9 years later this year and can't imagine moving back now. I even go to baseball games now, never would have imagined that when I first got here. Drove everyone mad describing it as 'bastardised cricket,' mostly to wind people up (it worked!), but now I do the seventh inning stretch with the rest of the crowd. Best of luck to you, this isn't the easiest time but it will pass, and faster than you think.