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For those who are homesick, give yourself at least a year and try to find "new favorites."
That is, if your former routine was to walk the dog around the mini-lake behind the library and then get a cup of coffee at a dog-friendly cafe nearby, try to find something similar in your new area. It won't be exactly the same! But finding that little familiar routine may help you adjust to the new place more quickly.
Another idea is to try some new activities or regain interest in a hobby that you didn't have time for. Maybe you like to sketch or take photographs? Try visiting places that are new to you and taking photographs or making sketches. Maybe visit 5 new places, one per week, and at the end of the 5 weeks, revisit them. Often, by the end of the second cycle, you'll have new "favorites" plus occasionally meet new people and/or find new activities.
The main thing is get out and explore! Nothing good comes from sitting at home complaining or moping, for days on end. Sure, it's normal to feel a little homesick at times, but smile that it happened and then move on to new adventures.
Now, five months later, she is unhappy. She misses her friends, misses the old neighborhood, and doesn't like the job much. I've tried to get her involved with new things and new people and when we do that she seems okay for a while, but I can tell she doesn't like it here.
The biggest problem is that I DO like it here. I do more things here and have made more friends than I ever did in Chicago. If it comes down to it, and she wants to leave, I could not go back to a cold climate and the boredom of winter again. I just could not do it, so I don't know what to do.
I really don't think that it's a matter of IF she wants to go back, but when. She knows how I feel so there are going to be some difficult decisions ahead. I wish there was a good solution, but I'm not sure that there is.
This sounds very similar to my husband and I. We lived in the far western suburbs of Chicago our whole lives and raised our children there. My husband took early retirement in 2016 and was bored out of his mind. This started conversations of moving and checking out different states. Life it too short to stay in one place.
We researched where to move and looked at many different states. We ended up picking Las Vegas due to no humidity and good housing prices. Our house sold in 20 minutes of the first showing and we had to be out in 3 weeks. It was all too fast and too much change for me. I left my 5 year job, friends, family and everything that was familiar. I was shocked at how homesick I was! I wasn't a person who was ever really depressed and WOW, was I ever depressed after this move. It was shocking to me. I went back to IL about 4 months after the move to visit friends and had a wonderful time. I felt better after that trip because I realized I can still go visit. But it's odd to be a visitor to my old life. I didn't quite fit in like before.
My friends and I keep in touch, texting and phones calls quite often. But I know these relationships will change and fall away, it makes me sad. I feel very much like your wife does. I'm not a fan of the heat here in LV. I don't feel like this is "my place". I constantly look online at different areas and houses for sale. But my husband likes it here. He constantly talks about how awful Chicago winters were and how those suckers can have it! The thing is, I like winter and like shoveling snow, walking in snow, thunderstorms and green grass etc. But I'm here in the brown, hot desert. This is just not my favorite place.
I don't know what our solution is either. I feel your pain or should I say, I feel your wife's pain.
I see so many homesick people on here posting. They MUST have moved for a reason and now just make themselves sorrowful about it. Find things in your new home and try to learn to enjoy your surroundings and the people there. Try to adapt. IF not move back home.
Your only making yourselves sick about it.
I got to admit, I have moved or been transfered out of my state several times only to return on my own. This last time is the last, I'm getting to old for this crap. I got out of my old profession and am not getting back into one that transfers on a whim.
For myself, I never dealt with being homesick.Maybe it has to do with the fact that I lived at home until 23..then left and moved out of state and then back home at 27 and then moved back out of state for the last time later on.I was never homesick through all the times living away from home probably because I really loved living on my own and never had any close relatives that lived down the block or anything like some people might have had.
I feel that people who are homesick more are those that have always had a lot of family around them growing up and when they move away, that closeness is gone and they feel alone.
When we moved from the Midwest to NY, it was away from family and our childhood homes. It was in March, the weather was cold, we were behind a mountain with no TV reception and cable was scheduled two weeks out. I was homesick and felt out of place, but over time, with a new job and our son in school, it changed and we were soon calling it home. If given a choice, I would have moved back if I could have in the first year. After a few years and trips back home, I realized while it was great to visit, I would never want to move back.
We snowbirded to FL for five years with the intention to permanently move to FL.. It was a gradual move and we sold the NY house this past year. While I was sad to be leaving a place we had called home for 34 years, we realized our hearts weren’t there anymore. FL had become home, while NY felt like we were only visiting.
The flight or fight response is strong after a move and it’s easier to run back to the familiar than stay in unfamiliar surroundings. I would give a different location, especially one in a different region of the country, a good two years to assimilate. It takes time for everything to fall into place and become familiar and comfortable.
For myself, I never dealt with being homesick.Maybe it has to do with the fact that I lived at home until 23..then left and moved out of state and then back home at 27 and then moved back out of state for the last time later on.I was never homesick through all the times living away from home probably because I really loved living on my own and never had any close relatives that lived down the block or anything like some people might have had.
I feel that people who are homesick more are those that have always had a lot of family around them growing up and when they move away, that closeness is gone and they feel alone.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The only time I've ever been homesick was the first couple weeks at college. I'm one that enjoys living on my own and being self sufficient. Just like you said, I didn't grow up close to family outside of my parents and sister. We only saw my extended family 3-4 times a year. So I guess I'm fairly used to it.
I just moved from California, from land my family has owned since the early 1970's, a house my husband and I built together with our own hands, a beloved church community, and my aging parents. I moved 3000 miles away. Am I homesick? Not for a second.
I am adoring the foreign beauty of New England -- and it has been freezing cold and usually snowy since I got here -- the ancient farm house we bought, the friendliness of the inhabitants of the tiny town we call home now. Everything is new and sometimes the adventure is more like just stressful, but I am thrilled with it all so far.
It such a relief to be away from the drought, the fires, the unbearable crowds and traffic and pressure of California. It is my native state, and I once loved it, but slowly over the decades grew to hate it. I don't miss it in any sort of way.
But, I did spend at least a year "saying goodbye" to the parts I loved. When I finished that I was ready to go.
I am still stunned by the things I am homesick for as I never even thought about such things when we moved 800 miles away from "home" a year and a half ago. Things in the natural world, birds, green...that are missing here. Going on a year and a half and I still have bouts of wishing I was back there to see all the spring wildflowers and hear the birdsong. The way architecture and houses are so different. Just the differing general vibe. We had to leave though - could no longer afford the property taxes - so I try to look for the good things in our new locale. I think we who have moved tend to forget all the things we cursed about when we decided to leave. The grass is always greener...
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