I’m about to embark on my own journey as an expat. I’ll be living in Paris with my EU husband.

I speak good French and having lived in France twice before for 9-mo stints each, I am familiar enough with French culture to empathize with the negative and positive critiques that people share on this subreddit. In other words, I know what to expect.

Nonetheless I am still nervous about the move; fitting in, finding a community, finding my tribe. I’m nervous about feeling like I’ve made a colossal mistake to sell everything and move here.

The truth is is that reading this subreddit does not make me féel very optimistic. I read posts lamenting the move abroad, the regrets you have, the challenge adapting, and none of which are unwarranted! I get it Expat life is difficult!

……But my question is…is there anyone here who is happy with their decision to have moved abroad?

  • Host_Horror@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Based on discussions with others and my own experience there are two major factors that are key to making it work.

    1. You have to love the place the you move. It’s essential you are happy to come to this place after you’ve visited your place of origin or any other place. If you don’t love the place it will never work.

    2. You have to give it time. I mean a lot of time, like multiple years in order to settle and make it your home. Finding your feet takes a very long time. Finding friends is takes times and effort, learning the culture takes time and effort. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.

    Best of luck and enjoy your move!

    • josetalking@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      So much this. I just wanted to add: a lot of happiness (or lack) that everyone experiences come from within.

      You can’t expect a place to ‘make you happy’ if you are unhappy. Obviously, if your quality of life and general conditions improve a lot that helps, but people tend to go to their ‘baseline’ after sometime.

      Just my opinion. Happy immigrant to Canada since 8 years ago. I love it here and didn’t like it from where I come from (to the point I started to struggle with normal social interactions or expectations). In my case, it helped a lot to move to improve my baseline happiness.