I’m(30m) from Scotland but have lived in Spain since 2017 I was a musician and music teacher I’ve been an English teacher (just kind of fell into it and turned out to be quite good at it) and I’ve lived in a few different cities and I’ve run summer camps for English learning. I’ve been in the north of Spain since September after I got a bit overwhelmed with living in a huge city as a neurodivergent person it was getting a bit much for me.i always thought Spain would be my forever home. I decided to travel Latin America between leaving city life in Barcelona and moving up here.
I have an ok job my living situation is ok not ideal but very cheap. But things just aren’t how I thought they would be after 4 months. I miss my friends and my family I’m struggling to make friends here and feel quite unmotivated to start from scratch when I have friends already I’m speaking to frequently at home and I’m falling into a bad cycle where I just go to work and sleep during the week and wander around on my own listening to podcasts on weekends.
In the back of my mind I have been toying with moving back home to Scotland…
Ive noticed there is limited career prospects in Spain and though I am an experienced English teacher after 6 years my pay doesn’t reflect it. I love the Spanish way of life but I think it would be a good idea to go to graduate school in the UK to try and have a feasible job in the future so I’m not living pay check to paycheck.
If anyone has moved back to the UK how did you find reconnecting and fitting in. I find my self thinking a lot about home all the things I have missed being away from and feeling nostalgic about being home and seeing family frequently and catching up with old friends who I’m still in contact with but I know the reality is very different and I would probably harder to adjust than I think.
Any advice appreciated.
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Returning to Scotland since living abroad has been horrible.
If you can try get a job somewhere else but maybe somewhere with better job prospects than Spain I would really recommend that.
Its shocking how much Scotland has deteriorated as a country even since 2017 and living in another country has really highlighted just how poor the standard of living is in Scotland from the climate to infrastructure and housing.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think it would be a good idea to spend some time at home and I could try to get a qualification. I love living in Spain but don’t want to waste my life in TEFL jobs without progression. I’ve noticed way too many older teachers working and getting paid the same as me some of them have 20 years plus experience on me I think the quality of life here can be a bit of a trap when we get a few years down the life and want to think about buying a house and kids etc. I don’t want to be in the same position forever for pretty low to average pay and don’t see much else progression teaching English.
I’m just curious to see how I would fit in again. I do miss live music and arts culture that I think the UK does better. But the Spanish speed of life is hard to pass up. I really don’t mind the rain and seasons I’m in the north of Spain so it rains a lot here. I think the hardest thing for me would be the short winter nights but I guess it’s balanced out by long summer nights. I may even try a different career I trained as a carpenter before going to university to study music and fell into teaching. I hear trades jobs are super in demand and highly payed in the UK now so may look into re entering that sector.
Thank you
After 35 years of living abroad, I have just returned for the first time to the city of my birth.
The city has undergone changes, but I changed even more, having spent most of my life in foreign lands. It’s very weird. I now speak with an accent, which I hope to shed soon. Many of the familiar things are still here, but they don’t look the same. And many things and people I loved are gone.
A few relatives that I had here have moved to a remote part of the country, and all of my friends moved to other countries long time ago. I find myself here, with my spouse (whom I met and married abroad many moons ago), feeling like a foreigner in my own homeland.
Home was the place in which I grew up. Geographically, that place still exists, but it no longer feels like home.
So relatable
many things and people I loved are gone.
There’s a Welsh word hiraeth that means longing for a place that no longer exists. I think many of us who have moved away and tried to go back home have experienced at least some of this feeling.
Millport 😭
It’s a challenge. I moved back over a decade ago, and I still feel like I’m readjusting. Not so much now, but maybe five or so years in, I was still adjusting a lot to being back.
just like another foreign country
Exactly - I’m not just an expat I’m a nomad with no sense of home. I am contemplating returning to my home country but I’m so burnt out from the stress of my life the past couple of years it feels overwhelming
I’m also an ESL teacher and going back to the UK hit hard, especially just the lack of employment prospects there, our experience is worth nothing, it’s basically like starting again from the beginning.
That, and the reverse culture shock hits like a freight train. The boredom, normality of everything and while friends/family will be polite, nobody could give a damn about your overseas experience. I spent many a day looking out the window at the rain and reminiscing riding a motorcycle along a beach in Thailand or eating pizza in Italy and wondering where my life went wrong.
I was on a plane out again within 4 months and have no desire to ever go back to Blighty.
Could you return to Scotland to do a teaching PGDE (fully funded for Scottish nationals) and then get a better paying teaching job in Spain after?
I studied OS, went back home and nothing worked out for me. Felt like the last few years didn’t happen. So moved back OS and still there .
Moved back to Ireland after 20 years away.
Everyone had moved on. Friends not in the same place as me re family etc. The place/world seems less social now. Couldn’t find a rental in Dublin where I’m from and don’t already own. Couldn’t get a mortgagae despite decent salary. Couldn’t get kid in loczl school where we settled.
Overall, just miss being an expat, so off I go early next year after 2 years back Not for everyone but I miss the little and “weird” communities I’ve had over the years and being somewhat "special’ in the “host” country.
I’m in a similar situation and moved back to the UK from a very different country 5 years ago.
Honestly it was incredibly difficult making the transition back home, and I still feel like a part of my identity and experience is missing here. I also really miss using my foreign language skills alot. It took me about two years to fully settle back here.
For me however I feel like moving back has been crucial in allowing me to address some issues that were unresolved before I left and I feel like I have grown a lot since I have returned and built more security for myself, although it has been a painful experience!!
I plan to return to the country that I lived in every one to two years to experience it again on holiday, and maybe in the medium term I will return for a few years, but life in the UK has advantages too, so we’ll see as I’m only early thirties right now.
My husband came back to the uk in 2017 after 15 years in the US. We met in 2019 and are now in the process of moving to Canada; I’ve been in the uk for almost 20 years. He cannot wait to get out of here again!