When people move abroad, they expect to miss others.
They know there will be birthdays they cannot attend, family meals seen through a screen and friends they will not see as often as before.
What they may not have anticipated is how literally life back home continues without them.
At first, they are still very present. People ask about the move, the new flat, the job, the city. They send photographs, explain what is different and tell the same stories several times.
Then, slowly, the questions become less frequent.
It is not that their people do not care. The move is simply no longer new, and their lives continue. There are new jobs, relationships, illnesses, pregnancies, separations, family fallouts and small everyday events they hear about later, sometimes by chance.
A close friend mentions a name they do not recognise. Their family has celebrated something important without them. People refer to conversations they were not part of. Someone they have never met has become part of their group of friends.
The connection is still there, but it is different.
Messages and video calls cannot replace being there. They may learn the main news while missing everything around it: the tone of a conversation, the atmosphere in the room, the small details that give the full picture.
Instead of sharing everyday life, they exchange updates.
“It is one of the less obvious challenges of choosing a life abroad, and it would seem a contradiction for someone who chose to leave to now struggle with distance.”
This is something international clients very often bring to therapy. It is one of the less obvious challenges of choosing a life abroad, and it would seem a contradiction for someone who chose to leave to now struggle with distance. But it is really a flip side, during these weeks of summer break, when many reunite with their friends and family, it becomes more noticeable.
There is often the conscious or unconscious longing to feel completely at home, only to discover that somehow they are now partly a guest, that life there has gone on without them.
They try to see everyone in a few days. People rearrange plans, or perhaps they no longer do so as much as they did during the first visits. And sometimes a meeting does not happen. Someone is too busy. A friend seems to never get round to reaching out…
Feelings of disappointment, estrangement, even a bit of resentment are not uncommon, together with guilt for missing important moments, not calling enough or building a good life elsewhere while someone they love is struggling back home.
Neither side is necessarily doing anything wrong.
Distance changes relationships because it changes what can be shared. Some relationships adapt well. Others do become more distant.
Choosing a life abroad often implies accepting that belonging is no longer a simple matter: part of life will remain there and another part is being built here. And it does take adaptation and letting go of some assumptions that once were unquestioned.
I explore this and other less visible aspects of living abroad in my free guide, You Moved to Barcelona. Why Doesn’t It Feel the Way You Expected? You can download it here.