Anyone married to an immigrant who prefers his home country

[Anonymous]

Our life is here and dh doesn’t want to move back but he really misses his country and feels he “over estimated how nice America was” in his youth. This recent current political climate didn’t help things but this was his feeling a decade prior. We try and do things to preserve his culture (we are bilingual household and kids know about their culture) but it’s obviously not the same as living there. We have just now visited the first time in 22 months and he really is sad having to go back home. What’s even more “shocking” is he isn’t from a “nice” European country, he’s from Mexico, in a particularly middle class/poor area but he just has a very lovely family whom made his childhood wonderful and all his memories lie within Mexico. I also have a grown fondness for it as I love his family and him so it comes natural to me now too. I have no desire to live in Mexico though. And like I said he doesn’t either but it doesn’t help the long grieving process of raising your kids so far away. Anyone in a similar situation with spouse? Are their things you have learned that can help the situation? Thanks

[Anonymous]

How does this affect you? Or is it more of a desire to make him less sad?

[Anonymous]

Thomas Wolfe was right — you can’t go home again.

My entire childhood, my Mother yearned for the town she grew up in. We heard all about what a wonderful, magical place it was. Finally, after I went away to college, my parents moved back there. She hated it. I don’t know if the place had changed, or she had changed and the town hadn’t, but they left after a few years.

If what your husband wants is to return to his childhood, that place isn’t likely to exist anymore. Even if his family is still there, visiting is very different from living with them every day.

However, sometimes it does work out — my DH and I moved to the town he grew up in, and we’ve really enjoyed it, so far. However, we moved here because it happens to be a really nice place that met all our criteria for retirement, and he had zero nostalgia or expectations related to his childhood or family. It’s a fresh start; it just happens to be in a familiar place.

[Anonymous]

Can you try to visit on a regular basis a couple times a year if possible?

[Anonymous]

I thought you were going to say your DH is from some place like a war zone where he can’t ever go back. Mexico should be relatively easy to visit regularly, no?

[Anonymous]

I’m married to someone who is homesick for the country he grew up in. Being a different race than white just compounds it for him. It’s a sad situation and there’s no fix, really. There is no way we could move there as a family. I feel very bad for him, especially since I believe that if he knew then what he knows now, he would never have emigrated here and would have stayed there. But with kids, marriage, career, family back home dead, home changed from how it used to be: it all makes it impossible.

[Anonymous]

The World Bank classifies Mexico as an Upper Middle Income country. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he has more than just fond memories because of his family. Is buying property in Mexico for longer visits an option? I feel for your DH. Being Mexican in today’s political climate can’t be easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought you were going to say your DH is from some place like a war zone where he can’t ever go back. Mexico should be relatively easy to visit regularly, no?

it depends on where. If DH grew up well off, then yes. If DH grew up poor in Guerrero, then visiting is probably not something OP would want to do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thomas Wolfe was right — you can’t go home again.

My entire childhood, my Mother yearned for the town she grew up in. We heard all about what a wonderful, magical place it was. Finally, after I went away to college, my parents moved back there. She hated it. I don’t know if the place had changed, or she had changed and the town hadn’t, but they left after a few years.

If what your husband wants is to return to his childhood, that place isn’t likely to exist anymore. Even if his family is still there, visiting is very different from living with them every day.

However, sometimes it does work out — my DH and I moved to the town he grew up in, and we’ve really enjoyed it, so far. However, we moved here because it happens to be a really nice place that met all our criteria for retirement, and he had zero nostalgia or expectations related to his childhood or family. It’s a fresh start; it just happens to be in a familiar place.

I think this is true. The longer we are away from a place, the more it turns into an idealized version. Even going back to my hometown to visit in my 20s brought that point home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thomas Wolfe was right — you can’t go home again.

My entire childhood, my Mother yearned for the town she grew up in. We heard all about what a wonderful, magical place it was. Finally, after I went away to college, my parents moved back there. She hated it. I don’t know if the place had changed, or she had changed and the town hadn’t, but they left after a few years.

If what your husband wants is to return to his childhood, that place isn’t likely to exist anymore. Even if his family is still there, visiting is very different from living with them every day.

However, sometimes it does work out — my DH and I moved to the town he grew up in, and we’ve really enjoyed it, so far. However, we moved here because it happens to be a really nice place that met all our criteria for retirement, and he had zero nostalgia or expectations related to his childhood or family. It’s a fresh start; it just happens to be in a familiar place.

NP. The above PP (and Thomas Wolfe) are right. The "home" your DH is longing for is in his mind, not in Mexico today.

PP also makes an excellent point in saying that even if his family is still there, visiting is not the same as living with them every day. He may have a truly wonderful family there right now (my DH is an immigrant and his family is wonderful) but your DH needs to realize that if he returned there to live, day in and day out, the interactions would not be the same. He was a child (and teen/young adult?) there, and would return as an adult. The rose-tinted glasses would fall off pretty quickly.

I note you say he isn't talking about moving back there but does he wax lyrical about how wonderful it was? Does that make you feel insecure about his satisfaction with his life here and your life together?

If he occasionally shows fondness for his childhood memories, that's one thing, and it's fine and normal. But if he spends a lot of time talking negatively about his current life while comparing it to his idealized life as a kid in Mexico--that actually would be a problem, to me. There's a saying you might need to pull out and use gently on him, if he does that: "Comparison is the thief of joy."

I"m not saying his life there was anything other than genuinely lovely and idyllic, and it's great if he can remember that fondly, but if he uses it to compare to his life here, now, with you, that would be a concern. My DH had terrific parents, still has aunts and uncles he adores, and a sibling he gets along with wonderfully, and he treasures all that (as do I) but he would not compare his life in his home country to his life here. If your DH is comparing and doing it frequently, you may need to point that out and talk to him about the fact it affects your feelings.

[Anonymous]

No.

Men are kind of stabbing in the dark and guessing how they’re supposed to feel about anything. My immigrant spouse contradicts himself all the time guessing what someone wants to here: I like it here, I like it there, my parents must wish I lived closer, etc.

[Anonymous]

DH and I are from Europe and Asia, and we love ALL our countries, including the USA. Of course we miss things from our home countries. Of course each country has pros and cons.

When you’re international, you understand that there is no perfect country - you yearn for the healthcare of one, the food of the other, the job opportunities of the third… if only all the good things could be present in just one country!

[Anonymous]

DH is from a country with universal health care and an earlier retirement age. When he goes back, many of his work friends are retired and doing other things or just relaxing. Sometimes, I feel guilty because he came here to be with me.

[Anonymous]

Prefers, no. But as he ages, the nostalgia is much stronger. He frequently follows news of home country and politics and is often engaged in conversation with friends that still live there via phone apps- as where before he seemed not at all interested in home country.

[Anonymous]

Prefers the home country? PREFERS?

It is not preference. It is a deep ache of missing something that is a part of your history, culture and human connection. This is common to people who go to any other country. You miss the culture and connections of the old country even when you are making connections and soaking in the culture of the new country. A person cannot compartmentalize this. You are human. You feel.

Every country is different. I love a lot of material conveniences and personal freedom in US and would miss it when I go back to my home country. I miss the social, family connections and contact of my home country and it is frightening to me to grow old or poor in this country because no one gives a damn.

I live in a whole lot of comfort in this country. I am also a lot more lonely and anxious in this country.