So, you’ve decided to relocate.
A new country. The land of your dreams.
Everything is green. The birds are singing. Strangers smile at you on your morning walk and say “G’day” as though you’ve known each other for years. There are open spaces. There is quiet. No sirens.
You walk into the supermarket, fill your trolley, and somehow still have money left when you reach the checkout.
You can even devour a few rolls of sushi without needing to take out a second mortgage.
Basically, paradise.
So why does it sometimes feel as though something is still missing?
Because you can live somewhere wonderful and still miss home
Let’s put it on the table.
Many of us who live abroad are, to some extent, living with our hearts divided between two places.
On one side are the lives we have built here: our homes, work, children’s schools, friends, routines, the peace, the scenery and the opportunities.
And on the other side are the people and things we left behind.
Our ageing parents.
Our siblings.
Our nieces and nephews.
The friends who knew us long before we ever had to explain who we were.
And then there are the seemingly small things.
The language. The humour that doesn’t need translating. The songs. The food. The warmth. The culture. The feeling that you can begin a sentence and someone already knows how it ends.
Shall I continue?
Research into migration and international relocation has long recognised this emotional cost. Moving countries is not simply a change of address. It can mean losing or weakening established support networks and having to build new ones from scratch.
Research on relocating families has found that social support, family cohesion and genuine involvement in the decision to move can all play an important role in how well people adjust.
In other words, it isn’t enough for the new country to be beautiful.
We also need to feel that we belong.
And then there is your career
Sometimes relocation begins with an incredible opportunity for one partner.
A promotion.
A new position.
An adventure.
A fresh start.
And the other partner says:
Of course. We’re a family. We’ll do this together.
And then you arrive.
One person continues along their career path, while the other begins to realise that they may have to reinvent themselves completely.
Perhaps their professional qualifications aren’t recognised.
Perhaps the experience they built over many years back home doesn’t carry the same weight in the new country.
Perhaps their English is excellent, but they still have an accent.
Perhaps they need to retrain, change professions, start at the bottom again — or simply stay home with the children for a while.
And at first, that can even feel wonderful.
What an opportunity. I’ll finally have more time with the kids.
But then one year passes.
And another.
And somewhere along the way another question can begin to appear:
Who was I before we moved here?
And who am I now?
Research into dual-career couples and international relocation reflects something many couples discover through experience: when one partner’s career drives the move, the accompanying partner’s professional sacrifices can become increasingly significant over time.
What begins as a loving family decision can eventually affect identity, satisfaction, relationships and even the decision about whether to remain abroad or return home.
Relocation, in other words, is not simply about moving your belongings.
Your identity relocates too.
What happens when one person thrives and the other doesn’t?
This is perhaps one of the things we talk about least.
What happens when one partner loves the new country and the other desperately wants to go home?
What happens when one says:
“But look at the quality of life we have here.”
While the other is thinking:
“But I’m not happy.”
What happens when one person has found a career, friends and a sense of belonging, while the other feels they have lost their career, family, friendships and even part of their identity?
There doesn’t necessarily have to be a person who is “right” and another who is “wrong”.
Two people can move to exactly the same country, into exactly the same house, at exactly the same time — and experience the relocation completely differently.
Research on expatriate and relocating families has repeatedly highlighted that the adjustment of partners and children is not a side issue. The wellbeing and adjustment of each family member can influence the experience of the family as a whole.
Supporting only the person whose job initiated the relocation therefore misses a very important part of the picture.
And what happens when the “safe” place no longer feels quite so safe?
For Israelis and Jewish people living abroad, another layer has become increasingly difficult to ignore in recent years.
Antisemitism.
Suddenly, you might think twice before speaking Hebrew in certain places.
You might wonder whether your name sounds “too Israeli”.
Whether to tell people where you come from.
How people at work might react.
And these concerns do not exist only in our imagination.
In Australia, for example, the Australian Human Rights Commission reported in 2026 on experiences of racism and distress described by members of Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Arab and Israeli communities following 7 October and the war that followed.
And then your mind starts doing calculations you never imagined making when you first arrived.
Maybe I should apply to a Jewish organisation?
Perhaps I’ll feel safer there.
And if you’re lucky enough to get your foot in the door — wonderful.
The salary?
Well… that might be another article.
The hours?
Come on. What do you think?
And then life does what life tends to do: it changes
When we relocate as a couple, we usually plan our new life on the assumption that we will remain a couple.
But what happens if we separate?
Suddenly, the people who know everything about you are thousands of kilometres away.
Your mother can’t simply pop over to watch the children.
Your sister isn’t a short drive away.
Your best friend can’t turn up with coffee when everything falls apart.
You may find yourself navigating parenting, work, separation arrangements and an unfamiliar legal and social system — in a country that once represented nothing more complicated than our exciting new adventure.
And when the separation itself is difficult, the experience can become even more complicated.
I know.
Because this is part of my story too.
I relocated.
I was excited.
I saw the beauty, the opportunities and everything that could be gained from living somewhere different.
I supported my then-partner and his career.
I built a life.
I raised children.
I studied.
I worked.
I reinvented myself.
And today I also understand that the real cost of relocation doesn’t always appear on the day you unpack your suitcases.
Sometimes it reveals itself years later.
So am I telling you not to relocate?
Absolutely not.
Living in another country can be one of the richest experiences of our lives.
It can open an entire world to our children.
It can teach us another culture.
It can introduce us to people we would never otherwise have met.
It can create professional and personal opportunities.
And sometimes it allows us to discover parts of ourselves we never knew existed.
But before you move, don’t ask only:
Where will we live? How much will we earn? Which school will the children attend?
Ask some other questions too.
What will happen to each of our careers?
Who is sacrificing something — and what exactly are they sacrificing?
What will we do if, one day, one of us wants to go home and the other doesn’t?
How will we build a support network?
How will we maintain our relationships with the family we leave behind?
And what happens if, five or ten years from now, our lives look completely different from the future we are imagining today?
Because relocation isn’t simply about moving to another country.
It is the relocation of an entire family — with its identities, careers, relationships, longings and the individual dreams of every person within it.
And today?
I can openly say that sometimes I still feel torn.
I have two homes.
There are places where my heart feels at home, while some of the people I love most are somewhere else.
There is the life I built here.
And there are the roots I left there.
Perhaps that is one of the strangest truths about living between countries:
Once you have lived long enough in two worlds, the question is no longer simply, “Where is home?”
Because both places are home.
And somehow, neither one completely is.
So, for now, I live somewhere in between.
With two homes.
Two languages.
Two worlds.
And a heart that refuses to choose only one.
Waiting and hoping that, one day, its two halves might be just a little closer together.
