Many people who live abroad know the feeling of being "too Italian in London and too English back home", or too Spanish, too Brazilian, too Polish. You belong to two places, and at times to neither.
Living abroad gives you a lot: independence, new perspectives, a career, often a life you chose deliberately. It also asks for emotional work that nobody puts in the relocation checklist.
What expats rarely say out loud
Belonging becomes conditional. At home you're simply you. Abroad you're also "the foreign one", and you may have to earn your place in conversations, workplaces and friendship groups.
You live with a low hum of grief. Missed birthdays, ageing parents, friends' lives moving on without you. It's not dramatic, but it adds up.
You become the long-distance helper. When something goes wrong at home, you can feel responsible and powerless at the same time. Guilt about not being there often sits quietly under everyday life.
Your personality shifts with the language. Many people feel funnier, sharper or warmer in one language than the other. That can feel like being two people.
Going back doesn't fix it. Home has changed, and so have you. The place you miss partly exists only in memory.
None of this means you made the wrong choice. It means you're holding two worlds, and that takes energy.
From "either/or" to "both/and"
A common trap is treating identity as a choice: am I staying or going? Do I belong here now, or still there? Framed like that, every visit home becomes a referendum on your whole life.
A more useful question is: which parts of me belong where, and how do I give each of them room? You might need your home language, food and humour to feel fully yourself, alongside the ambition and freedom your adopted city gives you. Both can be true.
This is also why the decision to stay or return can feel so heavy. It's rarely only about jobs, rent or weather. It's about which parts of you get to live and which get put on hold. Seen that way, the choice often becomes clearer, or at least kinder.
Practical ways to feel more at home
Build rituals that travel. A Sunday lunch, a phone call at a fixed time, a café that becomes "yours". Rituals create continuity wherever you are.
Have at least one person who knows both worlds. Someone who understands your references and your adopted life. Isolation is often less about being alone than about being only half-known.
Notice when homesickness is really about something else. Sometimes "I miss home" means "I'm lonely", "I'm burnt out" or "I don't feel valued at work". Those are solvable where you are.
Grieve the small losses on purpose. Missing a wedding or a parent's birthday is allowed to hurt. Naming it helps it pass.
Let both languages in. Read, watch or listen to things in your home language, and keep learning the one around you. Each keeps a different part of you awake.
When to talk to someone
If you've been feeling flat, irritable or stuck for a while, if a breakup or job change has hit harder because you're far from your support network, or if you're facing a big decision about where to build your life, talk therapy can give you space to think it through without pressure.
A counsellor or psychotherapist can help you explore your history, your relationships and the different parts of you that each place brings out. Together you can work on practical ways to feel steadier, wherever you are.
Language matters here too. Some people find it easier to talk about painful things in their second language, at a slight distance. Others need their mother tongue to really reach the feeling. Both are fine, and noticing which is true for you is useful in itself. Many therapists work in more than one language, and online sessions mean you can keep the same therapist even if you move between countries.
You don't need to be in crisis to start. Sometimes the most helpful thing is simply having one place where both halves of your life are understood.
