What is the psychological cost of moving abroad?
Like any major change, moving to another country can bring up intense emotions – and often difficult ones. Even when it’s a deliberate choice, made with good expectations and the excitement of a fresh start, it still carries the weight of loss. You leave behind friends, family, your language, the people you spent time with, the way of living you were used to. It’s like closing a door on a familiar world and opening another one that is unknown and full of demands.
That loss usually comes with sadness, homesickness, guilt and anxiety. People can feel they have betrayed the ones they left behind, or that they no longer belong anywhere. And while they’re working through those feelings, they start to realise that it isn’t only what’s behind them that’s difficult – it’s what’s in front of them too.
One of the most significant things that surfaces at this stage is confusion about identity. You find yourself asking again who you are: as a person, as a partner, as a parent, and professionally. Inside a new social and cultural setting, where the values, the rules and the expectations are different, it’s easy to feel the ground shift under your feet. Settling in means adjusting how you behave and redefining your place in a new reality.
Working through all of this – the loss, the new feelings, the question of who you are now – takes time and deliberate effort. There’s no single timeline. Everyone goes through it at their own pace, and how long it takes depends on a lot of things: your temperament, how prepared you were before you left, and what support you have around you, both in the country you came from and the one you’re in now.
The challenges don't stop there
Moving abroad is a deep change, and it isn’t confined to the psychological. There are other areas that shape how life turns out and how well someone settles in. Two of the most significant are social and political conditions, and money.
Social and political changes
How smoothly someone settles depends a great deal on the social and political climate of the country they arrive in. Where a society supports diversity and makes room for difference, there is a better environment in which to build a new life. Where attitudes are hostile or prejudiced, people can find themselves isolated or pushed to the margins.
Settling also asks for active participation: building new relationships, learning the language, finding your way into the institutions of the country. Above all, it means coming to understand the culture and the values of the society you have joined, so that you can adjust how you act and become genuinely part of it. That cultural exchange doesn’t mean losing your identity. It means putting together something new out of both cultures.
Money and work
The financial side is perhaps the biggest challenge of all. Most people move hoping for a better life and, along with it, better pay — but that isn’t guaranteed. Getting somewhere professionally usually takes preparation: making sure your degrees, certifications and work experience will actually be recognised in the new job market. Without that, it’s hard to compete for roles and salaries that match or improve on what you had at home.
When that recognition doesn’t happen, there’s a real risk of ending up lower down — professionally and financially — than where you started. That can be deeply stressful and disheartening, and it makes an already difficult period harder.
Preparing before you go
For all of these reasons, preparing properly before you move makes a real difference. That means looking into the culture and the job market of where you’re going, and getting ready psychologically for what’s ahead.
It also means keeping the people you’re leaving behind close. A conversation, a phone call, a video chat – these can be a genuine source of strength during the transition.
When a family moves
When a family decides to move abroad, it doesn’t only affect the person who found the job. It affects everyone — partners and children alike. The experience can open up real opportunities, but it also brings difficulties that, if they aren’t handled well, can strain the family as a whole.
The partner who comes along
Often the partner is the one who leaves a career and a professional role behind. That can mean losing a sense of who you are, feeling isolated, and in some cases real strain between the two of you. Research suggests that moving abroad tests marriages, particularly where there were already difficulties.
And it isn’t only the relationship. Everyday life changes completely: a new home, a new language, new institutions to navigate – schools, public services, paperwork. For every member of the family, that brings uncertainty and stress.
This is a period when holding together matters. Where parents and children can talk openly about what they’re each finding hard, where decisions are made together, and where there is encouragement and some humour, adjusting tends to go more smoothly.
What children go through
For a child, moving abroad is one of the biggest changes they will experience. It can involve:
- Losses. They leave behind their home, their school, their friends.
- Constant change. A new school, a new language, new friends to make. This often leaves them feeling unsettled and repeatedly separated from people.
- Confusion about identity. They find themselves asking where they belong. Different cultures carry different expectations — in one country the message might be that boys don’t cry, while in another children are encouraged to say what they feel.
These children, often called Third Culture Kids, grow up between three cultures: the family’s, the country they came from, and the country they live in. That can be confusing. But it also gives them something valuable — they tend to become more resilient, more adaptable, and they develop an ease across cultures that serves them later on.
What helps
There are practical things that make adjusting easier for families and children:
- A secure bond. When parents have a good relationship with each other and with their children, that becomes a steady place to come back to, and it takes the edge off the anxiety.
- Talking openly. Conversations around the kitchen table, where everyone shares what they’re thinking and feeling, help children make sense of what they’re living through.
- How the parents handle it. Children watch their parents closely. When parents cope and meet the change with some optimism, children tend to do the same.
- Support around you. Schools, clubs, expat communities, and staying in contact with family and friends back home all work as a safety net.
- Professional support. In some cases, counselling can be genuinely useful in helping a family manage the stress and the adjustment.
The value of expat communities
When a family moves, how well they adjust doesn’t depend only on their own resources but also on what surrounds them. Communities of people from the same country – those already living where you’ve just arrived – play a real part in that. They work as a kind of safety net, offering company, a sense of the familiar, and practical help with everyday life.
These communities matter because of what they offer:
- Emotional support. A family that has just arrived can feel intensely alone. Meeting others from home helps them feel less adrift in an unfamiliar country.
- Language and culture. Children and parents can keep speaking their own language, mark the traditions they grew up with, and hold on to parts of who they are. That gives them something steady during a period of enormous change.
- Practical help. Advice about schools, about public services, about the job market — even which shop sells what.
The risk of staying inside it
If a family stays only within its own community and never opens up to the wider society, it can end up caught in a kind of isolation. In the research this is called separation, and it tends to lead to greater difficulty adjusting, and to fewer opportunities – for the children as much as for the parents.
Finding the balance
Research points to integration as the most successful strategy: Keeping parts of your own culture while taking an active part in the new society.
In practice that means:
- Children making friends both within their own community and at their new school.
- Parents keeping their first language at home, while also learning and using the language of the country they live in.
- The family taking part in local celebrations, events and institutions, with some openness and willingness to engage.
What a family gains from that balance
- A double support network. They have both their own community and the new social world around them.
- Better mental health. People who find a place in two cultures at once tend to carry less anxiety and to adjust better over time.
- What the children take with them. They learn to move easily between different environments, and to be more open and more resilient. Those are skills that stay useful long after the move.
How far apart the two cultures are
Cultural distance – the differences between two countries in values, customs, language, traditions and ways of living – has a great deal to do with how adjustment goes. The wider those differences, the more demanding the process of settling in becomes.
Where the differences are small, individuals and families usually adapt faster and with less friction. Where they are large, stress increases, and difficulties can appear: Anxiety, isolation, sometimes conflict. Put simply, the more unfamiliar the new environment feels, the higher the obstacles are for everyone in the family.
For the individual
You have to learn new rules for how people communicate and behave, adjust to different professional norms, and find your place in society again. When the cultural distance is wide, it can leave you feeling that you’re losing who you are, or that you aren’t quite good enough for where you now live.
For the family
Families face a double task: the parents have to adjust to a new society, and at the same time support their children through it. Children in particular often feel confused about who they are, as they come up against different social expectations, new languages and unfamiliar school environments.
The stages of settling in
Adjusting to a new country — for an individual, a family, and especially for children – doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process that moves through stages. How long each one lasts differs from person to person, but there are patterns that repeat.
Stage 1: Excitement and curiosity
For the family
At first, many family members go through what’s often called the honeymoon period. There’s excitement about the new country, curiosity about what’s ahead, an appetite for exploring. Children may be pleased with the new school or the different rhythm of the day, while parents feel a certain pride at starting over. This stage doesn’t usually last long, though — a few weeks to a few months.
For the individual
Someone who moves alone often feels a sense of freedom and adventure. Everything is new and absorbing. There’s pleasure in discovering different habits and in the feeling of starting from nothing. But, as with families, that excitement doesn’t hold for long.
Stage 2: The shock
For the family
Once the initial excitement fades, the real difficulties start to show. The language, the different rules, the customs nobody explains. The family often feels foreign, and small everyday tasks – an appointment at a government office, a conversation with a teacher – can look like mountains.
This is the stage where anxiety, loneliness and a sense of isolation tend to appear. Children may struggle to make friends or to express themselves at school, while parents feel they are carrying the responsibility for everyone. This stage usually lasts around six months.
For the individual
Someone on their own can feel the loneliness far more sharply. There’s no one close by, and every difficulty has to be handled alone – from a bureaucratic process to a trip to the supermarket. That often brings anxiety, sadness and a sense of estrangement.
These small daily trials, once they accumulate, can deepen the weight of being alone and wear down a person’s resilience.
When anxiety and low mood carry on for a long stretch, they can develop into something that needs proper attention.
Stage 3: Finding your footing
For the family
As the months pass, the family begins to learn how things work. Parents get a clearer sense of how the society functions and pick up new skills, language among them, while children find their rhythm at school. New friendships form gradually, and habits settle in that bring a feeling of stability.
Slowly, a clearer sense of identity takes shape – both as a family and as people with a place in the new society. Alongside knowing how the system works, that process builds a kind of inner balance. Family members start to feel they genuinely belong somewhere, even if the homesickness never entirely goes.
For the individual
Someone living alone gradually builds a routine. They learn how the services work, get used to the new workplace, form steady friendships or acquaintances, and feel less adrift. This stage brings relief and a sense of progress, even if the homesickness stays.
By now, a new sense of identity has largely taken shape. The questions become easier to answer: who am I, what brought me here, and where do I want to go from here.
Stage 4: The long view
After a year or two, most people find a balance between the new culture and the one they came from. Some take on the new society completely, others hold on firmly to who they were, and most live somewhere between the two.
Adjusting doesn’t mean the difficulties disappear. It means the family, or the individual, has learned how to meet them. Life has a routine and a sense of stability, and a new identity has taken hold – one that is genuinely theirs.
In closing
Moving abroad is a long road, full of hope and full of difficulty. It isn’t simply a change of place. It’s a deeply personal and family experience that touches your sense of self, your identity and your daily life. Everyone who moves carries the world they left with them, and is asked to build a new one, balancing between two cultures.
However hard the process looks, adjusting is possible. With good preparation, an open mind, support from those close to you and an active part in the new society, individuals and families can not only get past the obstacles but discover new sides of themselves.
In the end, moving can become the beginning of growth, resilience and a life richer than the one that was left behind. Because although our roots stay alive, we have it in us to plant new seeds wherever we find ourselves.