He’s having the time of his life. I’m crippled by homesickness.

Help me Hera,

I convinced my partner to move to London (from Wellington) with me. Now, he loves it and wants to make a life here and I’ve had an ego death and want to run home forever. Pls help.

Yours sincerely,

Homesick 

Dear Homesick,

I’ve never moved to another country before. But I do know what it’s like to hate and fear London. I’ve only spent a brief amount of time there, and it’s always coincided with a blistering heatwave, during some nightmarish period of royal pomp, the streets reeking of hot garbage. I felt like every moment I was in London was spent wandering between Pret-a-Mangers and overpriced torture museums, trying and failing to find a public toilet. 

I’ve never convinced anyone else to move for love. But I have been successfully convinced, several times, with mixed results. In a way, I think it’s harder to be the convincer because you have to be in the position of selling a fantasy. And when the fantasy doesn’t live up to your expectations, it can be disappointing. It doesn’t help that places like London are already so mythologised that it’s hard to know what you’re letting yourself in for. I went to London, half-expecting to encounter a world of fishmongers and pickpockets. But travelling through 21st-century Europe is just an endless succession of Zaras and discount vape shops.

It’s completely normal to be homesick, even if moving to the other side of the world was your own stupid idea. People say it takes a couple of years to adjust to a new place, and in my opinion, that’s an extremely conservative estimate. You didn’t say how long you’ve been there, but I get the feeling that it’s still fresh. Long enough that some of the novelty has worn off, and you’ve had a proper chance to miss home, but short enough to feel like you don’t belong.

It’s also hard to move as a couple. It can be wonderful to have a partner to explore a new city with, but it can also make you less likely to go on a spontaneous riverboat tour with a group of Austrian strangers you just met. Or whatever it is young people do in Europe. It’s equally hard to find friends as an expat couple without feeling like an old pair of swingers, sizing up likely strangers from across a crowded bar.

It must be hard to see your partner thriving when you’re longing for home. Especially when home is a 24-hour, several-thousand-dollar plane journey away. It’s not like you can easily pop back for a weekend.

However. I think you should give it a bit longer. I guess it depends on how much time you’ve already invested. But I would suggest committing for at least another year. Giving yourself a deadline means you can stop trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea, and simply try to acclimatise to your new reality. You don’t even have to like it. It’s OK to admit something wasn’t everything you hoped it would be. Allow yourself to metabolise that initial disappointment, and accept it for what it is – a fascinating and occasionally hideous and regrettable experience.

If you haven’t already, I would suggest spending some time alone, trying to get to know the city on your own terms. Even if you can find a few good secret places – a fancy hotel lobby with a good bar, a corner of the Tate, or a quiet duck pond where you can have a shameless public weep, you might feel less like a third wheel in your partner’s new love affair with London. Taking charge of a place, and finding a few private bolt holes is a great way to feel less like a stranger.

I would also recommend you travel as much as you can. You’re so close to literally everywhere else in Europe. Take a train together to Dylan Thomas’s boathouse in Wales, or Froggyland in Croatia or whatever’s going cheap that weekend, and make the most of what a giant city has to offer, whether that’s niche art exhibitions, bands that would never visit the Southern Hemisphere, or fancy graveyards full of the skeletons of great philosophers and prestigious homosexuals.

Being away from home can feel deeply lonely, even when you’re with someone you love. But travelling is one of those experiences which inevitably becomes more meaningful in retrospect. Even if you’d trade in a hundred trips to the Rodin Museum to spend a quiet hour in front of the Bucket Fountain, one day you’ll look back on this experience with fresh eyes, and you’ll feel grateful for the risk you took, and the things you saw, even if what you saw was mostly a load of old chicken shops and hair salons. In short, one day, all of this pain will be useful to you.

I’m not saying you should stay forever, even if your partner decides he wants to. You don’t even have to enjoy yourself. But make the most of it while you can, for as long as you can bear it. Unless New Zealand falls afoul of the next major asteroid, home will still be waiting for you, if and when you choose to return.