Homesick!

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I posted “Im going to therapy” earlier this week & many of you replied & offered wonderful advice - thank you! I havent gone yet. I chose a traditional therapist at first & several of you recommended that I see a Catholic therapist. Well I found one, but cant get in to see her for a while.

If you dont mind, I’d like to use this forum as my therapy - at least until I can get into talk to my therapist. I know this forum is not a substitute for professional help, but I dont feel that I need urgent help & Ive been dealing with it a long time! Everyone here is so wonderful & helpful! I appreciate that very much!

After speaking to my husband earlier this week about why I feel so sad sometimes, he revealed something to me that I honestly never saw. I dont have friends that live close & thats why I feel lonely & trapped sometimes.

I would love to pick up & move back to my hometown in Ohio. There are so many people there that I miss & love including my old friends! Instead my husband wants me to give this place a chance. (weve been here 5 years & Im still homesick!) Im even more homesick now that we are starting a family. He LOVES it here & he can not imagine ever living back in Ohio.

While our new hometown is lovely, I cant embrace this place. Is there a prayer that I can say to help me get thru this?
 
Have you been married long? One thing I would say is to remember you, your husband and children are your family. Sometimes things happen that you have to make a move that takes you away from all you know and love. But you are never alone! Embrace the family you are creating as God has surely chosen them for you.

Additionally I would say it can be difficult to form adult friendships. The dynamics are different and they grow more slowly than the friendships of our childhood. But they are by far sweeter, deeper and more rewarding. Put yourself out there and find a friend. It may take a while- it did for me-but it is worth it.

I would pray to the Holy Family. Look to them for inspiration and know you aren’t alone.
 
Boy, do I understand. I was pulled away from my home one week after burying my beloved father. The circumstances were terrible and I spent two years ('03-'05) heartsick and alone. Through it I made deliberate steps closer to Christ. I made a point of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and while none of it took away my alone-ness, it did help me accept that there was a purpose to it. I would advise you to let your husband lead, because he is your head. You will have peace and joy with this, if not friendship and pleasures.
After those two years my husband expressed his desire to move us even farther away from my family, which I was unsure of, but agreed to. God has blessed that move one hundred fold! I have found friends, a better foundation of faith for my children, and a happier marriage.
 
Volunteering and helping others are good ways to get yourself out, meet people, and distract yourself from feelings of homesickness and mild depression.

I see in your public profile that you are a medical secretary and the mother of Kate. Is there a mom’s club in your church or a women’s group? If Kate is in school, you could help out at school or at CCD. When my oldest was a newborn, we had just moved to a new area and I was working part-time. It wasn’t until she got to elementary school that I really started meeting other parents. She was in a Catholic school and Catholic schools ALWAYS want parents to help–as playground monitors, class mom, Scout leaders, library helpers, and similar. (Not to mention fundraising, but THAT’s a can of worms!) Consider also helping another ministry–such as visiting senior citizens in your parish, making meals for the sick or for families suffering a death in the family. There is nothing like helping someone less fortunate than yourself to appreciate your own life and to have a sense of serving God.
 
Wow!! I know exactly how you feel. We live only 1 1/2 hours away from my hometown and it feels like it’s 1200 miles away! I would get homesick alot, but the feeling has slacked off tremendously. I’ve been living in this “new” town for 4 years now, and I LOVE it. I don’t know if you have any children, but that’s how I made new friends ---- through my children. I used to cry alot because I felt so alone by myself with the kids when my husband was working. I started venturing out to the park, and put my daughter in dance classes where I made some really great friends. It’s so funny how when we go back to visit in our hometown, everytime we meet up with old friends ---- my husband and I comment to each other that we are glad that we don’t live there anymore because we see how everyone is so enmeshed in your lives and they are so gossipy. We never realized it until we took a step back. Life is what you make of it. Get all dressed up, get out, meet new people and have some good fun. Don’t let the fact that your old friends aren’t living around you anymore discourage you from making new ones. PM me anytime…I know exactly how you feel!!! I have learned how to deal with it, and I think I do a pretty good job 👍
 
You have gotten some really good advise on how to meet people. Volunteering being the best place to start. Have you thought about going to an exercise class? Try something like Jazzercise or Curves - these are smaller groups of people and better places to meet people than a Gym - although a Gym is a good place to go too, just go to the classes offered, not the individual things you can do like ride the bikes, walk the treadmill etc. You want to go where there will be groups of people doing exactly the same thing together.

At each of the places I have lived since I was married I volunteered to teach CCD, the first I didn’t really make friends but we had moved with another couple who introduced us to another couple so we had a little bit of friendship and then I went to a Y exercise class in a store front - didn’t make many friends there either as I was the only one wtih a baby, most of the others children were already in school but they were friendly so it was nice for me to see and be with other adults for an hour a day three days a week.

Then we moved and I was stuck again as we only had one car but I would go for walks and one of our new neighbors introduced herself (took her a lot of courage to do that) and we became friends, they have since moved but I have made many friends since then. I have lived in this community now for 24 years and have many friends and even more people who know me because I have volunteered at Church and through Girl Scouts and I am a Class Manager at Jazzercise and…

It sometimes takes time to get to know people but you also have to put yourself in the places where they are to get to meet them. As someone else pointed out, once your child(ren) get to be school age you get to know more people and have more opportunities to be involved in the community.

Brenda V.
 
we moved out of state when we got married, had no one nearby and struggled when kids were little. Had some friends from college, but when I started getting busy with kids our interests diverged. What helped me was working with other parents to start a preschool during one of the Sunday Masses, we all took turns watching teaching the little ones once every 6 weeks, but getting together to plan and organize helped us get to know one another. Then we started play dates, exchanging babysitting etc. We all got active in the parochial school when our kids started, then cub scouts, girl scouts, softball etc.

These women are still friends and we all have grandchildren. When our kids were older and we were struggling with teenage stuff our parish started small faith sharing groups as part of a renewal program. That was another source of strength, lots of new members came and went, still a strong core of 8-12 women. We have scattered somewhat but still correspond, call, and get together a few times a year. Basically I found a way to start a new family. I still have only one or two close friends, I am not the type to have more. They are people I met through CCD and parish work with similar interests and outlook and problems.
 
I am also an Ohio Gal who married when I was 20. I have now been a military wife for 10 years. I know homesickness like nobody’s business, it has been a way of life for me. I have never lived closer than 10 hours away, and over the years we only get to go “home” once or twice per yr. I also knwo what it is like to not have any friends nearby, and as a homeschool mom of three that makes it even tougher. If Im not moving away, my friends are or we are simply growing apart due to life changes.

All the advice is good. I found that counselling didn’t help because the way I was feeling now and then was normal under my circumstances. If you find that counselling helps you, that’s great, but for me it was just taking additional time out of my schedule for very little feedback, other than “can you talk you husband into getting out of the air force?” but I find that exercise, taking time for “me” when I can (rare event, indeed) and lots of prayer help. I offer up missing my husband and being responsible for EVERYTHING when he is gone to God and ask for His Grace and Mercy.

For whatever reason, it seems everytime I find a close friend I discover they have an agenda of converting me to their religion or church, so I have found it much better to have a circle of aquaintences and my husband as my best friend.

The advice to find hobbies, vounteer and seek out friends, get exercise is best. Remember, too, that moving is one of the most stressful situations next to a death. Having a baby is up there too, but I’m not sure when that was for you. It may just take some time to adjust. As long as you are not so depressed that you can’t take care of yourself or your children or start having feelings of suicide or others you can’t shake off, then give yourself a break and time to adjust.

For a prayer, what has helped me is to pray the rosary and meditate, contemplate throughout the day, the events of the Holy Family, such as when they had to escape into Egypt, a foreign land. I also have a suncatcher of the Blessed Mother in my window above my kitchen sink. I find that I spend ALOT of time in the kitchen ! I ask her to help me be more like her and to accept my sacrifices adn offer them up as a blessing for my family, the conversion of sinners and to draw me closer to her son, Jesus.
 
Thank you everyone! I appreciate your replies very much! Everyone has such great advice for me.

After reflecting on things, I realized that the # 1 thing I need right now is to Accept my current situation & understand that God has a purpose for this. I have failed to see that during these 5 years of hoping my sitution would change or hoping my husband would have a change of heart…

Acceptance is the hardest thing when you dislike something, isnt it? What a valuable lesson!

Update: I found a group of Mom’s online. All of them live in my area & have playdates with the kiddos once or twice a week. So hopefully this will be a great way for me to make some friends.

Your replies helped me so much! Thank you everyone! I’ll keep you posted
 
I am from Richland, WA and I now live in Alabama with my husband and dauther, I know exactly what you are going through! I finally get a chance to visit them this May 😃 I haven’t seen them in over 2 1/2 years 😦 It is very hard to be in a long distance relationship with one person for sure, but when it comes to having to leave your entire family…it becomes so much harder :crying: Sometimes I get into these really bad depressive modes and I just cry it out, I just have too. Even all of my friends are up there too! I talk on the phone with my friends and my family, but you know as well as I do…its just not the same 😦 Feel free to write me anytime you want, we can keep each other company 😃 In the meantime, keep the faith 😉 :blessyou:
 
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