Why Am I So Lonely Living Abroad?
After nearly four years living abroad in Hanoi, a mother finds herself counting down the days until she can return home. While her husband and children have thrived, she has struggled with loneliness, isolation, and the emotional toll of constantly rebuilding friendships. Feeling misunderstood and exhausted, she asks Douglas how to navigate the final months before leaving.
Dear Douglas,
My husband, my three children and I have been in Hanoi for almost 4 years. We will be heading back to our home country in July. My husband and children say they will be sad to leave. His job has been good to him and the children are doing well in school. My experience has been the opposite. I can hardly wait to get back to my family and friends. I am depressed and exhausted from trying to find friends and make a life here. All the friends I made have left and some women here seem to find great joy in being mean and competitive. I can’t show my family here how I really feel and my friends back home don’t really understand. 4 months seems like forever. How can I make it?
Hurting in Hanoi
Dear Hurting,
I chose your letter because I am sure there are many women like you…enduring their experiences of living abroad while their husbands and children seem to get along fairly well.
You are feeling isolated, your mood is depressed and now you are feeling really tired. You have been coping…dealing with a situation that is new and unfamiliar in the best way you know how. It has helped you to get this far, but now that the end is in sight, you feel exhausted and wonder if you can hold up until you can get back to where you feel things are familiar.
I would like to point out a unique set of challenges that apply to women who are wives and mothers living abroad. Often, they anticipate that they will have a good experience and are surprised to find that it is difficult in ways that they couldn’t have predicted.
Finding women friends with whom to connect emotionally and with whom one can talk doesn’t always happen…or, as in your case, you form a strong friendship with someone and then they leave.
When we feel bad or depressed, it is a time when we most need close friends who can listen and support us. It is also the time when it is most difficult to make friends. We don’t want to appear to be needy or be “down” when we are meeting new people. Often our friends back home can’t really understand.
Having negative experiences can heighten our mistrust of others. It is not uncommon for people to become defensive and competitive under circumstances that are less familiar and when they don’t know if it is emotionally safe. Human nature almost always tries to figure out who is “us” and who is “them”. Finding ways to bridge the gaps of cultural diversity is part of the challenge.
When husbands and children are living in structures that make it easier for them, their school and workplaces, their positive experiences make one’s pain even more isolating.
Women often struggle with a loss of identity and validation when they are the primary caregivers and not working outside of the home. When effort goes into making others lives better, one can lose touch with those things that are central to one’s own needs for fulfillment and actualization.
My hope is that you can see your experience, not as a failure on your part, but as having lived through challenges that you could not have anticipated and which left you short of your needs for support and connection. I would encourage you to come to therapy, which may help you better understand your feelings. I believe you can get past the pain to see and feel better affirming aspects of life that are present…here and now. You might even enjoy…these last months in Hanoi.
Douglas
