Why do I regret moving when I wanted this so much?

Why has the regret arrived now, months after the move?

For the first stretch abroad, the move keeps you busy, and busy leaves little space for grief.

You had a list. Somewhere to live, an account that would accept your salary, the forms that wanted a number you did not have yet, the shop where nobody understood what you were pointing at. Each errand gave the day a shape. When the list runs out, the shape goes with it, and you are left facing the ordinary life you built with nothing standing between you and how it feels. That is often when regret walks in, and because it walks in late, it feels like a delayed verdict on the move itself.

Many people take the delay as evidence: if the move were right, it would feel easier by now. I am not convinced the calendar works like that. In one survey of 207 internationally mobile adults, most of them women who had relocated with a partner’s job, the length of time someone had lived in the new country made no real difference to their well-being; how stressed and how isolated they felt mattered far more.¹ It was an exploratory study of a mostly Western group, so it hints rather than proves. It fits what I hear, though. Waiting does not settle this on its own, and the fact that it has not is no failing of yours.

Does regretting the move mean I chose wrong?

Regret tells you that something matters and is missing. It cannot tell you that staying put would have been better.

Notice what your mind is comparing. Here, you have the whole of your present life, including the bad night’s sleep and the awkward meeting. There, you have a remembered life, edited down to its best evenings, with the restlessness that made you leave quietly cut out. No lived life can win against that edit.

• What it might be asking you to grieve. A particular loss you have not yet mourned: someone ageing without you nearby, a language you were witty in, a career that counted for more at home.
• What it rarely means. That moving back would return what you lost. A return takes you to an address, not to the person who lived there.
• What it can cover up. A difficulty in the present that could shift without a plane ticket.

Research on regret separates its feeling side, the pang and the self-blame, from its thinking side, the replaying of what you might do differently next time. The two rose and fell closely together, yet only the feeling side went with general distress, while the thinking side went with a sense that the situation was within your control.² The people studied were students and online volunteers in the United States, so take this as a helpful lens rather than a measurement of you. Still, ask yourself which one you mostly do late at night. The pang wants comfort and the replaying wants facts, and giving either one the wrong thing keeps the loop running.

Why do I feel this when everything here looks good?

A life can look right from outside and still feel thin from inside, and other people mostly see the outside.

This is the part people feel most ashamed of. The job is good, the streets are safe, friends back home say you are lucky, and you cannot name a single real complaint. So you keep quiet, which closes the last exit the feeling had, and it comes out sideways as a flat, irritable mood on an afternoon that should have been lovely.

In the same survey of relocated adults, everyday stress and loneliness were most strongly tied to how people were faring, while how culturally different the new country felt barely registered.¹ The authors note that most of their participants had made short cultural jumps, so that last point may not hold for bigger ones. What I take from it is that the useful question is seldom whether you picked the right country. It is whether anyone near you knows how your week has actually gone.

What if I moved because of my partner?

Then the regret carries a second weight: the one person who most needs to hear it is the person you came with.

So you hold it back, and held-back regret does not stay quiet. It shows up as complaints about the flat, the weather, the in-laws, the way your partner seems so settled. They hear an attack on the life you share and start defending it; you hear your sadness being argued down. Before long, neither of you can raise the subject without a fight.

One distinction helps here. Feeling that you gave something up is different from believing your partner owes you for it, and they may never have asked you to give it. Couples often fight about the debt when what one of them needs is for the loss to be heard. Saying the regret once, fully, as news about you rather than a case against them, tends to change the conversation. If that feels impossible at home, some sessions on your own first can help you find the words, which is part of what online couples therapy on your own is for.

How can I live with this regret without turning my life upside down?

Give the regret a smaller job than deciding your whole future.

• Tell one person who is not your partner. Regret kept secret sets into a conclusion. Said aloud, it usually shrinks back to its true size: a painful feeling about a real loss.
• Be exact about what you miss. Not the country as a whole. The specific things: making people laugh without translating yourself, the bakery on the corner, a friend who knew your history without being told.
• Sort what belongs to the move from what would follow you. Some of this is about being here. Some of it would travel anywhere. Each pile needs something different.
• Bring one piece of your earlier self back into the week. An instrument, a team sport, the kind of work you were good at. It will not cure anything, but it shows you that self is still within reach.
• Choose a date to look at the decision again. A question parked until a month you have agreed on stops asking to be answered every evening.

These steps suit regret that hurts but still lets you live your days. They are not enough if the low mood no longer lifts, if things you cared about have gone grey, or if the thought of years more abroad feels unbearable rather than heavy. Pushing on alone at that point usually costs time you would rather keep. It is better worked through with someone trained to stay with it alongside you, which is what online psychotherapy offers wherever you live.

Questions people ask

Can therapy help if I am still deciding whether to stay abroad?

Yes, and being undecided is a good time to start, because sessions give you room to see what sits on each side of the choice. That understanding comes with you wherever you end up living.

Will you tell me whether to move back?

No, the decision stays yours, and I would be wary of any therapist who made it for you. I help you see clearly what each option holds, so the choice still makes sense to you later.

Does it matter which country I am in for video sessions?

For most people it does not, because you join from wherever you live. Session times are agreed in Copenhagen time, so it helps to check the difference when you book.

Should I come on my own or with my partner?

Come alone if you want to understand your own regret, and together if the difficulty is that you cannot talk about it. Many people start alone and invite their partner later.

Is it all right to have therapy in English if it is not my first language?

Yes, most people manage well in English, although some feelings surface first in a mother tongue. When that happens, we take it slowly and let the words arrive as they do.

If you regret a move you wanted so badly, I can help you make sense of that disappointment in relocation psychotherapy, moving abroad.

Sources

1. Herrmann Aegerter, K., Meyer, A.H., Gaab, J. and Ooi, Y.P. (2025). Expatriation stressors and the well-being of accompanying partners: a commonality analysis approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1607178.
2. Buchanan, J., Summerville, A., Lehmann, J. and Reb, J. (2016). The Regret Elements Scale: distinguishing the affective and cognitive components of regret. Judgment and Decision Making, 11(3), 275 to 286.

How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.