Why is living abroad so hard when nothing is wrong?

Why does an ordinary day abroad drain me so much?

The cost lies not in the big things you prepared for but in the small ones nobody mentioned. You knew moving would be demanding. You did not expect the official letter you cannot fully decode, the online booking system in a language you half know, the shop hours you keep forgetting, the chatter you can follow but never quite enter.

Back home, most of your week ran on familiarity. You knew how things worked, so did everyone else, and that knowledge was free. Abroad, much of the week runs on translation, and translating does not become effortless just because the task is small. By evening you are tired for no visible reason, which is exactly why you start to suspect the reason is you.

That is also how you can look at your life, agree it is a good one, and still come home empty. In a survey of 443 international students in Germany, higher stress from adapting to a new culture went with more difficulty managing emotions and less coping that draws on a sense of meaning¹. Everything was measured at once, so it cannot show what caused what. The lesson I take from it is simple: what drains you is less the jobs themselves than holding yourself together while doing them.

Is it the country, or is it me?

There is no tidy answer, and the question becomes more helpful once you stop trying to settle it. Usually three different things are tangled together, and only one of them is fully yours to change.

• The place itself. In many countries, social life sits inside circles that formed long before you came and have no obvious way in. Plans are made far ahead. Warmth exists, but it arrives more slowly than you are used to.
• The move. Any relocation strips away the structures that used to carry your social life for you: colleagues who became friends, family nearby, the chance encounters of a place you knew well.
• Your own patterns. Your history shapes how you respond when you need something and no one offers it. Some people speak up. Others retreat and label it self-reliance. Knowing which you are doing now is worth a great deal.

Spending a year deciding whether the country is to blame tends to leave the third strand untouched, and the third strand is the one that can change.

Why does language keep me on the outside?

You can manage perfectly well in English all day and still miss the layer where people actually grow close.

Colleagues kindly switch languages for you, and the conversation changes as they do. Jokes need explaining. The fast, playful back-and-forth that friendships grow from loses its spark when translated, and you are left well looked after yet slightly outside.

In my experience a second language helps most when it gives you depth, and helps least when it mainly sharpens your sense of being treated as an outsider. It is worth knowing which of those you are hoping for before you decide what learning it should cost you.

Why do I feel guilty for struggling when I chose this?

You have treated the struggle as proof the decision was wrong, and it proves nothing of the kind. The move was your choice, perhaps even your idea. Saying aloud that it is hard feels like taking the decision back, so you keep quiet, and the keeping quiet becomes part of the load.

What wears people down is often not a lack of belonging but two belongings pulling at once. In a study of 131 first-generation Portuguese immigrants in Luxembourg, feeling attached to the new country went with less loneliness, while feeling torn between two cultural identities went with more². The sample was small, covered one group of families, and the links weakened once family conflict was taken into account, so it carries limited weight. What I see in my own practice points the same way. Those who struggle longest are rarely the ones who feel nothing for their new home. They are the ones carrying two lives and apologising for both.

What helps when the heaviness does not lift?

Begin with the part that is yours to shift, and be honest with yourself about which part that is.

• Separate the paperwork from the meaning. Set aside one afternoon to deal with every outstanding form and letter, then notice how much of the weight was admin disguised as a life decision.
• Bring one of your strengths into this country. Choose a skill you already had, rather than something new, and practise it here where others can see it. Competence is how you become visible again.
• Tell someone who lives where you live. Another newcomer will understand in a sentence or two. A friend back home may try to argue you out of the feeling, and soon you stop mentioning it.
• Learn the language for connection, not duty. Studied as an obligation, it turns into extra work. Learned to hear who people really are, it gives back.
• Stop checking your gratitude. The difficulty and the good decision can both be true. Neither has to win before you are permitted to struggle.

Some situations lie beyond these steps. When the heaviness never lifts, when old wishes have gone quiet, when your partner is holding up the atmosphere at home, or when you no longer plan anything ahead, admin is not the issue any more, and managing on your own rarely moves it. At that stage, talking with someone tends to achieve more than another long stretch of getting by, and a free 30-minute call is enough to find out whether it would help.

Questions people ask

Is feeling this way abroad a reason to see a therapist?

Yes, if the strain has started to change how you see yourself or how you live from day to day. You do not need a crisis to deserve a place to think it through.

Can I have sessions by video wherever I live?

Yes: all sessions are by video, at a regular time in Copenhagen time that suits your time zone. Many of the people I work with are living abroad themselves.

Do I have to decide whether to stay or leave first?

No. Often the question of staying becomes clearer once the strain is understood, rather than the other way round.

Will therapy be in English if it is not my first language?

Yes, and you can mention words or phrases in your own language whenever English does not fit. A shared second language can sometimes make hard things easier to say.

What happens in a first session?

We look at a few ordinary days in some detail rather than your whole history. From there it usually becomes clearer which part belongs to the place, which to the move, and which to you.

If living abroad is wearing you down even though your life looks fine, I can help you make sense of it in online psychotherapy, by video.

Sources

1. Soufi Amlashi and Forstmeier. The relationship of acculturative stress with meaning in life through the mediating role of difficulties in emotion regulation and meaning-centered coping style among international students in Germany. 443 students, one point in time. Frontiers in Psychology, 2025.
2. Study of loneliness, cultural belonging and family among 131 first-generation Portuguese immigrants in Luxembourg. Published by Springer.

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.