I (29F) might be moving back to my home country and ending things with my boyfriend (29M). Has anyone been through something similar?
I (29F) met my boyfriend (29M) a few months after I moved to Canada. He’s lived in Canada for most of his life, but at the time he didn’t have PR(We’re both originally from the same Asian country). About a year into dating, we moved to another city together so we could both work toward getting PR.
He went to school there, and the plan was for me to start school after he graduated. While he was studying, I worked as a server. Then halfway through his program, we found out he had to move to a rural area after graduation for work because of a scholarship commitment he had accepted.
So we moved again.
The problem was that there weren’t really any school options for me there. I tried online classes, but online learning absolutely destroyed me mentally and I ended up dropping out.
We spent months living in this tiny rural town where I knew nobody. I can drive, but since my boyfriend needed the car for work, so I was basically stuck at home all day waiting for my boyfriend to come back from work. Over time I became extremely homesick. Like… genuinely emotionally unstable. I couldn’t function normally anymore.
My boyfriend saw how bad it was getting and encouraged me to visit my home country in Asia for 2 months. During that time, I seriously questioned whether I should just give up on Canada completely and move back home for good.
Even though we had plans to eventually move back to the city within a few years, I couldn’t stop thinking about how isolated I felt, how much my career had been delayed, and how much I missed my family and home.
To be clear, my boyfriend has always been incredibly supportive. He listened to everything, tried to understand, and honestly suffered alongside me for months watching me struggle.
After I came back to Canada, we had a lot of long conversations. I told him that even though living in Canada has been really hard for me, I was willing to stay and build a future here if we were serious about marriage and if he could promise me two things:
- That we would visit my home country at least once every 1-2 years.
- That before my parents pass away, I could spend at least one year living in my home country again.
I told him I understood these promises might not always be realistic financially or logistically, but what mattered to me was knowing my partner genuinely understood how important my family and home are to me, and that he would actively support me staying connected to them as much as possible.
After thinking about it for a few days, he told me yesterday that he doesn’t think he can do it.
He said watching me suffer this much has already broken him emotionally, and he’s scared that if we stay in Canada and I go through another period like this again, he’ll fall apart too. He also said he’s afraid of the guilt and pressure of potentially not being able to keep those promises someday, and that he worries I’ll resent him for it and our relationship will slowly become toxic.
He told me that because I have such a deep bond with my family and such a strong attachment to my home country, maybe going back home is ultimately what would make me happiest. He said he loves me, but he’s scared that if we continue toward marriage in this situation, we’ll eventually end up resenting each other.
Right now I’m looking at flights and I’ll probably move back home before the end of this month.
The hardest part is that we still live together, and both of us are absolutely devastated. There’s no cheating, no abuse, no betrayal… just two people who love each other and might not be able to build the same future.
Has anyone else gone through something like this? Did you stay or leave? Did you regret it either way?
And honestly… does this sound like the right decision, even if it hurts this much?
TL;DR:
I (29F) moved across Canada with my boyfriend (29M) to build a future together, but years of isolation, homesickness, and being far from my family made me emotionally miserable. I asked if we could prioritize visiting my home country regularly and someday live there temporarily, but he said he couldn’t promise that and is afraid we’ll eventually resent each other. We still love each other, but I’m probably moving back home this month and ending the relationship.