by Kristi Lanier

May 2009

By nature, repatriation is a complex – and very individual – experience. The issues that confront adults are different than those that affect children. And how someone handles repatriation depends on factors as disparate as personality and destination. We talk with former expats about their personal repatriation experiences.

You’d think going home would be easy.

But there’s a reason you don’t simply “go home” after an assignment abroad.
Rather, you “repatriate.”

Repatriation is the oft-overlooked bookend to the expat experience. While a lot of energy and planning generally goes into expatriating, repatriating rarely gets the same attention. Even if you’re not returning to the same town you left, it’s still your home country – same language, recognizable sights, familiar sounds. And many expats do treat repatriating like a return from vacation – and they find themselves unprepared to handle the emotions and changes.

For adults, the most common repatriation issues are those of reintegration, loss of “specialness,” and feeling like life at home is a bit of a “let down.” And you need to prepare yourself for these issues the same way you prepared for the issues of expatriating, says Shanghai-based psychologist Lauren Mulheim.

Sounds simple enough, but what often happens is that people don’t have time to handle the particulars or emotions of repatriating. And not doing anything is the worst mistake you can make, Dr. Mulheim says. “When you get into the busyness of moving, you don’t go through the emotional process. Know where you’re going to be living, go through the goodbyes. Rituals like farewell lunches serve a function in the healing process.”

Along with the goodbyes, you need to prepare for the hellos as well. Back at home you may feel like you don’t fit in anymore. You and your friends will have had different experiences, your family might not be sympathetic to the sense of loss you’re experiencing, and after the first five minutes no one will want to hear your China stories anymore.  

The key, again, is in preparation. “Beforehand, set goals, figure out a project, figure out what you are at home,” says Mulheim.

But some of the best support comes from connecting with those who’ve already been through the process. Here, three expats share their repatriation stories. They tell us about what they expected, what they didn’t, what they learned and how it all shook out in the end.

Helping Kids Repatriate
» Tell kids what’s happening. Give kids the facts about where you’re going and where you’ll be living. They’ll do better than with uncertainty.
» Encourage them to stay in touch with expat friends. They may only email a friend once, but just knowing those connections are there is what matters. When they don’t need that connection anymore, it’ll naturally fall away.  
» Go through goodbye rituals. Host a farewell party for your child with their friends. Help them create a scrapbook of pictures and memories.
» Connect them with friends at home. If connections with friends at home
have lapsed, help get kids back in touch before you move back.
» Share your own feelings. Sharing that you’re feeling sad, for example, about moving and modeling talking about your feelings encourages them to deal with their emotions, too.

Pamela Palmer
Years in Shanghai: 4

“I loved the experience; I embraced the people, the culture, the food,” says Pamela Palmer of her expat experience in Shanghai. “But after four years, I couldn’t wait to get back.”

Or so she thought. “Be careful what you wish for,” she says ruefully.

While in Shanghai, Palmer found what you might call a kindred spirit – a fellow expat with whom she became fast friends. Even their husbands and children became close. So while she looked forward to many aspects of returning home – working in her garden, fresh air, having “a little more control over our lives” – she didn’t look forward to leaving her friend behind.    

But it wasn’t until Palmer had returned home that she grasped just how unique that Shanghai-formed bond was.  

“I left knowing I wouldn’t replace that friendship and I was never looking to replace her,” she says. “But I thought I’d find something that was 50 percent what that one is. I haven’t found one even 25 percent.”

Perhaps finding her best friend in Shanghai was dumb luck, but Palmer thinks the strength of that friendship is the result of something more. For one, the extra time afforded by the nature of the trailing spouse experience allows for developing close friendships. “I spent more time with her than anyone in my life aside from my family,” she says.

Without an ayi and driver – and for many trailing spouses, back at a job – the spare time evaporates. And so do the opportunities for making new friends.

“We don’t have the same kind of time for personal relationships here,” Palmer says. “I formed such a powerful friendship [in Shanghai] and I’ll never have that kind of time again. Here we don’t slow down for friendships. That’s the biggest struggle.”

Additionally, Palmer found that expats, by nature, readily extend the hand of friendship. “The key is in China we feel isolated [initially] so we open up more. We become like Velcro and you get a lot closer,” she says. “That’s one of the wildest things about the experience. [At home], people don’t need it as much.”   

Regardless of the reasons for the bond, what she does know is that she wasn’t entirely prepared for the void. “Making the friendship we did…” she says, pausing. “It’s the biggest thing we can’t replace. The quality of the friendships there are different. I’ll never find a person like that again. Ever.”

Palmer and her friend did take some steps to ensure they’d stay connected before she left. “What we said is, ‘We’re not leaving until we know when we’re seeing you again.’ We’d made a commitment that we’d spend a holiday together. That’s how I could go, knowing the friendship wasn’t over.”

And it wasn’t just her friend that Palmer wanted to stay connected to. After four years, China itself had a grip on her. Ultimately, Palmer parlayed her various expertise into an education consulting business that brings her back to the country frequently.
 
“You find ways to stay connected,” she says. “That’s how you repatriate.”

Linda Schnetzer
Years in Shanghai: 1

Linda Schnetzer and her husband Dean Cowan definitely want to live abroad again. But when they do, there’s one thing they’d handle differently – and that’s repatriating.

“I moved back ahead of Dean so I could go back to work,” says Schnetzer. “And that was the worst part of our whole China experience.”

The couple had moved to Shanghai on a one-year contract with Cowan’s company. Since the assignment was only for 12 months, Schnetzer didn’t quit her job but made an arrangement to take a leave of absence.

But when their year was up, Cowan’s company asked him to stay on another month. Schnetzer’s work was expecting her back, so she went ahead and returned to Chicago. Then Cowan’s one month turned into a move to Beijing and another month and then another. In all, the couple was apart for six months.

 “It didn’t seem like it would be so long, but it was,” Schnetzer says. “The transition back was hard on our marriage. I didn’t like it.  He was fine, but I was stressful to him.”

In part, Schnetzer’s stress was due to the transition back to work. While Cowan’s work was evolving with him, Schnetzer’s had essentially been in stasis. “I tried to walk back into my job, but things had changed,” she says. “Basically, no one had been doing it for a year. It was a mess. A lot happens in a year.” It left her tired and frustrated.  

And it didn’t help that she felt rootless. While Cowan’s return date wasn’t set, the couple knew his extended assignment was temporary. So they put off getting an apartment until he returned. But it meant Schnetzer stayed in a friend’s guest room for the duration.

“While in some ways it was easier to be with a friend, it was still a shock going from my own place to someone else’s,” she says. “When we moved to Shanghai I brought seven suitcases. I came back with two. All our stuff was in storage. I felt a little homeless.”

On top of it all, Schnetzer didn’t give herself any time to readjust. “I came back on a Wednesday. On Thursday, I bought a cell phone, got my hair done, and knowing me, I probably bought some shoes, too. Then on Friday, I flew to a meeting somewhere.”

Once work slowed down a couple months later, the reality set in. “If we were going to do it again, we couldn’t go six months apart,” Schnetzer says. “And I would need to go from living somewhere to living somewhere else. I need to be anchored somewhere.”  

Cowan says that even when he returned home, it took a few months for their relationship to settle again. “Linda was bitter,” he says. “I had to put forth a lot of effort.”

What Cowan says he thinks helped them turn the corner was looking forward to another move. Just six months after returning, Cowan got a job that took the couple to New York.

The move also diverted their attention from the doldrums that can set in once the initial excitement of settling in and reuniting with friends and family.  

“Moving again away from Chicago gave me a new place to explore,” Schnetzer says, agreeing. “We’ve been here two years and we’re still exploring.”  

Even so, she still misses a lot about Shanghai. “I miss that there was always something new to do. I miss the housecleaner. I had time to study language. I could have the perfect house. I could spend three days preparing for a dinner. In Shanghai I had a 20 dollar a week flower budget. Here, 20 dollars is a bouquet and a half and I don’t have that kind of time anyway,” she says, listing some of the perks she enjoyed in Shanghai.

But, she also adds, that you have to keep those activities in context in your memory when you move home. “[Those activities] were fun because I was in a foreign place,” she says. “But I wouldn’t just stop working here to do that.”   

In some ways, living in Shanghai can be a suspension of reality – expats are almost princes and princesses for a time. And because of this fact, Schnetzer says she think it’s a good thing they weren’t in China for much more than a year. “It would’ve been much harder to come back,” she says.

Even after just a year, Schnetzer says she still had to “work harder” to relate to friends though. “A lot of things happened in their lives in a year,” she says. “They had babies, got married. I just figured it out as I went along. The changes in my friends’ lives were little compared to mine, but they were big to them. And they only have so much interest in hearing about China. They think of it as a vacation.”

Coming home had its struggles, but it had its pluses for Schnetzer, too. “Some things are easier,” she says. “I bought a cell phone, I plugged it in and it worked! I didn’t have to go three different places to get it set up. It’s a shock going to a mall or grocery store – there’s a 100 different kinds of tomato sauce! And I went a little nuts buying shoes and books.”

As for the loss of “specialness” that can be a repatriation surprise, Schnetzer says she’s actually okay with that one. “I’m happy to be a little less special. I’m a blonde,” she says, laughing. “Once a guy was staring so hard he ran right into a tree on his bike. Here, no one is taking my picture with their cell phone.”


Tobin Guild
Years in Shanghai: 3

Common wisdom says living abroad changes you. And Tobin Guild would agree – to a point.

What he’s not sure about is if living abroad changes you – or if it’s just that when you repatriate, the changes that naturally occur simply appear in sharper relief.

Guild and his wife, Jill, repatriated to their hometown – a city where the couple had long-established friendships. So they expected to step in right where they left off.

But while they’d been growing and changing in Shanghai, they discovered that their friends had been growing and changing, too – but in a different direction.

“Everyone had had kids and we were still, ‘Hey, let’s go out to this new restaurant or that new place,’” says Guild. “But everything now revolved around the kids.”

Their interests had changed, certainly. But it wasn’t that they suddenly couldn’t relate to their friends simply because they had kids. In fact, Guild turned down an extension to his three-year Shanghai contract because the couple wanted to start a family back at home.

The drifting was really more a matter of outlook. Guild says that over three years his perspective had changed. Maybe it was a matter of maturity, maybe it was a matter of living beyond the familiar.

Either way, Guild came home to find he and his friends had grown apart. “Anyone else could probably tell the same story of change, but by being an expat it shows it in a different way,” he says. “It’s not a gradual change. The changes are more drastic and noticeable when you’ve been gone.”

What Guild is describing is actually a common repatriation issue – when expats repatriate they discover that they and their friends have had two very different sets of experiences. And neither party can relate. As another repatriated expat says, “You come home and your friends say, ‘Let me tell you about my new house,” and you say, ‘Let me tell you about Cambodia.’”

That’s where Guild found his friends – happily ensconced in the suburbs with new friends and a focus that Guild didn’t share. And it threw him. “We see things a whole different way having traveled,” he says. “It makes you open your mind, you start to question a lot more.”

Stressed by a new job and unprepared for the changes they found, Guild says he and his wife struggled when they got back. They were living in a smaller space than they had in Shanghai, Guild was trying to impress his new bosses, and his wife didn’t find a job immediately. “We built up this negativity,” he says. “And I dealt with repatriation in a negative way – by working harder.”

In time, they moved to a bigger living space and Guild’s wife found a job – all of which helped them ultimately adjust. And they’re now expecting their first child – just like they planned.