At some point, if you live abroad long enough, you realize something uncomfortable: The people who become your support system are often temporary. They leave and you stay, or vice versa.
This creates a lingering grief, and a shift in belonging, that is unique to the expat experience. If this resonates, you might also find the podcast episode When Life Shifts: The Invisible Grief That Comes With Major Transitions meaningful, where I explore this experience in more depth.
The revolving door of friendships
If you live abroad long enough, you've experienced the grief that people leave. At times, right when they have become your people.
Contracts end. Programs finish. Digital nomads move on to the next country someone mentioned in a WhatsApp group. Someone meets a partner from another continent. Someone’s visa gets rejected.
What makes this tender is that friendships abroad often become unusually deep.
You are both away from home. You are navigating possibility and instability. These friendships become grounding, intimate, and (frankly) practical, as we all need someone local who can show up in an emergency.
Symptoms many expats experience:
• Loneliness even when you “have people”
• Feeling unanchored or not fully present
• Getting attached, and then grieving just as quickly
• Emotional fatigue from continuously rebuilding your social world
• Anxiety or hesitation around making new friends (“What’s the point if they’ll leave?”)
• Missing old friends or old versions of yourself more than you expected
• A sense of being “in between”: not fully here nor there
• Sleep or concentration changes during community shifts
• Wanting to isolate because connection feels exhausting
• Grief that hits during random, ordinary moments
These are not signs that community matters, and that impermanence has a cost.
If you’ve felt any of this, you’re not alone. I support expats navigating the quiet grief and instability of life abroad; you can reach out here if you want grounded support.
If this aticle resonates, you may also find these articles supportive When Everything Looks Right But Doesn’t Feel Right and Why Expats and Digital Nomads Feel Lonely Abroad Despite Active Social Lives.
ACT & impermanence
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy gives language to this reality: Live by your values, not by guarantees.
You cannot control the lifespan of a visa, a friendship, a job contract, or your own identity as it evolves in a new culture. But you can choose how you show up in relation to these truths.
• Invest in community even if it might be temporary.
• Stay open to connection even though people leave.
• Build routines even when life could pivot without warning.
• Let yourself love a place without requiring permanence.
ACT asks one simple question: Can I move toward what matters to me even when I cannot lock down the outcome?
Your own impermanence abroad
Even if you settle somewhere long-term, you still pass through short seasons:
• Learning a new language.
• Intercultural dating and the surprises that come with it.
• Building friendships and routines from scratch.
• Work opportunities that appear or disappear overnight.
• Intercultural parenting.
• The constant coming and going of people around you.
You are continuously shifting alongside the place you chose.
You and your community are not static, and things rarely still consistent for very long.
Non-attachment becomes less of a concept and more of an emotional survival skill; a way to stay connected without collapsing every time something changes shape.
My article Expat Life Got You Exhausted? Here’s How to Recover from Cultural Burnout discusses this topic in more detail.
The truth rarely said out loud
If the constant change of friendships, identity, or community abroad is taking a toll, you’re not alone.
These experiences shape your nervous system, your relationships, and your sense of self more than most people realise. I work with expats and globally mobile adults navigating exactly these challenges.
If you want support staying grounded through uncertainty and transition, you can reach out here.
If you’re navigating cultural burnout, identity shifts, overwhelm, or the emotional complexity of life abroad, you can learn more about my therapy approach for expats and internationally mobile adults here.
