Thinking of moving to Sweden for love? Try your own country first.

wow...you said it all,,,this is what I call...the dynamics in realistic swede society...

Jenna, I totally agree with your words. Many of poined out ther is a part of my CV so far. I used to have a very good desk job (CLEAN JOB) in PL whith bright prospects for travelling and good views for promotion, nice salary, ability to get a mortgage on a brand new 2-room flat with no problems, very rich social and cultural life combined with a reasonable prices, cold winters and steaky hot summers, green grass and thick snow layer on the ground, spontaneous people, restaurants that do not ruin your wallet, beer gardens in summer serving thousands of beer kinds and pubs with life jazz or blues music.

What I am doing now, after 4 years of struggling with my unemployement,  is not a dream job and this kills me from inside (undersköterska) but I will study a nursing program to skip the old people care branch, have better salary and a bit cleaner duties. 
I guess that if I were together with another expat going through the same sort of experience, it would rather cement our realation than demount it bit by bit. Love can turn into hatred easily if you feel alone in your relationship and this is what many of us love-expats experience.

I know that there are more expat like me. I have started my 'romance' with Sweden when I was 23, moved in 2009. Now I am 34 and still feel that, even though I have accomplished a lot in my own country, here I have to dig into a cold soil to achieve a couple of percents of what I used to have before I came here. But I keep on trying and do not give up. Sometimes I look at my silk dresses and pink nail polish that I do not use any more and this remainds me of my previous life.

It has came very personal of me. The LOVE is NOT enough.... Now, if I knew, I would insist on staying in Poland otherwise I would come to Sweden only under the condition of getting a contract from my company first instead.

Try your own ground firts. The only job for you who do not come on contract is in 99 per cent a though blue collar one if you have no power to study here in Sweden. Until that you need to have a good command of Swedish and there is no excuse for that.

I worked as a medical-surgical nurse back home and i was lucky enough to be working in my field since there were many nurses that were unemployed in the Philippines. I met my swedish boyfriend and later on decided to live together in Sweden. I can say that i took the biggest risk to move here coz i still dont know what sweden has for me.

It was winter when i arrived here. Dark, cold and quiet. I felt homesick right away but I didnt tell my boyfriend. My second day in sweden was we went to the SFI office and vägledningscentrum. One of the employees at vägledningscentrum underestimated my nursing degree. I remember she told me that she thinks that I should study nursing all over again here in sweden. I sent my nursing credentials to Socialstyrelsen for evaluation and guess what, my nursing degree is approved in Sweden. All I need is just to study the language svenska 3 and take a theory exam and if i pass then i can work as a nurse here.

So i started SFI. I took the intensive course and i finished the whole course within 4 months so i got the 12000 kr SFI bonus Then I started job hunting and i got a job as undersköterska. It may not be my dream job but atleast i am happy coz its not easy to get a job here especially if u are an expat. In my case, I guess its a matter of hardwork and luck. Luck in the sense that healthcare profession is always in demand. Right now i am still on the processing of attaining my goal which is to finish svenska 3 and get my nursing license after all its not easy to combine family, work and school.

To those people who are planning to move here, prepare yourselves. You must know that you have to start from the very first which is the language. That is the key!!

Good for you that your previous education is in line with what you are going to do here once you are done with your Swedish part of education. It is only 3 years .

My colleage from Western Europe had to change her profile as well. 5 years of studies and couple of years of experience thrown away as she studying something different that will seal her future job.

After at least one year of puppy love for the country you have moved to your eyes open for the reality. The younger you are the easier is to adapt to new conditions. You do not have much to throw away behind you and moving towards something new is not a bitter sweet experience.  If you had a good salary in job country and a good life standard you put at stake a lot comming here and risking that you may not retrive your former position no matter how hard you try. That is the fact. If you are ok with it - congrats .

The language is the first nightmare to defeat . But after the language there is a number of challenges to meet. Before l you start studying something else but Swedish you must give yourself at least 3 years prior to your application to högskola. It is, as I refer to my own experience, the minimum to be able to read and understand your academic books and be able to learn in the material. Another fact is that in Swedish schooling system there is  a huge focus put onto group work and it requires a lot of your own input. You need to present a good command of both written and spoken Swedish to be able to participate in duties comming from your group works.

*Good luck * to those who have already landed in Sweden and  *think twice before you come* to those who dream about raindeers, snow, pepparkakor, Melodifestivalen and Midsommar.

Just wanted to correct something that was written in the first post (and that I have seen elsewhere on this site) in relation to CSN and student grants/loans. You do NOT need to be a Swedish citizen to apply for and receive CSN, however, you DO have to be a permanent resident (see csn.se/en/2.1034/2.1036/2.1037/2.1040/1.9366) but there are exceptions: if you have a child together with a Swedish citizen or have been granted refugee status, for example - then you're eligible for CSN right away. As a 'love expat' you may or may not receive permanent residency right away when you move to Sweden - it depends on how long you have been with your partner. If your relationship is considered newly established, meaning you haven't lived together outside of Sweden, you will receive a temporary residence permit (usually valid for two years). Once these two years are up and you apply for and receive your permanent residence permit, you can apply for CSN. If you met and lived with your Swedish partner abroad (there is no exact time limit, but a few years, usually), your relationship is not considered a newly established relationship and you may be granted a permanent residence permit right away.

Also, I want to point out that becoming a Swedish citizen after three years (as per the first post) seems... uhm.. unlikely, at least if you were granted a temporary residence permit when you first moved here. Generally you have to have lived in Sweden for five years before you can apply for citizenship (see migrationsverket.se/Privatpersoner/Bli-svensk-medborgare/Medborgarskap-for-vuxna/Tid-i-Sverige.html). Perhaps you mean you became a permanent resident? (But - you may have lived with your Swedish partner prior to moving to Sweden, so it's possible that you received a permanent residence permit right away, my apologies if this is the case!) I'm just bringing this up because it's important to get the difference between permanent residency and citizenship right, they offer different rights and possibilities and are not the same. Also, if someone thinks they have to wait until they're a citizen to access something they have to wait longer than if they knew it was really only permanent residency they needed...

Also (and this is not in response to this post, just a general response to what I have seen around the site), 'CSN money' consists of a grant AND a loan. You're not required to take the loan part (which you obviously need to pay back) but can choose the grant part only (which doesn't need to be repaid). The grant is about 2800 kr a month, so you can't live off it, but if you're adverse to loans, it's at least more than nothing.

Sara

"Kortare tid om du lever tillsammans med en svensk medborgare

Om du är gift, lever i ett registrerat partnerskap eller är sambo med en svensk medborgare kan du ansöka om svenskt medborgarskap efter tre år. Ni ska då ha bott tillsammans de senaste två åren. Det räcker inte med att ni är gifta med varandra, ni ska också bo tillsammans.

Har din partner tidigare haft ett annat medborgarskap än det svenska eller varit statslös ska han eller hon ha varit svensk medborgare i minst två år. Du ska också under din tid i Sverige anpassat dig väl i det svenska samhället. Saker vi bedömer då kan bland annat vara längden på ert äktenskap, dina kunskaper i svenska språket och din förmåga att försörja dig.

Om du tidigare varit i Sverige under en annan identitet än din riktiga eller om du gjort det svårare att genomföra ett beslut om avvisning genom att till exempel hålla dig undan kan det försämra din möjlighet att få medborgarskap efter tre år. " - http://www.migrationsverket.se/Privatpe … erige.html

Also, I agree, you can apply for CSN if you're a permanent resident (love expat) BUT you cannot get a grant, only a loan.

I stand corrected in terms of the citizenship rules. 

Not correct in regards to the CSN grant vs loan though unless it has changed very recently. My partner (at the time a permanent resident but not a citizen - this was in 2013, I believe) when studying applied for (and received) the grant but didn't apply for the loan. I don't have time to look through the CSN rules at the moment, but it's easily figured out on their website (in English as well).

When I can get home I can quite literally take a photo of the beslut they sent to me for you. It said I was "nekad" because I was an "utländskt medborgare"

Actually I'm reading all of their requirements on their site now, and it looks like I actually should have been accepted for it. This is nuts

Thank you- thank you for this. I thought I was going crazy, but I am not the only who sees these things here. I wish my partner could see it too...

I moved here a couple of years ago...for love. Like many others, I left a good job, a lovely home and a beautiful set of friends as well as a robust support network. Things it has taken me a lifetime to build. But boy life is tough here. Its like a form of self torture. I basically agree on every single you said in that post.
Dont do it people- no one, not the nicest person on the planet, not the most perfect partner in the world is worth this constant disappointment and feeling of helplessness one can experience here. I am a person who has fought a lot to make their livew better, achieved a lot, lived in a few different places and have the capacity and the intellectual capacity to speak of my experience here not as a result of some bias or hatred, but out of honest concern for myself and others. No matter what you have done in your life- your work experience, education, your intellectual and cultural capital are not worth a thing- unless you are an engineer or a techie. What you think of as common sense or personal wisdom, will get slashed. And last, if you think you are able to live through the Swedish winter- well, think again. You will basically not believe what its like, until you come here.

love and rage,
x

Jenna, while most people are too optimistic and euphoric about moving to and living in Sweden, your post is some kind of the opposite. I am non-Swedish-EU medborgare and moved to Sweden more than 4 years ago. Not because of love, not because of a idealistic phantasy about this northern country. It just happend because an interesting job in a management position was offered to me and I accepted. My wife is Japanese.

We arrived here in the cold February 2011. I lived in a rental appartment (Västeras area) until begin of this year, when we now finally decided to buy a nice Swedish house with a garden.

Many things are true which you say, but isn't the bureaucracy the same in almost every developed Western country? What else did you expect?  In fact I experienced the Swedish public admistration as quite well organised and relatively fast. True, there was a lack of rental appartments when we arrived, but with some luck we solved this question quickly, there was no problem to obtain the all important social security number, no problem with residence permits, not even a problem with getting a loan from a Swedish bank for the house which we recently bought (but perhaps you might be right at one point - we live in Sweden for 4+ years).

And the weather: Of course there are no tropical beaches in Sweden....

Coming to Sweden with realistic expectations and not with misty eyes is probably the best precondition for a good start here.

Hey, sorry this reply will be short because I am writing from my phone, but the reason why it was likely not as troublesome for you bureaucratically-speaking is likely because you're from the EU.

As a Canadian, cold weather doesn't phase me one bit, but at least the sun still shone during my -30 winters back home. The grey here is truly depressing. I travel to Vienna each year and that makes me feel much better I feel like I might feel more at home there as opposed to here.

To be honest, I expected Sweden to be better. I had done all the proper paperwork and organized everything. The one thing I wish I had done better was prepare myself mentally. Coming from a country which has many immigrants from literally everywhere, the last thing I ever expected was to come to Sweden and truly feel like an alien (and get treated like one too!)

The alien feeling is true and the same here! Swedes seem to be very closed people. The salaries are not that good in this country, but prices and costs of living are relatively high. Private debths are also one of the highest in all Europe. Going out to a (good) restaurant is a big expense for most families when you consider the restaurant prices (200 - 250 SEK for a main dish is quite common). Therefore most Swedes are staying at home and consequently there are not as many (good) restaurants and bars as elsewhere in many parts of Europe. Additionally Sweden was a very poor country not kong ago - there was barely enough food and living conditions have been harsh. Therefore this country had never had the time and wealth to develop such sophisticated art, cultural heritages but also cuisine as central and southern European countries have been able to do. When living here, I try to understand all this, try to adopt and try to find and enjoy the positive sides. But also i need sometimes to break out for a short period and travel to "real" Europe: Italy, France, Austria, Germany,... but also of course to my second homeland Japan,....

I am born in Vienna - it feels good and is a great honor that my hometown makes you feel better. But be asured, there are many dark sides in Vienna too.

Regarding the weather: You are at the Westcoast - most likely you do not experience many days below freezing point in winter, but it is probably much wetter than here in the Stockholm area.

You are for sure right that for EU citicens it is much easier to move to Sweden, since this right of freedom to move is one of the big advantages of our Union and in my case I could fully benefit from this right.

hi and very true story, i am a kenyan moved and i am now settled here broken into spare parts after having taken on heavy manual jobs sweden offers foregners,  have met many polish who are as broken as many other foregners, and they do not have medical covers becoz majority are doing what we call black jobs.
I know of a lady who paid 70000krs for her drivers licence, she is a nurse, she worked day and night for this, she is too broken and on longtime sickleaf.
I really do agree with you that you better try life first from where you come from than immigrate to sweden
........Big brother.

It's funny how people who live in Sweden (or other developed countries) tell you it's horrible and do not come because it's too difficult but at the same time they WON'T come back to their country of origin even for tons of GOLD 

HA. You have a point, but it only works half way. If my sambo didn't have such a good job, we would move back to Canada in a heartbeat.

We plan on getting married in Canada as well.

If (and that's a big IF) anything bad ever happened between us and we ended the relationship, I would move back to Canada in a heartbeat, no questions asked. I have no reason to stay here otherwise.

@Jenna

Canada is a developed country so I wasn't talking about you 

Because you will be viewed as a failure. Someone who went there and couldn't make things work in an apparently "easy" rich country to succeed in. You will probably have a hard time convincing them about the reality of life over there, and just have to accept being seen as a failure. So I suppose it's better to stay, and hope your situation changes for the better, in order to save face.

@XB23 i would NOT mind being viewed as a failure if i move back to my own country, but rather i have to create ways and means of survival for me and my family which is not very easy, i WILL never apollogise to anybody whenever i decide to move to my own country, it is my life, my country and i dont see where i should be feeling sorry for my self that i exist.i do not think that it is better to stay if the situation does not get better
big brother

The sad thing is I can say virtually the exact same thing about Canada.  I've lived in Montreal for the last 3 years and I've hated almost every minute.  The weather is horrendous and the discrimination against anyone who has the audacity to have been born in an english speaking country is atrocious. 

I wouldn't recommend Montreal to anyone because of my experience here but I understand that the clash comes from both sides.  I prefer swedish culture to french/north american culture - the best way to handle that is to get out of here and go back to a country where I understand and appreciate the culture with the understanding that there is no utopia and that no matter where you are there are things to complain about. 

My husband has a good job here too - but somethings are worth more than a job.

Hello Jenna, I like your message regarding the sweden love, I only want to add some things regarding Sweden, and for the people wich believe that in Sweden there is only gold and honey. But this kind of people are happy with a litte things and they accept anything bad.

I have been worked in Finland for 3 and half years and I can make the difference between Finland and Sweden and say that in Finland it is 20 times much better than in Sweden and safe because in the Hospital the doctors gives you an antibiotic if you have an infection and fever, and the Police is doing them job very good and if you have a problem the Police always helps you, but this is Finland, unfortunate now there is a big job crise in Finland, but I never know maybe next year I will be lucky.
Live Finland.

Hi! Thank you very much for this very essential infos...God bless


Gemma

Välkommen till Sverige!

jennaiwanchuk wrote:

Hey everyone,

I often see the same topics being posted over and over here. "How do I move to Sweden to be with my [significant other]?" and "Struggling to find work and accomodation" are common threads.

I will first and foremost tell you that I am admittedly a jaded person. I am a toxic expat, poisoned by all of my experiences here, with a terrible lingering aftertaste.
Jenna

Being an expat throws up difficulties and challengers, regardless of the country.

There are three ways to deal with it:
Moan on about how crap the country is, how much better your own country is, and upset the locals
Try to be positive, working out the problems
Book a flight out

Harsh? Yes
True? Yes

Fred,
I would agree with your summary if Jenna's post was solely a mindless rant.  She does in fact lay out many of the unexpected challenges facing expats coming to Sweden.  There's value in her post and I don't see a point in minimizing what she's shared.
Best,
Chris

These posts are cracking me up. Try living in North/South Dakota, USA. Cold in winter (and gray and windy) and hot in the summer. Then move to Texas, where people do not know how to drive in the RAIN let alone sleet, ice or snow, and the summers are 100+ (36) for an average 75 days per year on a good year. I LIVE for the rain when we are in Sweden. I really think where you choose to land makes a huge difference. I would not live south of Goteberg - too reminiscent of the Dakotas. I also would not live inland, even though the winters can be horrific on the coast. There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparedness. I already know what the darkness can mean to people who are not used to it. Buy sun lamps, put them in a room you frequent.

I think the hardest part will be finding employment, even though my degree, certifications, and credentials are through IC&RC. Pretty sure they aren't going to be impressed at all with my criminal justice degree, but with the drug and alcohol problems on the rise, perhaps the counseling degree with be helpful. You can't practice until you master the language, unless you network. It was much the same way here in Texas because no one wants to take on interns. Worst comes to worst, I will be a SAHM, and be the hockey taxi driver! Win/Win!

Don't think I qualify for a "love-pat" since we've been married for 17 years, but moving back was always in the plans as his entire family is there. We have two small children together who are also Swedish nationals. The school comments bother me. We are leaving behind the "all children left behind" capital of the USA. Schools here are turning out grossly inept and under-educated students with entitlement issues. I don't want to trade one miserable experience for another, considering there are no private schools to choose from in Sweden. I will be looking into that further.

I look at the house prices there and cringe. We have a lovely home here, and we didn't pay anywhere near what an equivalent residence would be there...and the income will be halved. If we didn't have financial stability in both countries, I would be digging my heals in here, rather than pushing to get moved there. I don't know how the youngsters do it. I definitely would not be moving there as a "sambo." Where is the commitment in that? Where is the stability?

I don't expect it to be a cake walk. Open communication about fears and doubts has been very important in making the decision to move (before we are too old to make the move at all!). I have to agree that if you aren't a techie or have medical/health skills, things could get pretty tough job wise. May have to learn how to crochet or become an author to keep myself busy!

cbarncastle wrote:

Fred,
I would agree with your summary if Jenna's post was solely a mindless rant.  She does in fact lay out many of the unexpected challenges facing expats coming to Sweden.

Unexpected?

Anyway, I like to see the positive, not focus on the negative.

Hi DDAE,

I have 2 children who are Swedish and American citizens.   I have one foot in Sweden and one foot in the States. 

Education: My 13 and 15 yr old children are doing math now that they did 2-3 years ago in the U.S.  To keep them competitive for U.S. universities we supplement their learning at home. 

Medical / dental: we've had such poor experiences in Sweden that we now go back to the states for anything we need.  My son ruptured his trachea in a skiing accident.  What do you do?   You can't fly him oversees.  It's scary when you know that better care is available elsewhere.

Jobs: it's difficult even for Swedes to find good jobs and as you mentioned, the pay is nowhere near what you'd earn in the states.  Taxes are high. 

There are many benefits to living in Sweden as well and there are many positives.  Just go in to a move this big with eyes wide open.

I was thinking the exact same thing Fred! Gosh those awful Swedes and their welcoming peaceful ways...lol

The good thing about feeling alienated in Sweden is that  it's color blind.
Once Swedish is not your first language, it don't matter if you are Black White Asian you are bound to feel foreign. Unless you are from other scandic countries or Germany as the have similar culture.

Yes it's true but not the whole truth. If you master the language even though it's not your first language you still can be you. You can be you and also a well integrated immigrant. There are differences between a foreigner and a well integrated immigrant.  In my personal opinion well integrated immigrant in Sweden has a better life in Sweden than a Swed him/herself.

So what country people are you talking about then?
If the ones from developed world n those from developing world are feeling  similar about living in Sweden what more would you  Possibly  be insinuating?
Let me remind you that Chris O'Neal left his beautiful princess Madeline of Sweden  plus all that palace frenzy and ran to London because of how he felt living in Sweden.
  HRH  Megan  the Duchess of Sussex left the most powerful institution on the planet with all its wealth n ran to simple Canada; in fact she n her prince Harry abandoned their Title completely just
because of how they felt living in England.

So what ever the reason you thought that the lady from Canada have the right to complain about living in Sweden because she is from Canada and not others might have to be reaccessed —- For it is not only about what you give to people but also  how you make them feel.