Why We Left the U.S.: When Comfort Starts Feeling Like a Cage
Why We Left the U.S.: When Comfort Starts Feeling Like a Cage
There’s a version of the American dream where you work hard, build something, and eventually rest in the comfort you’ve earned.
We did that part.
For nearly two decades, we poured everything into our business — long days, longer nights, and the quiet hope that someday it would all feel “worth it.” But somewhere between success and survival, comfort became our cage.
The Slow Burn of Burnout
Burnout doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s quiet — almost polite. It creeps in, disguised as ambition and responsibility.
You keep telling yourself you’re fine, that this is what success feels like — until you wake up one day and realize you’ve been surviving instead of living.
We used to joke that we were just “tired.”
But the truth is, we were slowly dying inside.
It’s a feeling that’s hard to explain — the kind where you can’t point to one big thing that’s wrong, but you know that everything is off.
It’s something Stacy has talked about openly on her podcast, The Her Mood Podcast — the kind of emotional exhaustion that doesn’t just steal your energy, it steals your joy.
That’s what this move was really about.
Not running away — but finding a way back to ourselves.
When Everything Looks Fine — But Isn’t
That’s the hard part about leaving. From the outside, everything looked good.
A successful business. A nice home. Stability.
But inside, there was this whisper: is this it?
It’s not the kind of question you can ignore once it shows up. It keeps repeating, getting louder every time you try to drown it out with logic.
The truth was — the life we built no longer fit who we were becoming.
Letting Go Before We Were Ready
We didn’t leave the U.S. overnight.
It started as quiet conversations at midnight — what if we just left?
Then small decisions: less stuff, more space, fewer obligations.
We were unbuilding the life we had piece by piece, long before we sold the business.
It wasn’t about rejecting our old life; it was about releasing it.
There’s a big difference between running away and running toward something.
We just didn’t know what that “something” was yet.
The Turning Point
There’s a freedom that comes the moment you realize you don’t have to keep living the same story.
Once we said it out loud — that we wanted something different — everything started shifting.
We stopped waiting for the “right time.” Because the right time never comes.
It was now or never.
So we chose now.
And that choice changed everything.
What Leaving Really Feels Like
It’s messy. Emotional. Uncertain.
There’s grief in saying goodbye to people and places that shaped you.
There’s fear in trading security for the unknown.
But there’s also relief.
Relief that you’re finally listening to yourself again.
Relief that you’re allowed to want something more than “fine.”
The Honest Truth
We didn’t leave the U.S. because we hated it.
We left because we loved ourselves enough to start over.
Comfort can be a beautiful thing — until it starts costing you your joy.
And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is admit that you’re meant for something else.
🎥 Watch the Story Unfold
See the full video version of this chapter — what led to the decision, how we knew it was time, and the moment we finally said “let’s go” — on our YouTube channel: Mike & Stacy Abroad on ForeTube