From Seattle to Sweden to London? I need a little help :)

Hi there.  I am an American from Seattle who has been living for one year in Sweden with my boyfriend.  I have two questions for all of you expats out there. 


1. Citizens of EU countries are allowed to move within the EU to live and work.  As a non-EU citizen partnered with am EU citizen would I have any real options to also live and work in another EU country?  I currently have a temporary resident permit that makes me eligible to live, work, and receive healthcare here in Sweden.

2. What do EU citizens do about their healthcare needs when not travelling but instead relocating to another country?  Since we would not be citizens of the country we settle in, I assume we would not be eligible for their national healthcare.


Here is some background on me: 

I would like to work and attend university wherever my partner and I settle.  I feel very limited and cooped-up here in Sweden, and after one year I have become very depressed and dissatisfied with my life.  I love my boyfriend, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life in Sweden.  I cannot go on this way and need to get my life back on track.

My partner is currently tied down to his job in the tourism industry which is why we are in the middle of nowhere.  We live in those places that are nice to visit on holiday, but life is more like a cage to me while settled here.  My options for friends, hobbies, work, studies, entertainment, shopping, healthcare, and quite literally everything are limited by our location.  If we are going to make it as a couple, I need more from my home place, and soon.

Since there is no turning back time and I have left my home in Seattle I do not wish to struggle recreating what I had there before, although that is probably one of the easier choices at this point.  I prefer that even if things are not working out in this village that I move on to vibrant city, full of life, here in Europe.  I will travel to London in May to see if it’s as nice a place as I think it might be for me, and us.

I do not want to return to the U.S. for so many reasons.  I never felt at home in America and always dreamt of moving away.  I never thought of moving to Sweden.  Now Melbourne I could see!  Oh, warm, lovely sunshine, mmm.  But I fell in love and found myself in Sweden.  I made a huge step by giving away all that I had in Seattle including a lifetime of belongings that made a very comfortable and complete home which gave me some of the security I crave.  I left behind a workplace I loved, beautiful scenery, wonderful live music, my family, friends who pulled me out to have fun on the town, and a lot more. 

I was naïve when I moved here for love thinking that I would overcome all obstacles in my new home rather easily because my partner and I would be united.  In reality the language barrier is huge, at least in the small villages we live in.  I imagine the majority who settle in Stockholm have a much different experience with SFI courses, meeting English-speaking expats, and just general everyday life.   

My original plan has been grasping to find a way to make things work for me here for two more years until I am then eligible for citizenship.  I am forced to realize that it is killing me to feel so stagnant.  Because I have felt very isolated and lonely, over time I have become a shrinking violet.  I find Swedish more difficult to grasp than I anticipated.  I cannot wait until I am fully fluent to go back to school or and have the career I desire.  Things have to change soon.

I need to feel the pulse of the city once more.  Greater Seattle at 4.5 million people is half the population of all of Sweden.  Everywhere in Sweden seems nearly identical to me.  The trees and lakes and little red cottages… Where is the variety?  I miss international cuisine, plays, ballet, art, concerts, gardens, and people of different colors!  I have come to the conclusion that it is far more convenient to live in the city and visit the country than vice versa.  Life begins to feel too short to put my life on the back burner. 

I think I have only a few options.  I can stay here and waste away.  That is not preferable.  I can return to Seattle and struggle to get my life back on track there where at least I will have immediate options to attend school, work, and play.  I would encourage my partner to join me but he is hesitant to leave his job at all, and insists that it is not an option to abort his partnership in his company for at least two more years.  I have tried so hard this year, and I just don’t have two more years in me to hold on here like this.  If he will not join me then I will have to return to Seattle because I don’t think I am a viable candidate for residency most places without being a part of a couple. 

I think the best possible compromise for us would be to move to an actual city here in Europe.  Stockholm is a possibility but I will still run into the same language barriers that I believe will make education and career nearly entirely impossible.  I am all for learning the local language but that takes me a good deal of time and I would like to have a life while adapting.  I think that is fair.  I know it would be a financial strain, but I still think London is the better option since it sounds to have a lot of what I want in a home aside from the Seattle-like weather.  And since my boyfriend and I both speak English we could be off and running from the start. 

I am sure some of you who were not EU citizens and must have partners who needed to relocate to another country for work while you were together?  I don’t think that there is any way I have the same legal right to live and work anywhere outside of Sweden the way my boyfriend does.  Is that correct?  If so, that rules out anywhere else in Europe for at least two more years.  In that case, I think moving back to Seattle might be my only choice since I am 31 and need to get some momentum back in my life.

We are prepared to marry to make his immigration to the U.S. less of a struggle.  In Sweden most do not marry until they have been together a good while and likely had children, but I know that outside of Scandinavia cohabitation is not at the same level as marriage.  We will try to work things out to make a solution possible.  For those of you who have been through similar struggles, do you have any advice for us?  Thank you so much.