I moved 5 times for my career and financial security, but it backfired. My last move was for love.

By the time I turned 35, I had moved from Istanbul to London, then Johannesburg, Beirut, Dublin, and finally Berlin.

Each move came with a shinier job title, higher salary, growing network of professional contacts, and a stream of new experiences.

I had a passport full of stamps and stories that made me sound interesting at dinner parties, and for a while, I found this lifestyle exciting.

However, as I mastered the art of navigating unfamiliar cities and cultures and small talk with strangers, I lost other skills.

I lost my sense of permanence

I no longer knew what feeling rooted in a place felt like or how to nurture lasting friendships. My long-term health also suffered since I was no longer scheduling routine check-ups.

With a life built around my job and constant work-related travel, I knew which airport cafés had decent coffee, but I didn’t know the names of my neighbors.

After five relocations driven by career advancement and financial security — each one pushing my emotional and social needs further down the list — I felt burned out.

It wasn’t only the demands of the job that wore me down, but also the emotional exhaustion of constantly starting over.

My last move was for love, not ambition

I met the man who would later become my husband during that fifth move to Berlin.

He, too, had spent his 20s and early 30s chasing career milestones in different cities, working in finance.

When we decided to get married, we also began talking about the kind of life we wanted to build together.

One thing became immediately clear: we wanted to stop moving and finally take root somewhere.

By that point, we both felt we had achieved plenty in the corporate world and were ready for a more balanced way of living.

We wanted to buy furniture, grow plants, and build routines.

There was one hiccup, though. We had both moved to Berlin for our careers. As beautiful as Berlin is, it wasn’t a long-term location for us.

We had to move again, this time to build the life we wanted with each other

My husband is Italian, and I’m Turkish. We chose to move to Rome together so that we could build a life that honored the best parts of where we came from: plenty of good weather, readily available fresh produce, and a strong sense of community and family.

Rome, with its long lunches, would not have been the obvious choice for me many years ago, when I was moving for career growth and financial stability.

However, it was the obvious choice for me when I made the decision to move for love. The logistics and bureaucracy were still a headache, but it was the easiest move I had ever made.

My husband supported me through the transition with his fluent Italian as we navigated police stations and city halls for visas and registrations.

We’ve lived in Rome for a year now and love it

I have not completely deprioritized my career, but I started treating it as one aspect of my life, not the whole of it.

Instead of the bustling halls of Big Tech companies, I now work remotely from home as a freelance consultant, which allows me more time for my relationships, hobbies, and interests.

We moved to Rome a year ago, and we are slowly building the routines we longed for such as finding our favorite restaurant for Friday date nights, making weekly visits to the local farmers’ market to cook minestrone, or getting an annual gym subscription.

Will I move again? I’ve learned never to say never.

However, I can confidently say that I no longer feel the need to move or to chase the next exciting city for a prestigious job title.

I’ve started to think of my life like a garden. It needs light, yes, but also consistency, care, and the right container. For me, that container was love.