She Moved to Italy for Love — and Spent Years Finding Her Way Back to Herself

There’s a kind of courage that doesn’t get talked about enough: moving abroad not for a job or an adventure, but for love. For a life you’re building with someone, in a place that wasn’t originally yours to choose. That’s where April’s story begins. She moved from China to Treviso, Italy, for her husband, and what followed was one of the most honest, tender journeys of self-discovery I’ve heard in a long time.

April had lived abroad before. She studied in Rome and worked in Istanbul. But those chapters had endings she could see coming. Treviso was different. This wasn’t temporary. This was her life now.

She carried that weight into a country she didn’t yet fully know, during a pandemic that made everything feel even more uncertain.

“This was the first time I wasn’t moving for an experience. I was moving to build a new life.”

That shift — from experiencing to belonging — is something that doesn’t get enough space in the conversation around living abroad. It changes everything about how you show up, how you struggle, and what you need.

When Everything Felt Like Too Much

April’s first years in Italy weren’t what she’d envisioned. She was living in a small town near Treviso — hadn’t mastered Italian, couldn’t drive, and had no way to move around freely. For someone who lights up in a room full of people, who thrives on conversation and connection, the silence was deafening.

She had a loving, supportive partner beside her. And she still sank into depression.

I want to hold space for that for a moment, because it’s something so many of us carry quietly. You can be loved. You can be grateful. You can know, logically, that your life is good — and still feel deeply, achingly lost. Those two things don’t cancel each other out. They can both be true at the same time.

CrossFit and travel became the things that kept her afloat. They offered relief — moments of strength and lightness in heavy seasons. But they couldn’t reach the thing underneath.

It took real honesty with herself, a few painful emotional breakdowns, and conversations with a psychiatrist to finally name it: she’s a city person. She always has been. And the countryside, no matter how peaceful, couldn’t hold her.

Last year, she and her husband moved closer to Treviso Centro. It wasn’t a perfect solution — but it was a true one. She can now walk to CrossFit, cycle to Italian class, and meet friends without needing anyone to drive her.

That return to independence gave her something back she hadn’t realized she’d lost: herself.

The Quiet Weight of Small-Town Life

People often assume language is the hardest part of living abroad. And yes, it’s a real barrier. But April says something else wore on her more: the pace.

Life in a small Italian city moves slowly and in patterns. For April — someone who runs on entrepreneurial energy, new ideas, and the crackle of a room full of ambitious people — that stillness felt like standing still in quicksand.

She was working remotely in business and sales, missing the kind of professional community that pushes you, challenges you, and makes you feel alive in your work.

She didn’t find that community waiting for her in Treviso’s streets. She had to build it — intentionally, carefully — reaching out in community groups online. That’s how she connected with me! And we began supporting each other our respective work.

It’s a gentle but important reminder: your people abroad don’t always appear automatically. Sometimes you have to seek them out, slowly and on purpose. And when you find them, they matter so much more.

The Year She Finally Exhaled

In 2025, something shifted for April. Two decisions opened everything up: moving into the center of Treviso and stepping away from her full-time job.

On paper, they might sound small. But they created something she hadn’t had in years — room to breathe. Room to learn Italian without pressure. Room to return to morning CrossFit. Room to move through her days feeling like a person again, not just someone surviving them.

“It felt like starting over — but in a good way. Like a fresh chapter.”

That kind of fresh chapter is hard-won. It doesn’t just happen. It comes from years of trying, struggling, asking for help, and slowly, slowly learning what you actually need.

What She’s Carrying Into 2026

April is stepping into this year with real excitement — and two projects she’s poured herself into.

She’s building an e-commerce business that brings premium Chinese brands to the Italian market. You can find their brand fiz-Italia on the TikTok Shop.

She’s also teaching Chinese as a foreign language, with a focus on culture and real business context. Not just vocabulary — the living, breathing China that people need to understand when they’re working, traveling, or building relationships there. You can connect with her on Instagram at @glowingupjourney27.

Watching her build something from all she’s learned and lived through feels like exactly what healing forward can look like.

What Her Story Is Really About

April’s journey isn’t a story about Italy being hard or love being complicated, though both of those things are true.

It’s a story about what happens when you’re honest enough to say: this isn’t working, and I deserve more than just surviving it. And then doing the quiet, unglamorous work of figuring out what needs to change.

If you’re somewhere in your own difficult chapter right now — isolated, bored, grieving the version of yourself you used to be — please know that what you’re feeling makes sense. It doesn’t mean you chose wrong. It doesn’t mean it will always feel this way.

Sometimes the thing that changes everything is as simple as moving twenty minutes closer to the city center. And you’re allowed to need that. You’re allowed to ask for it.

You’re allowed to build a life that actually fits you.

Do you have a story about living abroad that you’d like to share with our community? We’d love to hear from you!