Millions of people around the world flee their homelands due to persecution and conflict. As refugees in host countries, every single one of those people will undergo an acculturation process as they try to rebuild their lives within vastly different cultural contexts. Whilst there has been considerable research into resettlement stressors and their impact on mental health, far less is known about the long-term outcomes of the acculturation process on former refugee’s sense of cultural identity and wellbeing. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study explored the experiences of female Afghan former refugees who had been living in Aotearoa New Zealand for many years. Three common sub-themes emerged from their experiences of the acculturation process: overcoming obstacles, maintaining a cultural balance, and shifting gender power dynamics. Common sub-themes around cultural identity included: living out of cultural context, ‘losing’ one’s homeland, and making a new home. Participants described struggling through the acculturation process but then finding a cultural equilibrium which they maintained through a series of checks and balances. They all considered themselves to be Afghan-Kiwi but felt their personal identity had not changed, only how they identified culturally. Participants had created, both literally and metaphorically, a home within a home – the inner bastion was Afghan, and the outer walls Kiwi. Exploring participants’ retrospective experiences of resettling in a new country has helped deepen understanding of the acculturation process and its effects on cultural identity in the longer term. The sense of cultural integration and wellbeing felt by participants also served to highlight the positive impact that government policy and local non-governmental organisations can have on refugee and former refugee populations. By allowing participants to be heard in their own words, this study helps to relocate the focus of acculturation research back to the level of the individual and lends depth to other quantitative findings.