Marriage is hard work, especially when your spouse is a foreigner. Initially, there is a gap between you: background, cultural and language. You’ll be spending much time understanding each other and deciding on different things. Keep reading and find out what issues you’ll have to decide upon before marrying a foreigner.
1. Change of the scenery
Traditionally the wife gets to move in with her husband and move to another country. This can be tough, especially when you have to change continents. For a person, who is new to the country, extremely hot or cold weather can be a deal breaker unless they have strong emotional support from their spouses.
2. Body language
The way of communicating universally known is the body language. It is better to review the customs of the new country and new people you are going to meet. From hand gestures to hugging, people around the world have different perception and meaning of the body language.
3. Being dependent on each other
Depending on the country you have settled in, one will always be in charge. If you live with the spouse in his country, he needs to take charge and take care of the accommodation, documents and finding the job. Otherwise, when the spouse lives where you are, you have to help him arrange work, take care of his health and everything until he learns the language.
4. The language barrier
Learning a new language never comes easy, especially when you are already in your thirties. Couples often meet half-way. They can choose to speak whatever language they want, provided they understand each other. Some have a hard time understanding humor and sarcasm in another language though.
There will always be the issue of what language the kids will speak. Both partners will have to learn some basic language to communicate with parents and relatives. Some parents choose teaching kids two languages.
Some people also find it hard to convey their true intentions and emotions in another language. You have to be very careful when choosing the words. As much as you learn, you won’t avoid the language gap completely, only shorten it.
5. Finding companionship
When you live abroad, you sometimes feel like an alien. It is hard to make friends. The ones who do understand you are people who left their hometowns as well. If you communicate only with those, your significant other will feel left out. The best way is to compromise and equally communicate with his and your friends.
6. Other language matters
When you learn new language and culture a whole new world opens before you. That’s why people sometimes change mentally when moving to another country. This is most noticeable to your native friends and relatives. You will change your behavior due to other country’s morals.
You can change languages subconsciously or replace words, and there will be a point when close people won’t understand you.
On the bright side
The advantages of the international marriage, if you focus on them, can outweigh the problems. You get to learn a new language, explore the cultural heritage and meet new people. If you do all this with your beloved alongside, you’ll succeed.
There will much more issues to the marriage itself but every couple deals with them differently. If you have encouragement from your family and support of your loved one, you will easily overcome all the cultural barriers that may come your way. The key is to keep an open mind and learn from your mistakes. Face obstacles as experience and soon you will be able to help newcomers to the foreign country who were once just like you.
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