Intercultural marriage: pros and challenges.

Hoy quise escribir en inglés porque, vamos, es el idioma que paso hablando dos tercios de mis días y mientras más lo practique, mejor lo usaré. Este es un resumen de un ensayo que escribí para una clase, al final puse una sorpresa. Enjoy!

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All you need is love?

“Love conquers all” is what we’ve been usually told since we are kids, especially when it comes to learning how to cope with marriage.  The most common obstacles we come across when we decide to spend the rest of our lives with our beloved one are adapting to each other’s lifestyle, trying to integrate ourselves in their family and deciding how to raise the children. Any mature, loving couple is supposed to overcome these barriers in the way. In my opinion, these obstacles actually increase when we chose to marry someone from another country.

Coexistence

First and most important, coming from different countries results in the fact that you’ve been raised in different cultures. Taking aside that you might actually practice different religions, it may be very hard to get used to each other’s way of living and traditions. Arguments can come from silly things such as the best time to have a meal or even big important issues like understanding your partner’s offensive, black sense of humor.

Free holidays and relatives

When people from two different countries get married, at least one of them has to move abroad. So perhaps one of them has to change some other manner in order to suit their new conditions and adapt themselves to the new background. It is often said that when you have a foreign partner, you will always have a free place to spend your holidays abroad. I guess that’s a very positive point, but I don’t believe you can really integrate yourself to your beloved one’s family if you only get to see them once or twice a year… such a pity because family is the most precious possession in everyone’s life.

Becoming a family

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Last but not least, the biggest obstacle arises when you decide to have children, the question arises as to how are you going to raise them?. It is common knowledge that mixed raced kids are beautiful smart little things that can have very valuable skills, such as speaking two languages since a tender age. That is good for them because they get to grow up between two different cultures and that opens their minds. But the problem arrives for the parents when they have to decide how to raise them, a couple should be very mature, open minded and willing to make compromises if they’re planning to have kids together.

To sum up, spending a lifetime with someone from a different culture is a very enriching experience that can bring happiness to both parts as long as they have the love and patience to coexist in spite of the differences. 

Mise agus mo buachaill na hÉireann

So I’ve been in a relationship with an Irish guy for the past five months and I must say, these have been the most enriching, fun and meaningful months I’ve spent in YEARS. No complains yet, I get along really well with him and his family. The only obstacle I’ve come across to is trying to integrate myself to "the lads", I never understand their jokes and I keep feeling slow in response every time they try to start chatting with me (sometimes I feel really, really stupid). I guess it’s a matter of time getting used to them.