Accenting Your Love Life
by Colleen Laing and Corey Heller

Everywhere we look, it seems, we find multi-cultural couples – Johnny Depp and Vanessa Chantal Paradis, David Bowie and Iman Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff. Is it coincidence or kismet that more people are crossing borders for love? The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 11.1% of U.S. residents are born outside the U.S., and, for those of us who travel internationally, potential foreign mates are everywhere. The Bilingual / Bicultural Family Network asked you to share your stories about how you met your foreign spouse and this is what we learned.

If you want to meet an Italian, go to France
Many of you met your future spouses while both of you were working or attending university programs abroad. Claudia, from Mexico, met her English husband, David, while working in the U.S. American co-author Corey met her German husband, Rainer, while studying in Ireland. What is it about living abroad that brings culturally diverse couples together? Perhaps the excitement of a foreign locale opens our minds and hearts to people different from those we've known before. There may be a common personality trait amongst those who leave their lives behind and enter into the adventure of living abroad.

Austrian student Alice met her Ecuadorian husband, Cesar, when they were graduate students in the U.S. and says their mutual bewilderment became a source of bonding. “Together, you struggle through the bureaucratic system, support each other in finding lodging, and help each other decode strange American expressions and customs. Only another foreign student can understand how embarrassed you are when you have a problem with ordering a hamburger at McDonald's. When the lady snaps impatiently: “To go?” for the tenth time and you still don't understand what on earth she just said.”

Business and Politics
Clo, an Italian, met her Belgian husband while both were working at an industry trade show in Cannes. “We began crisscrossing personal and professional trips” she recalls, “meeting as often as we could all over Europe: Paris, Amsterdam, Nice, Positano, Barcelona, with several stops in Rome and Brussels, of course. It was a very exciting time!” Chiri, a British journalist, met her Dominican photographer husband while on assignment in the Dominican Republic. “Where your work takes you to other countries, romantic accidents can happen” she says. Sometimes international politics moves the stars and influences our fates. Lotte and her husband have Saddam Hussein and George H.W. Bush to thank for bringing them together for moonlit picnics on a desert oasis.

Home Turf
One obvious way to meet foreigners is to travel to their homelands. Lily, a Taiwanese, met her American husband, Perry, when he and a team of co-workers volunteered to install play equipment on the playground at the refugee center where Lily was working. Sisters Jenn and Jessie traveled to Italy with their family in their teens. Jessie stayed in touch with friends there and, after college, moved to Florence. She eventually married her longtime friend, Roberto. After years of hearing from Jessie and Roberto that their neighbor, Diego, was perfect for her, Jenn finally met him and today they are happily married and living in Seattle.

Some of us didn't even have to travel to meet our international males. Katie met her Danish husband, Henrik, through mutual friends while he was on assignment on her home turf at the Danish Embassy in London. Co-author Colleen met her Russian husband, Vladi, through the classified singles ads in the Seattle Weekly . “I advertised and he answered. He was the fourth guy I went out with as a result of the ad, and right then I stopped following-up on other responses. I had intended to date a bunch of people just for fun, but I met Vladi and the rest is history.”

Opening to New Experiences
Many people assume they will marry someone from the same background as themselves and are surprised and even disconcerted when they fall in love with someone from a different culture. When co-author Corey met her future husband, they didn't consider each other as romantic prospects. A German and an American, they were influenced to a degree by post-war propaganda and media images of each other's cultures. When co-author Colleen was told by a palm reader that she would marry a foreigner, she laughed and dismissed the prospect out of hand. “I assumed I would meet and marry someone who grew-up in Seattle, too, who had watched the same TV shows, listened to the same music, and with whom I shared a local cultural history” she says.

Trial and Tribulations
Cross-cultural relationships' biggest hurdles are often related to their long-distance nature. Years spent talking daily by phone, exchanging hundreds of letters full of passion, longing, sorrow and frustration, taking expensive plane trips and experiencing difficult immigration officials all take their toll. For those who survive the ordeal, tough choices follow their decisions to advance their relationship. In whose country will the couple live? How will the non-native spouse find work in the agreed-up locale?

Heidi, from Denmark, ended up living in her Irish future in-laws' home in Dublin while her intended, Frank, worked 200 miles away. After months away from her British boyfriend, David, Claudia, from Mexico, was detained upon arrival at Heathrow and had only 30 minutes with him at the airport before she was forced to board a plane home, having been denied entry to the UK for at least a year.

Perhaps surmounting these obstacles together is part of the fiber that strengthens our international marriages. After a trans-Atlantic telephone conversation with her future husband, co-author Corey remembers thinking “if we can get through this, we'll surely be able to get through anything.” Like many couples of all nationalities, our struggles become part of our shared identities. Kudos to all couples who have opened their hearts to love someone from a different culture and background and have taken the chance to let love across the continents happen for you.

© Colleen Laing & Corey Heller

Read here what some of you told us about how you first met the international love of your life!

Have a story you'd like to share with us about how you met your international spouse? Send stories to: info@biculturalfamily.org with the subject line “How We Met” and we'll post it in April's Mailbag for others to enjoy.

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