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This story, like many of this age, does not begin with “Once Upon a Time” but “Once While Online”…
The modern fairytale, it seems, is undergoing a transformation.
Where once the prince of your dreams lived down the block, now he often lives in a land you have never visited, except possibly in a virtual sense.
While packing for a virtual relationship is brilliant, love online can actually be a very tricky business.
Any long-distance relationship is hard to maintain, let alone strengthen and grow, so why are so many people now drawn to life partners from far-flung places?
Why Foreign is Now Common
What has changed in our world – which at first glance seems a far more insular and frightened place – to encourage so many people to link their lives to foreign loves?
It’s a Small World After All
It cannot be denied that technology has done away with traditional barriers of borders and time-zones. Just as immigration and foreign travel have become more rigid, the constraints of communicating across great distances have diminished.
The world has become a smaller and more accessible place.
There are now guide books and phone cards for a hundred different destinations. In chat rooms and online communities we are passing through each other’s houses right across the globe.
What was once a dot on the map can now be Google Earthed into your living-room, so that Timbuktu is now as close as a click away.
Pick And Choose
We are a generation of people who are spoilt for choice.
Want a mobile/camera/radio/garbage disposal all in one handy unit? You got it! And which of our thirty six colours would you like that in, madam?
So why should we be limited when it comes to love?
We now have an expectation that love can be found in any post code, in any timezone and will our disposable incomes and adventure-seeking spirits, we have both the inclination and the means to seek love out, despite its destination.
In a world where choice is demanded, is it any wonder women expect to be able to dine at the European smörgåsbord or to treat themselves to the American All-You-Can-Eat Buffet?
Embracing Difference
We are all equally hungry for new knowledge and experiences.
As we are exposed to other countries through both virtual and real travel, we learn that despite our differences, we have much in common.
Through emails and photos and blogs the once unfamiliar becomes comfortable and as cultural barriers are weakened, relationships find fertile ground to grow.
And for those of us who may have grown tired with the same old men, performing the same old relationship routines, foreign affection can be attractive as their accents.
From Chat Room to Honeymoon
While constructing my profile for all the online communities I’m part of, I am almost tempted to add “immigration survivor” to my repertoire of tricks.
For in the case in my own fairytale, I too took the road now more frequently travelled and married a man with alphabet soup for a surname (take note of the Aussie flag and beer in the pic!)
Although our courtship was in the streets of North London, rather than the webs of the Internet, we still went through all of the joys and struggles of a foreign partnership.
The reality is that everything is heightened on holiday.
Even if you are merely slipping away from reality by chatting on the Net, you are still distancing yourself from your current life. You are sipping from the heady cocktail of the exotic and unknown, often dressing up in a different persona and indulging in cultural experiences you can’t find at home.
But what happens when your relationship moves from the virtual to the real world?
Love Conquers Culture Shock
Perhaps I am reaching by saying that it would be a wonderful day if the United Nations could have as much success at negotiation, integration and understanding as a marriage made of two countries!
But I believe that only the truly committed can overcome the obstacles of a foreign marriage: immigration, racism, homesickness, language difficulties and religious and cultural differences to name just a few.
So here’s a few suggestions from a seasoned traveler for surviving the courtship and marriage to a stranger from across the seas:
- Anticipate turbulence – Marriage is an alien enough experience for the recently-single, without the groom actually being an alien! You must anticipate that there will be bumps in the journey ahead.
Do not allow yourself the luxury of second-guessing yourself once the deal is done. Keep your eye on the horizon when your stomach starts to churn and never lose sight of what you love about your traveling buddy.
- Mi Casa Su Casa – No matter where you choose to live, someone will be a stranger. Despite all that you do to make the other person feel welcome and at home, the reality is that it isn’t their home yet.
Without their familiar/familial support network, they can turn to you for all of their emotional needs which can be as heavy as a bulging backpack. Homesickness can cripple your fledging relationship, so budget for international phone calls, Skype and expensive, imported foods you can’t pronounce.
- Lost in Translation – You often need to develop a third, shared language when you mother tongues don’t match. My husband speaks five languages (versus my one!) and the language of love can only get you so far.
We perfected a sort of pidgin English until he got up to speed – if it had been left to me we would still be grunting at each other and relying on body language – but we still had some enormous, and often hilarious misunderstandings. I will never forget trying to work out what “feet gloves” are (ie socks) or trying to decipher his shopping lists – he mixed up the words “kitchen” and “chicken”, leaving we wandering the mall looking for “kitchen pieces”.
- Love the Exchange Rate – Do not be fooled – international love is an expensive business! Forget the money you save on a registry office wedding (instead of the extravagant affair you anticipated) because it will be quickly swallowed up by jetting between your “two homes”.
Transitioning your partner into a new job and showing him all of your favourite haunts will set you back the rest of your carefully saved dollars, but what better way to spend your money?
Keep your head, stay strong, work together and you never know, you might just live happily ever after….
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Wow, do I know what you’re talking about! We began our internet relationship in 1994 before the www was in Orlando where I was living and he was in Australia. We spent so much on the phone that we could have traveled to each other twice. Now with voip it’s an expense that new lovers don’t have.
I came to Australia three months after we met and made it permanent about 3 years later.
It’s now been 13 years and to me he’s still the sexiest man on the planet. It certainly can happen and it certainly CAN work.
So what do we do for a living? We run an online dating site, of course. :) We have product knowledge!
So nice to read a post on this subject that is so down to earth and truthful. Telling it like it really is just doesn’t seem to be the done thing with this subject, people seem to dress it up into some flowery fairy tale when in fact when it comes down to it, the whole situation can be extremely stressful and damn hard work.
It is so nice to find someone who has the whole “immigration debacle” in common. I have often thought about writing a guide to immigrating to Australia for Love…I think there is lots of things that people need to be aware of before embarking on this incredible journey.
Please feel free to drop me a line anytime to discuss our successful adventures with our foreign men LOL.
So all in all…another fantastic post..what more can I say ?
Hi Feeling Flirty,
Thanks for your comments.
You are definitely the expert! How great to have made a living out of your experiences and to be able to guide others over what can be a very rocky road.
I agree that it can work. To be honest, once we met, I never looked back, despite the difficulties (which included about four years of immigration!)
Glad we also have Australia and sexy men in common :)
S.
Hi Mad Goat Lady,
Now it is your turn to read my mind.
Long before I knew anything about blogs I really wanted to start some sort of free tool / ezine to make the Oz immigration process easier for people.
I was a teacher, with resources and family support and I found the red tape almost crippling. What about the poor people who don’t even speak English???
Would love to talk further about our mutual experiences!
S.
ps. I’ve started a post on inspiration for red tape challenges, which I will finish next week.
Aha..Simone maybe we need to put our blogging heads together and come up with something that assists those poor, innocent, love-struck people that want to immigrate here but have no idea what they are in for? What do you think? :)
Good idea!
Maybe we could get a few other “romantic roamers” to join in too!
S.
Hi Simone!
A good one. I got married about two months ago and what you have written here could be felt by me during this first two months of getting-used. Plus, my husband is a burmese (I am a Chinese in Singapore), understanding what his family is talking about most of the time is quite a daunting task to me. At times, I gave up altogether and zone-out.
Thanks for the post!!
Hi WaterLearner,
thanks for the comment and congratulations on your recent marriage!
I really know what you mean about ‘zoning out.’ My husband’s family are all still overseas, so he converses regularly with them on the phone and it is like listening to machine gun fire. I’ll pick up a word of two, but that’s it.
Hang in there through any prickly patches – it just gets better and better :)
S.
Simone, very nice post, good style, touchy and down-to-earth. Wish to get more such nice posts in future. Thanks :)
Hi Debajyoti,
Thanks for the visit and encouraging comments! Hope to see you again soon :)
S.
Hi Simone. It is difficult but the world is getting smaller and smaller. Still there are cultural barriers, language barriers and other barriers. But that is what love is all about. Breaking down barriers. My wife was in Australia and I was in the US (born in Argentina). We met through the internet. She came to visit me and we got married after 2 years. After 8 years we decided to move to Brisbane. So here we are loving it with two kids born in America. I just got my Australian Citizenship. Life is great!
Hi Alex,
How brilliant! Brisbane’s great, heh? I’m in Perth, which is quite similar. My husband got his citizenship last year and we are planning babies in the next few months. Couldn’t agree more! Life is wonderful. Thanks for sharing!
S.
My DH has been Down Under twice – backpacking, riding trains, working on farm stays and a banana plantation. Then went back two years later to visit Tasmania and do it all over again. He’s a yank but has traveled to over 21 countries while I stayed home and raised my two adoring children. It was not idyllic – I’ll send you an autographed copy of my memoirs – “Why Women Need Men! I want to be a kept woman, wear a red dress and high heels, and shop at Publix.”
I finally relented three years ago and moved in with him. It’s like cohabitating WITH a foreign country. Just pick one. He’s been there, rode it, climbed it, ate it, or brought it home.
The challenge in any relationship is finding the middle ground. The things you both adore and can build shared memories around. The glue that keeps you together is “respect”. So, he learned how to use email so he could send me messages from Darwin and I got a chance to be independent and not define myself by the relationship I was in.
We’re still together after twenty years – he stays home now – and I write about the adventures we share.
blessings,
julia
julia ward – a BLINDING heart – a writer’s blog
http://www.ablindingheart.com
What a wonderful, wonderful story.
Thanks so much for sharing.
Your home must be an inspiration.
S.
Great post, full of truth and useful fact. I think that most of us have had some experience with this topic, on whatever level, and, this information often remains hidden behind bad experiences… I am glad that your long distance relationship worked to the point of marriage, and, I wish you total happiness and a long life together… Love this site…
Hi Lyn,
Thanks for the encouragement. I think you are right about this being a shared experience on some level for a lot of us. My husband and I celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks – going to have the honeymoon we missed out on! Hope to see you again soon. S.
I wish that my beloved had read this before the end of our time together.
This is definitely an interesting post and has a point! :D
Long Distance relationships are more common than ever. Not just only because of the internet, but because people travel more freely nowadays and meet others during their journey.
I am glad actually that you mentioned this article because my English friend met an Australian man during her backpacking days and they have been together for 4 years. They came to Canada hoping to get him to England that way and his application was denied. It must be difficult to struggle that way. I hope your move to Australia was not so difficult.
I’m going to be linking to this article….. Hope you don’t mind.
Hi Jon, Joy and Sharon,
Thanks for your comments!
Jon, sorry to hear things didn’t work out…
Sharon, I think immigration in many countries is a real struggle. My husband’s case was really difficult and took over four years to work through.
Luckily we were never knocked back on anything, but it really changed my views on personal freedom. I kept thinking “I’m a sixth-generation Aussie, how can the government tell me who to marry???”
The reality is you become part of a very big, impersonal process. Now I improve processes for a living, so I’m getting my own back :)
Best of luck to your friends and look out for my upcoming “Beating Bureaucracy” post!
S.
Wow! I think that you are right on target on this one, Simone!
My brother’s wife is originally from Uzbekistan. Their first child, my Goddaughter Ashley Rose, is due on October 19th. When they met she was already living in Canada and spoke Russian, Hebrew and English.
My boss at work married a woman from Ukraine. She didn’t speak very much English when they met and has a daughter that was eight at the time of their marriage. They had to deal with the troubles of immigrating both of them along with many of the things that you have had to go through, too, I imagine.
Another friend married a woman he met over the internet who is from the Philippines. So I guess what I am saying is, you’re right, it is much more common in today’s world. And it doesn’t always work out. It isn’t very easy. But I am so glad that it is working out for you so far!
Julie
I hope our governments and religious leaders start realizing that the old walls and even older ideas that came between us don’t exist anymore. They keep manufacturing reasons for us not to cross borders, charging us with crimes if we kiss a girl on the cheek, demanding that we keep our distance when we already have broken down all the walls and thrown out all the rules when we started finding each other online. It’s a revolution of knowledge and love right under our fingertips!
blessings,
julia
julia ward – a BLINDING heart – a writer’s blog
http://www.ablindingheart.com
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your comments and congratulations on the upcoming birth of your Goddaughter!
Good luck to all of your friends. I think in some ways this kind of marriage is easier – it is both a relationship contract and a commitment to the other person that the massive change (new country, new language etc) is permanent. That certainly helps you think twice before packing your bags over an argument!
On the other hand, when the honeymoon period is over, you can still find yourself in a very foreign place (just without the cocktails!) You HAVE to be ready for massive change if you go into this sort of marriage.
Thanks for getting me thinking so early on Sunday morning :)
S.
Hi Julia,
You’re spot on that the landscape of love is changing. A lot of the old stuff still applies, but policy makers need to understand that they can’t regulate relationships… and we need to go into these relationships with open eyes, because immigration and love are still very foreign entities!
S.
I must say, I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments just as much as your post Simone. While my story differs, I too married a man who migrated to the US from Poland. Sadly enough though, his intentions were not honorable, as he merely sought out a green card, which, of course, little old helpless me (doubtful) was not privy to, but I quickly picked up the signs along the way. I had a rather difficult time accepting their so-called custom of having female friends from Poland visit our home sit ‘harmlessly’ on my husband’s lap.
Well, that custom didn’t last long nor did the marriage. I was very young, so, I shook it off and moved on.
Hi Ambre,
Thanks for sharing your story.
I am sorry your trust was betrayed in such a way. I hope you have gone on to find the happiness you obviously deserve.
S.
Hi Simone, I enjoyed reading this post as it has been a part of my life for so long as well. I will relay this site to others as you have requested, and am glad that this blog is going well for you. Email me back if you like, and I will share with whomever you like. Say hi to Sok for me! Damn Gina! Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for visiting and for your encouraging comments!
Yes, this article definitely reflects what I know about your own experience. It’s a long road, but a good one.
Talk soon,
S.
[...] Simone wrote a fantastic post today on “The Modern Fairytale: Marriage to a Foreign Man”Here’s ONLY a quick extractIn chat rooms and online communities we are passing through each other’s houses right across the globe. What was once a dot on the map can now be Google Earthed into your living-room, so that Timbuktu is now as close as a click away. … [...]