Advice For Couples Moving Abroad
What you need to know to get the most out of your new life together
I recently moved from Colombia to Mexico with my wife and while we’ve been having a blast in a new city experiencing new things, it’s brought its fair share of “holy shit” moments.
Moving abroad with a significant other is something I’ve done a few times, unfortunately, in the past we didn’t make it out the other side of the challenge together. Looking back now, what we thought was out of our control was, in fact, very much under our control.
Granted, I’m no relationship expert and I’ve had my fair share of bad relationships, but in the years since I’ve learned a thing or two about what helps a relationship survive, especially while traveling.
This isn’t another vague “learn to communicate more and go on cute dates” type post, because those posts honestly suck. Cute dates won’t help you if the foundation of your relationship is buckling under the pressures of starting a new life together. This is honest advice for things that tend to go unnoticed, or worse, ignored.
Here’s my advice on moving abroad in a relationship and how to do it right.
You will both be really stressed out at some point
This probably applies more to young couples as older couples don’t tend to pack up their lives and move to another country on a whim.
Moving abroad is tough and it brings a plethora of challenges your way. Finding a job, an apartment and new friends are just the obvious ones but you’ll inevitably be homesick, miss your family, and maybe suffer a financial crisis or two.
Unless you have the emotional stability of a Buddhist monk, you’re probably going to lose your shit at some point, and maybe your partner too.
Stress is normal and a necessary part of life, but chronic stress is something far uglier and tends to lend the way to a toxic relationship if not managed properly.
Say you’ve moved countries with your partner who already had some work lined up. You’ve been having a crappy week on a pretty unsuccessful job hunt, your money is depleting fast, and your partner isn’t exactly being super sympathetic or supportive. As your shitty week reaches a climax, you find yourself lashing out at your partner for being insensitive.
You never asked for emotional support, but your partner should just know, right? They should drop what they’re doing and tend to your needs. Wrong. Your stress is your problem and your responsibility.
This situation is doubly toxic if your partner is also stressed out, expecting the same unsolicited support when it’s convenient for them.
Take responsibility for your problems and emotions, and expect your partner to be responsible for theirs. There’s a subtle difference between being supportive of your partner and being obligated to your partner. If something is stressing you out, talk it out calmly with your partner, but don’t let it turn you into an emotional shit show.
Stress is totally normal, but it’s how you manage and overcome that stress that shapes you into a better version of yourself. Stress and money problems will pass, but your memory of the event and how you supported each other, won’t.
You’ll get a little bored with each other and that’s normal
You’re both going to be in a completely new environment with little to no social network, which means you’ll be spending more time together than normal. While not a bad thing, it’s not entirely healthy to spend all your free time with the same person.
Spending so much time with your partner, you may find that you’re getting bored with the usual conversation, or worse, you’re beginning to unravel things you don’t like about them. This is totally normal and it isn’t the end of the world.
The people we love also have qualities we don’t like. That’s an unavoidable fact of life.
Having said that, you shouldn’t focus on them and let it snowball into something more serious. Address it early on and make an effort to improve the situation.
I’ve been living in Mexico City with my wife for five months and I can easily say we didn’t have many friends for the first three. As expected, we spent a lot more time together and started to feel the drag of a friendship deficiency. Our conversations started losing depth and we were spending more time in our own worlds on our phones and computers.
At some point, we decided it had gone too far and we’d do something about it. We looked for local events, language exchanges, and made more effort to see the few friends that we did have. Soon it exploded and now we both have our separate friend circles and spend much more time out of the house, enjoying what Mexico City has to offer.
Address the situation together and handle it like mature adults — there’s a solution that benefits both people.
You should both have your own friends and live separate lives
Okay, not totally separate because that’d be contradictory, but there should be some mystery in the relationship. When you’re always out together meeting the same people, the friends become mutual and it’s hard to draw the distinction between friend circles. This is by no means a bad thing at the start, and it’s inevitable, but down the road, you’ll find yourselves spending too much time together and then you’re hit with point #2 — you’ll get a little bored of each other.
Back at home, you have separate friend circles which naturally allow for time apart. This time apart is what creates the desire for another person, which is arguably the very thing at the core of any relationship — desire for a particular person.
The digital age has brought everything to our fingertips and as a result, we get bored with what we have too much access to. At times you’ve definitely some of these:
- Bored of seeing the same food in the pantry.
- Bored with the video game you got too good at.
- Bored with somebody you repeatedly had sex with but weren’t dating.
- Bored of the same content on social media.
- Bored with all of the outfits in your wardrobe.
Anyway, you get the point.
We’re rigged to get over anything that we experience too much. There’s no chance to miss it so it doesn’t trigger us emotionally and send off loads of funny little signals in our brain anymore.
Whether you believe it or not, it applies to people and it applies to your significant other. Anybody that has been in a relationship for more than a couple years has desire to thank for it.
Live separate lives to maintain some mystery and distance between each other. You’ll thank yourself for it when you’re still together 5 years later.
Resolve old conflicts before you move
Do you know what’s worse than fighting as a couple? Moving to another country to continue fighting. Not only will it increase the stress, but it’ll make the other tasks of making friends and creating social circles even harder. One of the biggest favors you can do for each other is addressing any pre-existing conflicts and squashing them before you leave.
The point of starting fresh in a new country is to actually start fresh in a new country and not bring all your baggage from home. You know, the stuff that’s going to keep you from being the best person you can be while you’re looking for new friends and new opportunities.
It’s worth noting that throwing themselves into a new adventure is a common solution many couples choose to save a failing relationship, and it sounds like the perfect solution.
Why address the fundamental problems of our relationship — like the fact we’re bored to shit of each other — when we can just move countries and forget about it? Great!
More often than not (read always), these problems have a way of catching up and then ruining whatever new adventure you may find yourself on. Heated argument in front of a crowd of unsuspecting locals, anyone?
A new adventure won’t save your relationship, but it can be the reason you both choose to save it. Squash your problems before you move and start with a clean slate on your new adventure.
Don’t forget about intimacy
This is good advice for all couples, even if they’re not traveling together, but it definitely applies when moving to another country.
And I’m not just talking about physical intimacy here. Building and maintaining emotional intimacy is equally as important. Without emotional intimacy, it can be hard for couples to properly handle the shit life throws at them.
We all know that intimacy is important but the longer we’re in a relationship, the less priority we seem to put on it. A lack of intimacy can cause anxiety issues, more fighting, and distance between both involved.
I lived in Colombia for two years and during that time I dealt with my fair share of professional and financial shit shows. What followed were new levels of stress I never thought I could experience and an almost non-existent sex life with my partner. This was bad for two reasons:
- My sex drive basically disappeared which resulted in even less physical intimacy.
- We both became distant, irritable, and less emotionally connected with each other.
Apart from the obvious, the major problem in this scenario is that you basically become best friends with all the commitment and responsibility of an intimate relationship, but with none of the good stuff like sex or a feeling of deep emotional connection.
Have more sex, talk about your feelings more, complement each other, and ask each other for advice. This will be the glue that holds your relationship together when the “honeymoon period” fades out, and it will.
Don’t keep score
Unless the decision to move abroad was completely mutual (it never is), you’re probably moving because one of you had a reason to, like a job offer. This can leave one person feeling indebted to the other which never ends well.
Saying stuff like “I moved here for you, so..” is a shitty thing to say to somebody you care about, and it only makes the other person feel bad for trying something new in their life and wanting you to be a part of it.
Keeping score of shit that doesn’t need a scorecard — like who moved for who — is an express ride to a breakup, and not a smooth one.
Nobody wants to feel like they threw your life off-course because you agreed to travel with them. Emphasis on the ‘you agreed’ part. Nobody forced you to move, so don’t keep a tally that suggests they did.
Good relationships never have been, nor will they ever be, built on the concept of Quid pro quo — a favor for a favor. Your relationship isn’t a transactional business, it’s a commitment to each other, and sometimes commitments need compromise.
Moving abroad with your partner will be tough and it’ll test your relationship, but it’s also extremely rewarding and will help solidify your relationship if you allow yourselves to put the advice in this article into practice.
Regardless of your situation, or who you’re committed to, your problems and emotions are ultimately your responsibility and your partner should never end up as the punching bag for all your stress or frustrations.
The relationships that make it through big challenges, like moving countries, are those with well-defined boundaries, maturity, and where both people can ask for support without making it the other person’s problem.
Alex Heery is a freelance writer and marketing consultant from Australia, sharing his thoughts on food, life, and the business of branding. Check out his work on LinkedIn and Behance.
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