Mixed Marriages
Why Expats Marry Foreigners and Then What
Happens
From: Transitions
abroad
By Tamula Drumm
It seems that every few years my colleagues and I celebrate
the marriage of one of our former students to a foreign national
they met while studying abroad. Timing and common interests
seem to be the primary factors that bring these couples together.
A U.S. Foreign Service officer once told me that meeting
his wife while in training in Taiwan made perfect sense. He
was in his late 20s, dating, and ready to find a lifetime
partner. Being part of a community in which intercultural
marriage is seen as perfectly logical and “going home
to settle down” at odds with his career plans, courting
his wife in Taiwan seemed to present no complications or impediments.
Common interests also play an important part in the decision
to marry abroad, especially for expatriates who have spent
years learning the culture and language. How many of us have
returned home to realize that friends and family are unable
to understand how we have been changed by our experiences
and by the cultures in which we have been living?
Finding a community of people with similar experiences is
not always easy. Most of us end up adjusting to or accepting
our circumstances (sometimes with great difficulty) or seeking
other chances to go abroad. Living with someone who has some
understanding of these experiences may create a port in the
storm for those of us who have been changed by our lives abroad.
Expatriates Naturally Bond
Expatriates are brought together by the common experience
of being foreigners. In the international community in which
I lived for many years in northeast China, American students
and teachers dated Japanese, Korean, French, and Russian students
and teachers. Every year we celebrated at least one engagement.
People living abroad are often themselves the products of
intercultural marriages. (I know of one couple in which the
African American man’s mother was an immigrant from Haiti
while his girlfriend was ethnic Chinese from Vietnam whose
family had immigrated to Switzerland. Another American student
who dated a student from Japan was the granddaughter of a
Chinese doctor who had married an American missionary.) As
borders become easier to cross, intercultural marriages become
much more common and acceptable than they once were.
Of course, many more relationships in our international community
ended once the realization of the realities of returning home
and trying to maintain long-distance relationships set in.
Often the couple is not ready to make a long-term commitment
when the challenges of trying to get back together somewhere
in the world appear to be too great.
I know of at least two Japanese women whose parents threatened
to disown them if they married American men. In one case,
the couple married anyway. In the other, the woman returned
to Japan. Her boyfriend received a letter from her uncle saying
that she had been bitten by a poisonous snake and died.
The Practical Matters
Couples who find each other abroad often come down to earth
when they start considering the reality of building lives
together under complex circumstances. Working through the
details of what the relatives will think, where they will
live, and how they will arrange the paperwork becomes a test
of fortitude and staying power.
In my own case, the Chinese marriage license was fairly easy
to arrange, but U.S. officials kept pushing back our departure
date with the piles of paperwork, fingerprinting, and other
documentation required for an immigrant visa application.
Some people have said that the process is designed to be slow
to discourage shotgun weddings.
Deciding where to live can also be difficult. Flexibility
and the willingness of at least one spouse to live as a foreigner
or immigrant abroad can make things easier. My husband has
experienced the convenience, privacy, and mobility of American
life as well as the frustrations of open discrimination. At
this point the benefits of living in the U.S. outweigh the
disadvantages, but we often discuss returning to Asia where
I am the foreigner or moving to a third country where we both
would be foreigners. Living in an area where diversity is
common can make the move easier. Building a community of international
friends also helps tremendously. If it’s financially
feasible, yearly visits home can also help your spouse feel
more in touch with family. Again, compromise and flexibility
are key.
What to Watch Out For
When considering marriage abroad, think about the circumstances
in which you met and fell in love and give yourself lots of
time to see if it can last. Many vacation flings seem perfect
at first but turn out to be impractical. I dated men whom
I later discovered were more interested in a visa than a serious
relationship. I know of many American men who imposed stereotypes
of Asian female docility on their Asian girlfriends, then
were shocked to realize that their wives expected to call
the shots at home after marriage.
Even if family and friends on both sides of the marriage
are accepting and supportive, you are bound to encounter naysayers
who are sure your relationship will fail. An American friend
of mine was told by her boss that “intercultural marriages
just cannot work.” When she pointed out that her own
marriage to her Chinese husband was happily in its third year,
the boss said that she was in the “honeymoon stage.”
Later she found out that his American son and German wife
were struggling with their own marriage.
Statistically, intercultural and interracial marriages have
a high rate of failure. But many succeed. When we look to
older generations who dealt with a climate of greater disapproval
and discrimination than we do today, we find keys to how to
make these marriages work for a lifetime.
TAMULA DRUMM holds an MA in Asian Studies from
the Univ. of Michigan. She lived and worked in China and Taiwan
for seven years and is currently a Program Officer at Brethren
Colleges Abroad. In January, she will bergin working as resident
director of the BCA India program in Cochin.
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