Happy Life with a Russian Wife

Posted By admin on February 17, 2010

We continue the series of publications on the personal experiences of different women married abroad. Once again we raise the questions about the difference of cultural backgrounds and views of both spouses in an international marriage. In the following excerpt from a real correspondence, a woman shares her experience of communication in an international marriage touching upon the complex issue of our stereotypes about each other and other challenges in her relationship with her husband. We hope you would like to share your personal opinion on the subject here after reading it.

“While reading your last letters I received a confirmation that a lack of understanding in an international marriage is not only a personal problem but a problem of different cultures too. We have very different points of view about life as compared to the Americans.

For Russians, these things are important: house, comfort, homemade food and warmth, communication over a cup of tea in the kitchen. For the Americans, coziness in the house is a relative concept. Their view of comfort often implies that making a house cozy is just a waste of money. As far as their favorite food is concerned, a hamburger is the best thing in the world, though my dear husband eats everything that I cook with pleasure now. Tea is a poison that should not be tasted (although tea is an antioxidant that fights cancer), and all the soda rubbish (sorry) is the ultimate dream for them.
Naturally, we have no communication over a cup of tea with my husband. What maddens me most is that all conversations are reduced to talking about prices and cheap shopping. Now I have become accustomed to it. But first, in Korea, I was dying of boredom when American men gathered together to discuss only purchases and sales.

Sometimes nostalgia really displaces all other senses. But there is always more sunshine at dawn than in the evening, and the next day everything is much easier than it has been the day before.
And you are right again, we feel more relaxed and comfortable in the new house. We like to spend a long time out there.

I am sure you will succeed as a couple. You are adequately addressing the emerging issues. It took long for us to find the right ways of coping with the matters, so I am very happy for you both.

It’s amazing how each of your situations is similar to ours! We have experienced the similar crisis. For a long time, I did not understand what was happening. But once Bill blurted it out saying, “Very soon you will be very clever and in America, and you will no longer need me!” As you say, I could feel the resistance from the depths of his soul. It was said so bitterly!

In my opinion, this is a common jealousy of a man whose wife is getting ahead of him very quickly. Of course, imagine what your husband felt when you were offered to give a lecture at a university! And he as the head of the family was left to play second fiddle. Wounded vanity and other consequences were to follow.

You and I speak several languages, and our husbands know only one. Though my husband tried hard to learn Russian at the beginning of our communication, he did not learn more than 10 words.

My friend Andrew, who is also married to a Russian woman, once told me that they have a great respect for people who can speak two or more languages in America. There are even specific “names” for such people. I did not remember, but Andrew enumerated them to me. It depends on the number of languages how the person is called and what his or her “rank” would be. Naturally, the more languages s/he knows, the higher the “rank”. I know three languages (including the Ukrainian). And, of course, that might hurt the feelings of my man.

Sometimes I notice that he reacts off beat to the situations in which I can get along without his assistance of an interpreter “from English to English.” Previously, he simply flipped over my childish helplessness and played with me the role of a daddy with a small child. And when that period ended and it was time to grow up, he really did not want to let me be independent.

I try to support him in his own eyes, and we read a book together– it’s my English lesson from my husband. Although now it is not necessary, it is a way to show him that he is important to me.

Our intelligence and wit play Old Harry with us setting our men against us. So I allow myself to be helpless for my husband asking a lot of questions and so on. I make a conclusion that it is not worth actively showing our intelligence to men . When these situations occur, I laugh to myself, because I always remember the good old wisdom that women rule the world!”

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Categories: Home Sweet Home, Letters As They Are
Tags: a Russian-speaking wife, asking for help, Emotions, Feelings, International Couple, Mutual Understanding, New Home, Nurturing Each Other