4 Unexpected Experiences of International Relationships

When I first met Islam in an online chatroom during the summer of 2013, I thought the biggest challenge would be the time difference or finding a way to meet each other when we lived on different continents. At the beginning of our relationship I did a lot of research to help us prepare for the inevitable bumps on the road of combining two cultures into one. Along the way, however, we have encountered challenges that I never would have expected:

1. You will discover biases you didn’t even know you had.
A lot of people are already aware that they have some biases. Going into the relationship, I knew that I had some prejudices but I generally considered myself to be open-minded. After I had spent some time with someone from a different mindset than myself, however, I quickly found out that I held on tightly to some ideals that I didn’t even know I considered important. Nationalism doesn’t seem important until you are explaining your culture to someone who’s never lived there. Religion may not seem important until you are looking years ahead into a future where you are deciding how to manage the raising of children and the reactions of family members from both sides of the family. If you enter into an international relationship you’ll find yourself being pushed on boundaries that you didn’t even know existed. This makes it extra difficult to find compromise because you are trying to learn where your lines are at the same time you are attempting to move them to find middle ground.

2. Other people’s negativity will affect you more than you think.
When entering into my relationship with Islam, I knew that not everyone would be supportive. It’s rare to be 100% supported in any decision and things get especially complicated after you toss in things like different upbringings and religions. What caught me off guard is how frustrating that negativity is when you actually encounter it in your day-to-day life. When you are talking to a coworker and she asks about your Egyptian partner’s “other wives” or when friends automatically assume that you are being controlled and dominated in the relationship because of your partner’s nationality, that becomes a little harder to swallow. The idea of facing prejudice is one thing, having someone actually criticizing the one you love and your relationship without knowing the details is a jarring and exasperating experience. The most surprising thing is that it doesn’t seem to get easier for me over time. I’m just as annoyed (if not more so) the tenth time I am asked a stereotyped question as I was the first.

3. Immigration is a complex and exhausting process.
If you and your significant other decide to have him or her move stateside, be prepared for a long and stressful wait. When starting the process to have Islam move to the U.S., I had only heard about immigration through the televised debates during election season. The reality of
U.S. immigration is that it involves a lot of time and paperwork including a lot of forms that have to be meticulously filled out or any errors/omissions can set you back in a process that can already take months or even years. The process of filing Islam’s papers will cost us over $1,000 dollars, and that’s before the medical exam and vaccination costs required for him to immigrate; not to mention airfare and the general costs associated with transplanting your life from one side of the globe to the other. Add this to the emotionally exhausting reality of being long distance for an unknown period of time and getting to see each other once or twice a year and you have a recipe for a lot of stress on your relationship. You will also have people who don’t understand the intricacies of the immigration process attempting to give advice and not understanding why you started talking about the move 8 months ago and are not even past the first government office yet.

Taking in all of the risks to our relationship, it isn’t all bad news because:.

4. The extreme challenges you and your partner face can actually strengthen your relationship.
I had never known real compromise and dedication until I met Islam. Despite all the hardships we’ve endured this early in our relationship, I am thankful for each and every one of them because it makes me more appreciative of what we have. Few people have the chance to actually prove to their spouse how much they love them, and we get to demonstrate that every day by having faith in our relationship and pushing past the obstacles in our way. The distance makes us appreciate the time we spend together – every moment is more precious when I don’t know when I will see him again. The challenges we both face in making a life together forces us to grow and improve ourselves in ways we may not have otherwise. In short, the experiences of my international relationship have taught me the importance of compromise, perseverance, and most of all, the tremendous power of love and hope.