Love Across Borders: What Immigration Taught Me About Marriage

We had been married exactly two years when we landed in Amsterdam. High-school sweethearts, still high on life, and freshly in love with our little family, we arrived brimming with excitement for our Dutch odyssey. But reality didn’t ease in gently- it smacked us straight in the face. And our marriage took the hardest hit.

Why do we feel embarrassed, or even ashamed to say out loud that our marriages have been tested, stretched, and sometimes cracked under the weight of immigration? There’s this unspoken expectation that love should be enough, that if you truly care, you will somehow glide through the challenges, hand in hand, unscathed. But the truth is messier. It’s raw, uncomfortable, and often lonely.

The silence is deafening. It isolates us, makes us question our own worth and the validity of our feelings. It convinces us that no one else is struggling the way we are. That we’re alone in this silent battle. But the truth? We’re not. Because marriage, especially in the context of uprooting and resettling, is a living, breathing thing- it needs space to be vulnerable, to break, to heal.

Moving abroad is a shared dream, but it’s also a shared sacrifice. Suddenly, you’re not just partners. You’re each other’s village. There is no one else. No family down the road to take the kids for an hour. No friend to share a glass of wine with and blow off some steam. The strain creeps in quietly. One of you adapts faster. One misses home more. One feels free, the other feels lost. Roles shift. Who earns, who parents, who connects socially- everything gets renegotiated at a pace so fast, your emotions can’t keep up.

For us, there were days when we didn’t recognize ourselves, let alone each other. The familiar dynamics, the little dances of give and take we’d perfected over the years, unraveled. We argued more. We withdrew more. We tried to be strong for each other and ended up brittle.

I started feeling resentful toward my husband. He went to the office, had colleagues, adult conversations, and a front-row seat to this new culture. Meanwhile, I was at home, alone with our daughter, without a car, without a clue how to navigate this unfamiliar life, and unable to speak the language. It was so, so hard.

Immigration didn’t break our marriage — it exposed it. It showed us the bits that had gone unchecked. It demanded we grow, separately and together.

What kept us going wasn’t some grand gesture. It was the daily choice to try again. To sit down after a long day and talk. Not just about taxes or toddler tantrums, but about fear, resentment, guilt, and longing. About how we were both grieving versions of ourselves we no longer had the space to be.

We started to re-learn each other, not as the people we were back home, but as the people we were becoming. And that kind of love is deliberate. It’s not the honeymoon. It’s the harvest. We made a promise to keep communicating- every fear, every dream, every dark thought and heartbreak. No matter what, we’d keep talking.

And we have. There have been fights, screaming matches, tears. But somehow, we always find our way back to each other’s arms. Because now, we know: we’re stronger together.

If you're in the thick of it, if your marriage feels like one more thing you're holding together with tired hands- I see you. Here's what helped us breathe again:

1. Name what changed.

You’re not failing — you’re adapting. Sit down and list the roles and routines that have shifted. Talk about how it feels. Out loud. Together.

2. Let go of the “before.”

You can’t build a new chapter while clinging to an old one. Stop measuring your relationship against how it used to be. Start asking: who are we now?

3. Prioritize connection, even when it feels forced.

Schedule the coffee. Go for the walk. Send the silly meme. You may not feel “in love” every day, but intimacy grows from showing up, not waiting for sparks.

4. Grieve differently, together.

One of you may be thriving while the other is drowning. That’s not failure. That’s reality. Hold space for each other without fixing or comparing pain.

5. Ask for help.

Therapy. Community. A babysitter. A friend. You weren’t meant to do this alone — not motherhood, not marriage, not immigration.

Remember that you’re still writing your story. This is just a chapter.

And if this chapter feels hard, it’s because it is freaking hard! But hard isn’t hopeless. Marriage after immigration is less about staying the same and more about choosing to accept the individuals that you are becoming. 

We’re still figuring it out- laughing, stumbling, learning. But I know now that love doesn’t only grow where it’s comfortable. Sometimes, it grows best when it’s been shaken, replanted, and given new soil.

So, if your love feels different, that doesn’t mean it’s broken. It might just be blooming into something deeper.

Have you felt this shift in your own marriage? I’d love to hear from you — drop a comment or DM me @expatmamaclub. Let’s remind each other: we’re not alone in this.