What with all of the wonderful reasons why marrying a foreigner is fantastic fun, there are some definite downsides as well. International marriage isn’t always filled with rolling R’s, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, blossoming roses and “until death do us part.” It also comes with heart-wrenching and, at times, heart-breaking realities that make us question our choices.
关于和一个外国人结婚的各种美好理由听起来都很好，但是这种爱情关系也确实有一些缺点。国际婚姻并不像循环的爱情片一样永远充满着巧克力、美丽的玫瑰花以及那些“只有死亡能把我们分开”的浪漫言语。这种关系中那些痛心的、令人心碎的现实也会让我们质疑自己的选择。
Below are a few reasons for why I find international marriage difficult. Although I wouldn’t say these are necessarily reasons not to marry a foreigner, you might want to think long and hard about these before tying the knot with your international spouse-to-be:
以下是我发现国际婚姻很难维持的几个原因。我所写的并不是你不嫁给外国人的理由，但在与你的国际伴侣结婚之前，你真的要好好的考虑这些问题:
10. Far away from family. One of us is always living far, far, far away from family and friends. There will never be a time when we are close to his family as well as mine.
10、远离家庭。两人之中总有一个人住得很远很远，远离自己家人和朋友。永远不会有离双方家庭都很近的时刻。
9. Loss of holiday traditions. My husband especially feels this when Christmastime rolls around: There is nothing even close to a Weihnachtsmarkt here in Seattle (and where is the smell of roasting nuts filling the air?). When I lived in Germany, Thanksgiving came and went without even the sighting of a turkey, let alone family getting together to celebrate. Things just feel a little less warm and comforting when our holiday traditions disappear.
9、传统节日的消失。我的丈夫在圣诞节时对此深有体会：在西雅图，即使在圣诞集市附近也什么都没有(在空气中根本就没有烤坚果的味道)。当我住在德国的时候，感恩节连火鸡的影子都看不到，更不用说全家人聚在一起庆祝了。当我们的传统节日消失时，一切都变得不那么温暖和舒适了。
8. Cultural misunderstandings. My husband and I have learned to appreciate most of one another’s cultural quirks (this has actually been a fun process overall). However, there are times when our cultural differences rub one another the wrong way. The cultural idiosyncrasies of my husband that I love the most can also cause me the most frustration when I’m not at my best (and mine can do the same to him!).
8、文化误解。我和我的丈夫学会了欣赏彼此的大部分文化怪癖(这实际上是一个有趣的过程)。然而，有时我们的文化差异会以错误的方式互相摩擦。我状态不好的时候，关于我丈夫那些我最喜欢的文化气质有时也会让我最沮丧。(他可能和我也一样!)
7. What if we divorce? Being that one can never know where life will lead us, if my husband and I were to divorce (God forbid), I have no idea how difficult things could get. What if he wanted to move back to Germany? Where would the kids live? Would they live with me or him or travel between us both? All in all, international couples who divorce tend to have more difficult decisions to make when compared to those who live in the same country.
7、如果我们离婚怎么办?如果我的丈夫和我要离婚(上帝原谅我)，我不知道事情会有多艰难，因为我们永远不知道生活会把我们引向何方。如果他想搬回德国呢?孩子们住在哪里?他们会和我住在一起，还是和他住在一起?总的来说，与生活在同一个国家的人相比，那些离婚的国际夫妇往往要做出更艰难的决定。
6. Learning the language. Being that I am not fluent in German (and my German seems to decline steadily each year that we live in the USA), it pains me not to be able to understand nuances of my husband’s language. When we visit his family, I often don’t understand subtle jokes and can feel like an outsider. My husband is completely fluent in English yet he can still feel out of place when he hangs out with a bunch of Americans using slang and subtle cultural references. I can’t even imagine what it is like for couples who don’t speak each other’s languages!
6、语言学习。由于我的德语不太流利(而且由于我们生活在美国我的德语似乎每年都在稳步下降)，所以我不能理解我丈夫那些细微的话语。当我们拜访他的家人时，我经常听不懂他们那些隐晦的笑话，也会觉得自己像个局外人。我的丈夫英语虽然很流利，但当他和一群美国人一起使用俚语和当地隐晦的文化背景语言进行交流时，他仍然感觉不自在。我甚至无法想象对那些不会说彼此语言的夫妻来说是什么感觉!
5. It takes a lot of work. Marriage in general can be a lot of work. However, international marriages take just that little bit more. My husband had to listen to my complaints (for a long time) about how different life was in Germany. Then I had to listen to the same from him when we moved to the States. Aside from getting used to living with one another, we had overarching cultural differences to deal with which could really wear us down and test our marriage. Even today we hit cultural nuances that test our boundaries.
5、关系维持需要付出很大的努力。一般来说，婚姻会有很多事情要做。然而，国际婚姻只是会稍微多一点。我的丈夫迫于无奈的听我的抱怨(很长一段时间)，抱怨生活在德国是多么的不舒服。当我们搬到美国的时候，我又不得不听他的埋怨。除了适应彼此的生活之外，我们还在文化上有很大的差异，这些文化差异真的会让我们沮丧，同时也考验着我们的婚姻。即使在今天，那些细微的文化差别也在时时触碰着我们的关系底线。
4. Never completely at home. Even though my husband feels very comfortable here in the States, he still doesn’t feel 100 percent at home. Not only do others treat him as a foreigner, no matter how hard he tries, this country will just never hold the same degree of comfort as his country of origin. The knowledge of this weighs heavy on me from time to time.
4、从来没有感觉是在自己家里。虽然我的丈夫在美国感觉很舒服，但他在家里仍然没有百分百的感觉。不仅其他人把他当作一个外国人，而且不管他怎么努力，这个国家永远不会像他的祖国那样给他提供同样的舒适程度。这件事时不时的给我带来沉重的负担。
3. The end of true vacations. Ever since my husband and I have been together vacations have taken on a whole new meaning: Visiting family. I can’t remember the last time we took a long vacation that didn’t have as its core visiting family members. Since we live relatively far from my American family, we alternate vacation years so that we can visit his family one year and mine the next. How else can our families see their grandchildren/niece/nephews grow up? We love visiting family but it can put an added strain on our marriage since we never really get a “true” vacation to places that we’d like to visit and don’t know a soul.
3、真正的假期结束。自从我和丈夫结合以来，我就对度假有了一个全新的定义：拜访家人。我不记得上次我们休长假是什么时候，因为我们基本等于就没有休过长假，只要休假我们的核心日程就是拜访家人。由于我们在美国住的地方离我的家也比较远，所以我们每年都是两家轮流拜访，今年去他家，明年去我家。但是我的亲友们又要通过何种方式来看望自己的孙子、侄女、侄子呢?我们虽然喜欢拜访各自的家庭，但这也会给我们的婚姻带来额外的压力，因为我们从来没有真正享受过“真正的”假期，去那些我们想去游玩并且没有认识人的地方。
2. Airplane flights are expensive. While others are investing their extra dollars in college or retirement accounts, we are saving up for our next airline tickets to Germany! $7,000 is a lot of money which we’d love to be able to invest for the future. Our choice to invest it in the present to visit family in Germany is important to us but it does hurt at times. Our children’s grandmother won’t be alive forever so we do what we can to visit her as often as we can. We’ll hope to work out college and retirement as best we can.
2、昂贵的飞机票。当其他人把攒下来的钱投资在大学或退休帐户上时，我们正在攒钱买下一张去德国的机票。7000美元是一大笔钱，我们更希望能够拿它来为未来投资。我们现在只能将他们花在去德国的路上，但是有时真的又很心疼。孩子的奶奶终有去世的一天，所以我们尽我们所能去拜访她。我们只能尽量的努力来解决大学和退休问题。
1. At least one set of grandparents is always far away. Our children will never be able to have both sets of grandparents living nearby. Someone is always going to be far, far away. Skype is a wonderful thing but it still doesn’t replace spending time with real, live grandparents, aunts and uncles. This can be extremely heartbreaking at times.
1、至少有一方的祖父母离得很远。我们的孩子永远无法和我们双方的父母同时生活在一起。总有一方在很远的地方。Skype虽然也很好，但它不能取代与真实的、活的祖父母、阿姨和叔叔在一起生活。有时这真的会让人很沮丧。
And here is one more general question: Where will we be buried when we die? Will it be in the country that we live in now? Or in our country of origin? Or will we let our children decide based on where they are living? Many of us know the answer already while others have no idea.
还有一个更普遍的问题：我们死后会被埋葬在哪里?我们现在住的这个国家吗?还是在我们的原籍国?还是让我们的孩子根据他们的生活来决定?我们中的许多人已经知道答案，而另一些人则不知道。
Despite this list of reasons why international marriage can be tough at times, I would never, ever exchange it for anything else. My relationship with my husband has been the most wonderful experience in my life. We feel so very lucky to have found one another.
尽管有很多理由说明为什么国际婚姻有时会很艰难，但对于我自己来讲我还会努力的维持我们的关系不会改变。我和丈夫的爱情故事是我一生中最美妙的经历。我们很幸运的能够遇到彼此。
来源:爱语吧
爱语吧作者:Penny
