“The Marriage Did Not Last”: 80 International Dating Culture Shocks People Never Saw Coming

I’m Danish and my wife is from Argentina. You would think there’s a lot of cultural differences (and there are), but I haven’t found it to be overly shocking or difficult. The worst for me may be the kisses when you greet each other as I don’t even hug my own dad and generally dislike anything more than a firm handshake.

As a German in a relationship with a South Italian woman, I’d have to say it's the sheer amount of food she and her family give me every time I visit. I think they want me to stay in Italy - that must be why they feed me so much!

And then there's the Italian "breakfast" consisting entirely of cakes and cookies. The sweetest thing we Germans would ever eat in the morning is maybe a slice of bread with Nutella, and that's it. I definitely couldn't eat like that every day.

Another thing is the warmth and care. Most of the German women I’ve met tended to be quite distant and self-centered. My girlfriend, on the other hand, really looks after me.

When she scolds me, it’s usually only because I’m eating unhealthily or doing something else. It’s more about her worrying about my health than just nagging to let off steam.

I’m married to a Serbian woman who won’t let me touch a single item in the kitchen unless it’s to make a very particular bean soup called grah that her dad taught me to make. So for me the very clearly defined gender roles within the marriage were a shock.

I've dated a Brazilian, who lived in Germany for a few years (I'm from Poland). He couldn't understand the concept of laundry dryer. He was putting clothes all over the furniture to dry them and was VERY surprised it was not getting dry in 15°C for days and smelled funky later. He said he was drying his clothes like this his whole life. Sir, Brazil is SO MUCH HOTTER, why can't you understand it.

My partner is Australian and I'm Austrian. Some things that I had to get used to:

They don't like to cause a scene and will rather wait for 45 minutes instead of asking the waiter if they've forgotten their order. Or they'll be like "yes sure, it's okay if we can only sit on the floor right next to the toilets because you have no other free tables" instead of just leaving and going somewhere else. They'll also queue for take-away coffee. (I would never queue for coffee in Austria; it's just not as important, lol) And the fact that they all get take away coffees all the time just because they want a nice coffee on the way to work or something. I feel like nobody in Austria would go to a café just to grab a coffee to go; you go there, sit down, drink your coffee there.

Also, Australians have a much higher tolerance to the cold outside. You'll see people in shorts outside in the middle of winter (I'm living in a cold climate in Australia) and parents don't force their kids to wear 5 layers of thermo clothes before they're allowed to leave the house. On the other hand, they (rightfully) take sun protection incredibly seriously and people will absolutely wear hats, sunscreen, rashies, and stay in the shade no matter if it gives them hat hair or makes them look dorky.

In terms of fashion, Australians are a lot more relaxed than Europeans. If you catch up with someone on the weekend or after work, they'll often wear active wear and runners and no makeup. Very freeing. There'll also often be people in pyjamas and oodies in the mall or the supermarket if you go shopping after 7pm.

Aussies are also incredibly friendly and social and will often strike up a conversation with strangers or make sure you're being included at a party where you don't know anyone. Even the most introverted Australian is usually still incredible at smalltalk in comparison to Austrians. I also feel like their friendliness is usually genuine. They're not as sceptical or judgmental as Austrians and they're quicker to call someone out for being a bit of a jerk and tell them to pull their head in. There's not as much trashtalking other people behind their back here (or at least not trashtalking for no actual reason) and people are a lot more open to help someone even if they don't know them very well.

Christmas was a massive culture shock for me and I'll never get used to it. It's basically just a summer family barbecue with Christmas decorations and songs about snow that make no sense.

Another big cultural difference I noticed is how happy Australians are to move many hours away from where they grew up, for a new job or for love or just for a change. Lots of them even move to Europe for a year or forever.

Food is also very interesting here; I will leave it at that.

Now that I'm a parent, I also notice huge differences in parenting. You only receive a small amount of money for a short time after giving birth, so a lot of mums go back to work rather quickly and kids go to daycare for long days, often before they're even a year old. Despite daycare actually being very expensive, everyone kind of does it.

Anyway, others might disagree, but that's my experience.

🇯🇲 married to 🇺🇸.

It had taken me a while to get used to the fast moving life and convenience in the USA. Also eating out is a big thing here while in Jamaica a home cooked meal is preferred. There are also huge highways...yes Jamaica has highways but nothing compares to I-85 in Atlanta which has 10 lanes on each side...absolute madnesss!

I'm Swedish, loving with a German in Sweden.

We went shopping groceries here. Swedish people put each item on the belt one at a time, centered with space to the next item. We also turn the items so that the bar code will be the right way for the cashier, minimizing the time and effort they need to put into this transaction. That is how it is done. It's a solidarity thing.

She just dumps her whole cart in some kind of anarchist PILE, then expects the poor person behind the belt to just "solve it".

First I just thought she was a [jerk], but having visited Germany many times now I can conclude that everybody does it like this down there. They all hate the cashiers. Freaking animals.

Ps. I like her anyway, I will ask her to marry me. She has other qualities.

I’m American and my boyfriend is French.

When we first started dating, he said “I love you” VERY early, like in the first couple of weeks. I brushed it off. A little later, he asked me to say it back, and I was very confused. I really liked him so I just went with it.

For reference, the first “I love you” is a huge deal in the US. Three months in is about the minimum.

Months later, I read in a youtube comment that French people don’t assign the same significance to saying it for the first time. I called him and it cleared it up for both of us. It was ultimately harmless but very confusing on both sides!

My (American) wife is Chinese and she was shocked that some parents stop supporting their children at 18. I was shocked they don’t go to the dentist unless there is a problem.

I could write a book about cultural differences between coastal Colombian and Midwest US spouses.

While there are many culture shock moments, my favorite was the very first one, when we found out in a large and busy store that the gesture for “come here” in one culture means “goodbye” in the other.

I dated a British woman for 4 years.

Less so for me but for her, she didn't understand how dangerous the Australian sun could be. The first time I mentioned it to her she said, and I can still hear this clear as day in my head, "It's the same sun, innit? Just on the other side of the planet. It's not like the British sun has a British accent and the Aussie sun has an Aussie accent? They don't tag out once you enter a different country ya twit" (she called everyone a twit so I didn't take offense).

We were going to the beach. I told her to apply more sunscreen, then saw that she wasn't using 50SPF sunscreen.

It genuinely took so much effort to make her understand that if she didn't apply enough sunscreen and reapply it every few hours she would turn into a British woman cosplaying as a Tomato. There's not as much protection through the ozone layer down here. It's why the beating heat of an Aussie 45°c day is a hell of a lot different and worse then it is in a lot of other places. It's part of the reason why I scoff whenever people tell me they can handle working in that kind of heat. You can't, we can't and we've grown up with that.

She did not fare well that Summer. I can't remember if it was that one or the next summer, but one of them we had a bad heatwave. It was like 4 or 5 days in a row of just intense heat, the kind where after 3 days not even the AC offers much escape. She said she nearly broke up with me just so she could avoid that the next year. I ended up in the UK for Christmas that year with her so we ended up seeking heat instead of trying to avoid it.

We lasted another year after that before splitting up because neither of us wanted to make the full commitment to living in the other country. That and disagreements about children.

My partner is Scottish, and I was raised in England primarily by a German mother.

I was very surprised by how much of his food is deep-fried. For breakfast, for example, my German family have Brötchen, which is just bread rolls with cheese or cold cuts. Maybe a piece of fruit on the side, or a bowl of muesli, on rare occasions maybe a pastry from the baker.

Then I moved to Scotland and found out about the morning roll. It’s also sort of like a Brötchen but it’s a soft white roll instead of being crunchy or seeded and it’s laden with your favourite deep-fried breakfast items. My partner’s favourite is black pudding and tattie scone.

The cuisine coupled with how much less of an affinity Scots have for walking everywhere (my mother walks 1.5 hours to work every day) made me gain a fair bit of weight at the start.

Dated a Turkish man once. Had a vacation with him to his hometown, and met his mum and grandma. (And no, no plans for marriage). His grandma asked him if I was a virgin……. Gulp…..

I had a boyfriend who was a Sikh. The first time I saw him shower with his underwear on, I thought that he'd just forgotten to remove them. As time went on, I realized that he hadn't.

Italian 39M living in Canada with my 39F partner. Apart from the strip malls, the layout of the buildings, the car-centric conception of the urban space, honestly if I have to point to one thing that to this day still bothers me and throws me off guard is the tipping culture: should I tip? When is it too much? When is it too little? Will you curse my ancestors if I don’t give you a good enough tip? I feel like there are so many nuances to this and it’s pretty annoying!

Married to a Chechen. It was a long road to get her dad to approve of me and my wife still fears her family back home, so she doesn't want either of us to have social media (like Insta and Facebook) and is very strict about my family not posting pictures of her either. Her family members that live here and in Belgium on the other hand have all softened up to me and accept us, although many of them still consider it a fake marriage. We've been together 10 years and have a kid.

Apart from that all the delicious food my mother-in-law cooks.

Dutch, with a latino who grew up in America. Our biggest thing is he wants to share everything with his family. I am not close to my family at all, but he would gladly give them all of his money if they ask for it. Even the ones he hardly ever talks to like far away cousins because ‘it’s my family’ and it was drilled into him that family comes before everyone else. His closest relatives live in a multigenerational house and expect him to eventually move back when his mother grows old because he is the one that finished university and actually has a decent income (no worries, he won’t go that far).

I am having a hard time with his willingness to help them out, because they are also die hard catholics who are honestly pretty racist and narrowminded. They have never treated him kindly because he is softhearted and not a machismo guy. Only one of them has ever visited us to see his life.

We are now finally at the point that he doesn’t respond to everything his family wants and he sometimes goes against the grain, but it’s a looooong road.

My wife is Swedish. In Sweden people don't expect to pay off thier mortgage, they just pay the interest... In UK paying off the mortgage is basically our single life goal... What's sad is it isn't even a 'for the next generation' sort of thing, it's because it'll likely be what pays for our late life care.

My girlfriend is Brazilian.
She lets everything out on the kitchen counter. Greens ? Two days sitting there. Raw meat ? Who cares if it stays a few hours out. Butter ? Why ever put it in a cold place ?
As a French I put most stuff in the fridge by default. And we are nowhere near the temperatures you get in south america.
It really weirds me out.

Dated a Uyghur. They wouldn’t hold my hand in the Chinatown district where we lived in case anyone from her community saw us together. I’m white.