Moving Abroad With Your High School Sweetheart

When Maria and I got together as teenagers, I had no idea that just a few short years later, we’d be moving to France. Almost a decade on, we’ve worked, studied, traveled, and lived in France – nearly 4,000 miles away from the Virginian high school we both attended. As high school sweethearts, we’ve heard our fair share of critiques about our relationship over the years.

You’ll never last.

You’re just going to hold each other back.

You can’t experience young adult life when you’re tied down.

You’re going to get sick of each other.

You should spend a few years dating other people.

You’ll regret staying together down the road.

…and that’s the short version of the list. Despite these judgements, our relationship has thrived for seven years and counting, including a fair amount of time abroad. From daydreaming about our move, to devising our plan, to landing on French soil, to adapting to French life, we have experienced the entire journey together. Read on to learn why we believe that our relationship as high school sweethearts has not only defied the naysayers, but has actually enhanced the experience of moving to France.

Built-In Support

Being oceans away from friends and family in your home country is one of the most difficult parts of living abroad. The regular comfort you receive from your support system goes from being easily accessible to sparse and digital. However, living abroad together allows us to be there for each other in ways that our nearest and dearest simply can’t anymore. We both got to maintain the most significant players in our support systems by taking on our French adventure together.

Remembering What’s Important

The hustle and bustle of the day-to-day abroad can make life before moving seem distant. Finding a balance between preserving old American traits and espousing new French ones is important to us, but staying in touch with the core identities we built before moving can be tough as we compile fresh experiences and adapt to a new normal. Luckily, meaningful conversations about what our lives were like before moving, the ways we’ve grown since then, and how we can reconcile both of these things are frequent since we’re abroad with a loved one from home.

Letting Our Guard Down

When you live in a foreign country, you’re the odd one out. Unfamiliar traditions, contrasting mannerisms, and differing values separate foreigners from natives. In our quest to integrate into French society, it can really be a relief to come home to an American! After a hard day in the French workplace or a particularly long French dinner party, nothing is as liberating as decompressing with a loved one that shares your culture and practices.

Perfect Understanding

A reality of moving abroad is that people who have never lived the expat life can’t quite understand it. Whether you’re talking with family in your home country or hanging with friends in your adopted one, the intricacies of what it means to leave everything you know behind for life in a different society will be lost on them. Since we are both Americans in France, we are intimately acquainted with the unique difficulties of expat life here and are therefore distinctly equipped to encourage each other through them.

Relationship Development

Moving abroad with a partner requires absolute trust, diligent planning, open communication, and skillful decision making. Our journey has involved constant obstacles that have regularly obliged us to put these ideals into action, and we know that the challenges will only continue throughout our years in France. Cultivating these habits not only facilitates our life abroad, but reinforces the foundation of a happy, healthy relationship.

On the whole, we are convinced that moving abroad à deux (with a partner) has greatly enriched our time in France as English assistants with the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF), as graduate students in French university, and as young professionals. Not only have we stayed together well past our teenage years, but we’ve created unforgettable memories, pushed each other to our full potentials, and are as madly in love as ever. Some argue that the world is too wide for your soulmate to be from your hometown, but exploring the big wide world together as high school sweethearts is the greatest pleasure of our young lives.

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