Marriages and comitted long-term relationships in which each partner comes from a different country and culture are these days not uncommon. With people easily moving around the world (well, at least before the COVID-19 outbreak) for work and study purposes, meeting a love of our life somewhere far away from our home country has become much more likely in the last 10-15 years than ever before. The expansion of the internet and a variety of different communication apps allow us stay in instant touch with our partner on a daily basis, even if we are thousands of miles apart from each other. The COVID-19 pandemic, although restricted our physical movement around the globe, has brought people together in the virtual space. Many of them would have never met otherwise, as they live in different countries or even on different continents, yet some have found their soulmates this way, amidst the outbreak and lockdown.

But are the cross-cultural relationships that easy and carefree as they seem to be? How is it to have a partner or spouse whose cultural and often religious background differs from what we are used to and what is familiar (and predictable) to us? In this episode of the Love Talks, Ashish Parekh and I talked about the challanges and benefits of cross-cultural marriages with Melanie Goel from Germany 🇩🇪 , whose husband comes from India 🇮🇳. Melanie shared with us her insights and perspective on how to get well along as a couple regardless of the cultural and religious differences, and what mindset to adopt to make your cross-cultural relationship or marriage happy and fulfilling for both partners. She also offered some great tips on how to deal with some of the challanges that are pretty inevitable when people from different cultures fall in love with each other but which are possible to overcome and make the relationship even stronger in the long run.