A happy married life with a Slavic wife

Jeff is an American guy married to a Slavic wife. This couple has their own business which is hugely successful. I’ve interviewed Jeff who has given me the permission to share his insights here.

• The logistics of marriage:

Once you understand that you will possibly choose business partners, life partners, and even inner-circle friends who will trigger your deepest wounds so you have a chance to heal in a tremendous way, and you are happy to do that healing work which will continue for the rest of your life anyway, then you can move on to the logistics of living in a true partnership. 

“If you don’t acknowledge that whatever conflicts exist between you and your Slavic wife are probably not about the content of the actual conflict, you will get caught up in the trap of trigger loops, and then you won’t rise above hurt and blame,” says Jeff, “My wife from Eastern Europe and I occasionally had conflicts, which is inevitable, because we run a business together. But I always know that it’s not about those surface-level things. I look at deeper value systems.”

Jeff and his Slavic bride share their calendars on Google Calendars. He can see everything on her calendar and she sees everything on his calendar. If Jeff has something he is doing that is related to something that he doesn’t want her to know for some reason (such as a surprise birthday party), he simply names it ‘secret’.

Anytime Jeff wonders where his Slavic lady is or what she has going on, he only needs to open his cell phone and there are all of her events in pink on his calendar (his events are in blue). This strategy helps a lot as Jeff doesn’t have to ask her what’s going on – he simply checks his phone.

• Regular meetings at home:

Jeff and his lady from Eastern Europe run an online business, so they work from home. Don’t assume that the shared calendars as well as calendar invites should be enough to keep them on the same page in terms of scheduling. In reality, there are things that come up unexpectedly, leaving one or the other of them feeling disappointed or unsupported. As a result, Jeff and his wife have decided to have a weekly meeting at home where they talk through the week, day by day, to highlight the important events during this week. This usually happens on Sunday night so that they can get ready for the next week. They oftentimes realize during their weekly meeting that they have to hire a babysitter who they have forgotten to hire, that they must ask their neighbor to watch their son for two hours to give them a grace period to get back from urgent appointments, or that one or the other of them has made an appointment and forgotten to send an invite. They usually look at the coming week carefully and give the next week a quick overview. In this way, they have a good idea of what’s going on.

“Overcommunicating about scheduling may look overkill, it’s one of the most important strategies to make sure our lives run smoothly,” says Jeff, “Neither me nor my Slavic wife feels like we are the only one thinking about the household schedule. Instead of having scheduling surprises rock up that leave us scrambling, we could use the element of surprise in our marriage for surprising presents or an unexpected date night.” 

During their weekly meetings, Jeff and his woman from Eastern Europe also check in with each other. They see whether anything has rocked up during the previous week that needs to be talked about emotionally or logistically. Oftentimes, this part of the meeting is only several minutes, yet occasionally it can be two hours heart-to-heart that has made them feel more connected and more supported.

“Love isn’t about looking at each other’s eyes all the time. Love is about two people looking at the same direction.”