I found the love of my life, who is now my beautiful wife, in another country

Most men and women get married in their lifetime and for some it comes unexpectedly and not who you imagined it would be. This is my personal story of how I met a women that I fell in love with instantly and happened while I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic in 2002. It is much easier to adapt with a person of similar culture and race but if you love someone, everything goes out the window and you work together to overcome any obstacles. I will now start describing how we met and the obstacles we overcame and are still very much in love after 10 years of marriage and 4 children later.

I landed in the Dominican Republic and got settled in my hotel and was tired. I was going to call her and cancel but decided not too. That was the best decision of my life. She showed up and I didn't believe in love at first sight. I believed in lust and you grew to love someone. I had seen many beautiful women and had dated some stunning women but when I saw her, my mind blanked out. I know Spanish but I couldn't get my bearings. Her smile and eyes had that special something. She showed me around various places and I felt so comfortable like I had known her forever and her personality was so positive and bubbly. Plus she was pretty as well. I asked her to go out dancing because I wanted to practice Merengue and Salsa. She agreed, and we had a great time. Then the moment came and she said something to the effect of that she had a great time and if I wanted that she could show me around another day. I agreed without hesitation. She beat me to the punch because I was going to ask her anyway. She had mentioned she had to work the next day and I knew where she worked because she mentioned it. I said I would meet her after her shift. I met her after work and within a few more days I told her I felt about her because I felt the feeling was mutual. It was mutual. The funny thing is that we both are planners and not impulsive. Both of us were not looking for love at that time in our lives but it happened. This is the story of how we met but making it actually happen and overcoming cultural obstacles is the next section.

We kept in contact with daily emails and phone calls. I decided to check out paperwork to bring her to the US. Normally it only took a few months to sponsor someone on a K1 visa before the Sept 11 attacks. I met her a few months after this horrible occurrence and the INS was now the BCIS and were changing everything around. They were now a branch of Homeland Security and were changing protocol and this caused a huge delay for her to get here. I put paperwork in around June of 2002. In the meantime I had visited her again and she became pregnant. It broke my heart to not be there for the birth of my oldest son. We became a family together in the US in April of 2004, 21 months after filing paperwork. It should have been great that my wife was now here and we had a son together but it wasn't that easy.

Marriage is hard work. I had never planned to get married to a woman of another country and from a different culture. Marrying someone different than you brings some complications in that you wouldn't expect. I never expected to have issues and conflicts with things because I was so worried about bringing my wife and son here that I didn't reflect on things that we might face when actually living together. We had a different cuisine. This may not seem like a big deal but Caribbean food and American food is totally different. It is hard to cook as a family if you don't like something and she doesn't like something. Americans like to use expressions and she was clueless about things we say all the time. Someone asking you what does that mean or why do you American's do this can get on your nerves. We take it for granted because what we say and do is just normal for us, but to others it may seem strange and silly. Likewise another culture's traditions we don't understand.

I knew my wife was Catholic but didn't realize how that would affect us. I am a Christian but not a Catholic. I didn't realize how this would affect us when it came time to baptism of our children and various things the Catholics do that I don't. I hate stereotyping but we all do. I control my emotions much better than my latina wife and she could go from super happy to angry in a moment and start in on me in Spanish. Missing her family takes a toll because if they are from another country it generally costs money for regular air travel. It wasn't too bad when we only had one child but buying 4-5 tickets, twice a year became a bone of contention with the costs involved. We had to compromise and she visits twice a year and we go as a family one time a year. My wife sometimes experiences racist remarks because she has an accent and is not your stereotypical American. She works in customer service and it hurts her when dealing with people saying things like I want to speak to an American, not a Mexican. She isn't even Mexican and they speak differently and have a different culture but that's beside the point. She didn't realize that in America people are still like that. These are just some of the obstacles we have overcome and there are many more but it would take a long time to detail everything. If you love someone you can overcome your differences. We will face more obstacles tomorrow as do all married couples but if you work on them and learn how to compromise, you're over halfway there.

I love my wife and our children. If there was a time machine I wouldn't go back and change anything. I had dated women that were similar to me but never felt that spark of love and devotion like I do with my wife. Why would I want to give that up? We may have initially had more obstacles to overcome than others but using a quote "this too will pass" Overcoming differences and working together with compromise I believe has made our marriage strong. If you love someone: religion, race, ethnicity and difference in culture doesn't matter. With God in your life, compromising, and telling your significant other you love them everyday with a hug and a kiss, you have laid a great foundation for a loving marriage that grows stronger with time.