Building a Life Between Two Countries
Over twenty years ago, I fell in love with someone from Sweden. We met at work, through our careers at Ericsson, and our close friendship grew into something bigger. He was living in the U.S. at the time, with no immediate plans to return to Scandinavia, and we decided to build a life in the States. We got married and started our life journey together.
The decision to marry someone from another country has changed my life in ways that I never expected. One therapist wrote a guide that includes important considerations for couples who are considering the same thing.
I Said I Was Open…Someday
But before we married, there was a conversation I never forgot.
He spoke about the possibility of moving abroad someday, not even necessarily back to Sweden, just wherever his career might lead. I remember listening carefully, weighing my answer, and told him I was open to it… but not yet.
I already had a son. His father was very much part of his life, and it was my responsibility to give him stability; legally, emotionally, physically. He wasn’t mine to take across the world.
I remember my soon-to-be husband pausing, really thinking it through. He didn’t push. Later, he came back to me and said he understood. He believed he could build a life in the United States.
And so we did.
We had two more children together, both of them dual citizens, and every summer, the five of us traveled to Sweden. Those trips became a bridge between worlds. The kids spent time with family, absorbed the culture, and learned that there was more than one way to live, to think, to belong.
That’s one of the unexpected gifts of loving and marrying someone from another country. Your world expands in ways you don’t anticipate.
You start to see your own culture more clearly: what you accept without question, what you might challenge, what you choose to keep. Over time, you don’t just inherit a way of life. You build one. Piece by piece, belief by belief, until it becomes something uniquely yours.
Twenty Years Later, Everything Changed
For more than twenty years, our life remained rooted in the United States.
Until one day, it didn’t.
He applied for a job in Sweden.
Years of experience made him a strong candidate, and almost immediately, he got the offer.
And I encouraged him to go.
I told him I would follow.
It sounded simple when I said it. It felt true. But what I didn’t understand, what I couldn’t fully grasp until I was living it, was how difficult that promise would be to keep.
Letting Go and Moving Forward
Midlife has a way of asking you to let go.
We talk about it often—the empty nest, the shifting roles, the quiet realization that the life you built is changing whether you’re ready or not. But talking about it and truly living it are two very different things.
I wasn’t ready.
My youngest was finishing his senior year of high school, and I felt that he still needed me. Then he started college, and I told myself the same thing again. That he needed me close. That leaving would be too much, too soon.
So I stayed.
I sold our family home and purchased a condo so my son had a home base. I tried to build a version of life that still made sense.
But the distance from my husband took its toll on me.
On both of us.
What I didn’t expect was the quiet way it would unravel me. The loneliness. The loss of routine. The way joy slowly slipped out of the everyday things that used to fill me up. I stopped socializing. I withdrew. A kind of heaviness settled in that I couldn’t quite name at first. Thank God for the friends who truly saw my grief and embraced me through it all. I will forever love them.
I finally saw my life for what it was.
The truth was that I wasn’t just missing my husband.
I was stuck between two versions of my life: holding on to one that had already begun to fade, and resisting the one I had promised to step into.
And then something shifted.
Maybe it was time. Or clarity. Maybe it was simply exhaustion from standing still for too long.
But I remembered that conversation from all those years ago. The one where I said I would be open. The one where I promised I would keep my heart and mind willing to grow beyond what I knew.
Promise Kept
So I did something that felt both terrifying and necessary.
I followed through.
I applied for my residence permit. Once approved, I packed and got on a plane. My senior dogs joined me.
And now, as I write this, I’m sitting on a couch in Sweden. My dogs are curled up beside me. My husband is here. Our life? Different, unfamiliar, still unfolding…is here.
It’s not easy, but it’s honest. We are blessed and will go back and see our friends and family, but our home base has shifted.
And sometimes, honoring a promise doesn’t look like excitement or certainty. Sometimes, it looks like courage showing up long after the moment has passed… and choosing, finally, to begin.
And my kids? They told me that I belong with their father. That they have each other to lean on and that it’s healthy to want to be together. Their support has meant everything to us.
And so, we move forward and grow.
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