Knowing when and how to draw the line

As of last Saturday, Adriano and I have been in Brazil for one year. It's been a hard year, but a good one as well. But, a word to the wise...if anyone tells you that moving to a new country with a spouse is a cinch, they are lying.

I've never moved to a new country solo before. Yet, I suspect that moving to a new country with a spouse offers a much more complicated dynamic to work with than when you are doing it alone. Not only do you get turned upside down and inside out before you find the means to "recenter" yourself, but your relationship does as well.

I won't go into all the challenges that Adriano and I experienced. It's not important any longer as most of its water under the bridge now, one year later. What I do want to do is elaborate on my post from yesterday. I made reference to how Adriano and I have to fight culture on a weekly, some times daily basis, in order to spend "quality time" with one another in Brazil. I'd like to explain this further.

Brazil has a culture that can best be defined as spontaneous. Many things happen at the last minute and very little is planned, especially when it comes to social gatherings. Literally invitations for lunch, movies, dinner, BBQs, etc. come in minutes before you're supposed to be wherever the event is happening. It's someone being extremely respectful of my American heritage to offer an invitation to an event more than 24 hours in advance generally.

For those of you who know me personally, you're probably laughing out loud right now because "planning" is somewhat of a defining characteristic for me. I like to know what my next day looks like before I go to bed the night before. I like to plan out my time in my head, even if I'm planning to "do nothing" for a huge portion of the day.

Well, needless to say, I've had to loosen up a bit...which probably isn't so bad for me. But, I've also had to put my foot down. I've had to draw the line and that line got drawn with "quality time" for Adriano and I.

We didn't have a ton of "quality time" together in Brazil for the first seven months and the lack of that time was greatly affecting the spiritual connection that I felt with him. We might wake up on Saturday morning with the intent to spend the full day together, yet by 10am we had lunch, coffee and dinner plans with other people. As the months passed, I became more than pissed.

In Brazilian culture, spending "quality time" with your significant other isn't something that most people "get" or understand. Everything (and I do mean everything) in Brazil is cause for celebration, so the thought that you might need time alone as a couple is something that is not easily comprehended. And when you try to bow out of engagements because you need that time, people have a hard time giving you that space. It's just not part of the Brazilian cultural framework and for a long time I felt guilty that I couldn't mold to those expectations.

It was after watching the "Sex and the City" movie (I know, it's laughable, but I'd recommend this movie to anyone), that I finally was able to reflect on why I was feeling so uneasy about the direction that our relationship was going.
Envisioning my personal self on a scale, all the way to the left of that scale (Point A) is who I was in the US, before I had the experience of living in Brazil. On the farthest right of that scale (Point B), is what the Brazilian culture wanted me to be, who I tried to become to "fit in." But the person who I am doesn't reside at Point B and can no longer reside at Point A. Rather I'm a hybrid of Point A and B now. That's my true self today. © 2008 - Brianna Sylver - All rights reserved

The same theory applies to mine and Adriano's relationship. Our relationship had certain routines built into it in Chicago (Point A) and many of those routines didn't exist at Point B (in Brasilia). Well, I loved a lot of those routines. They were opportunities for Adriano and I to connect with one another. So, that's where my foot came down. Adriano and I needed to find our Point C. How were we going to redefine our relationship in Brazil? And that's where the mandate of "quality time" came in.

I told Adriano that every Sunday we were spending time together...alone. We weren't answering the phone, so we wouldn't have the uncomfortable task of declining invitations to lunch, dinner, coffee, etc. Sundays were only for he and I and no one else. I initially got some resistance. True to his Brazilian culture (Adriano was born and raised in Brazil) he was a bit uncomfortable with being so rigid. Why couldn't we just "go with the flow?" Well...because we've been trying to "go with the flow" for seven months and Brianna and Adriano, the couple, are getting lost in the "flow."

It was through one analogy that I was able to make my point most effectively. We put "go to gym" on our calendars because we want to sustain a commitment to our health. When that time is not scheduled into the agenda it becomes another to-do on our list that unfortunately we're often too tired to do at the end of the day. I told him, "If we don't put the same commitment towards our relationship as we do our gym schedule, we can expect that our relationship will also become the thing that we're too tired to deal with at the end of the day." I know, it sounds grim. It is. But this analogy worked. Ever since, Sunday's are ours and any other day of the week that we feel needs to be in order to stay connected. And as far as where other people and events in Brazil fall on Sundays...well, maybe tomorrow. (It's quite liberating to team up on defying culture together!)

So, to just sum up the lessons here...sometimes you need to put your foot down and do what's right for you and your relationship and to hell with what anyone else thinks or wants you to do. And regarding communication tools, analogies can be quite powerful. Adriano couldn't couldn't refute the gym analogy.

© 2008 - Brianna Sylver - All rights reserved