All Good, Schatzi? Of happiness and challenge binational couples – diepresse.com
Communication, common festivals, child rearing – when partners from different cultures live together, everyday life becomes an exciting mix of enrichment and challenge. And often it says: « You just have to accept some things. »
Some wedding guests dance reluctantly to the small band. Javier smiles, but he is far away in thought. In Spain, he thinks, this would be the pure spectacle. Music that nobody stops on the chairs. Tías, Primos, Friends, they sing, dance, laugh and celebrate exuberant to late night. It’s nice here, but very quiet. And so regulated. The wedding ceremony, the group photo, the seating arrangement. Javier misses the improvised joie de vivre, in which someone suddenly pulls out a guitar or starts a flamenco.
« On the one hand, the number of binational couples in Austria is increasing with increasing migration, on the other hand, there are more opportunities to enter and maintain such a partnership today. »
Ulrike Zartler
Institute for Sociology at the University of Vienna
His partner does not understand his disappointment. Javier doesn’t find the right words to describe how he feels. He slips into his mother tongue. As always when it becomes emotional. A fictional scene that could be part of social reality in Austria: More and more couples are faced with the challenge of bringing two cultures under one roof. In 2023, according to Statistics Austria, at least one person had their roots outside of Austria in around 33 percent of all couple relationships (marriages and communities). « On the one hand, the fact that this number is increasing is related to increasing migration, on the other hand, there are more opportunities to enter and maintain such a partnership today, » says Ulrike Zartler from the Institute of Sociology at the University of Vienna. Digital means of communication enable completely new ways to live such partnerships, « a phone call was almost unaffordable in the past ».
