1) You could do a lot of this with literally anyone who has a different background than you. It’s really rewarding to have those huge differences of upbringing and also find yourselves with the same foundational values. There is more variety across social class especially than just one narrow experience of being [American](or whatever nationality you are) and the tone of this is frankly really immature and weird. Don’t like people for their foreign-ness...

2)It’s not all sunshine, rainbows and cute accents. There’s a lot of hard stuff too: navigating gender role expectations that may vary, dealing with various family structures/attachments that are unfamiliar, dealing with the fact that all your vacation days will be used each year simply to visit family abroad and the costs of doing so being tremendous, especially when you start a family. Not to mention the fact that one of you will likely have to leave home to move with the other.

I think a deep intimate relationship is always rewarding and worthwhile, but the way this author writes about it is so, so uncomfortable, strange and disconcerting.