I moved to Spain and started dating a Spaniard. We've had culture clashes I never would've expected.

I moved to Spain and started dating a Spaniard. We had many cultural clashes, especially around communication and argument styles. I had spent years learning Spanish before moving to Spain, but even then, I was only conversationally adjacent to fluency. When I started dating a Spaniard six months into my move, I expected vocabulary deficits and grammatical errors, but I didn't anticipate that even when I understood the words, I could still misunderstand their meaning.

Early in our relationship, my Spanish boyfriend called me "ugly" (fea). In Spain, words like "fea" or "feo" are often used playfully as terms of endearment. Although I understood this, the word still hurt. Another time, I asked him how to say "making out" in Spanish, and he had no idea. He looked at me like I had invented a new sport.

Dating in Spain is very different from dating in Canada and the US. When I brought up the topic of exclusivity and commitment in our relationship, my boyfriend looked puzzled. In Spain, it's often just assumed that two people are exclusive. After discussing this with several Spanish friends, I learned that many people also don't have this conversation.

We still encounter misunderstandings, both linguistic and cultural. For example, we have different ways of arguing. My boyfriend can feel ready to move on from disagreements quickly, while I take longer to recover. We have been in this relationship for two years and are still in love. We are also seeing a couples therapist who specializes in bicultural relationships to help us navigate these differences.