For the first time in my life, I don’t have a house key in my pocket.
It didn’t cross my mind as I emptied the holiday apartment I had stayed in over the winter and loaded my car for the long drive ahead. Only when I returned the key to the landlord did I realize that I had no home of my own to return to. It occurred to me then, as we stood at the door, about to say our last goodbyes. I was effectively homeless. Yes, I had signed a contract to return to the same little apartment in September, but that was three months away. And the contract – for various reasons – was not really worth the paper it was printed on. The landlords – a couple that like to spend the winter season away (this year it was India) – appreciate having a reasonably sober and reliable lone tenant during their absence. They hope for but aren’t convinced of my autumn return from the south of France.
Their doubt, and that of friends and acquaintances, has become infectious. But my empty pocket asserts itself; a keyless existence needles me. This life – becoming an accidental nomad – had been thrust upon me. It will take some getting used to. And, considering the circumstances, I’m reluctant to do so.
Falling in love with a foreigner
Until August last year, I lived in a home in Croatia that we – my Croatian ex-wife and I – owned outright. While I finished up my job in the US and sold our apartment in Chicago, she lived in the new house with our dogs and cat and managed the restoration work and upgrades. When I arrived, the COVID pandemic was raging. She had been alone in the house since the end of September 2019. I had been able to visit a few times before the end of the year, spend Christmas and New Year’s together, but we didn’t see each other again until the first week of May. I wasn’t to learn until August two year’s later that she had discovered she could live without me.
There is a learning in this. When you fall in love with someone from a different country and culture, you must fall in love with their country and culture, too. Relationships are immensely difficult propositions under the best of circumstances. When you add the further complexity of different backgrounds, unshared cultures, this compounds the challenge.
The unexpected dangers of buying foreign property
My ex-wife speaks English fluently (we spent six years in the UK and seven years in the US together). She has an American passport. When I decided to leave my company, we decided together to return to Europe. We enjoyed Chicago, but we had become disillusioned by the high cost of living. Even with our combined savings, and she working, we didn’t see a way we could sustain the one-two punch of a mortgage and healthcare costs and still enjoy life. Our original plan had been to relocate to Italy. But we decided in the end on Croatia (I don’t speak Croatian, by the way). The logic – and this is still good logic, our breakup notwithstanding – was to live in a country where one of us was a citizen (bureaucracy is generally best dealt with by a native). We believed Austria (where I’m a citizen) was prohibitively expensive, mainly because of the cost of property, and, anyway, she didn’t want to live there (she didn’t want to learn German). I like to think I’m flexible and could live anywhere. So, it was Croatia.
She went on her own to find us a place to live. I stayed at home to work and take care of the animals. Although her mother (and even one home seller she met) encouraged her to rent for the first year, she was determined to find a house to buy. She did. I viewed it on my mobile phone while she did a walk-through. Despite everyone telling her it was a mistake – too rural, too far from Zagreb, too much work to make it livable – she convinced herself and me to buy it. I transferred the money. She closed the deal.
Here is the other lesson. Don’t ever do this. Don’t ever allow yourself to believe you must make a momentous decision like the purchase of a home at the spur of the moment. Do not buy a house in some random village or an area you are not thoroughly familiar with (her being Croatian was not enough to help either of us feel accepted and comfortable). Buying a house (and the dream that goes with it) is like falling in love. Your reasoning powers will fail you. You will lie to yourself. You desperately want to believe in the dream. When it never materializes, the finger-pointing begins. You might, like I did, discover that everything is your fault.
Which is what happened.
A fast and easy Croatian divorce
When I arrived in May, my miserable job behind me, the Chicago apartment on the market, with an agent I trusted (she sold it a few weeks later for more than the asking price – during COVID), I sensed something had changed in my wife. When I asked, I was told it was in my head. Of course, I was proven right, but at that time, intoxicated by the beauty of no longer being an employee, having a decent savings, and owning a house of my own, I slept like a baby. For the first time in years. Our relationship had had its ups and downs, but I had always believed we were a solid couple: few arguments (too few in retrospect), little drama. Everyone around us – mainly her family – believed the same.
This is where the importance of culture comes in. It’s a warning to those who stumble into a multi-culti relationship: the fact that you grew up in very different societies, did not share a similar upbringing, and spoke different languages becomes a major stress point when you are challenged as a couple. Once the worst of the pandemic was behind us and the world reopened for business, she found herself a job. When she recognized I would not fund further investment in the house as long as our rocky relationship went unaddressed, she told me we were finished (in a WhatsApp message she wrote from her car before leaving for work while I sat inside the house). No discussion. I got a lawyer and filed for divorce, moved my personal belongings into storage in Austria, and found myself a short-term place to live, lying to myself that this was some kind of phase in our relationship, that we would resolve it. Our divorce was final in October.
The agreement was that she kept the house and everything in it, and the car I bought for her. I kept my car and the money I had saved working in the US. Croatia is a community-property jurisdiction where the danger had been that everything would have to be sold and split 50:50. Although she believed she was entitled to half of everything despite never having contributed to it in any material way, she relented. So, I only lost the roof over my head.
That’s how I became a nomad.
Of course, it is partly my own decision. At least to not commit yet to a long-term lease. But to find yourself at my age no longer married after sixteen years and to no longer have a place of my own is a shock to the system that is taking a pitifully long time to overcome. The mind wanders back to evaluate the years spent together; it uncovers what might have been warning signs. When you meet someone in their home country where much of what is said is spoken in a language you don’t understand, you (or at least I) realize that you may not actually know the person. Had I understood all that she was saying, perhaps I would have recognized red flags? I might simply not have liked her. If I had been on my own soil, perhaps I would have made fewer compromises to make our relationship work? I don’t know. But it remains a cautionary tale for those who find themselves drawn to exotic beauties in exotic locations. No matter how well you may grow to know and love one another, a stubborn cultural boundary of sorts remains, one that is invisible in many ways and only makes itself known at the worst of times and in the worst possible ways.
Well said my friend…….you will always be welcome at our home in beautiful Maine.
Thanks, Joe. I may take you up on that.