Would an English guy be criticized by friends/family if he marries a Eastern European lady?

Question

Hello,

I have always respected the fact that English society is in general quite tolerant and 'foreigners' are given the chance to become part of it, as long as they also show the necessary respect and willingness to integrate.
Lately there have been lots of debates about the huge amount of people from Eastern Europe residing in England. There are many English guys who have girlfriends who are originally from Eastern Europe. I think up to now this has not been seen as something bad and the guy would generally have the support of his family and friends if he decides to marry the lady from Poland/Romania/Czech Republic. However, I see that recently there seems to be some tension about the so called Eastern Europeans - this tension is, in my opinion, provoked by parties such as UKIP - of course, I am not talking about hatred, but just about lack of trust and a more reserved attitude towards these people.
Do you think an English guy might be directly or indirectly criticized by his family or friends if he decides to marry a Eastern European lady? Would they give them a chance?I fully realize that the answer to the question depends on many things, such as - where do they exactly live? what is the background of the woman? what is the background of the man's family and what kind of friends does he have? But your answers would nevertheless be welcome, thanks!

Answer 1

People are people and "as long as they also show the necessary respect and willingness to integrate." personally I see no issues............... but some 'families and friends' may not view things that way....... as you say the answer to your question depends on many things and people too....................

Answer 2

Strange wuestion but i am married to a woman from Ukraine. We have never had a problem either in England or Ukraine..Proberbly because the cuture is the same and my wife speaks English with a Lancashire accent. She also works for a local company where we live and people never think she is from Ukraine. I support UKIP.and UKIP is not!!! a racist party Our friends and family do not consider my wife to be foreign

Answer 3

Do YOU think ENGLAND is the WHOLE UK?? Give that impression...There have been people from other countries settled here for generations..IS NOT NEW...Some do intermarry......I did..NO PROBLEM....It has made me who I am today...hopefully more worldly, with a BETTER, more varied diet and a MUCH cleaner HOUSE than MOST of my mates......Unlike some in the US we do NOT go ON and ON and ON about race and ethnicity.....

I too grew up with a LOT of kids who happened to have foreign DADS and had a German aunt through marriage...So what?



By the way UKIP appear racist...Just happen to come across as pleasant...THEY are NOT...JUST TORIES with NAZI tendencies......

Answer 4

No. That is a strange question!



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(this is normal people, right? not something arranged from a website...)



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Well, it is 12 hours since I looked at this one. The UKIP party (three men and his dog) are much more highly revered in certain other Eurozone/EU countries than they are in this one - they are a SINGLE ISSUE PARTY. That is not a bad thing. They think the EU is a sinister organisation which will remove the hard won liberties of European citizens, and subject the people to an unaccountable and grotesquely wealthy political oligarchy. If they shift from that single issue which unites their supporters, they will fade away.



Tell us what country you are from. Even during the cold war, we distinguished between the Eastern European countries. We declared war on Germany because of Poland. We felt guilt because of the nonsense which resulted in 'Czechoslowakia' after the first world war. We knew we were meddling in other peoples affairs in one or two or more other countries... After WWII a very great number of 'Poles' - among them 'Poles' who were what Stalin wished to call Ukrainians - settled in the UK. Most of them in the industrial heartlands of Scotland and Wales. Same with 'Yugoslavians' - another imaginary country.



We were short of labour after WWII, broke the Geneva Convention to retain German POW's as agricultural labour for a couple of years, and accepted an entire division of the Waffen SS as welcome immigrants. 56.000 fighting men.



Some of these are still living in places like West Wales. And speaking Welsh. And farming happily in some style and comfort...



Every village had its 'Pole shop'. Every pit and every Catholic church in the valleys had its 'Poles', including 'Poles' whose memories of starvation as children in Stalins Ukraine led them to hoard tons of food in their terraced miners cottages till the day they died...



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So Why worry? Smile a bit and seem friendly everybody will do the same.

Answer 5

Well, there ARE a lot of mixed marriages in the UK and that is a fact. On balance I think english people do not really care who they marry but everything depends on who you are, what you do and how much money you earn, so in other words, the same universal rules that govern everywhere.



The likes of UKIP are about the position of the UK in the EU. They never talk about individuals.

Answer 6

I have one female friend who married a Polish guy, a male friend who married a Polish woman and another who is engaged to a Latvian woman. I have never heard anyone making negative comments. The negatives you usually hear about Eastern Europeans are usually directed towards men in the building trade as many British builders feel that the influx of carpenters, plumbers, etc from places like Poland, Hungary, etc has pushed down wages

Answer 7

Doesn't really matter who you marry, someone in your family will find fault. Expect criticism, and let it roll off you.



But a bit of advice: marrying somebody culturally different from yourself will be quite challenging - you will constantly surprise each other with your ideas and values about what's important and what isn't, how to do things properly, how to treat other people, how and when to eat, how to bring up children, what the roles of the two of you are, how you use money, and so on and so on. Explore each other's ideas as much as possible or the things you haven't sorted out will split you up.

Answer 8

This is nothing new. Lots of Poles settled in Britain after WW2, and when I was a kid in north Wales in the 60s and 70s it was nothing unusual to come across kids with Welsh first names and Polish surnames. I presume most of them are still around, though the girls may have changed their surnames when they got married!

Answer 9

I think that his/her family would be okay with the marriage after a while, once they got to know the girl for a few years. You shouldn't marry anybody until a few years into a relationship anyways, so that's plenty of time for the family to get to know the girl/boy in question.