Marrying a Greek

Marrying a Greek
I have a dear friend that is married to a Greek Man. I find her opinions very interesting so I decided to put them on this blog, here is her humble opinions:

"It is not easy. Being married to anyone takes effort, hard work, patience and understanding but being in a close relationship with anyone outside of your own culture is all of this....and some more! I don't know how far my own situation reflects other non-Greek women who have fallen in love and thrown in their lot with their Greek man. The things you fall in love with become the things that, in excess, drive you crazy. Namely, these things in my own particular Greek man are:

1. His dramatic interpretation of things. When things are good, the drama and enthusiasm he displays are infectious and enjoyable. However, when things do not go well in his life, everything is exaggerated and he seems to have little ability to control his mood or see things logically. The high drama of a Greek tragedy is released and things get thrown around and smashed, loved ones are on the receiving end of verbal abuse and it seems all the Gods are converging over his head to bring him misery. Then things get better and it is all forgotten!!!

2. One thing I love about Greece is the strong family relationships but, in my humble opinion, Greek men never leave their mothers. She is always their in the background and he knows that whatever he does she will look after him. My own Greek mother-in-law is a dear soul and has been very supportive of me...but... she never expects her son to lift a finger to help and merely tuts when he creates a mess where she has just cleaned. When we are with her, if I am not picking up after him, tolerating his lack of consideration and generally making myself his dog's body then I am not being a good wife for him. Consequently, Greek men grow up to believe that a woman's place is to cook, clean and take care of the children. When my man is not in Greece he is a completely different person - well almost!

3. One thing I love about my Greek man is his spontaneity and ability to take risks, pick himself up and start from the beginning again when things go wrong. (Bearing in mind that reaching this point means going through the Greek drama outlined in 1 above). However, the downside of this is the too easy availabilty for him to gamble when we are in his home country .

Reading through this, I am not sure if she is perhaps merely talking about all men - not just the Greek ones. I would love to hear other people's opinions on this blog.

In my opinnion ,after all ,there is no Greek Culture without the participation of both sexes. In Greece men and women know how to enjoy themselves, go anywhere in Greece ,especially in the summertime ,and you will see many local festivals happening with everybody joining in.