You know that it takes a lot to find your ideal partner. You have been through so much. What you probably don’t realize is the bureaucratic process you will need to negotiate to marry your Ukraine woman. Then there’s the lengthy settling in process in your own country with your new bride. Read on to find advice about:
Table of contents
Marrying and Settling Down with Your Ukraine Woman.
You have come a long way. Your journey included going through different international marriage agencies and online dating services in search of your mail order bride. [1] You found a legitimate Ukrainian dating site with an excellent reputation. You were astounded by the beautiful Ukrainian women that you saw on the international dating websites. It took a lot of consideration to select from all the Ukrainian ladies looking for marriage.
After uploading your personal data and creating a dating profile, you started some online relationships, including via text chat and video chats to get to know your natural beauty. You even made a couple of trips to see her in person. Like many other single men before you, you found the perfect match for you from all the single Ukrainian ladies. If you are curious what your chances of success will be with a Ukrainian woman, click here to find out in minutes.
So, you’ve found the woman of your dreams, and everything has been wonderful so far. All that is about to change – as difficult as it may have seemed to find and win the heart of your Princess from the East, you are about to find out that this was, after all, the easy part. Now we talk about the ‘marriage journey’.
You have three possible alternatives for where to marry your soul mate, depending on your specific situation:
1. Your country
2. Her country
3. A third country
If you decide for or must adopt the last choice, read ‘Marrying in Her Country’ below – the logistics and mechanics are similar, only you’ll have to follow the laws and requirements of that third country.
Marrying a Ukraine woman in your country
An important aspect that you should thoroughly clarify with your local authorities concerns the documentation that your future Ukrainian wife should bring along to fulfill their civil, legal and immigration-related requirements.
Most Western men seeking Slavic brides have almost no clue about their country’s immigration policy. Before bringing your bride-to-be home, you are going to have to learn more than you ever wanted to know about immigration law. With the notable exception of Canada, virtually all Western countries have some variation of what is called the K-1 Fiancée Visa in the USA, originally devised at the end of WWII to allow US military personnel to bring home the young ladies they had become attached to during their service overseas.
The basic idea of this visa type is that your fiancée will be granted entry into your country for the purpose of marrying you.
See link for a summary of the regulations and procedures applicable to US visas [2].
Prenuptial Agreements
In most Western countries, the possibility exists of stipulating a Pre- Nuptial Agreement with the intent of safeguarding pre-nuptial assets in case of a subsequent divorce settlement.
There are those who argue that no one should enter into a marriage without a prenuptial agreement in place, while those of the opposite opinion argue just as vehemently against the need for this document, stating that if it is needed, the man does not know his potential wife well enough to marry her.
In the end, it is really up to each individual whether they wish to have a prenuptial agreement in place.
The effectiveness of this legal instrument varies widely depending upon local legislation. There are several schools of thought on prenups, but it is generally agreed that if you have substantial assets, they are worth protecting.
Unlike standard pre-nuptial agreements between two citizens of the same country and language, great care must be exercised in drafting an agreement between two parties who do not share knowledge of each other’s culture, language, and legal system.
It is usually advised that YOU pay the fees for a lawyer of her choice who is fluent in both languages to protect her interests. You should also retain a separate lawyer of your choice to protect yours. If you decide that this expense is unjustifiable, you may risk an exposure, since a judge – should you divorce – will likely throw the agreement out, if you cannot demonstrate that she fully understood [3] the ramifications of what she agreed to sign.
Marrying a Ukraine womanin her country
For various reasons – personal preferences, convenience, visa requirements, etc. – you may have considered and preferred the alternative of marrying your Ukraine bride in her country, before bringing her over to yours.
Welcome to the wonderful world of post-Soviet bureaucracy! Getting married abroad can be a wonderful and magical experience steeped in old-world tradition, with the festivities usually lasting for days. But before you plan the wedding, you must understand what is required to make it official in your own country.
Incidentally, one of the differences in tradition that we mentioned earlier is that married Eastern European women wear wedding bands on their right hand. Discuss with your Ukraine wife on which hand to wear your wedding rings. You will be showing that you respect and honor her traditions and culture. She may even reciprocate by embracing your home country’s traditions and decide to wear the ring on her left hand. Age gap relationships are also very common in their culture. Would you like to know what a realistic age gap is for you? Click here.
Marriage in the former Soviet Union countries is a civil ceremony performed at a local Registry office called ZAGS in Russia – an acronym for Zapis Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya – and RAGS in Ukraine, after filling out an application form and having had a date memoir for it.
Since marriage in a ZAGS/RAGS office can be a rather unromantic ceremony, you may also wish to have a traditional Russian celebration and marriage at a local Orthodox church later.
Settling down
Regardless of whether, as a fiancée or spouse, she has finally arrived! You have gone to the airport where she was scheduled to land. You waited impatiently as she completed her immigration formalities and collected her baggage. You have greeted her affectionately when she finally exited those fateful doors, preferably with a nice bouquet of flowers to make her feel welcome and appreciated – the occasion requires a celebration!
Many “brotherhood of men” members have found that having their freshly arrived Ukrainian bride find a bathroom with the tub filled with warm, scented, foamy water, lighted candles and some nice background music helped a lot in letting them unwind after their long travel ordeal. Would you like to know your real chances of marrying a Ukrainian woman? Click here to find out.
While meeting her in her home environment, you should have devoted some thoughtful attention to how she lived there. The more different her previous environment from this current environment (yours) is the more effort, time, and patience you should devote to helping her adjust to her everyday life with you.
Once you’ve filed your application, paid your fees and waited for what seemed to be a lifetime, made it through her Embassy interview, and the visa has been affixed to her passport, you are now well on your way to starting your married life TOGETHER. However, this is going to require some enormous adjustments and mutual understanding on your part as well as hers.
Your very first days together with a Ukraine woman
You should consider postponing any of your normal engagements – work included – and give her your full time and attention for a week or so, to help her familiarize with and transition to her new environment. Remember, she has temporarily severed all her previous life’s connections to be with you, and such an act of love deserves the fullest help and cooperation.
Simple household chores using your household appliances, temperatures in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, measurements in cups and ounces instead of liters and milliliters, distances in miles instead of kilometers are just a few of the things to keep in mind and may be a novelty/mystery to her. She may have habits/convictions that seem strange to you. For instance, ice-cold drinks that are harmful to health. It’s a delicate period of time which is crucial in laying solid foundations for a future happy life together.
You must find a way to explain all of these to your Ukrainian woman as simply as possible, without talking down to her. In many ways, she will be like a small child in an adult body, but one thing no woman wants to be regarded as, is stupid. You can do serious damage in these crucial first days of her adjustment by talking to her like a parent would to a 5-year-old.
She may also display some curious rituals that you may consider superstitious, such as removing shoes upon entering the house, not re-entering it in case you forget something, etc. Don’t treat such apparently silly quirks with excessive criticism or irony, she will eventually outgrow them if handled properly – or you may even grow to consider them as harmlessly exotic but charming traits of her personality.
Something she may set upon immediately is the rearrangement/restyling of your now common home: this process is commonly referred to as building her own nest. She has to feel that her habitat bears something of her personality to be comfortable in it. She could also insist on replacing the mattresses/pillows/sheets you previously slept on with some other woman. This is true even if no other woman existed during the life of these items. It also pays not to dwell on your previous love life, unless explicitly questioned on the subject.
Your aim now should be to make her reasonably independent, self-reliant, and self-assured as soon as practically possible. Failure to do this may induce moodiness, a feeling of helplessness, bad temper, and a host of other symptoms of insecurity and uneasiness that are detrimental to the happiness of a couple just adjusting to a life together.
Be forewarned that any or all these behaviors may emerge regardless, even if you do everything right. This syndrome is usually referred to as Culture Shock. [4] There are a host of excellent memoirs available on the Internet that you can find by searching for that term. However, this usually occurs later on, after she has lived in your country for a period of time.
Independence
Since you will probably resume your normal working life after a few days, a key to her gaining confidence and, therefore, independence is generally based on a number of important aspects, namely her abilities of:
- Communication
- Starting an activity
- Moving around
- Making local friends
Communication
Her level of fluency in your language is obviously fundamental in this connection, and you had the opportunity of determining this level already during your courtship.
One of the most critical barriers she will face is your language. Even if she had serious intentions and has been studying abroad and her fluency seems pretty good – to you – she is going to be absolutely overwhelmed, even if she tries not to let it show. Many Western countries arrange low-cost or even free classes for Eastern women immigrants. Check their availability in your area.
For example, ESOL classes are offered in nearly every US community. Some are free and staged at local high schools and community colleges, for others tuition is charged and is offered by universities and private language academies. Whatever your budget allows, this will turn out to be one of your crucial decisions. Look into investing in your wife’s future as early as practical.
If she already has her own children, their progress in picking up a foreign language is faster the younger they are, often astonishingly so. Their desire to play with other kids is usually a very powerful motivation.
In addition, if she has specific hobbies or interests, you should encourage her to read about them in your language. Her interest in the subject will motivate her more than educational texts, and require less recourse to a dictionary, since she will probably be able to guess the meaning of many foreign words from a familiar context.
Look into getting her a cell phone soon after her arrival for her safety. If she wanders out alone to explore her new surroundings while you’re at work, she may get lost, and she’ll need to speak with YOU. You understand her and you know how to speak so that she understands you. No matter how good her language skills are, she will be extremely self-conscious about speaking with strangers in her first days and weeks.
Starting an activity
We have already seen how work may not be an immediate option, depending on her qualifications/skills. In addition, she may be more inclined to be a housewife due to her strong family values, particularly if she has a young child to take care of.
However, bear in mind that, as a “brotherhood of men” member succinctly put it: “For a Russian woman, a job is her major social determinator: in Russian society, you are what you do.”
It is important that she has something to occupy her time – be that children, education, hobbies, work, etc. If she is not already an experienced driver, her initial car had probably best be a low-cost/second for any necessary repairs, particularly to its bodywork.
Moving around
In both the preceding situations, the ability to move around is important. If your location does not possess an acceptably efficient public transportation system, similar to what she was used to in her country. Also, if, for instance, shopping for groceries involves driving miles to the nearest shopping center, after a while you may tire of driving her there at mutually convenient times. You should consider the advantages of her having her own driving license and car – preferably equipped with a GPS navigation system to reduce the number of those frantic “Where am I?” phone calls.
Slavic ladies are used to walking long distances – and that is why they often have shapely legs, but you cannot reasonably expect her to run a marathon for a quart of milk. A bicycle could also be a temporary solution (depending on local distances) or a scooter (depending on your local license requirements).
The process of learning to drive can be incredibly stressful for both student and teacher – even when they share the same language, as you may probably recall from your own early experiences. If you are not up to the formidable task of teaching her, do yourself and her a favor and find a qualified instructor/school for that.
Making local friends
Having a job or attending language and driving classes helps with meeting new people and creating a social circle. Some of these may even be in similar situations and she could possibly make new friends.
A none-too-advisable source of virtual friends are the Internet websites of local immigrant Eastern European women’s communities. Their regular membership tends to consist mostly of Slavic girls having serious adjustment problems and blaming anybody and anything but themselves for it.
Keeping her ties
It is very natural, human, and understandable that she should wish to have frequent communications with her family and former friends, particularly if she has strong ties to them. It is imperative that you provide for free-flowing communication between her and her family abroad – with the low cost and availability of phone cards, there’s really no reason not to.
Initially, she may call them on the phone daily and have long conversations, again understandable since they are probably curious, and possibly concerned, about her new life in a foreign country with her beloved man.
The same methods you used to keep in touch with her while apart could represent a convenient way to let her do the same with her former social environment. Nowadays, that can also include video chats on platforms such as Skype or WhatsApp for a minimal cost.
Usually, these needs tend to decrease gradually as she settles satisfactorily into her new life. This is in itself a significant sign of how well she is adapting to her new situation. It is also typical that she should want to visit them in her beautiful country – this often happens within six months to a year of her arrival.
Managing family finances
Eastern women may view money and finances differently compared to their Western, and particularly US, counterparts. Financial information about taxes, mortgages, loans, etc. may be alien to some. Even if she has some experience with credit and debit cards, it may be a good idea to take her to your bank and open a joint account – so that she understands the process and can ask any pertinent questions.
Some argue that all family finances should be shared immediately. However, her own account with a reasonable amount of funds will give her the peace of mind of not having to ask for money every time she leaves the house. You can also have the peace of mind of avoiding possible “mistakes” for thousands in your currency. Furthermore, this will teach her quickly that managing her own money and living within a budget – that you decide together – is appropriate and advisable.
Conclusions
As you will have realized, this is NOT AT ALL a simple process: it requires time, patience, dedication and, most of all, LOVE from both parties to make it a success.
Marrying Russian Women in Russia. Your Quick Guide.
If you have found love with a Russian woman and plan to get married in her country, the following may be informative for the time you spend in Russia. This information is then followed by the requirements for getting married here with Russian brides.
Dealing with the Police (“Mafia”) in Eastern Europe
Former Soviet Union countries’ Police may be lurking in hidden speed traps and stopping you – even when you are not speeding to ask for your documents (passport, driving license, etc.). If you see a car approaching from the opposite direction flashing its headlights, this is a warning sign from a fellow motorist who noticed their ambush lair.
Militia men are poorly paid, particularly the lower ranks, and some may try to supplement their meager official income by accusing drivers of infringing on local traffic laws/regulations. These could be real or imaginary – no vehicle in the former Soviet Union countries conforms to all of them.
Our members have found from experience that the best reaction to their possible extortion attempts usually consists in:
- Maintaining a stern and unsmiling countenance – under these circumstances, smiles are considered as cringing and an implicit sign of weakness/guilt.
- Not uttering a single word, you may know in Russian – use sign language instead if necessary – and alternatively:
-Hand over your documents with a bill of foreign currency (say, $10) unobtrusively placed inside one of them – which will have magically disappeared when your documents are handed back to you.
-Play dumb over your alleged ‘crime’ until they let you go in frustration. If there is other traffic and possible targets out there, they are less inclined to waste their time on an awkward-to-handle case like yours.
In crowded public places like metro stations and city centers, the “Mafia” often pick out and check the identity of people who look ‘alien’ and/or are poorly dressed, as possible illegal immigrants. Remember this if you venture outside alone on your own. However, Western men are seldom bothered when in the company of their Eastern European women, who will probably bawl the policemen out loudly for their effrontery if they dare harass their potential husband longer than normally acceptable.
Public health services
Public health care in the former Soviet Union countries is usually of acceptable quality by Western standards – and much cheaper. However, former Soviet Union countries’ doctors may not be up to date with the most recent Western techniques – and their equipment usually is not.
The various former Soviet Union countries’ governments appear to have underestimated the dangers of HIV diffusion. [5] Recent statistics paint a preoccupying picture – unprotected sex is best avoided unless you can fully trust your partner.
Getting married in Russia. Your quick guide
So, you opted to get married in Russia. The following applies to Western men who are US citizens. You should consult the US Embassy in Moscow [6] for a more detailed description. However, here is a quick overview.
Documents for the Russian spouse
Your intended Russian spouse will need a current passport.
Documents for the US spouse
- You will need to register your visa with your Russian sponsor.
- Next you need to write a ‘Marriage Letter’ that basically states that you are not currently married. Note, this needs to be written in Russian and notarized.
- Then the ‘Marriage letter’ needs to be authenticated at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Finally, you will need an official translation of the page in your passport that has your photograph and personal details.
Get married at the Civil Registry Office (ZAGS)
Now it’s time to arrange your civil marriage ceremony at ZAGS (Zapis Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya). You will need to register all the above-mentioned documents with them. Make sure you have apostilled copies (Please see guidance in the next section about getting married in Ukraine) of all your important US documents such as divorce decrees etc. A marriage license will be issued in 32 days’ time, after which, you are free to marry your bride.
Marrying Your Ukraine Bride in Ukraine. Your Complete Guide.
Getting married in Ukraine may take a longer period of time than in Russia, possibly even a few months. Just like in Russia, it’s important to have the original and authenticated copies done in the US of all your pertinent documents such as divorce decrees etc. Please see [7] for more details of getting married in Ukraine.
Ukraine, like Russia, is a member country of the 1961 Hague Convention that includes the Apostille Convention. [8] This means that the US Embassy CANNOT certify any documents issued in the US. Only designated officials in the US can do this. So, make sure you get all your paperwork properly apostilled BEFORE you go to Ukraine to get married.
In Ukraine, you will need to complete a ‘Letter of Non-Impediment to Marriage’ to state that you are not currently married. This letter then needs to be authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine.
All supporting documents, the ‘Letter of Non-Impediment to Marriage’ letter and the information page of your passport need to be translated. When you have all your original documents with apostilles and their translations, you can apply to RAGS for a civil marriage license. A bit of a process, but well worth it!
Just why do Western men seek beautiful Eastern European women? Read PART 5 of the Memoirs of the “brotherhood of men” and consider all the ups and downs for this course of action.
References
[1] A Guide to Choosing the Right Eastern European Bride BEFORE Saying, “I Do.” Memoirs of “the brotherhood of men” [PART 2] – UkraineDating.ca[2] https://www.usa.gov/visas-and-visitors
[3] https://www.mcintyretate.com/blog/2021/september/can-a-judge-invalidate-a-prenuptial-agreement-/
[4] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/culture-shock.asp
[5] https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/01/31/the-silenced-epidemic-why-does-russia-fail-to-address-hiv/
[6] https://ru.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/local-resources-of-u-s-citizens/marriage/
[7] http://kiev.usembassy.gov/amcit_marriage_civil_eng.html
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostille_Convention
