Korean Job Discussion Forums

amyjane · Joined: 24 Sep 2005 Location: SEOUL

We are a couple living and working in korea. We don't really know anyone out here. We are with each other 24/7. How do couples stay together out here without driving each other mad? Have any of you split with your partner after doing the 'couple' thing? How does it effect your relationship when you go back to 'reality'? Wink

Freezer Burn · Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Location: Busan

Depends how much history you have and if you have lived together before Korea, it helps to know each others quirks and bad habits.
You have a built-in support system at home and work and a soundboard so that is very handy.
It also helps with homesickness having someone from home, and you can save more money if you decide to put your money together like a lot of couples do.
Getting space from each other is a cause for arguements, look for seperate interests and go from there.

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

I wouldn't live and work with a g/f. Bad idea.

I once spent two weeks camping with my best friend and his family in high school, from the same football team and everything. By the end of the trip we were kicking each other's ass every day over trivial bs...

neandergirl · Joined: 23 Jun 2005

I'm going to be really wishy-washy and say it depends on the couple.

There are just too many factors to give a straightforward answer. We've been okay, but we'd been together yonks before coming here and had travelled lots together so we knew how each of us would respond (as much as one can before the fact) to the challenges of new and different language/customs/culture/food/expectations.

We'd also spent years working jobs with opposite schedules (I'd work nights while he was on mornings etc) so working together had become sort of a dream concept.

I know of 2 other couples that have managed it. On the other hand I have also known one couple that couldn't. There were, however, other factors involved. One got sick and went home about halfway through, then decided not to come back. The other finished out the contract. They split very shortly after they'd reunited back home.

BigBlackEquus · Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 6:48 am Post subject:

Being in the midst of an early-relationship sexual obsession with each other definately helps.

For about a week, anyway.

Saunagukin · Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 9:03 am Post subject:

Totally depends on the people. We've been here 2 years together, working & living. Had some problems in the first couple of months...probably because we hadn't lived together before we came here and living together takes some serious some adjusting. Finished the first contract, traveled and came back. We're getting married in November. All is well.

I've known other couples who lived together before, knew each other for years before and Korea just kills it, though.

I would suggest each finding something to do on weekends or otherwise outside of work that you do without the other one. Also, while you have to talk to each other about work and you have to vent and since you probably don't know many other people (yet) you have to vent to each other, make sure you stop venting at some point. My BF & I try to vent on our walk home from work, but not in the apartment. Some days it doesn't work. But most days it feels good to vent a little and then let it go and just be happy with each other in our little sanctuary. That's another thing...make your apartment as much of a sanctuary as possible.

Uh...TMI?...PM me if you want any more flowery ideas about love and living in sometimes maddening places (which I think would turn out to be anywhere).

ChimpumCallao · Joined: 17 May 2005 Location: your mom

it can be done.

haven't you ever watched sitcoms?

honestly...its not a big deal unless you guys are going to be making out during break...

i know a couple who did that for a while and they were ok. depends on how much you like each other and can stand to be around the other.

Dan The Chainsawman · Joined: 05 May 2005

Siegfried and Roy managed it!

sheba · Joined: 16 May 2005 Location: Here there and everywhere!

Make some friends.... if you have some other interests then it could work. I couldnt imagine having my partner be the one and only person I know for a whole year!

Its easy to just do nothing and see what happens.... but do you want to take the risk?

simone · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Location: Now Mostly @ Home

Works great for us.

Didn't know that we worked well together until we went back to school. First year MBA - all the same classes. Sharing the same damned little blue thermos of coffee. I told him again and again: Mine!

Then next year we took entirely different classes (okay, 2 together), and so he went out and got his own thermos. Hah.

But yeah, want to work with him. I consider myself to always be working with him, official job title or no.

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

I lived and worked with my GF. It's not ideal, mind you. But starving is less ideal. The best thing is if you're a couple, have a two bedroom apartment. One room I call your "decompression chamber". It's a place where a person can go to get out of the sight line of the other person.

Swiss James · Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Location: Shanghai

these two have done it for years

Red · Joined: 05 Jul 2004

I lived with a girlfriend once... ONCE. The ability to not see each other for a while is underrated as a way to stay happy.

tzechuk · Joined: 20 Dec 2004

I've lived with my husband, then boyfriend, the day I arrived in Korea - and we work in the same compnay - his. We are now married for 3.5 years and have a baby together.

So it can work if you really want it to.

khyber · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Compunction Junction

i did it a while ago .
i gotta tell you....it ain't all it's cracked up to be.
everyone treats you as a unit...
you gotta tell her stuff from everyone and vice versa.
You can get into the middle of office politics and when her or anyone else being unreasonable, it's crappy to get into the middle of.