Everyone has their pet peeves and you can be sure that your Russian wife is not an exception. Here five sure ways to irritate and annoy your Russian bride.
- Make sure not to care about your looks and dress as unattractively as you can. We all know that Russian women take a great care of themselves and love to dress up. Russian males are not as obsessed with their looks, and generally Russian women are not terribly picky when it comes to men’s appearances. However, even though a Russian wife is not expecting her man to be physically gorgeous, she does expect him to follow some kind of dress code. So if you want to irritate your Russian wife, wear over-sized t-shirts with oil stains on them, dirty sneakers which you bought in the 80s and ugly jeans which don’t fit you. Better yet, dress up this way on your anniversary, birthday or when you go out to eat.
- Discuss all your marital problems with your friends, colleagues and acquaintances and then tell her what they said.
Even though Americans seem to care about their privacy, Russian wives are often shocked that their husbands discuss their conflicts or disagreements with their colleagues and friends as freely if they were discussing a TV show. As if it wasn’t bad enough, they would also come home and tell their wives that they talked about their issues/conflict/disagreement with so and so, who gave them advice.
There is a famous Russian saying: “Don’t take trash out of your hut”, which means that your marital or family problems belong at home.
- Buy her gifts and then boast how little you paid for them. Being frugal is great, especially in today’s economy. However, unless you want to annoy your Russian wife and diminish your kind gestures, don’t tell her how little you paid for her gift and how lucky you were to find a coupon or catch a sale. Actually, I think you will annoy her more if you give her a present and then tell her how expensive it was. It is in very bad taste to talk about the monetary value of the gift, even if you are giving it to your wife, because Russians say that love is priceless and gifts are a huge part of showing your love.
- Talk about food constantly. The love of food is an inseparable part of the American culture. Most foreigners are amazed by the amount of restaurants, grocery stores and the sizes of supermarkets and restaurant portions in America. Many Russians also note that they are surprised how often food is part of conversations. “It’s just food. Who cares what kind of tuna you had for lunch yesterday or what kind of new cereal your favorite brand just invented,” says my friend Ania after dinner gatherings with her husband’s family. “All they talk about is food and their experiences with restaurants. It bores me to tears.” In my previous articles I wrote that Russians like to have philosophical debates over dinner or discuss politics. Discussing food seems pointless and not interesting to them. Unless, of course, they are a professional cook or own a restaurant.
- Use American slang. Using slang, especially when your Russian wife is trying to learn English is another great way to piss her off. Learning a new language is hard in the first place, but when your spouse is constantly using words which cannot be found in the dictionary and doesn’t bother to explain them, it can be really frustrating.
There are plenty of other ways to annoy your foreign wife, but these five seem to be the most common and the most effective.
