In Connecticut, my husband and I mostly talked logistics. In Spain, we started dating each other again.

One year ago, my husband left his 18-year teaching career behind, we sold our house, got rid of 95% of our belongings, and moved our family from Connecticut to Madrid.

On paper, that much upheaval could've broken us. Instead, it's brought us closer than ever.

By the time the boys were in bed, we were too spent to connect meaningfully. We'd sit beside one another, exhausted, on our phones or trying to watch a movie we never finished because one of us always fell asleep.

We spend about three hours a day getting the kids to and from school via train and bus. But we're also spending far more time together than before — and it's given us more opportunities to connect beyond logistics.

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"Busy" doesn't mean the same thing here as it does in the US. It's not a reason to delay the connection. People stop for each other mid-errand, midday, without apologizing. They make the time.

Stopping for an unplanned coffee or a caña. Exploring a new neighborhood hand-in-hand just because. Taking a few extra minutes for us instead of rushing on to the to-do. It's made more of a difference than I expected.

This past year tested us more than once. Jeff spent months in a 600-hour language course, while simultaneously trying to find work and switch off his student visa before it expired.

Between the exhaustion of full-time language study and the pressure of a ticking clock, it would have been easy for that stress to become tension between us. And some days, it did. Navigating new rules, a new language, and a hundred small unknowns daily—it's hard. I won't pretend it's not.

After our second son was born, I created a marriage meeting journal. We'd answer 10 questions together and document the answers.