I moved from Italy to a part Russian-speaking city, Riga, to live with my third and final wife. Though I speak only primitive conversational Russian, I might therefore offer some insight, though Latvia is a hybrid of the Russian east and the EU west, a sort of Russia run by the Finns or Swiss.

1. Expats always code-switch. I'm one person in Italian, another in Spanish, a third in French. Your partner switched back when home.

2. The invisible elephant in your American mind: individualism. Read Nikolai Zlobin's book explaining America to Russians. Russians live in a collectivist and hierarchical web of relationships.

3. Power and authority: in Russia legitimacy is acquired through power, not vice-versa, as in the west. The law, elections and the state are the mafia with a flag and instruments of oligarchic, feudal or factional power. These are features, not bugs and Russians view them as a permanent part of Russia's tragic history.

4. Social capital: in the US the trust account starts at 100 and you draw down. In the east it starts at zero, and you have to build it up.

5. Because your partner is fluent in English, you viewed him as a cosmopolitan, and there, western. The westernization is superficial. Countless times in debates about Ukraine, race relations and other issues, I've found that when I scratch below the surface, my wife is deeply eastern European, proving the first four points.

6. Kudos to you for taking the leap.

I hope you find this useful.