| Summary: | This article is based on first-hand ethnographic data and focuses on two
cases of bicultural, bilingual and cross-national couples of Bulgarian women
and their migrant husbands (an Egyptian and a Filipino). More specifically,
it deals with different aspects of social and emotional adaptation of the
male marriage migrants to the receiving country - Bulgaria. The main goal of
the article is to present different specificities of their everyday life,
socialisation and professional development abroad while still being close to
their roots. Since marriage with a local is a crucial factor for this
multi-layered process, the role of their Bulgarian wives is also considered.
The text contains two thematic sections - the first one focuses on the
social adaptation of the immigrants in the context of Bulgarian language
acquisition. The process each of the foreigners have been going through is
presented by their manners of communication within their own bilingual
marriages, the professional environment and the ‘new’ social circle. The
second section deals with the place of the immigrants’ home country within
their lives in migration and their nuclear mixed families. Their habits and
the activities they engage in ‘there’, are also used as a tool for
describing a part of their social and emotional adaptation ‘here’.
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