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Away We Go We Go follows the journey of Sophie & Jordan Epton, an American couple who moved to France with their 10-month old twins, and the crazy adventure that follows. We dive deep into what it's really like moving and living abroad as expats, interview others who have taken the road less traveled, provide travel tips, discuss how you can do hard things to change your own life, and everything in between.
A year and a half ago, we risked it all and moved to France. We'll
be sharing about our life abroad, how people could do hard things to transform
their own lives and everything in between. This is Sophie and
Jordan Epton. Welcome to the Away We Go We Go podcast.
Welcome back, you beautiful beauties, to another episode
of the Away We Go We Go podcast. This is
Jordan rocking another solo episode
and a few reasons for that. Number one,
Sophie's tired. Your girl just needs a break.
She's been going hard at a whole lot of different things,
travel work included. I am actually
speaking to you live from Southern
California. However, in true this
podcast fashion, it's almost 11:30 at night. I think
it's impossible for me, us to,
unless we're coordinating with a guest, to actually
do this at a reasonable time. And this is not a reasonable time these days.
It just isn't. But I'm also excited to be doing this. Right
now. Sophie needs a bit of a break. I'm excited to do a solo
episode and part of the reason why
I'm excited for it is it kind of relates to
what I wanted to kind of chat about today and my topic
for today, which is about just
being in a relationship and doing
something like moving abroad or doing something hard.
So today is actually also very special. Today
is Sophie and my 12.
My English is progressively getting worse no matter what country I'm in.
It's our 12 year anniversary. 12 year wedding anniversary.
It's a soft anniversary because we kind of did, I
can't remember to what extent we've talked about this in the past, but we kind
of did a deconstructed wedding. We had
basically a private destination wedding. We didn't exactly
elope. I have talked about this before because eloping is, I
think you just get married and you don't tell anybody about it. We told people
about it for better or worse, but we ended up just getting married in Argentina
with the two of us. And that was on October
26th. It is now October 19th when I'm recording
this. And this was the day that we did a justice of
the peace ceremony in our backyard of our house in Austin.
We had our parents and a couple close friends
fly in and we kind of celebrated with like our Austin
in people and we threw a party at our
house. We had bought this house earlier in the
year or hardly prepped to throw a party,
especially at Sophie standards. But we did it anyways. We made it
happen. Obviously it was very important for us to have our community
and our people around us so 12
years in of what I would like to call
a very successful marriage, I think it's going great.
I thought it would just kind of be fun to talk about just
the experience and how moving abroad kind
of has been a part of our marriage
and the experience
of going through really
crazy and hard changes and life
altering decisions and massive
adventures and how that can absolutely
impact your relationship. I believe
in our relationship right now for the better. I want to say
it, you know, but it doesn't come without its. Its
struggles and its ups and downs. So I kind of wanted to get into that
today because I thought that would be fun and a fun way to kind of
recap kind of our journey and how we got here.
So I think, you know, going back to
the actual, like, leap that we had taken,
you know, the idea to move abroad
came from both of us long before we ever met. Like,
I think this was just always going to happen for both of us.
Fortunate that we met each other. And this was both something that was
really important because I think it helped make it work. You
know, I. As I had talked about in a previous episode, we
both did a couple solo episodes a couple months back. Mine
talking about my experience living in Argentina, Sophie talking about her experience
studying abroad in Florence, Italy. And again, those
experience shaped the opportunity that we had,
even becoming really good friends when we first met.
And so I think that this idea was ingrained. I remember
a trip that we had taken really early in our
relationship. I think we had been together for like maybe not even a year.
And we took a trip to Spain and Italy. And when we
got back, both of us, like very easily and
effortlessly were like, oh yeah, I could live in Europe
for sure. Now. That didn't materialize for another
15 years, but the seed was planted way before
that. I think it's. We started farming that
seed. This is a terrible analogy for me, but we started farming that seed together
in 2010. And okay, it wasn't 15 years,
but damn near when we finally were able to make the move. But
I do remember leading up to it, you know, obviously there
were a ton of conversations and we,
as we have said in the past, we absolutely planned to move
before having kids. So we had talked a
lot about, you know, the pros and cons
of moving. And I think we even had a big whiteboard
because I think it's one of those things where, like, it's really
romantic until it's real and then
the romantic things start to
blend a little bit with the real stuff and you start kind of
questioning, like, okay, is this still romantic, or
is this, like, great in an ideal
mindset? But the reality is it's actually not romantic at
all. And so we had a huge pros and cons list,
and the pros list obviously far
outweighed the cons list. But this was, like,
a big part of our prep. And I think
we both had hopes and fears before moving.
I know for me, you know, one of my hopes was to kind of
not. Not redo or revisit, but
just, like, not even full repeat, but in some ways repeat the
feelings that I had when I moved to Argent, you know, for any of
you who have studied abroad, traveled abroad, had
a travel abroad experience where it was just,
like, really special and really connecting,
and you kind of want to recreate that. That's the kind of, like,
is this romantic? Is this realistic? Was that a vacation thing? Was
that a study abroad thing? Was that a I'm going to move here for a
while, knowing that there's, like, a
return ticket or an end. So there is
some callousness that you can have when you do that.
And I think my hopes were, I still want to have
that feeling again. And I know for Sophie, it was a lot
of just the exposure to travel and art and architecture
and language and just being really
inspired. She's so visually driven
and aesthetically driven, and her life is around, like,
design and how that fits in into everything.
So I think just being really inspired was really important for her,
and it is for me as well. And obviously, we both overlap in
both of these, but. And I'm not fully speaking for her, because she could say
something totally different. She'd be like, that's nice, buddy, but not my real thing.
But I just really wanted to connect back to that feeling.
But I think the fear that I had was
that I wouldn't, like, be able to reconnect to
that and that it was like, that was a time in my
life when I could do that, and this is different now, for whatever reason.
And I was also just worried, like, you know, we had spent over a decade
really building up our life, our lives
together and our bank account and
our friendships and just our careers.
And I was just worried that, like, we were gonna just fuck that up. We
were gonna move abroad and just, like, poke a
hole in the balloon and just, like, slowly deplete
all of this stuff that we had worked on and, like, start from scratch,
which, at the same time, again, I was also excited about. It was
weird, but I think, you know, the older we got some
of the hopes and fears were not super extreme,
you know, and I think we talked a lot about that whole
what is the dream and what's the day to day reality and what are the
differences there? And, you know, I've talked about this in the past where, like,
if it's a vacation spot, that's great for a little bit, especially when
you first arrive, but, you know, when you're doing day to day stuff and you
have days or, you know, consecutive days where
you're not doing super adventurous stuff, you know,
like, that doesn't always happen, you know, then you're just doing life
stuff, and then it starts to get a little bit fuzzy when people
are asking you like, oh my gosh, what have you done lately? You're living there.
What a dream. And again, it is a dream,
but it's a dream that we've made a reality,
you know, so when other people say, what a dream? And you're
there doing it, like, that's, I think, the jump,
right? But for us at the time, it was like, this is
the dream. This is like what we want it to be. This is the hope
knowing it's gonna change, but not knowing how. So I think
that whole thing, our second episode that we had done to this podcast,
was about our why. And this is where we spent a
ton of time just really getting familiar
with this because again, I think we both had the experience, so we both
knew there's gonna be some hard times, there's gonna be some days,
some weeks, some months where you're just like, I'm so frustrated. This
is so hard. And you better damn well
have that why and why you're there. And I think
this was really important for us to know beforehand
because I think the next big thing was just us
doing this together and watching how
this environment changed our dynamic. You know, there are
just certain things just had to start happening that either one
of us were stronger to take control of. And so I don't know if
it was necessarily relearning each other. I think, you know,
Sophie and I are fortunate that by the time we moved, we had
been together for, I mean, well, over a
decade. You know, we had the twins,
and, you know, we just. We've had a very
communicative and understanding relationship in terms of that.
And so I think we both were aware of that. We
had done a lot of work together in the past where
we very much understand our roles. And if it's not clear,
Sophie's the boss, and I'm really good at
knowing that so it works for us. But
there still were, like, roles that shifted and
things that happened, you know, just due to the
nature of, like, our circumstance of, like, having the twins when we
both were working and how we could, you know, shift with
that. A lot of it turned into, like,
we've joked about this a lot in the past, that she's the brains and
I'm the brawn. Not. Not super brawny brawn, but brawn
enough. But she's definitely the brains, right? And so she does a lot of the
planning. She always has. She's far better at it. I've tried and actually
doesn't make things more fun, even though it's like, hey, Jordan, it would be
really nice if you'd plan things once in a while. And then I do it.
And she's like, hey, Jordan, it would be really nice if we could talk about
what you're thinking in the. Let me plan it. Because that works a
lot better. But a lot of the, hey, I'm going
to throw the twins in the stroller and go shopping and take them
out while you plan what we're going to eat. And
you're going to plan everything that I need to buy so I can go to
the store and actually get it. Like, that quickly became,
this is how this is going to work, and it works well,
I like doing that. Not all the time. Not when the twins
are acting like maniacs and I'm trying to do something.
Like, that's the only time that it's really, really, really hard
with them. Like, there's a lot of hard times, but it's hard when
you're actually trying to do something productive and
they don't give a fuck. They're babies slash toddlers. They don't
care. Like, they don't care about your agenda. And so
I think that, you know where our roles have shifted
and, like, I'll take them with me and do a longer shopping trip because
it'll take longer, or I'll leave them at home and she'll
just take over during that time. But then I have to make up for it
later because that's eating into, like, her work time or her whatever else she needs
to do time, you know, in finding. I can't even
call it balance because it's. We don't know balance
right now. We just know the things that need to happen and
we do them, you know, she came in with
a background, having studied French and so her
overall structure and command of the language. I came with
virtually nothing other than my experience learning
Spanish. But because I
have become the errand boy,
so to speak, I've had to just kind of get over that shit quickly
and just learn. And it's really funny
when we're together and I'm still in the mindset of I'm
going to be the one talking, asking questions, trying to do stuff, and
she just knows better, so she'll correct me. And it's so
funny because I. I don't give a fuck when
I say something dumb, because I say dumb things in English
all the time, let alone French. I almost
exclusively say dumb shit in French. And she
has a background in it, and so she almost gets, like, a little bit
embarrassed for me, even though she's not really embarrassed when she makes mistakes.
It's a funny thing. And then she'll correct me, and she's like, oh, you didn't
say that right at all. It goes like this. I'm like, oh, okay. I don't
know. Did they look like it was awkward? And she's like, no. I'm like, okay,
cool. So we're good, you know, but there's just been a lot
that, like, things like that that have been really fun and, like, strengthened our
bond. And then there's been a lot that's just, like, small things
that, like, really test our partnership, you know, and
not in any sort of, like, serious
degree, but it's still a test. It's still something that, like,
you know, we encounter something that's frustrating. And, like, it. It
sometimes takes us, like, a few days to, like, get our heads
right again, you know, And. And, like,
look, we're not some, like, Instagram
family even. Well, actually, Sophie does an amazing, beautiful job with our Instagram and
actually probably does show a lot of the, like, really nice stuff. But,
like, we've talked about it on here, and the whole point of this podcast was
to, like, not be fucking bullshitty and
pretentious about it. It's very real. We struggle
all the time, and there's just times where
both of us are operating at fucking 10%.
Nobody's good when you're at 10% and you got an empty cup
and you can't fill your own, let alone somebody else's.
And I think that it's just. It's been a
renewed learning experience of each other of, like,
hey, this is just a different level of stress
and tests and the things that are really frustrating,
you know, and there's things that, like, if she's having a really tough
time, and because these are such new experiences, maybe
I'm a little bit quicker to just say, like, hey, it's
not that big of a deal. And like brush it off. Where like
in the length of relationship we've had and our
communication style, like, I don't really do that often with her.
When we're dealing with stuff that we're familiar with, but with new stuff,
obviously we are newer parents, especially when we
moved, we were. And moving to a new country and figuring all this
other shit out, like it's a whole lot of new. So we
really had to reorient
ourselves with how we communicate and
how we listen because we're both having like
varied experiences here just by the nature of what we're both
doing. And so I think that that has
been really interesting and
really fun when we get to have
like the date nights or the like
reflection times to actually like, zoom out.
I think that's like the most interesting thing for me
because we, we both can be in the weeds for
like weeks on end. And when we zoom
out, you know, today and this, this whole weekend, you know, with it
being our anniversary, like, we've had a chance to like do some of that reflection
and zoom out a little bit and just say, fuck yeah,
this is crazy and like, really fun what we've been doing.
And it's hard, but like, oh my gosh, I
totally believe in us and what we're doing and our decisions. And it's like,
I think those little step away points have been
really, really helpful for us, especially because the
third point was. We've talked about this in the past.
We are on an island. I don't care which fucking way you
slice it, we're on an island. Most days are
just, just the two of us with the twins, both working,
doing the drop off and pick up, you
know, making dinner, putting them to bed, doing all of our other
stuff in between. And you know, when, when
time zones are different from friends that you could just call,
you know, after the, the twins go to bed. And we like, we can still
do that because it's daytime for a lot of, you know, the people that we
would call. But by that point, like, we're so trashed and like,
I don't know, just sometimes you can't do it and you're just far away
from friends and family. And it's not like you can pop
out to a store or a normal place that you go to
and see your friends of like 10 years
or family or anything like that. Like, we really are in
this world of two, obviously four with the twins, but like, we're just in
this world of two. And again, if
we're dealing with conflict or we're both super
depleted, that's where we
are constantly having to relearn in the new environment. And
I think sometimes it's just been really hard. And
I think we have a good way of doing it together. We talk to each
other and we're just like, dude, I'm really low right now. And it's like, I
know you are, and I am too. And sorry I was fucking
terse with you earlier. I'm just having a fucking
week right now. And I think that
our self awareness of that and our respect for each
other, that, hey, you look like you're operating at 10% right
now. You're just like, you're snapping really quickly. You're really
impatient over things that you're normally not impatient about.
I think recognizing that has been really huge for us because,
you know when you're feeling homesick, when you
don't have your old support network accessible,
in the same way you can't have friends pop by that
normally used to pop by because you're
thousands and thousands of miles away. And
we're starting to build that. But some of what we had built was
years and years and years in the making. And so
I talked about this a couple episodes ago where I
referenced just the helpful things that you can do, but
date nights, just going on walks, doing
things, small things together, or even giving each other
time to be like, hey, go do this. Go. I
got this. I think that's just been
really useful because, you know,
everything that you do as a, as a couple,
again, like this. I'm not a relationship advice
person, but like, everything that we do as a couple, when we take on
new adventures, there is a bit of a reset in like, not
knowing how to deal with the hard stuff. Even though we've dealt with hard stuff
thousands of times before, you know, but this is like a totally new
flavor and we've definitely
had to trial and error a lot of stuff and call
each other out while also really supporting each other.
And I think for us, you know, a lot of what we've
recognized is just like we're falling in
love, like even more and doing it again, you know, I
mean, look, we're living in Provence, so it's just
fucking stupid to not think that, like,
it's romantic. Like when we have date nights and we go on walks,
I mean, it is not lost on us that, you know, when we were walking
through like weird residential areas of Austin
that we wanted to like, try out that were like, fucking shanty
shacks with, like, fucking rabid dogs behind
a chain link fence. And you're like, don't trust that fence. Like,
that's a very different experience. And neither of us are Texans, so it's not like
we walked around with like, shit kicking cowboy boots where we're like, I
don't give a shit about that dog. You come on over, I'll control you. I
don't do that. I can fake the accent, but
that's not me, man. And so I think
it's not lost on us that we're in this insanely,
beautifully romantic place and we get to
experience it together. And we get to say, like, holy shit, we live
here, we moved here, we uprooted everything and we
moved here. And we could only do
that with an absolute best friend. And
I've said this to Sophie for such
a long time, but, I mean, we've been
best friends since very early on. But she is my favorite best
friend I've ever had. And I've had a lot of awesome best friends that I
still have and love you, but
Sophie's been my favorite best friend I've ever had in my
life. And I think that even being able to
watch each other learn and do cool things, like
when I watch her have, like, full conversations in French
and I'm just, like, watching her, like, I don't understand everything that's going on.
I'm like, that's so fucking cool. You're so fucking cool. Like,
catch me up to that. Like, it's just. It's so fun.
And, you know, we are put into
circumstances where we have to learn new things and we get to learn new things
about each other. And I think the whole adventure, again,
it's not like an everyday thing where you're doing that, but often
when we're reflecting back, we can just say,
wow, we've done this, we've done this, we've done this, we've
learned this. And it's just, I think, really, really
fun and revitalizing to just continue
to reconnect and build this relationship. And.
And proud. I think we're both super proud of each other. And
like, all of these, you know, feelings
like, absolutely get us through the days and weeks
that are just relentlessly exhausting.
And so I think, you know, the last thing that I'll kind of leave with.
And again, I don't want to call it advice because I don't really think I'm,
like, capable of advice. I think advice is for
professionals and and people who know how to
recreate something, and I don't know how to do that. All
I can speak to is my experience, our experience.
And I think what we would tell
other people who are making a big move or
just starting something brand new and crazy,
which is first and foremost, like, understand
your why and make sure that there is some degree of
alignment or at least understanding there. Like,
I understand Sophie's why and she
understands mine. And I feel very
confident about that between the two of us.
And that absolutely helps because
you are introduced to new
decisions and new opportunities and. And
it's just not always simple to
figure out your approach. Like, you know, you both might.
When you move somewhere, one of you might be like, you know
what? I really want to just start making friends and meeting people
and building this. And the other one might be like, I'm
kind of good on that for a hot minute. I might just want to
experience and just do my own thing. And
I don't need to get into commitments and big
social circles just yet. And
both are awesome. Obviously, that's a personal thing, but
if you're aligned on what's important to the other person, I
mean, that's like every relationship. And those who are in one
know this. It's all about collaboration and compromise and
saying, I don't really want to do this, but you do, so let's go do
that. But then there's another day where if you want to do that, I don't.
We're not going to. So I think just trying to
understand each other's why is probably
my biggest piece of advice. Just having that conversation
and fucking not lying about it
and not bullshitting. And maybe that's the other thing is, like, be
honest. Don't create your why
around the romantic and the ideal. Only,
like, really know and really think through. Like,
if shit gets really tricky, what am I going to
be able to say to myself is, like, I know this is hard, but, like,
fuck it, I don't. Like, I know why I'm here, and I know
that this is not forever and this situation won't be forever.
Like, really know that and share that with each
other. Because that's going to be so helpful when
unexpected things happen and you have to make adjustments quickly.
I think staying connected when everything else feels
foreign is so important. And
however you do that, you know, things that you
do before you move, things that you do after, I think
obviously after you move, there's so many, like I just said,
opportunities and experiences that you can
create that are brand new That, I mean,
having little dates or little excursions, like, it's going to be
easy for a while because there's just so much new.
But it doesn't have to just be some adventure. It could be
taking a language class and just doing that together for a
while and seeing each other improve and just going
through that learning experience together, where that is
a huge connection or can be a huge connection to just
learn together and experience. And I think the
last thing is like, obviously
humor, being able to say to some extent it's just
not that serious. If you have the privilege to be able to
like move to another country with your partner or family
and like you're deciding to do that. Like, that is an absolute privilege to have
the choice to do that. Like a lot of the things, like,
they're just not that serious. Like just, you know, you sound
like an idiot with the language. You make a mistake, you drive on the wrong
side of the road, or you fuck something up, or you forget
something somewhere. I mean, it's gonna happen and you're gonna have
somebody come up to you, even if you're the person that normally is like
noticing things for other people. And then you
have somebody run up to you and hand you something like your
wallet that you left on the table at the cafe. That I definitely didn't do.
This is a story about somebody else. And you have somebody at the
restaurant run after you and give it back to you and smile and you feel
like an idiot and you're just like, whatever. Thank you for
bringing that back to me. That was awesome. I appreciate you. Very kind young
gentleman waiter who shall remain nameless. Because this is
definitely not my story. For sure, for sure, for sure.
I, I think being able to laugh at yourself is pretty, pretty good, pretty
helpful no matter what, but especially in something like this and just
being patient, patient with yourself, patient with each other.
Like, it's really tricky as adults to do
big new things and not have, like, be very
critical of yourself and think that you should pick
certain things up really quickly when that's just not always
realistic. And it's easy to be impatient with yourself.
It might be easier to be patient with your partner in some
ways, but there could be other ways where you're way less patient because
there's something that you've kind of grasped pretty quickly and
maybe they haven't or they're not comfortable with it yet and you find
yourself being really impatient with them. And just the self
awareness, like, this is just like your relationship in general.
It's teamwork. It's a partnership. I'm super proud to have a
partnership with Sophie after a soft 12 years,
hard 12 years, next week, probably by the time this gets released or close
to, I think that we've, like,
we. We definitely have a lot of moments where
we're. We kind of look at each other and we're like, yeah, fucking
hell yeah. Hell yeah, us. We're fucking doing it.
We're making it happen. We are terrified almost
all the time, but we're just doing it together
anyways and it's been really fun. And so
anyways, I'm gonna wrap up. I think for me it was
exciting to talk about our experience from this
perspective because
I'm so proud of our marriage and our relationship
and I'm just excited to
continue to celebrate anniversaries and keep reflecting.
We're really proud of ourselves. We've been here for
over two years and just within
our relationship, getting to sit there and be proud of each
other and talk about what we've done, what we've accomplished,
how far we've stepped out of our comfort zone, to what extent
we think maybe we're thriving. Mostly
just surviving, but trying to thrive and
some weeks doing a really great job at that. I just,
I've really enjoyed the experience of doing this
together because the last time we both did this,
it was us individually, you know, and I think
it just reiterates that, you know, home isn't a place,
it's a person and the choice that you keep making
and, you know, it's our adventure in growing
together and doing this. And so if you're
dreaming about making a big move with your partner
again, it's not always going to be easy, but it's
definitely worth every moment that you
can really exponentially grow
this adventure and experience together. And I think
it can create a very deep
appreciation for what you're capable of in your
relationship if you can both remove yourself from
comfort together and do that together.
It's a little bit oversimplified to
say that it's an incredible team building exercise,
but to some extent it does have that
feel and is very fun. So since I'm flying solo, I'll
just leave the little Sophie. I love you and happy anniversary.
And here's to 12 more and beyond.
And to you, listener, thanks for
sticking it out through this one and hearing this perspective of
the story and for continuing to listen. So if
you like what we're doing and what we're talking about, please share.
And like. And the last thing, actually, I'm going to
leave this if you've made it this far. A fun little
thought exercise and some send us through
DMs in the Eptins on Instagram or
TikTok, or through the podcast, wherever you can. But top three
places if you had somebody gifting you
like a house, condo, whatever, and said you can have them in
three places anywhere in the world, what would your
three places be? For example,
I think at some point Sophie had said Provence,
London, Southern California somewhere, maybe San Diego.
I don't know, I'm in San Diego. So easy to say here. What would your
three be? I'm super curious about this one and I would love to hear that
from people. Like again, this is like the
fantasy lottery. Like somebody gifts you a
property and they pay for it. I don't know. Where would your three places
be? Super fun to think about. I'm gonna go think about mine
again and I'll get back to you with that at some point. But
thanks. I love you. Have a great day.
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