How Moving to Russia During a War Blew Up My Life

I suppose a lot can go wrong in a marriage that has just started. Many people imagine things related to routine, different backgrounds, cleaning, and cooking.

Not when it comes to us — my husband and me.

We were both in our twenties when we got married in June 2025. He was 27 and from Russia, while I was a 24-year-old Azerbaijani. Our marriage is a lot of beautiful things, but it’s also the baggage each of us carries. Soon after we wed, he told me that his father was in a car accident, which triggered a flare in an existing mental health condition that causes confusion and a strong belief in potentially questionable ideas.

His mother added to these issues with her religious fervor. Like many Russians, she’s an Orthodox Christian and had been trying to persuade her husband to join her for a long time. This time, with his mind weaker than usual, she succeeded. My father-in-law started to put the blame on himself for what happened to him, thinking God was punishing him for his sins.

My husband and I were married for five months when he decided to move from Azerbaijan back to Russia to help his parents, as well as pursue career prospects in his hometown.

I had a choice: to stay in my country with a stable job and a supportive mother, or to move with my husband to care for his parents and pursue his career instead of mine. My husband, acknowledging what it would cost me to move, wanted me to stay, so I did for some time.

The arrangement was difficult. Before we got married, we were in a long-distance relationship while I did my master’s degree in the U.S. and he lived in Baku, Azerbaijan. We promised to never live apart again, yet just a few months into our marriage, we were separated. For the first time, I started having severe anxiety episodes that affected my professional life. As someone who had a traditional upbringing, I couldn’t bear the thought of living apart, which I felt was breaking the institution of marriage.

So I quit my job and moved to Russia in March 2026.

I try not to regret things in life and instead learn from them. But when I look at my life from a stranger's point of view, I see a black string of nothingness: a jobless gap growing longer with every day, no friends to chat with, no mom to hug. I’m now a mere housewife with honors living in a country at war — a country where mobile internet goes off, where you can’t access your favorite newspapers, where you could be hit by a drone at any time. I did get accepted to a local university to pursue a PhD, but I sometimes wonder, what’s the use of it if students here don’t have access to global scientific journals?

Sometimes I imagine what would happen if we only supported my husband’s parents financially. Is that selfish? But then was it selfish when he picked his parents and dreams over mine? Where is the line in love between being supportive and choosing oneself?

There are no easy answers to these questions. While my husband and I grapple with them, I try to appreciate small moments of joy. In Russia I freelance more, I write, I read, I draw. We also recently got a puppy, so now I spend time with the newest member of the family.

And, it turns out I might actually get an answer to that first question, as my husband and I are contemplating moving back home. We’ll see what decision we come to, together.