My [27m] wife [24f] has become very self-conscious of her accent since moving to the US a few months ago. Trying to make her feel better about it.

I've been together with my wife for a little over three years, we got married about a year ago.

At the time I was an American living in Europe, she is East European.

We moved to the US about six months ago. It was known well in advance, she was fully aware we would be going to America at the time we got married, and she was completely on board with it.

Since moving back to the United States (Central Texas), she has been working hard on fitting in. She has a part time job and intends to go back to school as soon as she can.

But I've noticed she seems to be getting really self-conscious of her accent.

She does have a pretty heavy East European accent. It's definitely not bothered me and I actually think it sounds pretty cool.

Maybe two months ago or so she randomly asked me if I thought her accent was really noticeable. I told her that, yeah, East European does kind of stick out in Central Texas, but I love her voice and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Then a few weeks ago I was using YouTube on her computer for some reason or another, I saw she has been watching a ton of video tutorials on American accents.

That prompted me to sit down with her and ask if the accent thing is really bothering her. She said it was. She feels like people here think she sounds weird and it is hard for her to fit in sounding like a "foreigner".

I felt really crappy that I didn't notice beforehand, and asked her what she wants to do about it. She didn't seem to really know, because she personally likes her voice, but she doesn't want to keep from fitting in.

I told her I didn't think anyone relaly thought less of her for it, and anyone who does is an asshole anyway, but it didn't seem to help. I guess they talk about it alot at her job and it makes her feel bad.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm worried it will seem that I want her to change if I encourage her to train away her accent (which I love anyway). But I don't want to keep her from it if she really feels it would be helpful and she really wants to change it.

What is the right play here?

TL;DR Wife is from East Europe and living in Texas has made her very self-conscious of her accent. I'm not sure to discourage her from changing it, or to help her?

Submitted March 29, 2019 at 12:40PM by Friendly_Sir https://ift.tt/2U431nP