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This article discusses the effects of expatriation on pair bonding, and, more particularly, on the effects of moving away from the familiar environment and those of living in the foreign environment. The different psychoanalytic models of the couple, the family and the group are mobilised to explore pair bonding.The foreign environment reactivates fears of loss and non-recognition in connection with the experience of strangeness. The absence of familiarity is reminiscent of J.C. Rouchy’s notion of cultural incorporation and questions the couple’s capacity for psychic containing. Consequently, expatriation faces the couple with a narcissistic ordeal and subjects it to a reorganisation of bonds. Faced with the change, the expatriated couple is led to reorganise itself in a regressive movement. From this perspective, the bonds can be understood from the angle of filiation. Le couple may mobilise the illusion of returning to the conjugal “We” through their common shared cultural basis. Expatriation can awaken the child in each of the partners.