When Mary Braun met her husband Sébastien, they were both living in Chicago. But at their second meeting, Sébastien, originally from France, told Braun that he wasn’t planning to stay in the United States much longer — he had been in America for 15 years and wanted to return to Europe soon.
“He actually almost came back, but then he decided to stay a little longer and met me, so it was very weird in that way,” Braun tells CNBC Make It.
In late 2020, the couple moved into a two-bedroom apartment together on Chicago’s North Side. At the time, Sébastien was working as a business unit manager for ZF Group, a German technology manufacturing company, while Mary was working as a social media manager for a hair care company.
Both worked remotely, and eventually the apartment proved too small for them, so the couple moved across the street to a 3-bedroom, 2-bath duplex, where they paid $2,585 a month in rent.
“I miss it a lot. It was a really cool building that still had brick walls and Chicago character, but it was gutted and renovated,” Braun says.
When Mary Braun met her husband Sébastien, they were both living in Chicago. But on their second meeting, Sébastien, originally from France, told Braun that he wasn’t planning to stay in the United States much longer.
Mary and Sebastien Braun
Braun and Sébastien lived in the apartment for about a year and spent the Covid-19 pandemic there together. During that time, they began to seriously consider a move to Europe and which country they would soon call home. Switzerland was at the top of their list.
Sébastien enrolled in an executive MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “He chose it because he was able to do a lot remotely from the US,” says Braun. “Since the long-term goal was to go back to Europe, it made sense for him to do a European program.”
Another mitigating factor for the couple was that Sabastien had not been able to see his family in France for an entire year due to pandemic travel restrictions. He began actively working to transfer to the European offices of his company.
The ZF Group offered Sébastien a transfer to an office in Germany, but Braun rejected the idea. She didn’t speak the language and there were no direct flights to and from Chicago. Sabastien was then offered a transfer to Belgium, but this fell through. He was given one more opportunity to work in a brand new office in Bern, Switzerland, the country’s capital.
Although a move to Bern still didn’t appeal to Braun — it also doesn’t have direct flights in and out of Chicago — she realized Zurich was close enough that Sabastien could commute to the office every day.
“He really thought it was the best career opportunity for him, and at the time, the company I was working for was willing to let me go and work remotely for them from Switzerland,” says Braun. “The stars aligned.”
In December 2021, the couple had begun the process of moving to Switzerland — which included obtaining Swiss visas — so they didn’t end up moving until September 2022. Braun and Sébastien married in March of that year, sent most of their belongings in Switzerland and moved in with Braun’s parents while they waited for the paperwork to clear.
“We still had a lot of time to adjust to it and be with my family,” Braun says. “Which I think helped ease the transition.”
When Braun and Sébastien finally moved to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing—first in a furnished 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment for which they paid 3,880 francs, or $4,253, and then in a 2-bedroom , 1.5 baths. rented for 5,090 francs or $5,580, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make Ajo.
“I remember sitting on the bed in the temporary shelter with our dog and thinking how is this real? How are we in Switzerland? How did our dog make it here? How did everything fall into place?” says Braun.
“This was our real life now and we had to deal with it. It was just surreal.”
That December, the couple found a more stable living arrangement. It was a 2-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom apartment in the Enge neighborhood of Zurich, where the rent was 4,120 francs, or $4,516.
When Braun and Sébastien finally made their move to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing. The couple soon found a more stable living arrangement.
Mary and Sébastien Braun
The couple loved that apartment, but in January 2023, Braun found out she was pregnant. Living on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator became a major inconvenience. The couple was also notified that their rent would increase. They thought the time was right to find a place with more space.
Five months later, Braun and Sébastien left the old apartment and moved into a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment in Uitikon, a town outside Zurich, for 3,950 francs or $4,330 a month. Braun says one of their advantages was that their taxes went down because they no longer lived in the city.
In Switzerland, people pay federal income tax rates that range from 0 to 11.5%, but that doesn’t include local taxes, according to H&R Block. Cantons, which are similar to states in the US, and municipalities also pay taxes.
The couple lived in this apartment in Uitikon for about eight months.
Mary and Sebastien Braun
A downside? It was not so easy to get around their new city without a car. When Braun gave birth to the couple’s daughter and went on maternity leave, she was hired as a social media manager for a Swiss company that wasn’t friendly to remote work. “I was starting to worry about just balancing life,” she says.
There was a possibility that Braun could lose her job if she did not return to her office full time when the leave was over.
“If I was in the US, I would have my mother or someone I knew well to watch our daughter. We started to think we had to have a plan for the worst case scenario financially.”
The couple and their daughter currently live in a town outside of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Mary and Sébastien Braun
When Braun’s boss confirmed the worst, Sébastien tried to find a higher-paying job while she considered her options. “I appreciated that [my boss] she was very honest with me, but it was bad because I had to choose between my career and my family,” she says.
“I took the loss, but there are other rewards to being home with our daughter. Being a stay-at-home mom is just another job.”
Last year, the couple and their daughter moved to a town outside Freiburg, just under two hours from downtown Zurich, where the family still resides. They pay 2,630 francs or $2,883 a month for their 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment.
“We were able to save a big chunk of change and Sébastien was making more money. It didn’t really close the gap between my loss of income, but it definitely helped financially,” says Braun.
The family has a picturesque view of the city from almost every window in their apartment.
Mary and Sébastien Braun
Plus, since French is a major language in the area, Braun was excited to raise her daughter there, knowing she would learn the language and she could improve hers.
Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, Braun says she really appreciates the sense of security that comes with living in Switzerland. She takes many walks in nature alone with her daughter and the family dog.
“The level of safety is so different here that honestly, as a woman, I just feel safer doing things that I would probably think twice about doing in the US,” says Mary. “It feels very safe and secure while still being beautiful at the same time.”
Braun and Sébastien have lived in Switzerland for over two years now, and while they miss America’s sense of celebration and having so much available to them, like Amazon delivery and stores that stay open later than 18:00, the results of the 2024 presidential election means that, for them, return is off the table: “There is a lot of uncertainty in the US”
“I never want our daughter to feel like she’s not American, and I want her to culturally identify with the US, at least the good parts of it,” Braun says. “It’s also tempting because it would be easy for me to get back into the job market with my experience in journalism, especially as a freelancer, which isn’t really a thing in Switzerland.
The apartment has three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Mary and Sébastien Braun
But, “I think socially it doesn’t make sense for us right now,” she adds.
The couple think they will eventually move again to be closer to Sébastien’s family, but that won’t happen anytime soon. “Having the ability to have help and having someone to lean on and watch our daughter is wonderful,” Braun says. “Growing up in one of her cultures, I think that would be really interesting for us.”
Mary doesn’t think the family will be returning to the US anytime soon.
Mary and Sébastien Braun
Until then, Braun is focused on learning French to expand her career options if and when they move to Sébastien’s homeland and she’s ready to go back to work.
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