What you do together
Liming — the untranslatable word for hanging out with no particular purpose — is the national pastime and the honest answer to what a couple does here. Beyond that: beaches, fetes, cricket and football, and food. Doubles, roti, bake and shark, pelau: the cuisine is the point where African, Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Creole traditions meet.
Ask which family
Trinidad and Tobago is close to evenly divided between people of African and Indian descent, with Chinese, Syrian-Lebanese, European and mixed communities besides — and Hindu, Muslim and Christian traditions running in parallel. There is no single national wedding custom. An Indo-Trinidadian Hindu wedding with its maticoor night, cooking night and tassa drumming has nothing in common with an Afro-Trinidadian church wedding. Ask, and expect a specific answer.
Meeting the family
- Ask about diet before the first meal. Many Hindu families are vegetarian; Muslim families keep halal; and the question is welcomed rather than awkward.
- Remove your shoes where others do, particularly in Indo-Trinidadian homes.
- Bring something to share, and expect to be fed a great deal.
- Humour is constant and sharp. Picong — teasing with an edge — is affection; taking it badly marks you out.
- Divali, Eid, Christmas and Carnival are all national events observed across communities. Being invited to one outside your partner's own tradition is normal here.
A legal position that has moved twice
A High Court ruling in 2018 struck down the colonial-era provisions criminalising sex between men. That decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal in March 2025, with a further appeal pending before the Privy Council. The position may change again, in either direction: check the current state of the law rather than relying on an older article. See sexual orientation in Trinidad and Tobago.
The money question, settled once
It is the subject that wears down most binational couples, and it wears them down far less when it is raised early.
- Decide in advance what you do and do not do, say it plainly, and hold to it. A constant rule is infinitely better than irregular generosity, which creates expectation on one side and resentment on the other.
- Separate one-off help from recurring help. The second is a budget line; it is discussed together, with an amount and a duration.
- Never send money through a third party to reach the family: it creates obligations you do not control.
- What you give one person, everyone knows. In an extended family there is no discreet transfer.
Meeting the family
It is not one more step, it is the step. Come with something — a modest, shareable gift beats an expensive present given to one person. Greet the elders first, accept what you are offered, and learn three sentences in the language: the effect is out of all proportion to the effort.