A very 'familiar' scene indeed
I think I can picture your husband pretty well, sorrounded by the good alemancitos.
I tend to meet more people interested in cultures because of my wife's circle. But it's very refreshing to have other friends that don't care, especially my dear Irish carpenter compadre.
But most of them come and ask me things about my country. I can't tell how often I have been asked if I miss my country or the food, or the weather, etc. But, though extremely boring, it is really nice to see the interest of people, not only for the culture but also about a person's thoughts and feelings. Most probably they are just extracting data to develop a new rational strategy to understand, perhaps prevent, the soziokulturell motives of foreigners that leave their country.. no, just kidding, but in these cases, when you just say simply it was love that did it, a love that made you leave a flourishing job behind, then... total silence.
To help them recover from their conversational paralyisis I simply I start to make my own questions and let them talk about themselves
. It ends up pretty good.
Javier