This thread is about opinions on inter-cultural relationsips, why not share your stories, experiences and answer our poll.
How difficult is it to make Inter-Cultural Relationships Work?
- Thread starter Terra
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I think it all depends on the couple and their compatibility, and their willingness to make sacrifices and respect each other cultures and try to integrate them to their every day life.
I think there are challenges in every relationship despite the ethnicity of either parties. However blending two culture's together has it's own challenges. Learning to adapt to or intergrading your culture to your parents is never easy, plus there is the family barrier where the couple has to meet each others families and that could pose a problem in itself as some families are not accepting of other cultures other than their own. Neither the less, it is down to the couple to love and respect each others culture alongside their own.
All aspects of a multicultural relationship is hard . There are differences in every area , religion, parenting , beliefs the way a man is superior to a woman will cause a massive conflict. Before getting into a relationship think about how you will be affected and if you can change your life to fit into there life .
It can, but I think this really depends on the cultures and the individuals involved. It's easy to stereotype this kind of person from a conservative society, this type of South East Asian, or that kind of British or American person. Obviously if a couple are going to be in a healthy relationship then I think they are going to need to acculturate, and respect things from each others cultures which if you're not incredibly rigid and able to listen to different perspectives then its not too hard to navigate through, and of course thats going to cut both ways.
In practice, I think people are far more diverse than the kinds of situations you see on relaity TV or the horror stories you hear about, they tend to stick out more and aren't necessarilly the norm. From my experiences problems often come more from familial expectations and views rather than from the couple themselves. Afterall, placing yourself into a relationship that spans culture or language takes a degree of open mindedness in the first place.
For example, my SO comes from a culture that has machismo, and has quite conservative views a lot of the time but shes quite progressively minded and we're both open minded. In our relationship there isn't a gender disparity nor cultural problems inside our relationship outside of misunderstandings from time to time. Problems mostly come from certain elements of our families or friends who have different ideas, or have their own prejudices.
Most of our arguments originate from people connected to us applying some kind of pressure. But those are pretty easy to navigate on the whole because we don't want the life they are promoting, or agree with their views in the first place. We're generally on the same page about stuff.
Most of her friends think like her too, and a few are in international relationships themselves and have similar experiences to us.
As it happens, my GF is involved in a cultural society in the UK for people from her ethnic/cultural background so there are a lot of people who are, like us, in a cross cultural relationship. When we discuss stuff, issues also sound familiar to what I wrote above, or a lack of acculturation. Its sad how many peoples partners dont attend events because its not their culture. Except, if you're with someone from another culture then it kinda is part of your culture now, unless you live in a weird segragated household. One of the women was getting quite frustrated about this at a meet up over the weekend. That said, the latter tends to be more with older couples than younger ones, so perhaps generational divides can play a role there.
This is always true though, you gotta make sure you are compatible and are generally on the same page else you can walk yourself into a lot of problems. But this is true within your own cultures too.
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