Culture has been around for ages. Countries have different cultural beliefs and norms that people conform to, and many people around the world have grown a strong attachment to their cultural beliefs and mind-sets.
One of the most common theories is that people from different cultural backgrounds have more difficulty making their relationships work than individuals with the same culture.
Culture involves the beliefs, behaviours, and values of a particular social group of people or country. These various beliefs can sometimes create challenges in intimate relationships with a person from a different cultural background. For that matter, even couples from seemingly similar cultures may still have to navigate differences sometimes.
"Our culture brings us together and leads us towards the same direction with the same mind-set. Two people with different cultures will tend to go in opposite directions as they hold and follow different visions, and that can be enough to destroy any relationship,” says Aphrodis Gasana, a wedding emcee.
Culture influences how individuals in intimate relationships communicate. Gasana notes that partners with different cultures have significant modifications in behaviour and attitude. In addition to that, they also have differences in things they consider taboo, and that can affect a relationship in different ways when both fail to control them.
For Josiane Uwamahoro, a mother of three, culture goes together with one’s personality, and it is okay for individuals to have different beliefs—what matters is how they manage them and create a sense of positivity out of it.
"Coming from different cultures, you are likely to have different thoughts about what is right and wrong, have different aspirations and ideals, have different values over issues such as family, money, religion, and freedom, have a different understanding of gender and liberty, maybe have different ideas about how each should behave in certain situations. And the list goes on,’’ she observes.
Cross-cultural issues faced by couples sometimes include loss of identity, conflicts over differences in fundamental beliefs, clashes in parenting tactics, struggles with unsupportive families, and different interpretations of an event relating to some aspect of different cultures.
"When I got married to my husband, we totally had dissimilar cultures as we were from different countries. There was such a big difference in culture, beliefs, and social values. I was angry about tying the knot in the middle of the pandemic as big weddings were not permitted. In my husband’s culture it is not allowed to visit newly married couples, they ‘set them free’ to enjoy their marriage. While in my culture visitors are a blessing, especially when it comes to a new family. Even though it wasn’t easy for me, I tried to respect his culture and we set the rules that would not create boundaries for one party or another,” Joy Agasaro shares.
According to Uwamahoro, it’s not that you want to be exactly like your partner, in fact, it is important to be different from your individual. If you are too symbiotic, too closely attached to your partner, there is a risk of becoming co-dependent, where your happiness depends on the happiness of your partner, and that’s not good. There needs to be a level of individuality that allows you both to follow different interests, have separate friends, and be able to be apart.
"One of the biggest difficulties to overcome in understanding cultural differences is making judgments based on one opinion. Stereotyping people from different cultural backgrounds can impact their quality of life and opportunities,” Uwamahoro says.
However, in Agasaro’s point of view, if you come from different cultures, the differences can seem so huge that the natural tendency to compromise, which is evident when we first get together, is insufficient to overcome the deep and fundamental differences that emerge overtime. But there are ways to bridge the gap and create a family unit that works well in both worlds while retaining integrity and authenticity.
"While understanding your partner’s culture, it is important that you shouldn’t feel pressured to discard cherished parts of your own cultural traditions. Inter-cultural relationships require compromise but should not force one party to abandon core parts of his/her identity,” says Agasaro.
She notes that even though it can be a difficult road to choose, cross-cultural marriages can work and be extremely rewarding when partners are pro-active and build healthy communication practices between themselves and their families.
"Individuals should understand each other, respect and compromise. Don’t expect your partner to settle seamlessly into your way of life. It is important to get first-hand experience of each other’s cultures and pass on both cultures to your children. It is the time that people might start to think positively about their cultural differences,” Agasaro notes.