Cross -Cultural Marriage

Love and even patience are not enough to maintain marriages made up of people from different cultures. There are circumstances that may be interesting and encouraging at the beginning of the relationships, but can easily turn into conflict and frustration; leading to a divorce. For this reason, it is important to know that when you get married, you are not only marrying the person you are marrying his or her culture as well. Major cultural differences such as raising children, communication, and nutrition can end-up by dividing a couple and even destroying the possibility of having a successful marriage.

 Raising kids in a different country that is not their country of origin, can be difficult. Parents typically want their children to grow with similar scenarios than the one they experienced. It is already challenging for a couple from the same nation to travel to a different country and raise their children because kids can be highly influenced by their school community. In a cross-cultural marriage, the idea of raising children in a different country can be extremely catastrophic for the entire family. Imagine a Colombian woman, marrying a man from Finland and raising children in the United States. Even though we know the US is a diverse country, the family is clearly going to face frustrations, because there are cultural differences that will not allow them to feel entirely happy. The mother on the other hand will allow her sister to pick up their children from school, because She had an emergency at work; while the father will probably be mad because Finland men do not believe in the importance of extended family, and even the school will have a problem because in the US only parents or legal guardians can pick up children from school. The scenario presented is only one example of the different problems a cross-cultural marriage can have while raising children. However, there are multiple more such as the importance that is given from each parent about relatives or significant activities performed during the weekends. In this case, it will be hard to determine if the family should all go and have lunch on Sunday with the grandparents because the mother is Colombian or if the family should stay at home because nuclear family is more important for men in Finland.

Communication is another barrier a cross-cultural marriage will find extremely difficult to overcome. In a cross-cultural marriage, there are not only language barriers, but on top of that, there are also different expressions and tone of voices that can be interpreted differently. It is important to try to understand jokes or special words, that can be hard to comprehend because everyone has different personalities. However, for cross-cultural marriages, it’s going to be even harder to accept communication barriers. For example, for a Finland man it’s unusual to give a blessing every morning and for a Colombian woman, it’s completely the opposite. In this scenario, both are going to be affected because the woman can feel frightened because a blessing was not given and the man could feel forced to do something completely strange for him.

Nutrition can also be a major difference in a cross-cultural marriage because the food is not the same in each country, not even within the same region. There are different food preferences than can be hard to tolerate, different ways of preparing a meal, and even different times to have dinner. For instance, the woman will be used to eat fruits every morning with her breakfast, while the man will want only a black coffee because of his culture, but the only thing available will be bagels because they all are in the US.

Some people may say that regardless of someone’s culture or even if a couple shared the same nationality, there is a still a chance for fights and differences within a marriage. Others may feel that what truly matters are for people to feel appreciated, to understand the differences and to work for a common goal. Even though I can agree with the statement, the problems are going to be bigger for cross-cultural marriages than for those who were born in the same country.

Divorce rates in cross-cultural marriages continue to increase due to the major differences that were presented. It is important to remember that under every marriage, dealing with differences can be a challenge. However, people in marriages with the same culture are more likely to understand and solve problems with each other.