This is the fourth post from my ten question series on questions and discussions that are particularly important for intercultural or interracial couples to have. All of the posts from this series can be found on the series index, The Ten Questions Every Intercultural Couple Should Discuss.

As all of our friends and family (and, heck, most of you) already know, Aditya and I have this wee little tendency to argue… about everything under the sun.  While most of these arguments are playful in nature – the person who’s wrong either owes the other one hundred million dollars or an extra turn at washing the dishes -  occasionally one of our arguments can turn quite nasty. We’ve gotten better over the years at discussing things like civilized people (by both of our cultures’ definitions of civilized), but clear, careful communication remains our greatest problem as an intercultural couple.

Talking and debating things – especially about the big issues – can be a challenge for all couples, but intercultural couples can find it especially difficult. When you grow up with dissimilar cultural expectations and social norms, it’s to be expected that your assumptions about what good communication is will be different.

• Is it acceptable to rant and rave and get all your frustrated emotions out during a disagreement, or is it better to stick to the logical facts & reasoning – even if that makes you seem as emotionless as a Vulcan?
• Should you say please & thank you to your close friends and family?
• Can you talk about death or other bad things around the dinner table, or will that lead to bad luck?
• And in all these conversations, what language should you be speaking, anyways?

I’ve written previously on the steps to becoming a good general intercultural communicator, because, well, it’s a hard & long process. It’s one that Aditya and I are still going through, as we figure out how to get past our cultural assumptions about communicating with others and onto the subject of today’s post: identifying what’s stopping you from communicating well with each other – what steps of the communication process are you stumbling over?

Digging into the question

There are a number of ways an intercultural couple can get (especially) tripped up when communicating – and identifying which are your biggest problems is half the battle. So sit down with your significant other sometime, and try talking about how you talk – what sort of issues are you running into again and again?

Fluency Issues

When one person lacks fluency in the common language (or languages) that an intercultural couple shares, it spells all sorts of trouble. Sometimes it can seem that the more fluent speaker always wins the arguments by default because they grew up thinking and arguing in that language, while the other didn’t. The less fluent partner can get frustrated by their inability to communicate nuanced ideas easily, both within the relationship and with the outside world (especially in a business setting, where language is often more formal) – which can cause strain on the relationship as a whole.

This isn’t a particular issue in our household, given that Aditya was an English major and all. However, there is some frustration on Aditya’s part on my lack of fluency (to say the least!) in Hindi or Bengali, which were the two languages he spoke growing up. While he’s perfectly fluent in English, he feels that our bicultural household should be at least bilingual as well – a point that I can’t really disagree on, thus the on-going Hindi Project.

Definitional Issues

While both partners may be fluent in a common language, that doesn’t always mean that they’re going to have the exact same understanding of every word. The nuances that a word carries for you depends on your culture and background experiences. So, while we all might agree that the word dinner means the evening meal, dinner to Greg might carry memories of everybody in the kitchen fighting over containers of Chinese food, while to Pam dinner might require sitting down to a home-cooked meal as a family and saying a prayer (one not containing lyrics from Godspell) before eating. (Take out the prayer part & Robert De Niro, and this pretty much describes the differences between my family’s dinner & Aditya’s)

Or, to turn to a slightly more serious issue, consider the word respect.  In a discussion about in-laws, an intercultural couple might agree that they should both respect each other’s parents, even if they don’t always get along. Which is fine and dandy – until you realize that each person has a completely different idea of what respect towards parents entails! If, like neokalypso, you feel that your future in-laws are making unreasonable demands, is it respectful to politely but firmly disagree with them when they make these demands – or is the respectful thing to neither disagree or agree directly to their faces, but slowly persuade them to come around to your perspective? This sort of mental disconnect over the meaning of words – especially over value-laden words like respect, love, or family – can subtly sabotage your conversations because it seems like you’re communicating clearly, but you’re actually talking about entirely different sorts of things. You might not even realize you weren’t communicating well until it’s too late.

Topic Issues

In every culture there are some topics that are rarely or never discussed, even between husband and wife. Sometimes there’s a strict taboo – for instance, you might not ever speak of hypothetical illness or future deaths or brag too much, for fear of the evil eye. Other topics are just seen as rude or unpleasant – in the U.S., for example, it’s often seen as unseemly to speak ill of the dead.

While I would never suggest that a topic should simply be verboten between significant others, I do think it’s important to be aware of the subject areas that might be difficult for one or both partners to easily discuss because of their cultural background. If your partner was raised to think that “good girls don’t talk about their sexual desires”, she might have difficulty discussing this topic clearly and openly with you, or even being the one to start a conversation on the issue. And, as anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship knows, failing to openly discuss an important issue (like sex) leads to resentment on both sides bubbling up as needs aren’t met or one person feels like she’s being judged for not being a mind reader.

Manner and Tone Issues

Communication, as we all know, is more than just words. The manner in which you enter a discussion, the tone in which you speak, and the non-verbal cues you send are just as important as what you’re saying. Of course, almost no one is taught about non-verbal cues or tones – these are things that you just learn as you’re growing up in your family & culture. For example, some people see a loud & emotional disagreement as a sign that this is a MAJOR issue under discussion  – one that could be a relationship ender – while for others arguing stridently might just be the way you release the normal frustrations of day-to-day life in a relationship. At the end of that argument, the first person will exit feeling stressed out and doubting the relationship as a whole, while the other will be glad the air was cleared a bit – not exactly what I call good communication!

Or, to take a personal example, after Aditya and I had our wedding in India, Baba took me aside for some good fatherly advice on relationships and how to have a good marriage. While I appreciated the advice – and the love he was showing by making the effort to share what he had learned from his long marriage – a part of my analytical little mind couldn’t help focusing on cataloging all of the cultural differences that could be inferred by Baba’s examples from his own life. And when Baba explained how he and Maa tried to never disagree or contradict each other when around other people, a little light bulb went off.  Ah ha! That strategy of showing a united front – which was probably quite helpful when living in an extended family household – that’s what Aditya saw modeled as normal when growing up. That’s why Aditya was sometimes so uncomfortable with me disagreeing with him when we were hanging out with other people, especially in our early years together – in his family, disagreements were communicated privately. In my somewhat loud extended family, on the other hand, you didn’t exactly hang your dirty laundry out for everyone to see, but it was expected that couples would disagree – sometimes vociferously so – on big issues when others were present. Couples disagreeing with each other in public was just normal. The stumbling block for Aditya and I wasn’t that one way of communicating disagreement was fundamentally better or worse than the other – it was that we both learned very different manners of communicating from our families growing up.

The Bottom Line

I’m not here to suggest to you what steps you should take to communicate better with your significant other – that’d become a case of the blind leading the blind very quickly. But I believe that simply discussing where the two of you – as a couple – seem to get tripped up while talking is the start to overcoming your communication challenges.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being married to Aditya and engaging other intercultural couples through this blog, it’s that the quality of communication between an intercultural couple is the key factor in determining how challenging all that other intercultural stuff will be – family, friends, religion, food, and all the other compromises required to develop a truly happy, truly bicultural home.

Photo Credit: Made Underground

This is the second post from my ten question series on questions and discussions that are particularly important for intercultural or interracial couples to have. All of the posts from this series can be found on the series index, The Ten Questions Every Intercultural Couple Should Discuss.

True story: my husband and I got into an argument last night at one am because of this question. I asked him what his answer would be, after three years of marriage to an American, he answered, and somehow the conversation devolved into a debate on whether Christians in the U.S. see Muslims as more of a threat to their religion than Hindus, and if so, why.

People who know us well will not be surprised at this – a defining aspect of Aditya’s and my marriage is that we have intense debates often.  Keeps us on our toes! But discussing this intercultural couple question is almost bound to raise some hackles, as it basically requires each person to criticize the other’s culture and/or country. That’s a feature, not a bug, though.

Digging into the question

The question at the title of the post is “What’s your opinion of our two cultures?”, but you’re meant to go a bit deeper than mere opinion. A better formulation of the question would be:

What do you think are the best and worst features of your own culture? What do you find best and worst in my culture?

Truly answering this question doesn’t mean giving wishy-washy answers like, “oh, most Americans I’ve met are really nice, but I wish they were better educated about other countries.” If someone gives you an answer like that it – or, even worse, declares that they think all parts of their culture or your culture are either totally horrible or totally awesome – it probably means that

1. They haven’t given much critical  thought to culture and the cultural differences between the two of you (bad!), or
2. They don’t really know much beyond superficial details about your culture and haven’t bothered to learn in the time that you’ve been together (badder!), or
3. They have simplistic or black-and-white, good-vs-evil notions of culture and countries (baddest!)

Truth is, every culture has its good aspects and its bad aspects – and it’s important to acknowledge and understand that, especially if it’s the culture of your significant other!

Why this question is important

It gives you an idea of how well you know and understand each other’s cultural heritages. While culture is not the most important thing ever in an individual intercultural relationship – the individuals are! – it does play a big role. A deep understanding of each other’s backgrounds is a key tool for understanding each other. This is particularly important if one partner hasn’t traveled much in the other’s homeland, or has only been exposed to a limited number of individuals from the same culture – there may be cultural generalization going on there that aren’t warranted. (Remember when discussing this topic that broad cultural trends do not mean that everyone from a culture is the same – i.e. try not to generalize too much, and never stereotype.)

It can highlight the differences (and similarities) in your views of the world and what really matters. How much your goods and bads intersect with each other can be a very enlightening experience! For example, Aditya and I agree that the biggest drawback we find in Indian culture, both broadly considered and in the particular social sphere Aditya grew up in, is the real and persistent gender inequality that exists. The fact that we agree that this is an important issue for Indian culture is reassuring – I know that he’ll always have my back if I refuse to follow Indian cultural customs which promote gender inequality.

It can give you more insight into both your partner’s culture and your own. While I love the fact that Indian culture seem to value education and learning (even if I don’t always agree with what I know of India’s educational methods), Aditya said that the best part of Indian culture (as he’s experienced it) was the deepness and (physical) closeness of friendships, which he doesn’t think exists as often in America. This is certainly not among the top things that would come mind when I try to think of the great things of Indian culture! But, after he said explained what he meant in more detail, it gave me new piece to fit into the jigsaw of my understanding of Indian culture.

It lets each of you experience criticism of your culture (with an equal sharing of praise) within the context of your relationship. Look, no one likes to be criticized.  And no one likes to hear things they identify strongly with (like their culture) criticized either. But part of being in an intercultural relationships is that there is going to be a necessary compare-and-contrast between each other’s cultures – and it’s not always going to be flattering for everyone. Learning how to accept – and give – valid criticism of each other’s cultures without hurting feelings or making the individual feel attacked is a useful skill. Aditya and I, with the number of debates and squabbles we get into, practice this skill nearly every day!

The Bottom Line

Gently critiquing and praising each other cultures, as well as your own, will help each of you become both more aware of  each other as individuals – what things do you think are really great, what things do you detest – and more aware of the differences in your outlooks on the goods & bads of culture. With this question (like most of them in the series), I encourage you to not just jump into this conversation, discuss for ten minutes, then be done. Think about the big goods and bads you see in your own and other cultures over the course of a few days. And come back to the question now and again – Aditya’s and my answers to this one have changed tremendously from when we were first dating in college, for instance.

Photo Credit: lepiaf.geo (better off slipping into blur)

This is the first post from my ten question series on questions and discussion that are particularly important for intercultural or interracial couples to have. All of the posts from this series can be found on the series index, The Ten Questions Every Intercultural Couple Should Discuss.

My husband and I grew up in two different worlds. To some extent, all individuals do – all families are unique, after all, and everyone’s childhood has its own rhythm and rhyme. But intercultural couples, like Aditya and I, face particular difficulties in understanding – or even imagining – the experiences that have shaped each other’s lives. The differences between our childhood experiences are both in the bold, key features of our families – education, home language, family structure – and in the small details that make up everyday life – how we traveled to school, the chores we had as children, the games we played when homework was done.

As an intercultural couple, discussing these aspects of your childhoods with each other is incredibly important – not just so that you learn more about each other (every couple should do that!), but also because storytelling is such an effective way to communicate deeply ingrained cultural assumptions.

• His family didn’t have a car while he was growing up. Mine always had at least two.
• His father traveled for work sometimes, but his mother was always at home. My parents divorced when I was six and I became a latchkey kid fairly early on.
• My public school had no dress code at all, while his private high school required uniforms.
• His family rarely lived in homes with much space, while I almost always had a room of my own.
• I cannot remember not having a computer in our house – my dad’s in the industry so we were early adopters – while Aditya didn’t have much experience with computers until his teens.
• His family sometimes had a maid to do many of the chores. I was responsible for doing my own laundry and figuring out most of my meals by the time I hit high school (lots of dinner of cold cereal!).

“But, wait,” you may be thinking, “these sort of differences can occur among families in the same nation! Why all the emphasis on intercultural couples?” My answer to that, is, well, if you and your partner’s backgrounds differ so much from each other, then I’d probably classify you as an intercultural couple anyways. The point is that this  conversation should be had for any couple who are unlikely to innately “get” the other person’s history like you would with someone who was raised in a similar manner and culture to you.

The question is simple: “what was your childhood like?”, but the answer should not be. Instead, you should see this question as a jumping off point in a conversation about what attitudes, beliefs, and experiences you were exposed to as a child. For Aditya and I, these conversations about our childhoods have branched out into religion (“What holidays did you celebrate? What did you do?”), our conceptions of marriage and divorce and family (Aditya was shocked to learn that my mother’s parents and my father’s parents are great friends still, despite Mom & Dad’s divorce), and what sort of parents we’d like to be someday (“My best memories from when I was six & seven are of biking around town with friends, with only an order to avoid the big streets and be home by sunset”).

Besides filling you in on numerous details of the culture of your spouse or significant other, telling stories from childhood can also prepare you to meet with family members & friends, or to travel to his or her homeland. I felt better prepared for visiting India from Aditya’s stories of bargaining in the market as a 2nd grader for the day’s groceries then I did from reading any guidebook. After hearing how sail boating and playing at the neighborhood swimming pool was such an important part of the time I spent with my father’s family, Aditya knew to expect some ribbing at his non-swimmer status when he (bravely) agreed to join our family reunion on a houseboat on Lake Shasta about a year into dating me.

The Bottom Line

Telling stories from your childhood – and then allowing the discussion to expand from there as points of difference arise – is possibly the best way for intercultural couples to learn about the nitty-gritty details of each other’s cultures and families. These are often the details you’d never think to discuss with each other – because they’re so basic to each one of you – but they’re key to fully understanding and getting each others’ cultures.

Photo Credit: by ϟnapshot 19

If there is ONE piece of advice I could give to intercultural couples with questions and concerns – only one – it would be to

Ask Your Partner!

It seems like such a simple thing. If you have a question about your significant other’s culture, religion, traditions, or family, why wouldn’t you ask him or her? Your partner is your best resource in understanding his or her cultural background! And yet, rarely does a day go by when I don’t get a question in an email or blog comment (or read a post somewhere else on the internet) in which the quickest, most direct way to get the question answered would be if the curious or confused person just started a conversation with his or her partner on the topic.

So, people, please don’t forget that your best cultural resource is sitting right next to you, taking up an unfair portion of the couch while obsessively playing FIFA 10 online.

(Oh – your partner isn’t doing that? Interested in a trade?)

I would like to add in one caveat, however, to this advice – while your partner is your best resource, he or she is not a perfect resource. Individuals have biases, limited experiences, quirks, subjective viewpoints, blind spots, and a disappointing inability to perfectly predict the future. Which means that sometimes your partner could be uniformed about a topic, misinformed, or just plain wrong. Shocking news flash, I’m sure!

Warning: Despite the obviousness of this observation, personal experiences suggests that pointing this out to your partner might be damaging to his or her ego.

So, when you have a question, first turn to your partner. If it’s likely to be a sensitive topic, try to ask about it in a sensitive and intelligent manner. But do remember that he or she is not infallible nor gifted with perfect foresight. If this is his or first intercultural relationship, your partner will likely not know exactly how the parental units will react to it, for example. In those sorts of cases, I think it’s a great idea to find out what others’ experiences are like. That sort of sharing & dialogue among those of us in intercultural relationships is, hands down, the best thing about this blog, and one of the things I love to seeing develop in the forums. So feel free to mosey over there if you’ve got a question to ask – one that can’t be easily (or best) answered by your significant other.

Also: for anyone interested in trading in a non-FIFA obsessed boy – I’ll be looking for your thread.

Photo Credit: wili_hybrid

Most of my American friends live in horror of being that American tourist when traveling abroad. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the rude American traveler who behaved in a completely culturally insensitive way while traveling, working, or living abroad. The person who tromps into a Japanese house wearing his shoes. Or complains loudly about the stupidity of grocery stores being closed in Germany on a Sunday.  No one wants to be that person, right? In an effort to not be that person, friends have told me they try their darnedest to follow that age old maxim: when in Rome, do as the Romans do – i.e. follow the customs of the land and culture that you find yourself in, even if they aren’t your customs. Nothing wrong with trying to be respectful in all ways possible of other cultures, right?

Well, no – there are some things wrong with that old rule about following other culture’s customs as much as possible. My main complaint with the “when in Rome” adage is that it simplifies a topic that defies simplification. Tossing the rule out in a conversation as a simple, true fact (as happened recently in the comments section at another blog that inspired this post) strikes me as similar to slapping a bandage on what is, in fact, a thorny issue. Sometimes it’s a good idea to follow the customs and traditions of another society while you’re visiting (or living in) it. But sometimes it can be a really bad idea…

The Three Key Considerations of Cultural Customs

When you’re faced with a differing tradition, custom, or habit of a culture you’re interacting with or a country that you’re traveling through/living in, the main decision you have, of course, is whether you want to follow this different custom, stick to your own ways, or try to chart some sort of middle path. In making this decision, I think there are three main considerations to take into account:

1. Manners - Is this a simple rule of behavior that the people of this country find polite? Will behaving in my normal manner seem rude? Is this just one of those intercultural quirks that I should just follow without bothering my head about it?
2. Practical – What will happen to me if I don’t follow this custom? What about if I do? Will my life or the life of others around be easier? Better?
3. Ethics – Is this custom ethical according to my beliefs? Would I be violating my ethics to follow the custom – or would it be wrong of me to not follow it, given the particular facts of the culture/country I find myself in?

Let’s tackle those one at a time, hmmm?

Etiquette Considerations – or, did you just accidentally insult someone?

Every country has those little rules that you just gotta learn before traveling there – at least if you don’t want to be unintentionally impolite. In Germany you’re suppose to keep both hands on the table -or otherwise in sight – to be polite. Why? Because that’s the rule. End of story. In the US pointing at something with your middle finger alone is likely to be taken as an insult – in other countries pointing at all is rude.

These little rules – while occasionally difficult to remember – are easy enough to follow. If a cultural custom falls simply into this category, there’s really not much to say: just try to remember the custom, and follow the traditions of the land while you’re there. Often times these customs are the intercultural quirks I’ve blogged about previously – things that really aren’t worth worrying about. In this case, I’m all for the “go with the flow” and “when in Rome” rules of thumb. If it’s a behavior that you need to perform, just do it and roll on with your life. If it’s a cultural custom you observe others doing, smile, remember that that’s half of the fun of seeing a new place, and roll on.

Unfortunately, often you’ll be told or read that a certain behavior is “polite”, but there’s more to the story than just that. Very few people want to see you chew your food – that’s why many cultures have a rule about politely shutting your mouth while you chew.  It just doesn’t look attractive. However, many cultures also have rules about what is acceptable or “polite” dress – especially for women – and somehow, I don’t think “it just doesn’t look attractive” is the reasoning going into that rule.

Generally speaking, customs which require different behavior from different sorts of people – men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor, low caste vs. high caste – are not just your simple old rules of etiquette. There’s something deeper – often something related to status or power – going on there, and this will have practical and ethical considerations.

A good example of this is the cultural tradition throughout much of South Asia (not all, certainly!) where men and women are expected to socialize separately – women in the kitchen, typically, and men in living room or elsewhere. Often, this is presented just as the “typical” thing – and it’d just be weird or rude to behave otherwise. While I’ve never seen this behavior (and would not follow it, whether in India or elsewhere), a blogger friend of mine, Gori Wife, has two posts here and here about her experiences dealing with it. Another example which came up in the original blog post I read is the drinking of alcohol by women in mixed company, particularly when there are older generations around.

Practical Considerations – or what’s the fallout of your behavior?

In choosing whether to follow a particular custom, it’s always important to think about what the effects will be whichever way you choose. Those of us in intercultural relationships run across this by the simple fact of being in an intercultural relationship – if you don’t think your intercultural relationship affects others, you’re hiding your head in the sand.

The “fallout” can be big or small – depending on the custom you’re choosing to follow or flout and the expectations of those around you. Suppose you try to follow the South Asian custom of eating with your hands – the fallout might simply be a small grin of pleasure from your dining partners and a few drops of curry on your lap. Failing to follow the custom might only mean a short moment of embarrassment when you ask for a fork.

To return to our example of the sexes socializing separately, it’s clear that, if you’re a woman (or man) in this situation, either the choice to follow the custom or not will have significant practical impacts. Either way, your social experience – who you talk with, what you do, when you eat, even – will be different. If you choose to follow the custom, despite being from another country, you may gain social “credit” if your behavior is unexpected, but welcome. If you don’t follow the custom, you may make others uncomfortable with your rudeness, and generate gossip or ill-will. Harsh, perhaps, but it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Or it may be that, while it is expected that natives adhere to the custom, foreigners get a free pass to behave as they’re used to – it all depends on the particular group of people you’re socializing with.

How much you care about these other people think of you, of course, is also a variable to consider when thinking of the practical aspects of following a cultural custom. As I’ve said several times before, I truly believe that those who would judge you harshly for infractions of unfamiliar traditions are not worth your concern. Of course, plenty of people think differently on this matter – this is something you’ve got to decide for yourself and your particular lifestyle.

Another example of the practical considerations that foreign females (and men, to a lesser extent) in India must consider is how modestly to dress in public. You may not give two hoots about what a stranger on a street in a foreign country thinks of you – but your experience and the attention you get from those strangers will most certainly be different depending on what you wear.

Ethical Considerations – Or, is this universally wrong?

This should be straightforward, right? Don’t follow or otherwise support other countries’ customs if you find them ethically wrong. When in (ancient) Rome, don’t have slaves like the Romans did. Or, for a more modern example, don’t eat that delicacy of dog meat you were offered if you think it’s immoral to eat man’s best friend. Yes, refusing the delicacy might be rude, and it might have practical considerations when your hosts get upset at your impoliteness, but it’s better to behave ethically. After all, it’s not like any of us are cultural relativists here. (Right? Right?)

Unfortunately, most cases aren’t that clear cut. Most Americans would consider it extremely unethical for children to work in factories instead of staying in school – but what other choices do an absolutely poor family (pdf) have in a developing country with limited social services? Do you refuse to do business with a company that employees child labor on that basis while visiting a developing country, as you might in your home country? I wouldn’t think that the ethical choice in India, while I absolutely would consider it the correct choice for a U.S.-based factory.

Or, consider the socializing example again: are there moral implications for going along with a custom of gender separation in socializing that you wouldn’t follow in your own country? As a someone who strongly believes in parity between men and women, I do not believe that the people should, in any way, be required to separate on the basis of gender if they don’t want to. (If all the gals want to chit chat in the kitchen, that’s a different thing). Generally, I believe that it’s important to push for a culture in every country that tolerates human variation and individuality. In other words, I’m a cultural libertarian.  Because of my personal ethical beliefs, I don’t believe it’s generally right to follow cultural customs that require separate behavior from men and women. So I socialize with everyone at parties, and I drink alcohol when it’s available and sounds like a good idea – in any country or culture. (And I’ll gladly argue with anyone on these issues at said parties.)

Of course, practical considerations – and even etiquette – still must be balanced with ethical concerns. For instance, I still dress modestly in public in India, even though I would occasionally prefer to dress more along the standards I’m accustomed to here in the U.S. Why? Because, frankly, it’s simply not worth the hassle for me, especially given the tiny possible marginal effect I might have in changing cultural mores that require women to dress more modestly than men. Sometimes, it just ain’t worth it to try to fight the “good fight” at all times, in all places – especially when you’re experiencing a new culture.  Just as you need to balance cultures within an intercultural relationship, you need to balance the various considerations of cultural customs in a broader intercultural context.

Good Manners Across Cultures

“When in Rome, Do As the Romans Do” is a poor phrase to follow when operating in a foreign country or culture. It may help in smoothing over the simpler cultural rules of etiquette, but it fails on the bigger, deeper, and broader facets of cultural traditions or customs. So what is a good rule? I like Emily Page’s advice here:

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.

It’s inevitable that you’ll make a mistake when experiencing a new culture, and do something considered rude or impolite. Indeed, even many months or years after you first become familiar with a rule of etiquette, it’s likely that you’ll be making a mistake or two. (I still blush remembering the time I used an excessively formal version of “you” eight months into my stay in German.) And if you chose to flout a cultural custom because of ethical or practical concerns, you may end up looking incredibly rude.  It’s okay.

As Emily Post reminds us, manners are, first and foremost, about consideration of others’ feelings. If you’re trying your best to be polite, to take into consideration the feelings of those around you, while also sticking to your ethical principles, then no one who has manners themselves should fault you. (And if they do, well, you’ve already heard my opinion on how much you should care.)

The biggest failing of that American tourist is not that he didn’t bother to read up on the customs of the country, nor that he doesn’t consider the practical effects of his actions, nor even that he goes around, demanding that the ethical realities of another country meet his simplistic, black & white view of right and wrong – it’s just an unwillingness to recognize the simple truth that Post points out.

Aditya: So what is that story that you were telling, of when Baba came to meet you?

Baba: That was our semi-arranged marriage!

Maa: Semi? Why “semi”? Absolutely arranged!

Baba: I saw her, and then I said okay. It was not arranged. So semi.

Maa: They put an advertisement in paper, that their son is not getting married for last ten years, they’re searching for daughter-in-law.

Baba: And my in-laws had a daughter who was not being married for ten years, said, “Okay, this is a right match!”

Maa: So, when they came, they didn’t tell me… Maybe my parents knew it, but I didn’t know that they were coming. So it was Sunday, and I had lot of hair… The whole week I had to go to college, so I didn’t wash my hair properly, because in India you can’t go with, uh, hair loose, you have to tie it up. Nowadays everything is gone, but that time it was there. So Sunday is my oil massaging day. So from top to bottom I used to apply oil.

Aditya: And Maa’s hair was down to her knees almost.

Maa: So, they came at three o’clock. And I took bath at twelve o’clock, I think. And I didn’t do shampoo also. And you can just imagine…

Baba: You know, that is why I got married to her, just because of her hair. Because I could not see anything else [to judge]!

<laughter>

Maa: And in India, when some girl is to, uh, be presented to her in-laws, they put on a lot of makeup, good saris, jewelry. But I was wearing a cotton sari, normal, because I didn’t know that they were coming. And my sister-in-laws, all, my parents, couldn’t [dress me up], because I am very strict about that. What I am, I am, there’s no makeup or something. And, I used to wear a bangle on my right hand. On my left hand, I used to wear a watch, a wrist-watch. I was at home, so I didn’t wear that also. And I met him like that!

GG: So, after you both met, did you discuss anything with each other?

Baba: Oh, yeah, we had a talk, between us. But I don’t think that it was, uh, like an examination. We just discussed what I feel, what did she feel that particular day? That’s all.

Maa: And then for food, at the restaurant, I didn’t take it. Because my mother told me, don’t go with anybody in the restaurant. So he was asking, “Are you hungry?” “No,” [I said].

Baba: So I sat down, I ate.

Maa: And he ate. When we came back to our home, from [movie] picture, I was telling my mother, “Give me some food, I am very hungry!” And he says, “Why didn’t you take?!” But how could I explain to him at that time?

Baba: That was my golden era.

I cannot imagine participating in the process of an arranged marriage – not that I think that they’re necessarily bad, but I just can’t picture what it would be like. Maa & Baba’s story of their first meeting was, therefore, quite enlightening as to some of the particulars. It all strikes me as something out of a Jane Austin novel.

GG: Okay, next question!

Baba: This is off the syllabus?

GG: Yes! So, did Aditya discuss marrying me with you?

Maa: Actually, I told him, you ought to get married. If you want to stay together, you ought to get married. That I told him.

Aditya: I mean, it was a variety of things. I think it started… I mean, obviously, after graduating, I moved to California, and I was looking for housing. We talked about it. And obviously I asked before I proposed to GG.

Maa: He didn’t ask, we discussed.

Aditya: Yeah, we discussed, it was more like that.

Maa: I said, if you want to be with her, then get married. You take the responsibility.

The idea of “responsibility” being a key part of a marriage is something I’m still noodling over. I’ll admit I’ve never thought of it in exactly those terms.

GG: Did your expectations of what you expect for a daughter-in-law change after Aditya said he was marrying me?

Aditya: What I think she is asking is, would you have different expectations if she was Indian?

Baba: No. And that should be in block capitals! Because I told you, my expectations for my daughter-in-law is the same whether it is Bhabi, Punjabi, or GG, American.

Bhabi is Aditya’s sister-in-law, i.e. Baba’s other daughter-in-law, for those just tuning in.

GG: So, what would you say was something I did that impressed you early on?

Maa: Everything.

Aditya: I think they spoke the highest of your card-playing ability.

GG: Card-playing?

Maa: Yeah, card-playing…

Baba: Not card-playing ability, the way you picked up the game. You know, pick-up is more important for playing the game. If your pick up is good, whether it is cards or studies, that is a quality, and of course, which I feel did impress on the first day.

Like Aditya, I come from a family where playing cards is a key part of family bonding. Aditya’s family’s game is Twenty-Nine, while my family plays a house version of Rummy and Oh Hell. Being decent at cards in both of our families – or at least enjoying playing cards – is a pretty important trait.

Maa: Even when we came back from the cabin, you cooked for us, a nice —

Baba: No, that was afterwards, but, my point is, the first day.

Maa: But, that time, they were not even engaged. So I liked it very much.

I made a spicy spagetti with chicken sausage (since Maa & Baba don’t eat beef or pork), a simple salad, and some out-of-the-box cake for the family at Aditya’s brother’s house while they were off on a day trip – really the meal was nothing special or complicated. I think Maa might have been secretly afraid that the rumors of Americans were true, and I couldn’t cook a thing.

Aditya: What about Bear?

GG: My dad’s dog.

Maa: Oh, very sweet, very nice.

Aditya: Baba was taking pictures all evening of Bear, there were more pictures of Bear than of GG.

Maa: I liked your mother, your grandmother… And I was very much impressed by you.

Maa met my materal grandmother while I was back in the Midwest, attending college. Granmama is a French-Candian immigrant, altho she’s lived in the US for most of her life.

GG: Anything I did that surprised you, or maybe somewhat negative? Something you thought was kind of odd?

Baba: Actually, should I tell you? Yes, I’m not so critical in little things. If otherwise it is acceptable, it is okay.

Maa: Yes, everybody has some problems.

Baba: If everybody is happy, I feel that it’s good enough. I don’t see things so critical.

GG: Okay, so, now, Aditya & I are married… What is the hardest part about having a non-Bengali, or non-Indian daughter-in-law?

Maa: From my side, the only difficulty is to express myself.

Baba: The language.

Maa: The language. The hardest thing. Nothing else.

Aditya: (sarcastically) GG has been working hard on her Hindi.

I think I have a mental block against learning languages. I’m still struggling to keep a schedule of regular studying – but hearing this was a big motivator.

Baba: I don’t… Whether you are GG, or someone else, it would have not have made much of difference if that person were the same as GG. Because I don’t, uh, everybody has some shortcoming, some strong points. So if I forget about the rest of the things, only see the small shortcomings here or there, mentally I will not be happy. And I do not want to be unhappy.

GG: But is there any difficulty you see, maybe in customs I don’t know, or…

Maa: Even I don’t know a lot of customs. So I don’t care for that.

GG: Or my family doesn’t have the same expectations that an Indian family would…

Maa: How would I know, how do we know what your family expectations? We don’t know…

Baba: One thing I know, GG, that I have got my own way of looking at things. I can lead my life in that lane/line/road – whatever you want to call it, but I cannot make others follow it. Therefore, yes, often things happen even between me and Maa, where we think differently, we argue, feel bad. Maa stops talking, I stop talking, but that is for only a few hours. Because we know that this has to be there, because [we are] two persons.

Similarly, if I am very critical to anybody, it is making an unhappy relation, and no one is happy by doing so. It is better if we can enjoy each other’s company, which is good, overlook the shortcomings, the things that we don’t like. If I know that GG does not like something, I would like to avoid those things as much as possible. I have not vacuumed your bedroom, because I have felt that you would not like disturbed whatever arrangement or, uh, disarrangement…

<general laughter>

…that you have got. It is something like that, I have avoided it. But had it been my world, anybody could have done it for me and I would be happy. It is something like that. I try to avoid, don’t see things, which I feel may cause a bit of uneasiness between two persons.

GG: Is there anything that has been a positive, an unexpected thing that you’ve learned or experienced from having an American daughter-in-law?

Baba: Should I say now, one-to-one? Ready? Sure? I had the impression that Americans are generally very clean …that they keep things in order. But here, I have found…

And the truth comes out! This was the only critical thing I could get Maa & Baba to admit.

GG: It’s as much your son as me!

Aditya: GG, don’t even go there. You know, Thalith used to be our roommate, first when the three of us lived together, and then Thalith, GG, Ivan, and Claudia [lived together]. Thalith always used to make fun of us because the house was dirty and he used to blame me. But after I graduated, and he lived just with her, then he realized that what he actually saw there was her mess minus my cleaning up. You know, I visited GG twice, surprised her by arriving there before she expected me to be there. And the first day that I got there GG was sitting on the bed. And to get on the bed you could only put one step on the ground from the door. So you had to make a hop on one foot towards the bed, and then from that foot – you didn’t have space to put down the second foot – you had to hop off of that foot straight onto the bed. So everything you see is, always remember, that is GG minus my cleaning. Don’t say that it’s equally my fault.

While it is true that my college apartment room was that messy (I was working on my senior thesis!), it is complete falsehood that Aditya is a net benefit in the cleaning  department; during the same time period Aditya’s studio in California was nearly as messy. Really, we’re just messy (and busy) people.

Maa: What to say…

GG: It’s okay to say unflattering things. Whatever is on your mind.

Maa: Actually, I love you very much, all qualities, but the only thing, I can’t tolerate this much of untidiness. No, I think that, uh, you are since your childhood away from your mother, maybe that has affected you. Because only a mother can teach a daughter…

GG: My mother is also very messy.

Maa: Maybe, maybe because of that.

Maa: What you will do, please, you [GG] do the dusting and cleaning, let him do the vacuuming. Yes, do it together. That way you will enjoy it. Otherwise you’re doing it here, he’s doing it there. When Aditya told me that last time that Amy [the basement tenant] was here, that after Amy left, we’ll do the basement as the TV room or something like that. How is it possible that somebody is playing there, she’s playing here in her computer? This is not right. Whenever you’ll be at home, stay together. That is the first thing between husband and wife. You’ll see that in our house also, wherever Baba is I try to be, yes, because I don’t get to …

Baba: You see, when I want to avoid her, she’s always there! … Have you gone to church? Have you seen a dirty church?

GG: I don’t go to church.. I’ve only been a few times when I was little.

Baba: Okay, the ten times you’ve gone to church in your life, have you ever seen a dirty, stinking church?

GG: No…

Baba: Why? Cleanliness is next to godliness! And it is your house. You want that, you know, welcoming look. A house that is messy cannot be a happy house.

Point. Aditya and I really do need to stop living like we’re still in college.

GG: Okay, last two questions. Is there any advice that you would give to an American, or another Westerner who is dating an Indian, and is worried maybe that the parents won’t approve or anything like that?

Maa: Yes. There is something. Like [in] India, we are naturally very family-oriented. It is in our, uhh, in our heritage. But in Western country, people are so advanced, so educated, so independent, that sometimes, they feel, that…

Baba: They become islands.

Maa: Yes, they become islands. The space, their conception of personal space makes them very lonely, gradually. Everybody has some defects, some shortcomings – that is a girl also and a boy. Don’t look at the shortcomings. If you like somebody, if you love somebody, try to, both of, try to compromise on some points. If you can give only will you have something. Always if you – uh, not you, I mean general you – that giving away is much better than taking away.

Baba: No, actually, her question was actually if an Indian boy or a girl is dating an American boy or girl, what advice would be given to them. That is what she asked.

Maa: That is the advice! You have to give something to take something!

Baba: No, no, no… That you are talking about harmony in married life or in relationship. I would say that if they are dating an Indian boy, don’t just go by the boy. Unless he has decided to get out of the family altogether – cut off, I mean – not that [he is] in touch with them, they come and go… Otherwise, the boy should make it clear exactly how his parents or her parents would react to such a decision.

Like, you two are very nice. When you come to India, we [could have] decided no, you have to be like Indian girl, you have to put on a lot of oil, get up early in the morning, five o’clock, take a bath, go to temple, do puja, come back, then you go to the kitchen, cook food.

Maa: That type of family is still there in India.

Baba: A lot of them! The ones that – I have been reading your blog – most of the people they have got that type of problem when they go abroad, to their in-laws place. Therefore, it must be absolutely clear in mind [of the couple] what the expectations [are] at the other end. And if it is so, they should not go to India at all. Because a lot of disharmony would be created on such visits. And as far as we are concerned, as I told you, we are much more liberal, we know and we have got faith on our children, and things are different. I don’t think that one can, uh, judge parents just by seeing our family.

Maa: Even uh, Indian girls get lots of problems.

Baba: Indian girls get problems at their in-laws place because the culture, the practices are different.

GG: Would you suggest for a couple in that situation, that they just go along with the parents, or they say “no, we aren’t going to do that. She will not be getting up at five am”? Or some sort of compromise?

Baba: No, no, I would say if they’re going to live in US they should live like in US. They cannot live in US as [in] India. If you are going to live in India, live like India[ns]. You should not change your lifestyle because you are in a different country [for a short visit], you better live the style of the country [that] you live in.

GG: Anything else you want to share?

Maa: No, I told you that space is very…

Baba: Space should not make–

Maa: Make a man lonely.

Baba: No. That should not, I would say, divide a couple.

Aditya: I think it’s all about, when it comes to intercultural relationships, or really any relationship, it’s all about setting expectations. Like you should never get to the point where there is, like… In most Indian families parents are part of the married family. And you should never get to the point where those stakeholders are not on the same page.

Baba: That’s what I’m saying. And once – often courtship, like salesmanship – often the boy or the girl will tell little bit of half-truth. They will tell the facts just to impress, or hide things that maybe one [will] realize when you go to India. So that should be quite clear, how it is like at the other end. Like earlier, people used to get married, not to Americans, but a lot of people used to get married to the European girls, mainly British. And most of these people are sufficiently moneyed, but they were not like Rajas. But they used to give the impression that they were like small Rajas. And after the wedding they used to go, they used to find that things are not like what they heard during their courtship, and they had a lot of trouble during those days. The same way that I feel that one should be quite truthful, and put both sides on the right side of the picture, and then decide.

Maa: And husband and wife relationship should very, very based on honesty.

And that was the end of the interview.

I sat down with Aditya’s parents, Maa and Baba, a few nights ago with a list of eight questions to find out their views on American culture and intercultural relationships… and we ended up talking for over an hour, thus necessitating a Part One and a Part Two. Today’s portion focuses on the early days: their worries on sending their youngest son, Aditya, to a foreign country, thoughts on American culture, dating, and their first interactions with me. Technical details: I transcribed the interview from a sound recording, and have only edited (in square brackets) for clarity or in keeping with Maa & Baba’s wishes for certain things to be “off the record”. My comments and notes post-transcription are in red.

GG: What were your concerns when Aditya came to the US to study?

Maa: Whether he’ll be able to cope with everything; [I was] concerned with his studies. And we didn’t have that much of money to support him, so whether he would be able to support himself.

Baba: Firstly, the financial part. Secondly, he had never lived away from home – this was the first time he’d be living away from home. Thirdly, it was a strange country for him, the surroundings, the education system, language, food, everything was different! And I knew that he would be able to cope with the things, but I had doubted how easily he’d be able to cope up with it.

Aditya was the first member of his family to travel to the US. Maa and Baba first came to visit after his older brother, Dada, also moved to the US, about half way through Aditya’s college career.

GG: Do you remember what you guys thought of the US then? What your impressions, your ideas of it were?

Baba: Actually, as far as I am concerned, when I came to the US, I was more or less not surprised. I knew the US quite a lot – from movies, from books that I have studied, and I expected it to be more or less like this. The only thing is that I did not expect the US to be so huge as a country.

Maa: Actually, when I came for the first time, my whole concern was for Aditya.  So I was not interested in how the US was – [I] only wanted to know how he was.

GG: Did you have any worries about Aditya being at a US university, meeting Americans, maybe dating or falling in love with one of them or anything like that?

Maa: No, I didn’t have any concerns.

GG: Did you think he would date Americans when he came to the US?

Baba: No, I never thought that was an issue. If I liked someone at the right time, right age, I always said yes. Of course, I had certain reservations, and that has not happened.

*waggles eyebrows at Baba’s phrasing*

GG: What reservations?

Baba: That is off the record.

<Aditya laughs>

For the record, I still haven’t heard what the reservations were.

GG: Were you aware of his social activities when he was at the university?

Baba: Yes, he used to write, sometimes spoke to his mother… not to me. From what I could gather, I figured I had a fairly good idea of his activities. Of course, some of it was my imagination…

Maa: Nah, I knew only the portion that he used to tell us. But I [only] know half of it.

GG: So you knew that he had… (to Aditya) how many girlfriends was it?

Aditya: I told them…

Eight girlfriends his first year, I believe, (EIGHT!) and he tossed them all in two weeks or less. Shameless.

Baba: Yeah, he had many [girlfriends] in Delhi also…

Maa: Actually, we are not very much, uh, concerned with children’s girlfriends or boyfriends.

Baba: As long as you are not doing anything wrong, if your aim, your studies are going properly, I think that there is nothing wrong in having girlfriends. How you take that relation matters… Like, I had in India at one time I knew a lot of girls – and of course, my parents were also very liberal. Even today, if I meet them, if I get a chance to meet them, there’s nothing wrong in this, I always felt. Yes, if somebody has some bad intention, that is different. For that…

Maa: Nah, it is very natural. There is nothing to worry about. If I know my children, they will choose the right thing.

Baba: No, as long as a child knows what is right or wrong, there is no need for the parent to worry. And I, at least, have the confidence in my children; they can recognize right.

Maa: And in that way my impression of Aditya is very high.

Baba: That every mother has!

Maa: Nah, he’s a moralist type.

Baba: Yes, he’s a moralist type.

I suspect – but do not know one way or another for sure – that the attitude that Maa & Baba express here is pretty unusual for mainstream Indian culture. Heck, I suspect it’s pretty unusual for the majority of American parents of teenagers too. Anyways, with the basics of Maa & Baba’s views on dating established, we now changed tacks to start discussing Aditya’s relationship with me, which was more serious than those with previous girlfriends (i.e. I lasted more than two weeks).

GG: Do you remember when he told you he was dating me? Do you remember what he said?

Baba: Yes.

Maa: Yes. When you two had some difference of opinion, and I told him that this girl is a … in our language, Saraswati, it means goddess of learning – she looks like that.

Aditya: This was when we were broken up.

Baba: Maa said that you better make up!

You can read my take on first meeting Aditya’s parents here. In short, when I first met Maa, Aditya and I had downgraded our relationship to “an icy friendship” due to quarreling too much.

Aditya: By the way, the only reason that Baba and I didn’t talk over the phone while I was at the university was because Baba telephone conversations are always telegraphic.

<general laughter >

The first question he asks you is “How are you?”, and by the time you have said, “I’m good” the conversation is over and the phone has been hung up.

Maa: [He’s like that] with everybody.

Yes, yes he is.

Aditya: Yes, with everybody. When we were growing up… I mean, I don’t even know how common telephones were when they were growing up. When we were growing up, Baba used to be away, you know, and we had to do trunk calls. And in the middle of the night, it’d be super expensive, and Maa would be running down the stairs at 11:30 pm, because, you know, there’s a trunk call with Baba.

For Americans or others scratching their heads, a trunk call is the British English (and, apparently, Indian English) word for a long-distance call, especially one routed by a real, live operator.

GG: So what were your expectations for a daughter-in-law? Before you knew about me or anything – just general expectations.

Maa: I want only the good relationship and to look after my children – daughter-in-law or son-in-law. Look after my children, and a good relationship with us. Nothing else.

For the following anecdote, Bhabi is Aditya’s sister-in-law, Dada is his older brother, and Didi is his older sister.

Baba: You see, before Bhabi’s marriage [to Dada]… Bhabi was in school, Dada was in hostel, they had not met each other. They were in class 7 or 8. And she was learning some dance in Calcutta. She came to our house because Didi was in the same class – Bhabi had missed some classes, and she came to make up those missed classes. I was working away from Calcutta, and I used to come [home] during the weekends. I came… it was a duplex, our house was. I was climbing the stairs and I saw Bhabi. And when she came, I said, “Who is this girl?” And Maa said, “Didi’s dance mate.” And I said, “I would like to get a girl like that as daughter-in-law [for Dada]”… By God’s grace, that has happened. Of course it happened after…
<argument starts over how long >
Five, six years, let us say. So after that, I always expected that Aditya’s wife would be something like Bhabi. In all respects.

GG: Punjabi?

Baba: No, not Punjabi. I don’t look at Bhabi as Punjabi. See, this language or religion – I feel everything is the same. So I don’t look at a Punjabi or American or European… My thing is – “similar” means – she should be intelligent, sharing, and good in studies, plus she should be something where we are comfortable, my son is comfortable, and she should be someone who gets into a relation[ship] for lifelong.

Because there are a lot of cases I have found where people don’t – the girls or the boys – don’t think beyond certain time: four years, five years, ten years. But I always felt that my children should get a partner for the whole life. Not part time or, I would say, “live together” type. That is the type of girl I expected. She should be presentable, so that people don’t say – don’t take it – that she doesn’t fit into the family. I feel that that is a bigger thing, because I still feel family is much bigger than self. And that was what [were] my expectations, and I feel that I am quite happy on that one respect. The rest of the things, small things, would be different between individuals. Those better to not be discussed, because everyone has their own way of looking at things. But my general expectations for my daughter-in-law or son-in-law were the same. It is not that [the expectations] for daughter-in-law different [from] son-in-law.

While I suspect that Baba cares a bit more for what others think than I do, I must admit I was quite pleased with his perspective on this – I really couldn’t ask for a more considerate and reasonable set of expectations.

GG: What do you remember Aditya telling you about me before you met me? Like on the phone.

Baba: He didn’t tell me anything!

GG: Aditya, is this true?

Aditya: Because Baba’s phone calls are so short!

Baba: That has already been said. Whatever he said –

GG: But he went back to India one summer.

Baba: That is true, but Aditya is very close to – my children are all more close to – Maa for such things, for such topics. So they always spoke to her, and she only told me that much that was…

Maa: Screened!

<general laughter>

Baba: Yeah, little bit. I always got a filtered version.

GG: Okay, Maa, what do you remember Aditya telling you about me?

Maa: In 2006 when he came, he told me. And I told him it is okay, make your studies properly, and then you can do whatever you feel like, I don’t mind. And what else…?

Aditya: Nah, we talked about it when I was in Madras, right?

Maa: So long time back… That time I [hadn’t yet met] her, right? So I told [him] that I did not know what type of girl she is. I was not very keen… Hmmm… I am very scared that time, because he should complete his studies and things. Because in our [country], in India, a girl or boy’s future is very… We are very concerned about their future. All parents [are this way]. So I was a little scared that he may not—

Baba: – do well in his exams or things like that.

GG: Is there anything you wish Aditya had told, that might have helped your fears more or your concerns?

<general confusion over the meaning of the question>

Okay, before you met me, maybe you had some concerns… Was there anything that Aditya could have told you, that could have helped those concerns?

Baba: No, I don’t think with me [there were any concerns].

Maa: Yeah, I was concerned. Because he told [me] that you have some health problem. So I was concerned if it was very serious type. I don’t know anything. So I thought that health problem was very very… <worried hand gesture>.

I have a genetic blood-clotting disorder – which I only found out my freshman year while dating Aditya – which will be a lifelong concern, although it is perfectly managable with a little daily medication and awareness. At that time, however, it was a new-ish thing, and neither Aditya nor I were sure of how serious it would turn out to be. Luckily, it falls more on the side of, say, adult asthma or a severe allergy in seriousness than, for example, diabetes.

Aditya: See, part of the problem – the reason I spoke more to Maa than to Baba – [was] because I always did feel that… Baba and I had talked about things in passing, not detailed things… I always felt that Baba would be supportive, no matter what decision I took, you know? Like I always say, Sachin gets all this advice before he goes in to bat, and once he goes in to bat, it’s up to him, he has to make the decisions. And I always felt that Baba would be supportive over whatever decision I took. I was more concerned about how Maa would react. That’s why I talked more with Maa about it than with Baba.

GG: (to Maa) Does that surprise you?

Maa: No, [I’m] not surprised. But I was concerned when he said that she has some health problem – that was why I was concerned. But when I have seen you, I told him, that she is the best for you.

GG: Okay. Anything else that you thought when you met me for the first time?

Maa: I felt that you were very, um, that your approach was very nice. Your way of talking, your behavior, I liked it very much. Even I told my relations in India, “She is a nice girl.”

GG: So, on some of the blogs I read, some of the Indian parents aren’t very happy about their sons or their daughters dating an American. So people give out various advice, like “you should do this when you meet them”, or “you should do that”. For instance, one of the things that they advise is that you should dress up very nicely, maybe wear a sari when you meet the parents for the first time.

<Baba makes a wincing face>

Maa: I am also no. Even to Bhabi, I told [that it was not necessary] … You are an American girl, but even to Bhabi…

Baba: If my daughter can put on trousers, can go [out] in skirts, what is wrong with my daughter-in-law – someone else’s daughter [doing that sort of thing]. That is how I look at things.

Aditya’s parents are typically very pleased when I wear Indian-style clothing, but I have never felt any pressure – even while in India – to wear Indian clothing instead of jeans and a t-shirt.

Maa: Even to Bhabi I said that, you can wear whatever you like in my house. One thing I told her, when people from village come –

Baba: Yeah, social functions that is, it is better that you put on sari. It is not a compulsion [compulsory] to put on saris, she may put on salwar kameeze also. But [with a sari] that is easier to blend in, because everyone else will be in sari. If you come in sari you will feel a little [more] comfortable.

While I think you can fit into Indian cities just fine in Western clothes, I felt more comfortable – and slightly less conspicuous – wearing salwar kameezes or saris in more rural towns.

Maa: And, nah, one thing I told Bhabi, when people from villages, remote villages – we have got relations there – so when they will come it is better to wear saris. Because they will come for half an hour, for one hour. They will see that this girl is settled in [well] with this family, and their impression is good for the daughter-in-law.

Baba: Because I feel, that people should talk good about our, my family, and of course my daughter-in-law is part of it.

Maa: Even my daughter follows the same thing, it is not [just] for my daughter-in-law.

Aditya: Did you have any concerns, that, you know, other people, people who would be visiting from remote villages… Did you have any concerns that they would see the relationship as a bad thing, and would think less of the family?

Baba: Actually, in our family and among our relations, I have got the impression that generally I do right things. Therefore, in my house, if something happens – what I have accepted – generally the general impression is that that is right. So I never had any doubt that if I am comfortable, and if my daughter-in-law is comfortable with me, that others would have anything to say. So that advantage I have. In my family or my relations, I have a different, I would say, position. And it puts my daughter-in-law in a little elevated position.

Maa: In our family nobody told anything. Even neighbors… Well, I’m not really sure, I’ve never had any concerns [about what they say].

Baba: I have the one advantage that often, when things go wrong, and two parties speak, and to one party I have said okay, the other party, they also accept it. So that way, I know that if I have accepted something nobody would say or make a remark that would be negative.

Maa: Everybody says that, “If he agrees, than it is okay.”

Baba: I knew that my children will not make a mistake or take a wrong position knowingly. And if even they have taken a wrong position knowingly, I would scold them in private, but I would stand by them.

GG: Baba, do you want to say something about the first time you met me? I came with Bear [my father’s golden lab]…

Baba: Yeah, what I remember, is that I had my own expectations. And I feel that I was quite happy that you met most of those.

Maa: But not all…

Baba: Hmmm, but, mostly. Because one this is that you were very easy-going, you were not stiff, you didn’t want to show off, that is what impressed me most.  Generally what happens is that, I feel, courtship is a process of selling.

GG: To Aditya or to you?

Baba: No, anybody. Why? You see, when it is not marriage, it is courtship… I am meeting somebody for two or three hours. I put on my best dress, my best perfume, comb my hair thrice, twice shave. That is because I want to create an impression. But in married life, what we find, early in the morning before brushing your teeth you meet your husband. So that is a completely different [thing]. Before you get into that relation,  you are trying to make an impression – like packaging of any consumer goods… The packaging is good, you accept it, only after opening do you know, uh-oh, mistake, mistake. <Baba shakes his finger>

<general laughter>

Okay. Therefore, generally, when somebody comes on such thing, my impression is that they try to impress. If elders are present in India that happens. Like when I went to meet Maa, the whole family was looking at me [to see] what I [would] do.

Maa: But, you know…

Baba: That is different! We will talk to you afterwards. You will get your chance, okay!

<general laughter>

Anything that is possible! The meals that the would-be bride has not cooked, they are produced as if she has cooked. The handiwork that she has not done, they will try to [show it off]. And if she has done, they will come running, “She has done it!” They will make her sit…

Maa: Earlier…

Baba: Okay, nowadays they don’t do it, but something like it still goes on. Therefore, I always say, that salesmanship part of it I wanted to eliminate. After that, the person I can meet, he or she is the right person. When you came, you came like a girl next door, you were very easy-going, you didn’t have the hesitation for the first time, meeting a foreigner, [meeting] Aditya’s father, and when you have got all those horrible pictures of Indian in-laws…

<general laughter>

Yet, after that, the way you came and reacted was quite good.

I wish I had arrived like the girl next door – instead, I arrived a bit sweaty from the mile & a half walk from my dad’s house to Dada’s place, where Maa and Baba were staying. But Bear got a nice long walk out of it, and I got bonus points for bringing the dog along.

GG: And so what expectation didn’t I meet? Maa said that I didn’t meet all the expectations.

Baba: No, that is what Maa has said. I have not said it as of yet.

Maa: That I will say after the interview. Off record!

I ended up badgering them into telling at least one expectation I failed to meet “on record” – but that will have to wait for the next part of the interview!

(Little do they know that if I am stymied in blogging about their dastardly actions of cleaning our house & cooking delicious meals I have no problem in getting irrationally upset about some other minor issue. For example: the fridge has been reorganized without my express permission, and the dishwasher was inefficiently loaded, resulting in one less cup being washed than if I had loaded it. I’m still reeling!)

Since I haven’t had a chance to sit down and think through a post lately, I thought I’d share with you the transcript I’ve typed up in spare minutes from an NPR segment called Intercultural Relationships: Can They Work?. I’m not a professional transcriber, so there may be errors – but I figured something was better than nothing for those of you who can’t (or don’t like to) listen to podcasts. The segment (and my post title) was developed from an article in East West Magazine. The article, which you can find here, is quite complimentary to the NPR segment, and I encourage you to read it as well as the transcript below. I’ve bolded the parts I find particularly interesting, and will post my thoughts on it tomorrow in the comments section.

[Begin transcript]

NPR: It’s time for a regular visit with one of our cultural coaches. Today: “You’re marrying him?” Wedding season is around the corner; brides and grooms will be blushing their way down aisles across America. So what better time to ask an expert about what you might need to know if you’re heading to commitment with a person with a different racial or ethnic background? We got this idea from our friends at East West Magazine; the April/May issue has a feature called “To hug or not to hug” about how to handle that all-important meeting with the parents.

And joining us now from Phoenix is Anita Malik. She is editor of East West Magazine. And from her office in Poughkeepsie, New York, we’re pleased to be joined by Lubna Somjee, a psychologist; she’s quoted in the article. Thanks for being here ladies!

Anita, why did you commission this article? You must have been hearing about this from readers or perhaps from personal experience?

Anita: A little bit of both. Actually, simply put, interracial marriages and couplings are growing at a very increasing rate and we tend to focus with that a lot with the magazine, but had never done anything where – how do you deal with this within your own family and with your parents? And that was something we were hearing from readers, that, you know, it’s great to know that the statistics are there, and that this is happening, but how do we deal with it in our own lives, with our own unique circumstances?

NPR: And Dr. Somjee, you are offering tips – or you offered some tips in the magazine – but in the years in which you’ve been practicing, and you’ve worked with couples around these issues, are there some classic cultural clashes that you’ve seen?

Dr. Somjee: Yes, I mean, I’ve definitely seen some classic cultural clashes. Although many times, people have been able to sort of work through them. One of the classic issues is when neither parties have sort of prepped themselves for what to expect when they meet the parents. They think they have, but they really haven’t. Although most of the time those meetings have gone fairly well, in spite of.

NPR: Is that really the case? I just wonder whether, over the course of your practice, do most of the couples that come to you, do they eventually stay together, or do you see couples breaking up because of these differences?

Dr. Somjee: Most of the couples I see do stay together, but I would not say that it was very rare that some couples would break up. For example, a young couple I worked with had an interracial union and met each other’s families, and it wasn’t until they met each other’s families that it sort of punctuated for them how different their backgrounds were. And they came home, and for the first time had a much more serious, in-depth discussion of how their culture impacts their every day lives and realized how different their views were on a lot of things. And unfortunately, for that couple, their differences were irreconcilable.

NPR: Anita, you mention in the article, I’m sorry, which I know you didn’t write, but, you know, you edited it, that in every culture meeting the parents can be kind of fraught with anxiety, but in the Asian culture, in couples where there may be an Asian or Asian-American partner, it can be particularly stressful. Why is that?

Anita: Asian immigrant parents typically have a very set view of who their children should marry. It’s a different type of relationship, but every family has their own traditions, and sometimes a lot of that becomes very, very specific to what the parents want. It’s just a very different child-parent relationship. It gets a little bit more tricky, and so it can be difficult.

NPR: What were some of the scenarios that were described in the article? I thought it was hilarious, actually…

Anita: There’s a lot of humor to this too, and I think that’s the important lesson: that you need to be able to actually laugh at yourself when you make – you’re going to make faux pas when you meet the parents. But the title of the piece actually comes from one scenario where both parts of the couple were Asian, from two different countries. And one family was very warm… the parents wanted to hug everybody, and the other family couldn’t really handle the hugs. And so that became an issue between the couple, and they finally came to a point where they said, “Well, this is how my family is going to be, and this is how your family is going to be, and they’re going to have to work it out.”

NPR: So, Dr. Somjee, help us here. In a situation like that, where the parents are meeting for the first time, what advice do you offer to make it go smoothly? Or maybe, maybe making it go smoothly isn’t the whole point of the thing, just to be honest. I don’t know – tell us.

Dr. Somjee: When you’re meeting someone’s family, knowing what their ethnic background is, or their racial background or religion obviously is important, but it’s only a first basic step. And really, the most important thing to understand is, what is that family’s relationship to each of its cultural variables. Otherwise you kinda get on a slippery slope in terms of making assumptions to stereotyping.

NPR: So how would that information best be acquired? Do you try to be very explicit with the partner and say, “Alright, are your parents huggers or not? Will they expect me to bring a present? If so, what kind?”

Dr. Somjee: There’s a couple ways to do that. One is, you know, get a sense of what the expectations of the meeting are from your significant other. Is it going to be a casual or formal get together? But the other piece of it is, your significant other is often steeped in their own culture so things that may be commonplace to them, they may not even think to tell you. And I think one of the best ways to get information from your significant other is through storytelling. Try to have your significant other tell you stories that illustrate different occasions in your family, or different traditions in the family.

NPR: I have an email that I wanted to share with both of you, ladies. And it says:

“This might be a good question for your coach. I just had a second date with a lovely professional woman who was born in and raised in Sapporo, Japan. She now works in the same East Coast city that I do. Our third date is this weekend. I’m a professional African-American man. What should I know about the Asian approach to dating? Is there such a thing? The first date ended in her bowing, when in Rome, I thought, so I bowed too. The second date ended with a hug & a smile, so I hugged her and smiled back. So far, so good I’m thinking. We’re able to talk for hours… but what do I need to keep in mind?”

So, who wants to start, Anita, is this a common scenario among readers?

Anita: Yeah, I think so. Apparently she’s a little more traditional. It sounds like she actually has immigrated from Japan and not necessarily born here and in that case, I think he just really needs to ask her. But I would say, speak to her about how her family would feel… ahead of time.

NPR: Interesting. Dr. Somjee, what do you think?

Dr. Somjee: Part of it depends on, are you dating to date, or are you dating to marry? Because if someone is asked that question & is scared off by it, at least you know where they are in terms of their dating and what they want from it.

NPR: So what I’m hearing you say is, “ask the questions sooner rather than later”.

Dr. Somjee: Absolutely.

NPR: I’m so glad I’m married.

Anita: Hard, isn’t it, this dating thing.

NPR: It is hard! You all have my respect. Dr. Somjee, I understand you are also interculturally married. If it’s not too personal, can you offer any guidelines from your personal experience?

Dr. Somjee: Yes, I’ve been married and in a relationship with my husband for about ten years. He is white and I am South Asian and I actually come from a community where arranged marriages are absolutely still the norm. So when my husband was to meet my parents, I prepped myself… and I prepped my parents.

NPR: What about persons who perhaps weren’t welcomed so warmly into the fold? How would you advise them to move beyond that?

Dr. Somjee: One thing is, you know, you may have an opportunity to meet the family again and again. And if so, take advantage of those opportunities by getting to know them better. You know, unfortunately, there may be some families who ultimately say, “You know what, we cannot do this. No matter how nice you may be, no matter how much we like you in general, this is not something we can accept in our family.” And at this point you as a couple have to decide whether you’re willing to take the risk, and those are hard questions you’ll have to ask yourself before you even start this process.

NPR: But, hard questions that have to be asked.

Dr. Somjee: Yeah.

[End Transcript]

I’d love to hear everyone thoughts on this NPR piece, and the accompying article from East West Magazine. Good advice, bad advice? Is “ask questions sooner rather than later” a good policy to follow? Anyone tried storytelling as a way to learn about family customs?

(And no, it’s not all small stuff – but there’s more small stuff than the amount of complaining would suggest.)

I was inspired to write this rant piece after reading a blog post over at Diary of a White Indian Housewife called Indian Men Being Hand Fed By Mummy, that, well, surprised me with the attitude of cultural bias or ethnocentrism it seemed to be expressing:

I’m fully aware that Indian mothers often hand feed their sons until they are quite old. However, I was shocked (and even a little appalled) that an adult man could still be getting hand fed by his mother!
…
Now, I’m wondering what is normal in India in relation to this kind of behaviour. What will happen when the 30 year old Peter Pan man, who’s still being hand fed, gets married. Will his wife be expected to take over feeding duties? Or will his mother keep doing it? Or, will he finally become a grown up and start feeding himself?

I generally love Sharell’s posts, which is why I was so surprised at the overtones of ethnocentrism in the words above (do be sure to over to her site to read the full post in context – and note that the post is tagged “culture shock”). Ethnocentrism, by the way, can most simply be seen as an attitude that judges other cultures relative to your own. And while it can be very difficult to shake these sort of prejudices and generalizations – as I’ve blogged about before – I do think it’s important to constantly evaluate our thoughts on other cultures to see if we’re letting our natural ethnocentrism run a bit too wild.

In this case, before you go all, “Dude, who does that?” on me about the hand feeding thing, take a deep breath, and run through the three point checklist of the official Intercultural Quirks Harm Test:

1. Does the behavior itself hurt anyone?
2. If you didn’t know the behavior was occurring, would it affect you in any way?
3. Is the behavior a significant disruption in your relationship?

This checklist works pretty well in helping me, at least, figure out when I’m being a bit too judgmental about a cultural behavior that really isn’t worth being bugged about.  (Of course, there are bigger, more problematic intercultural differences that you do need to address to keep your relationship running smoothly, but that’s not the topic of discussion today.)

So, being hand-fed by your mom after puberty. That’s the topic of discussion, especially since when I asked Aditya whether he still got this treatment, he got a goofy little happy grin on his face, and said “sometimes.” And, to just keep things fair and balanced, I’ll admit to behavior that shocked Aditya when I first told him: I only talked to my parents on the phone once during the nine months I lived and worked in Germany. And that once was on my 18th birthday. Yeah, my family kinda takes the whole American “adult child is independent from parents” thing to a bit of an extreme.

Is anyone being harmed by the action?

This is the key question you should ask yourself first – and no coping out by complaining about the psychic pain you feel when you see your spouse being hand-fed by his mother. Is anyone getting really hurt – either physically or emotionally? Remember to step outside of yourself and your cultural framework and look to see if there’s actual harm occurring or just your own assumptions about what is and isn’t harmful.

Americans might look at an adult being hand-fed, and think that he’s emotionally stunted and immature – while I’m pretty certain that Aditya and his mother just see it as way to be close and show love and affection. On the other hand, I’m pretty certain my parents thought they were showing their love by letting me stand on my own two feet while I lived in Germany, without them breathing down my neck with phone calls all the time. The lack of phone calls suited me just fine – but Aditya was horrified when he found out how little we spoke to one another. His family would be extremely hurt if he called them so rarely.

If you didn’t know it was happening, would the ripple effects still bug you?

Obviously, if you’re in a position to get your knickers in a knot about an intercultural quirk, you know about the behavior. But let’s go hypothetical for a moment, and imagine you didn’t know. Would the behavior still matter? Clearly, there are cases where it would – Aditya could expect me to feed him like his mother does, which would affect our relationship (negatively) even if I never knew his mother still hand feeds him. Or I could upset his family by talking with them on the phone as little as I do with my own parents.

However, if this odd cultural behavior of your significant other doesn’t clearly affect your life – if you wouldn’t know about it if you hadn’t seen or heard about it yourself – then it’s a bit silly to let your ethnocentric perception of the behavior to rule over your relationship.  In other words, I shouldn’t think Aditya is childish or immature just because his mother still feeds him – unless his actions in our relationship give me reason to think otherwise. Likewise, Aditya would be wrong to judge me as unloving or uncaring about family members just because I don’t speak to my family that often on the phone – it’s just that we don’t feel the need to talk much on the phone.

Is it something that irritates you, regardless?

Okay – so the behavior isn’t damaging or hurting anyone, and the behavior alone doesn’t affect your relationship – so how could it still be causing a significant disruption in your relationship? Well… people are funny creatures. Sometimes certain things just bug us, even if there’s no actual harm that they cause.

This isn’t a cultural quirk – just a personal one – but, for example, Aditya has a remarkable ability to hide his socks around the house in the process of taking them off at the end of a long day. I don’t know how he manages to end up with them wedged between the two bookcases, or bunched in the technology odds & ends basket, or in a feat of what must be magic, hidden beneath the 50-pound bag of dog food in the closet, but, somehow, he does it every night after coming home from work. It drives me spare! It’s not like it harms anything, since, really, what’s one more misplaced item in the mess of dog toys and papers strewn across our chaotic household? It’s completely irrational for me to be bugged about it, especially since he’s quick to pick it up when I point out a misplaced sock to him. But, nonetheless, it’s one of his most irritating habits to me – and so it’s one he’s working on changing, simply because I’ve let him know how much it happens to bug me.

So, far be it for me to say that you should never get your knickers in a twist over something irrational. But don’t let yourself pretend that a dislike of a particular difference – cultural or not – is based on something rational when it’s not. You might really dislike seeing your spouse hand-fed by his mother; maybe it just weirds you the heck out. That’s fine – I’m not going to judge you on that. But just because something weirds you out doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. And so, if you can, just ignore those little things that irritate or worry you. (Obviously I can’t with The Misplaced Socks. Proof #3152 that I am still not a demigoddess. But we should all keep trying.) If there’s no harm – either to the people doing it or to your relationship through the ripple effect – then just take a deep breath (spend it ranting for a few minutes in the forums, then take another deep breath), straighten out those underoos, and live and let live.

Anyway, I’m informed that most people don’t think about romantic relationships in terms of intertwined, interdependent utility functions. But I do. And I think you should consider the idea too. Think of it as practice in learning how a subculture (a geeky, mathematically-inclined subculture) thinks about love and romance.

Economics – quick & dirty

Economics isn’t an inherently sexy subject. Most people, in fact, think that economists only study things like banking and capital flows and, well, money-stuff (and that we’re incompetent at it, too, what with the whole financial crises “thing”). However, at its roots economics is all about happiness – except that economists call happiness “utility” to keep you common folk clueless. How do people, given all of the constraints of mortal life – time, energy, physical resources, limited attention spans – best make themselves happy? And when you have a bunch of people engaged in trying to be happy, how do they interact as a group – as an economy? When you go back to this basic view of economics, you (or, at least, I) realize that it should have a heck of a lot to say about personal relationships and marriage – after all, that’s one of the key things that most people need to live a happy life.

So how does the economic approach to happiness differ from, say, psychology or sociology? Well, economists do it with models. (Heh.) That is, economists try to sketch out the underlying key features of a situation  in much the same way a map tries to sketch out the key features of an area. And just like you could have several different maps (topological, major roads, sites of interest, etc) of the same region, you can several different economic models of the same sort of situation, with each emphasizing a different facet of human behavior. For example, a model describing how you and your spouse decide which restaurant to eat out at tomorrow could focus on the process of bargaining between spouses to be that night’s “restaurant decider”, or it could focus on how the emphasis on the price of the meal changes compared to how you two would decide to weigh costs if you were dining individually, or it could focus on the strategy each person uses in suggesting restaurants to reach a solution satisfactory to both parties (with Aditya, my strategy is to say ‘sushi’ if I’m in a sushi mood, and otherwise chant “channa, channa, channa” until he gives in and we go get kabobs and chickpeas).  Most of these economic models are written out in a mathematical manner in order to make clear exactly what the model is assuming and what its predictions are. Which leads us to…

Fun, exciting utility functions!

Utility functions are the way economists describe what makes an individual happy – remember how utility means happiness in economic nerd speak? And, as you may have guessed, utility functions are often pretty mathematical in nature. However, I’ll be keeping the discussion light & easy for the less math-inclined amongst you.

A very basic, general utility function looks like this:

U = (a, b, c, d, e, …)

where U stands for the total utility (happiness) a person has, and the letters stand for various things you can have and experience that bring you joy. So, for example, “a” could be the experience of watching the sun set on the beach, and “b” could be the experience of watching the sun set from the top of the Eiffel Tower (and “c” could be the experience of sitting in Kabob Palace at sunset & would very likely be combined with “d” – eating channa).  You’ll note that in the utility function I didn’t spell out exactly how much happiness each one of these items could bring me. That’s because I, like most economists, am lazy.

Paired with every utility function is a cost function, describing how much of various resources it’ll cost me to get each item that might bring me happiness. So, for instance, sitting on a beach is free, but it’ll still take gas money to get there, and, of course, that precious resource of time. Flying to Paris, obviously, takes even more money and time – perhaps enough that I prefer the trip to the beach, at least right now. Sitting in Kabob Palace at sunset might not bring me much happiness – but it does make the cost of achieving “channa eating” a lot lower, since I’m already right there in the restaurant. No travel time at all!

Intertwined utility functions

So what does this all have to do with relationships and intercultural marriages and such? Well, like I said at the start, lots!

Economics gets a bad rap as only considering selfish efforts to maximize one’s own happiness as “rational” You have a utility function, and you try to choose all your stuff so that your end result is a really big number for your utility. And, yes, there are a lot of simple models of relationships and marriage that take this approach. But nuanced economics is none of that. Instead, we have an interdependent utility function, where your partner’s happiness is incorporated into your own. And that’s what partnership is really about, right? So my utility function might look something like this:

Gori Girl’s Utility = [a, b, c, d, e, ... , Aditya's Utility (a, b, c, d, e, ...)]

Now, for me, this is a really romantic notion – this is what love is all about (remember, we established that I might be insane at the top of this post).

It’s not a matter of “well, if he’s happy, my life is easier and less stressful, and thus I’m happier”. It’s not a matter of simply adding together his happiness and my happiness and coming up with a value for our family’s happiness. And it’s certainly not a matter of wanting to please him just because we’re partners or because he’s another human being deserving of happiness. Please – I’m not that good a person to be able to incorporate every one’s utility function into my own. No human is. Instead, it’s just love, plain and simple. A world where Aditya’s happiness is 253 oodles of joy is a better one than where he only has 252 oodles of joy (yes, joy is counted in units of oodles. Because oodles is a happy word.)

And it gets better! Imagine if Aditya’s utility function looks like this:

Aditya’s Utility = [a, b, c, d, e, ... , Gori Girl's Utility (a, b, c, d, e, ... , Aditya's Utility)]

Well, now we have a recurrsive function, where his utility is based off in part my utility, which is based off in part of his utility, which is… This is the absolute brillance of human relationships – our joy is compounded by the joy of those around us, forming a gestalt of happiness where the sum of the whole is greater than each individual piece broken out. And all this just from a couple of simple formulas!

Of course, this economic framework to not just made to be awesome – it’s also a very good way in my mind to frame relationship issues. There’s still tradeoffs to be made (and as we all know from the stand-up economist, this is not a good thing), since the things that make Aditya and I happy aren’t identical. But when we choose to do something he really wants – like get a pingpong table rather than an, ahem, way more useful outdoor table for the deck – I can remind myself in moments of frustration that, hey, Aditya’s utility matters quite a bit too. This reframing of the issue is particularly important for me, because, frankly, by nature I’m a pretty independent self-centered person.

I suspect that this framework can also give one insights into the extended family of Indian and other “Eastern” cultures as well. To grossly simplify a complex matter (remember, models are about simplifying to key components, even if that leaves out some important details & exceptions), we’re taught in the US that, ultimately, your life is yours to lead – and you should make your decisions based on your own desires and happiness. Basically, it’s okay for your utility function to not include other individuals, beyond the  basic respect you should give all people. On the other hand, in cultures where your family members’ utility functions are considered a key component of your utility function, it’s simply not rational to ignore their desires and happiness, or to try to place those on an order below your own – after all, their happiness is a core component of your own happiness. You can’t separate the two.

Obviously, like all simplifications – or all models overall – intertwined, interdependent utility functions aren’t a perfect representation of our relationships. They’re simply one way of looking at the world, and considering certain aspects of it, just like a poet might look at it another way. Of course, as a trained economist, this is the way I’m most comfortable thinking about the world – all math and analytics and no conventional romanatic leanings to speak of. But, then Aditya knew it when he married me – and in our cross-cultural marriage, I have it worse: he’s studied (and liked) post-modernism.

Hi, I’m a Sikh girl and have been going out with my white bf for 3 yrs. I’ve always known my parents would disapprove…they’ve always said if I brought anyone but a Sikh guy home they would want nothing to do with me and the whole family would be disappointed. My fear and guilt have meant that more and more, recently, I haven’t been happy in my relationship until a few weeks ago when I decided to end it. but now I’m regretting it and don’t know what to do!!! He was a wonderful guy who loved me and accepted me completely, but because of the guilt and loyalty I feel towards my family I feel I have lost the only man I will ever be happy with.

Reading all the comments on the post, Indian Parental Problems: When Your Intercultural or Interracial Relationship is Suddenly an Issue, I realize I’m not alone and that there are others who go through this, but sometimes it feels so lonely. I was just wondering how people come up with the courage to tell their parents in the first place and how do you handle the guilt?!?

She later added in an email conversation with me:

Here’s a little bit more about my situation…my sister(she’s 20) knows about my bf but refuses to acknowledge him or our relationship, I think out of fear of what it would do to our family! There are already a few intercultural relationships and marriages in our family and although my parents accept them they have made it clear that I can not have one…which is difficult to understand. I do understand that due to the major cultural differences intercultural relationships can be difficult and from that point of view I can see why parents would want to spare their kids those problems.

I’ll be posting my own thoughts and comments tomorrow, but a good conversation has already started between Aisha and Auroracoda, another commenter here, which I’m reposting below in the comments.

What are your middle names?
Prior to getting married my middle name was Noelle, which is a lovely and unique name. When I married Aditya I moved my short, Germanic last name into the middle name spot, dropped Noelle, and added Aditya’s nine letters long last name. NINE! I rather miss Noelle, but the tradeoff is that I now get to confuse the heck out of people when they read my nametag or work badge. Aditya doesn’t have a middle name because he’s a heathen Indian. Sometimes this causes him to cry himself to sleep at night.

How long have you been together?
We’ve been married for a little over two years, and together for five as of last Saturday. The picture above is of our honeymoon after the American wedding. We went camping on the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara in California.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
Depending on how you define “know”, either six months or a few weeks. See (some of) the story here.

Who asked whom out?
Well now. He invited me to dinner and a movie at his place – sausage pizza, rum & coke, and Fight Club. On Valentine’s Day. At the time we were just friends, and he phrased it very sneakily so that I couldn’t be sure it was a date or not. Plus, you know, who watches Fight Club on their first date? (Aditya & I, apparently.) His strategy of date-asking is known as “plausible deniability”, and is a dastardly way of avoiding rejection when you ask someone out. And I wasn’t the first girl taken in by it, I hear…

How old are each of you?
We’re both in our mid-twenties.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
His, actually. We’re both the babies of our families – I have an older brother and he has an older brother & sister. Both of the brothers live in the Bay Area, so when we see one, we inevitably see the other. However, his sister lives in Bombay, so when we make our biennial trip to India we see her too. Good thing his siblings are cool people (and they have children we get to spoil!).

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Work-life balance, without a doubt. We’re both in the “building one’s career” stage of life, so we’re occasionally often working long hours. And then we get home, and find that, once again, the dogs failed to cook us dinner and clean the house. Fracking freeloaders.

Did you go to the same school?
We both went to the same small, liberal arts college in rural Indiana, which meant that a significant portion of our time dating was spent wandering the aisles of Super Walmart. He graduated the year before I did, and promptly fled to Silicon Valley, abandoning me among the cornfields.

Are you from the same home town?
Hahahahahaha. No.

Who is smarter?
Well… Someone in our partnership has a graduate degree, and someone doesn’t. Someone also scored a whole eighty points more on the SAT than someone else. I’m not naming any names here, but someone should be ashamed of being beaten out on the math section of the SAT by an AMERICAN GIRL. Ahem.

Who is the most sensitive?
I so totally have a higher pain threshold than Aditya. This mostly means I fall down a lot, since motor skills weren’t a high priority growing up. He whines every time he comes home from cricket practice after being hit by the ball – and he plays in a tennis ball league. (Yes, I know this is probably not what the question meant – but, c’mon, I don’t want to embarrass the poor boy too much now, do I?)

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
If by “eat out” you don’t mean “make a midnight run to Taco Bell to relive our days of youth”, the answer would probably be the sushi place down the highway. Their rainbow mountain and “she’s so hot” rolls are some of the best I’ve ever had – even Aditya’s parents liked them, despite the whole “raw fish” thing. Sidenote: every Indian I have introduced to sushi thought I was joking when I told them we’d be eating raw fish. And when I warned them about wasabi. Oh, the looks on their faces…

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
India. Or Indiana. It all depends on your frame of reference.

Who has the craziest exes?
This one goes to Aditya. He dated lots of girls his freshman year of college. (Insert bad joke here about American women falling for exotic foreign dudes.) While I haven’t met all of them, the statistics are completely on my side – I wasn’t nearly as active on the dating scene.

Who has the worst temper?
Eh, our tempers aren’t really comparable. He’s more of the flash fire type, while I can keep angry little embers burning in my blackened heart for quite some time.

Who does the cooking?
Me. Aditya can cook chicken, reheat pre-made food, prepare Maggie, and is the master of all things barbeque. When we don’t eat out, evenings go something like this:

Aditya, after looking through pantry and fridge: “There’s no food in the house, and I’m pretty certain it was your turn to go to the grocery store this weekend.”
Me: “Are you on crack? We could eat for a month on what’s in the fridge without even touching the emergency TastyBite rations.”
Aditya: “You’re just trying to weasel out of taking responsibility for not going to the grocery store earlier. You can’t fool me. Or the dogs. Look at the dogs staring at you – they can smell your guilt.”
Me: “They’re only paying attention because we’re in the kitchen. The kitchen which contains food. Look, I’ll show you – I’ll have an awesome stir fry done in thirty minutes.”
*30 minutes pass and dinner is served*
Me: “Wait a moment…”
Aditya: “Thanks for the delicious meal, my lovely tubelight. Took you long enough to light up on that one.”

Who is the neat-freak?
Our basement tenant. We’re pigs. Seriously.

Who is more stubborn?
I’ll admit to being this person.

Who hogs the bed?
Kajol and Panda, when they think it’s close enough to morning that they’ll be able to pretend they’re waking us up, rather than trying to steal a nap on the forbidden bed.

Who wakes up earlier?
Aditya is out of bed earlier 90% of the time, but when I need to get up super-early I have an easier time doing it than he does.

Where was your first date?
The “bum room” of Aditya’s frat, where we watched Fight Club on a couch older than either of us. Good times.

Who is more jealous?
Aditya’s fifth nickname for Kajol is “jealous cat” (cat being a pejorative term in his messed-up brain) because she always wants attention whenever Panda gets attention from me. Of course, Aditya always wants attention whenever anyone is getting attention from me.

How long did it take to get serious?
I was the first girl in college to last more than a fortnight – on the fifteenth day Aditya realized this, had a mini-crisis about the “seriousness” of our relationship, then calmed down when I smacked him on the head.

Who eats more?
Aditya has a far faster metabolism than me, so I think he ends up eating more, but he sure eats it slowly. The speed at which he eats is a running family joke.

Who does the laundry?
We both do. I separate the laundry, tell him which pile he is allowed to wash, he does those loads and I do the delicates & hand wash. I fold and he unorphans socks from our singleton box. It’s all very modern and egalitarian and shit.

Who’s better with the computer?
I am master of the interwebs with a blackbelt in googlefu, and Aditya is charge of the little things like software and hardware.

Who drives when you are together?
Adtiya, mostly, because he cares more than I do about the perfect way to zig-zag in traffic. I find this is a good rule in a relationship: the one who cares more about a little thing takes care of it.

I tripped, stepping on a few books strewn along the “path” to the couch.

“Hey!” Aditya exclaimed. “Don’t step on the books! You’re never  step on books. It’s disrespectful.”

“Well, if you don’t want them stepped on you shouldn’t leave them on the ground. They’re just books – it’s not like I cracked the spine or anything. Wait… did you just mumble a prayer to the book?”

Cultural and religious differences

When I first started dating Aditya, I knew only a little about either Hinduism or general Indian culture. I certainly didn’t know about any prohibitions about stepping on books – at most, I had a vague notion that feet were considered unclean beyond just, you know, germs and dirt from walking around barefoot.

Learning about my husband’s culture and religious traditions has been a slow, albeit rewarding, experience. I’ve struggled with many of the concepts he considered completely normal – so normal, in fact, that the differences between our two expectations about proper behavior would only surface when one of us committed a faux pas in the other’s eyes.  This struggle goes beyond just memorizing what’s cool and what’s not – at times it has been difficult to understand the reasoning behind the rules, or to take the next step and accept the differences. Some of his cultural concepts I’ve been able to embrace as my own – but others not so much.

Today I’d like to discuss three good ways of dealing with differing cultural and religious traditions – understanding them, accepting them, or embracing them – and why it’s perfectly okay to not embrace – or even accept – any tradition you find difficult or troubling, as long as that works for your particular relationship.

Understanding differences – strive for it

“Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story”. – John Barth

There are very few people in this world who believe that their actions are without reason or justification. Certainly no culture or religion develops a custom just for the hell of it – there’s always a purpose. When you come across a cultural or religious difference, your first goal should always be to understand the reasoning behind,  the purpose to it.

Understanding the differing custom or behavior or attitude is not the same thing as accepting it as the right thing for you to do, or even the morally correct thing for anyone. I can understand the purpose behind a suicide bomber’s efforts to kill innocents, or the reasoning that leads to the barbaric custom of female infanticide without condoning either evil practice. Understanding a cultural difference isn’t the same as okaying it – it’s just a way to open up a dialogue with a person from a different background by acknowledging the humanness of their  actions and beliefs. If you can’t get beyond a “that’s nonsensical” reaction to a cultural difference that represents a failure on your part to stretch your mind fully. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to understand the actions and traditions of cultures foreign to us. Stretching your mind is hard work!

I was completely baffled by Aditya’s reaction to my accidental stumble over his books. After all, they were just books – things, objects, items. Even after he explained that it was a matter of respect – respect over the knowledge the books contained, the wisdom we gain from the written word – I still didn’t find the whole scenario logical. Sure, respect learning, I got that – but why did he offer what looked like a prayer to an inanimate object? It wasn’t like the book cared it was stepped on! It was only after I  was told by Aditya that it was a pranam (respectful salutation), not a prayer that I realized – duh – it was a salutation to what the book symbolized, not the physical object itself. All right, I thought, I get it. By stepping on the book, you disrespected learning, and then you offer a pranam, and show that you actually do respect learning. Sounded a bit superstitious to me, but I understood the basic reasoning behind Aditya’s actions. And because I understood the basics it was something that I could tolerate, even if I didn’t think it worthwhile or logical.

Accepting differences – try for it

Accepting a cultural or religious difference goes beyond understanding the reasoning at play. Acceptance  means that you recognize that this cultural or religious difference is worthwhile and good  for the people who practice it.

Not all traditions are worthy of acceptance, of course – I’m not suggesting that you accept traditions that are obviously morally wrong, like honor killings, just because some culture  says that it’s a good thing. Even with more mundane cultural differences, though, it’s not always a simple jump from understanding the reasoning behind a cultural custom to accepting the cultural custom as a good thing for others. You could think it’s just a waste of time (my feelings on  most superstitions). Or that it’s a tradition that doesn’t solve the problem that is actually at hand – it just distracts from it (my feelings on most faith-based healing shticks you see on late-night tv).

While I believe that we should all strive to understand the cultural differences we come across in our intercultural relationships, I don’t think it’s necessary – or even possible – to accept all cultural differences. What’s important is that the level of acceptance of each others’ differences works for your relationship. This means that you’re both comfortable with each other’s differences, and neither person feels pressured to accept that which that which they find troubling, morally or otherwise.

Over time I did move from simply understanding Aditya’s tradition of not stepping on books to accepting it as a worthwhile endeavor.  As he explained the tradition more – and as I learned more about Hinduism in a class I was taking – I learned what Aditya got out of the pranams to “offended” books. For him, at least, the short practice wasn’t about superstition or righting some cosmic tally against him. Instead, it was a occasional reminder of why learning was valuable. A moment to pause and reflect.

I don’t think this particular tradition of his was one that I had to understand and accept in order for our relationship to succeed. Perhaps he wouldn’t have appreciated the eye-rolling I inevitably do when I think someone is being silly, but our relationship would survive. It’s a bit hypothetical, though, as I have come to accept this tradition. However, other cultural differences were deal-breakers. For example, it’s very important to Aditya that his parents be able and welcome to visit us for months at a time, or even move in with us, as is common in his culture.If I could not have accepted this value of his, than I doubt we’d be together today – it’s just too important to him. He communicated this to me very early in our relationship, and I learned to accept this foreign tradition.

How does one go about accepting alien customs, traditions, and beliefs as worthwhile and good – and a part of your life now? Well, for me, it’s taken mostly time and thought.  I’ve had to radically retool my understanding of what a good child-parent relationship is to get to the point of being comfortable with the idea & reality of long visits from Maa and Baba.  With the book thing, well, I’ve thought a fair bit on what it means to respect an abstract concept, and how one shows those sorts of values in everyday life.  (Yes, I was raised a heathen child without religion or much spirituality.) I’ve come to realize the value of these small, symbolic gestures of Aditya’s, how it allows for a redirection of one’s mind to the more important things of life, a little reminder of what matters. In fact, not only do I accept the idea of pranam to knowledge in Aditya’s life, I’ve come to desire it in my own. Which brings us to the final section…

Embracing differences, ending differences

The third and final way you can deal with cultural and religious differences is not just understand, not just accept, but embrace the differences and make them part of your own personal culture or religion. I think you see this most often when one half an interfaith partnership converts to his significant other’s religion – thus ending the interfaithiness. In some ways I’ve done that by embracing parts of Aditya’s Hindu practices and faith – I too now avoid stepping on books out of a respect for the knowledge they contain.

However, embracing all – or even most – of your partner’s cultural or religious beliefs should not be your main goal in dealing with differences. I mean, if you both completely embrace the other’s traditions, you just end up flipping sides! Nor should one person try to give up their culture entirely and embrace the other’s – you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling it off, and if you somehow did, I suspect you’d find you’d lost a large part of the core part of yourself in the process.

No, I firmly believe that you should embrace the parts of another culture that strongly call out to you, and just try to understand and accept the other cultural differences. Think of whole-heartedly embracing some of your partner’s traditions as a bonus, but not a goal. Be open-minded enough to understand the purposes of different customs, and try to see and accept the good in these cultural and religious differences. But remember: it’s okay to not love, or even like, all parts of your partner’s culture. After all, it’s the differences between the two of you, in part, that brought you together.

Having grown up in a relatively conservative family in India, I can understand the friction that can occur often between “the younger generation” and “traditional family”… and I especially sympathize with nice people like some of the readers here – or their partners – who suffer from the drudgery that often characterizes communications between these two groups.

However, for the most part I think the blame for the difficult relations between Indian parents and their adult children lies squarely on the “younger generation” -of which I am a part. I think that most issues root from a tendency amongst Indian men and women (but I’m speaking to the guys mainly, since I am one) to refuse to engage their parents in a responsible and adult manner.

I’ve been reading over Gori’s shoulder as she delves back into the intercultural blogosphere, and some of the posts out there – such as The ties that bind by Elizabeth or the responding comment by Jessica, author of the blog Coffee and Tea, and, frankly, I cannot fathom how Elizabeth or Jessica’s partners can, with a clear conscience, claim that an arranged marriage situation is somehow out of their control.

A few caveats

Before I get into this topic too deeply, I first want to state some of my beliefs that relate to this matter:

1. I think family should be important to every person – and this includes not only your own birth family, but also your partner (married or not), any kids you might have, and your in-law family.
2. I don’t have anything against arranged marriages, per say… I’ve seen a lot of them, and I’ve seen many work, and I’ve seen many not work… I think in the cultural context of India, they often make sense. Many arranged marriages today are not that different from what you see happening on match.com and the like. If I hadn’t met Gori – or another woman that I wished to marry – on my own, I would have explored an arranged marriage eventually.
3. I don’t think that there’s anything particularly “Indian” about allowing yourself to be put into an arranged marriage while you are committed to someone else – that is, being Indian doesn’t absolve you of your responsibilities towards the love of your life.
4. I don’t think there’s anything particularly “Western” about what I’m about to say. I would’ve said the same when I was 13 – having never stepped outside India, and having been exposed to only a very small amount of western tv/movies.

Responsibility

This is something my father told when I was very young: “Before Sachin (my childhood idol) goes in to bat, dozens of commentators, coaches, players give him advice on how he should bat… but once he’s in the middle (of the pitch), it’s all up to him. It’s between him and everything that comes at him – it’s up to him to make his decisions, act accordingly, and live with the consequences – good or bad.”

It’s a very simple idea – no matter who gives you what advice, ultimately, it’s your life and you have to make your own decisions – and live by them. It’s about taking responsibility for your life.

Managing Expectations

I firmly believe that the root of most domestic arguments is a mismatch of expectations amongst people… for example, I might expect GG to come home and cook, she might expect me to do the same – and if we don’t communicate our expectations, we’d be end up home hungry – and grumpy.  In intercultural relationships, this is issue becomes more critical, since, because of the varied backgrounds of the people involved, the cultural expectations can become quite disparate. Thus, one of the key things to be done is to ensure that expectations of all parties are communicated and managed.

Long before GG & I talked about getting married, my mother & I spoke about what she expected in a daughter-in-Iaw, and I was clear about which of her expectations were unlikely to be met (a nice Bengali girl that Maa picked out for me, for example… not so likely). This “manging of expectations” shouldn’t be acrimonious or anything – for me, it was just a simple chat over tea and biscuits about growing up, and thinking about the future. But when I later met and started to seriously date GG, Maa wasn’t nearly as surprised as she might have been without this chat – it was already on her radar that things in this arena might not shake out the way she had intially expected them.

Finally, a few tips:

1. If you interact with your parents like you’re 12, that’s how they’ll treat you. Act like an adult, manage expectations, and communicate clearly & truthfully.
2. I am sorry, but nobody can force you to marry anyone. Unless your parents are holding an Uzi to your head, you don’t need to marry anyone. Emotional blackmail is rubbish – If your mother threatens to commit suicide, let her say that – she’s bluffing. Think forward 10-15 years… when your five-year-old throws a tantrum about the latest shiny toy, buying him the toy is the last thing you want to do – you’re rewarding bad behavior. Standing up to your parents when they behave poorly is just practice for that future five-year-old.
3. In all seriousness, if you truly believe that your mother/father will kill themselves because you decided to marry someone you loved… either you or your parents belong in a mental ward. Life isn’t a 70′s Hindi film where the heroine’s father is in cahoots with the mafia, the government and the police just to keep you two apart.
4. Ask yourself why you are “hiding” your relationship, if you’ve avoided telling your family about your significant other for a long (year +) time. If you are committed to this person, this is probably the dumbest thing to do – because it hurts everyone in the end.
5. If going to India will bring about events “out of your control” – i.e. your parents will try to arrange a marriage for you then and there – then don’t go. Make it clear to all involved parties why you are not going.
6. If your parents sign you up to an arranged marriage website (when you’ve told them you’re not interested), remember that ninjas won’t jump out of the bushes to kill you if you ignore the site altogether and refuse to engage in this sort of non-sense.
7. This is the most important: remember that in this fiery triangle of you, your partner, and your family, you know all the parties the best, and you are the main reason this situation exists. So, suck it up and take responsibility. It’s your job to manage expectations on both sides. You should never allow the situation to escalate to death or suicide threats and prospective brides back in India if you’re already involved with someone else.

It’s too easy to blame other people for your misery. Instead you should take action so that you can minimize the misery for all parties if you’re pro-active in managing expectations, intercultural relationships (really, all relationships) are much easier to mange.

Jbf’s story & problems:

I’m not sure if it is too late to comment on this, but I just came across it while searching for comfort in my situation. My friends and family have given me their support, but in matters of intolerance I do not know if they can offer anything more. I (a 25 yo white American girl) have been dating an Indian guy (born in America to Punjabi parents who moved here 2 years prior) for two years. I will call him B. We both hold graduate degrees and have careers. We met while in graduate school through mutual friends. We lived in different cities but found out that our parents lived only 15 minutes from each other. We quickly became close and decided to start a relationship despite the distance. I met his family very early on. They were receptive and welcomed me into their home. I even spent the night on multiple occasions. When he would come visit me he would bring small gifts from his mother, candles, potpourri, etc. I spent Christmas with his immediate family the last two years (I have not met extended family beyond cousins as dating is not a part of Indian culture). He graduated and started a job about a year ago. Within a few months of this we decided that when I graduated in a year I would find a job where he was and that we would move in together with the intent of being engaged within a year. Although untraditional it was important to both of us to be together in the same place before making such a commitment.

At this time (this past Christmas) while making the decision we wanted to include our families. His mom said that she would support us if we had a traditional Sikh wedding and that i always put family first. She stressed that she wanted a daughter and not just a daughter-in-law. She said she spoke to a few people in her family and that they were educated and would support us as long as my home was always open to them. She said this rather harshly, but it was still acceptance, however I knew it would never be the same as if I were brown. His mother has met my mother and sat in my parent’s house and spoke highly of me and told my mom she would want me as a daughter. B and I went over everything we could think of, what a wedding would mean, how we would raise children, expectation from each others families, holidays, etc. He spoke privately to 3 of his cousins and his mom to ask for their support. Everyone said it would be hard, that he should consider his own culture (as he has only dated white women), but that if this is what he wanted they would support him.

B is proud of his culture but does not want to give his children traditional names or go to temple with them. He and I agree with how we would want to start and raise a family. We are not religious people, he is an Atheist and his family has known this long before he and i ever met. B and I have similar morals and life goals. I have made an effort to learn names of people and food in Punjabi. He is not fluent himself. To put it into perspective, his cousins tease him that he is white. I took what his mother said very seriously and am ok with meeting her requests. She has even bought me a sari while in India.

I have accepted a job and moved in with B. It has been one month but we have quickly realized that we made a good choice and that we are happy together (more so than I would have imagined). For the last two months his mom has turned on he and i. She is condescending to me and cold to B. For example he and I were going to friend wedding and upon seeing my black conservative dress, she commented “oh yeah, you guys wear black to weddings” she then turned away from me and did not hug me when we left . She recently went to a white/Punjabi wedding and according to her other son has been very upset since. Last week B was in his parents town on a business trip and saw them for dinner. His mother gave him a letter and would not speak to him. The short page long letter said she has always been there for him and worked hard to raise him. That he owed her something, a marriage to a woman from his own culture and if he did anything other than that she would not be able to support him any longer. After additional dialogue it came out that she will not speak to or see anyone in my family again, that she will not be open to me, and that she will never forgive or open up to my boyfriend again. She says that her family sides with her as well. B’s father considers himself Switzerland and will not speak against our relationship or for it (he is a very passive man, but that is another story). My boyfriend’s only brother says he understands why we may continue our relationship but says that he would put family first and that B should consider it seriously himself. The only thing “wrong” with me is my race.

She has always been manipulative of B. Saying things like “oh you aren’t flying in to visit me this weekend because you don’t love me.” I do understand where she comes from (as best I can). She has an arranged marriage and although not abusive, still not good. Her own mother-in-law and her do not have a relationship. I do not understand how a mother can do this to her son. His whole life he was taught that as long as he was with someone who loved and respected him that he was doing the right thing. In high school he went to school dances with white girls and his mother cried and locked her self in her room for weeks. In college, she apologized and told B she was wrong. But now she calls B sleazy for living with me and is asking him to change his life. I understand “the ripple effect.” A mixed marriage does mean that people in the community will shun B’s parents. It makes me very sad. What hurts me is that she changed her own views. I have nothing else in my new town. I have a year commitment to my company. I am shaken to the core by this. What else is she capable of? There is no happy ending.
The romantic movie ending of the boy choosing his love is not so. On our wedding day his mother and family would not be present and there would not be a chance of a future relationship. My own parents are very sad by this and have offered their support to B and I. My dad’s parents were immigrants from the Ukraine and while they have never treated my American mom the same as the rest of the Ukrainian family, they were still present for my dad’s major life events.

B and I have more talking to work through. He does not know what to do, nor do i. He knows that staying together would be good for us, but he also knows this would offer a lifetime of grief to his mother/family and no one accepting me (which I could endure I think, but I also think I could have a breaking point depending on how his family actually treats me to my face). If it were just the two of us a discussion is not even needed, we would be together. But family is a part of life and marriage.

I should tie this back to the original post, and I suppose I just want to say be prepared for the worst, but that it is an exercise to know how you both really feel. The exercise of learning about each others cultures and discussing each others expectations for life brought us closer together as a couple and opened my eyes to traditions and situations I would not have considered on my own. It sounds like you are both understanding and willing to work with each other, this has been one reason why my relationship has worked so well until now. It’s fun growing together and I wish you the best. It makes me happy that some people can overcome intolerance.

Added: A year & a half after this post was first published, jbf stopped by with an update in the comments section here.