Any cross culture marriages out there?

[allycat0303]

I''m Viet and my husband is french Canadian. I think the major cultural issue is going to occur when we raise our children. There''s a lot of things about the way he was raised that I DO NOT want in my own children. For example, very little emphasis on education (the parents never encouraged it at all) That worries me. In addition, the TV. We never watched TV during the week, and they had the TV on 24/7. I''m afraid he doesn''t see things the way I do. And these are really NON-COMPROMISE issues. We''ve discussed it before marriage and he says that these things/values are ok. But I think that saying and doing are two very different things. And I type this as he sits next to me playing video games. Which he does nearly every night of the week.

Aside from that, I would like my children to learn how to speak Viet (or at least understand it).

So most of the issues I have are with the futur children. Between us, it''s just that his family is ver gregarious, and fun-loving, while I''m very quiet and restrained. So I''m often accused of snobbery when I don''t talk enough.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

I can relate Allycat!

My parents had a HEAVY emphasis on education, while his parents never really pushed it the same way mine did. But my fiance feels the way I do about education (we met in college), so I think we''re on the same page when it comes to making a it a priority to our future kids.

Haha, as far as TV goes, my hubby is a big gamer but neither of us really watch TV, so I suspect our children at least won''t learn it from us (though I''m sure kids pick it up on their own!). And my dad''s going to be in charge of teaching them to speak Chinese (I''m fluent, but only to a 9th grade level)

 

[MakingTheGrade]

Bumping because of recent discussion in the Hangout thread about culture and marriages and how that all plays into each other. Feel free to discuss here if interested.

 

[ericad]

Great thread!

Count me in! I am both the product of a cross cultural marriage AND am in a cross cultural marriage as well. My dad is Indian and my mom is Czech. I was born and raised in the US and grew up with a blended European/American culture. I don''t recall there being much cultural strife between my parents, likely because they both emigrated to a new country and that bonded them closer together, despite their differences.

I do remember my mom talking about how much she loved India (she lived there for the first few years of their marriage, and my older brother lived there during his early years). She wanted to stay there forever - she really embraced the culture and my dad''s family. I have so many pictures of her wearing saris and laughing - she really adored it. She was studying language and wanted to be a translator, so she even spoke quite a bit of Hindi at the time. Her parents adored my dad and he was the most non-traditional one in his family (obviously, since he had a "love" marriage and it was to a foreign woman - scandalous!) She can cook curry like nobody''s business and my dad does more than his fair share of cooking, cleaning, etc. Mom always worked and traveled overseas with us 2 kids by herself (when dad had to work and baby sit my hamsters, lol) and they both really defied any and all stereotypes of either culture.

I have been married for 12 years to a French husband. We fell in love (I was only 20 - I cringe at how young I was!) and within a few weeks decided to marry so he could stay and pursue the relationship (it was that or I leave the US and follow him to France or we break up) because he was here on a visitor visa as a tourist. Goodness, I can only imagine what my parents thought! But it was all incredibly romantic - 4 months after we met we were married and the rest is history!

BUT I will say that cultural differences have been a big obstacle for us. My dear husband is as stereotypically French as one can be, except he doesn''t smoke We disagree about everything from politics to disciplining our 4 year old to family relations. But even beyond our cultural differences we are opposite in so many ways.

Negative examples (to me) would be: I''m ever the sunny optimist and he is dark and disgruntled, I forgive anyone of anything while he will hold a grudge till his dying breath, he is compelled to argue about everything - even when we agree! I am much more tolerant of opinions that differ from my own. He is really non-social (I wouldn''t say anti-social, more like socially uncomfortable so he avoids social situations) and I love to be around people.

Positive would be: he doesn''t obsess about what people think whereas I make myself sick over it. He stands up for what he believes in - I wish I were more outspoken like that. He can tell his family to take a flying leap while I am such a people pleaser I never take care of myself. He is always trying to learn and grow and challenge his brain while I would much rather watch So You Think You Can Dance than read a book about WWII.

All in all I think we make it work because we balance each other out. And he makes me laugh and he says adorable things (in very heavy French accent) like "it squishes my heart when you say that" or "can you buy me some of that smell good stuff for my pit-arms?" or "I saw a cute puppy today, it was a PUDDLE" then gets royally outraged when I give him a blank look (he meant to say POODLE). And he loves romantic comedies (he is very French in the romance department) and nice dinners and he knows how to love deeply and loyally in a way that I find rare in this day and age.

SIGH. When he gets home I''m gonna give him a big smooch - big oaf.

 

[ericad]

Oh, and for a visual, his personality and behavior is Girard Depardieu in Greencard or Kevin Kline in French Kiss, but he looks like Luke Skywalker

 

[MakingTheGrade]

Date: 12/11/2009 12:14:11 AM
Author: ericad
And he makes me laugh and he says adorable things (in very heavy French accent) like ''it squishes my heart when you say that'' or ''can you buy me some of that smell good stuff for my pit-arms?'' or ''I saw a cute puppy today, it was a PUDDLE'' then gets royally outraged when I give him a blank look (he meant to say POODLE). And he loves romantic comedies (he is very French in the romance department) and nice dinners and he knows how to love deeply and loyally in a way that I find rare in this day and age.

AWWW, he sounds like such a sweetheart! You guys are lucky to have each other I''m sure.
Honestly, even though cross cultural marriages can have some unique hurdles, I think it challenges us in a good way by making us really think through our beliefs and priorities to see which ones are really important to us, and which ones we''ve adopted just because everyone else around has adopted it.

 

[Phoenix]

Date: 12/11/2009 12:14:11 AM
Author: ericad
Great thread!

All in all I think we make it work because we balance each other out. And he makes me laugh and he says adorable things (in very heavy French accent) like ''it squishes my heart when you say that'' or ''can you buy me some of that smell good stuff for my pit-arms?'' or ''I saw a cute puppy today, it was a PUDDLE'' then gets royally outraged when I give him a blank look (he meant to say POODLE). And he loves romantic comedies (he is very French in the romance department) and nice dinners and he knows how to love deeply and loyally in a way that I find rare in this day and age.

SIGH. When he gets home I''m gonna give him a big smooch - big oaf.

I laughed so hard I spit G&T all over my keyboard!!

Your hubby sounds so cute!!

 

[Phoenix]

I'm in a cross-cultural marriage. I was born in Vietnam and am British by nationality. DH is American.

I would say though that even though I'm very proud of my Vietnamese roots (my surname is Ton Nu and if any Vietnamese are reading this, they'll know what I mean

), I'm actually quite (hubby would say "very", LOL) British/ Westernised - having grown up in the UK and having gone to school, Uni there and having worked with many Brits and other nationalities. I think in a very British way and have a British sense of humour, or at least I'd like to think that I do. I speak English as my first language, better than I do Vietnamese. Our marriage works because of this, I think. If I were very Asian or very Vietnamese, I don't think our marriage would work as well.

Both of our families place a HUGE emphasis on education. We have lawyers, doctors, accountants, investment bankers and PhD holders in both sets of families. There's never been any conflict between our families. My dad used to think (before I met DH) that I should've married a Vietnamese man, but having seen how happy we are, he's never ever raised any objection. I think the key thing is that I married DH NOT because he's non-Vietnamese but purely because he is who he is - a man that I love and respect. It works the other way too.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Date: 12/11/2009 10:00:10 AM
Author: Phoenix
I''m in a cross-cultural marriage. I was born in Vietnam and am British by nationality. DH is American.

I would say though that even though I''m very proud of my Vietnamese roots (my surname is Ton Nu and if any Vietnamese are reading this, they''ll know what I mean

), I''m actually quite (hubby would say ''very'', LOL) British/ Westernised - having grown up in the UK and having gone to school, Uni there and having worked with many Brits and other nationalities. I think in a very British way and have a British sense of humour, or at least I''d like to think that I do. I speak English as my first language, better than I do Vietnamese. Our marriage works because of this, I think. If I were very Asian or very Vietnamese, I don''t think our marriage would work as well.

Both of our families place a HUGE emphasis on education. We have lawyers, doctors, accountants, investment bankers and PhD holders in both sets of families. There''s never been any conflict between our families. My dad used to think (before I met DH) that I should''ve married a Vietnamese man, but having seen how happy we are, he''s never ever raised any objection. I think the key thing is that I married DH NOT because he''s non-Vietnamese but purely because he is who he is - a man that I love and respect. It works the other way too.

and willing to put up with my expensive diamond habits.

 

[zhuzhu]

I am too~! Married to a New England-born American. Our marriage is really fantastic, but it has everything to do with how wonderful he is as a person and how much we love each other. His family on the other hand, drives me off the wall. They are the most passive aggressive people I have ever met. More annoyingly, they do not contribute or support our marriage anything like the way my side of the family does, yet they are so DEMANDING of our time and space.

I am not sure if it is culture differences or not, to me some of their manners is simply inconsiderate and unthoughtful. For example for our wedding gifts, his mom gave us ONE small pot of bamboo for good luck, and a cook book. Anyone here who knows how to google will find easily how for the Chinese-culture marriage blessings, all gifts should be given in even number. At the very least the bamboo pot should come in a set of two, yet his mother does not even bother to find out by researching or simply asking around. Small thing like this makes me think of his mother as a very thoughtless person. After all she kept on wanting to come stay with us to enjoy the CA sun, yet she does not contribute to anything that I can see or feel in our marriage.

Vent over. The bottom line is that our marriage is great. Cross culture differences may seem to contribute to some minor frustration, but I think the problem lies in the individual family member, not necessarily because of the culture differences.

 

[cnkav]

I was born and raised in Vietnam, came to Canada in my late teen. DH is Canadian (Caucasian).

At the beginning of our relationship, it was difficult as we had trouble finding common ground but love and respect triumphed all, we are very happy after 8 years later.

My family would prefered me marrying a "good Vietnames boy" but they understood that we are right for each others and how happy he makes me feel.

His family is very supportive of us and I''m thankful that they are so accepting and kind to me.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

I think my parents would have liked for me to marry a Chinese boy as well, but certain cultural obstacles made that a bit tricky.

For example, every Chinese gathering I've ever gone to, the parents love to sit around and compare their children's achievements and either brag or vent about how their kid is doing in school etc. They also love to do this while the kids are in the room (oh joy). This has led most Chinese boys I know to be kind of sensitive about dating girls who are more academically successful than them.

One of my friends actually goes out of his way to avoid being around when I'm around his parents, because his parents will inevitably start with the "why can't you be more like MTG? See how well she's done?"...

 

[cnkav]

I totally agree about parents comparing their children''s achievement. They would love me to get into medical school but finance is my calling, so they had to settle.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

Date: 12/26/2009 10:01:14 PM
Author: cnkav
I totally agree about parents comparing their children's achievement. They would love me to get into medical school but finance is my calling, so they had to settle.

Yeah, I was definitely under heavy pressure to go to medical school. Luckily for my parents, it's what I like anyways, so I went. It really annoys me though when we visit family friends, and the parents complain to my parents how their kids didn't go to med school. Their kids went to Yale and Caltech, not exactly slackers! And even if their kid goes to med school, and it's not a well known one, they'll be like "Oh, they got into med school, but not a very good one. Too bad.". Yeah...cause we all know only graduates from top tier schools make competent professionals. AHHH! Drives me nuts sometimes.

Haha, I think my parents would like my hubby better if he was a doctor. Hubby's parents would probably like me better if I was a stay at home mom type. Go figure.