When culture becomes the third person in your relationship

When two people from different cultural backgrounds fall in love, those differences can initially feel exciting. You may be curious about each other's traditions, food, language, family and ways of seeing the world. Differences can create a sense of discovery and broaden your understanding of what a relationship can be, but as a relationship becomes more serious, those same differences can sometimes become sources of conflict.

You may find yourselves arguing about money, marriage, children, where to live, how often to see family, or how much independence each person should have. Whilst these issues can look like ordinary relationship disagreements, sometimes there is another person in the room: culture.

Although it doesn't speak, it can have a powerful influence on what each partner believes is normal, respectful, loving or expected.

 When cultural expectations cause conflict

But that's just how things are in my family! Imagine a couple arguing about whether one partner's parents should be able to drop by without asking. One partner sees this as warm and supportive: Of course family can come over. Why would you need to make an appointment to see your own parents? The other experiences it very differently: Our home is our private space. I need some notice. Why is my boundary being ignored?

Neither person necessarily has unreasonable expectations. They may simply have learned very different ideas about what family closeness looks like; the same thing can happen with money. One partner might believe that adult children should financially support their parents when they can. The other might have grown up believing that financial independence means each generation looks after itself, or perhaps one partner expects a couple to make decisions together, whereas the other has learned that maintaining individual independence is an important part of a healthy relationship.

Neither approach is inherently right or wrong, but the difficulty comes when our own way of doing things becomes invisible to us. While cultural expectations can differ, it’s important that each person’s needs and boundaries are respected within the relationship. We stop experiencing our own approach as one possible way of living and start experiencing it as the way things are.

Culture can influence more than traditions

When people think about cultural differences, they often think about visible things: language, food, religion, celebrations or national customs. But culture can also influence much less obvious parts of our lives.

It can shape our ideas about:

• what makes someone a good partner
• how much independence we should have
• how involved parents should be
• whether children should live near their family
• how money should be shared
• what commitment means
• when a couple should marry
• how decisions should be made
• how openly emotions should be expressed
• what constitutes respect
• how disagreements should be handled
• what responsibilities we have towards our families
• what a successful life looks like.

These assumptions can be so deeply embedded that we don't realise we're making them. This is one reason intercultural relationships can sometimes become confusing. You may think you are arguing about where to spend Christmas, when underneath the disagreement are very different ideas about belonging, family and loyalty.

You may think you're arguing about how much money to send home, when the deeper question is what each of you believes you owe to the people who raised you. You may think you're arguing about whether to get married, when one person experiences marriage as an essential expression of commitment, while the other sees commitment as something that doesn't require a particular institution.

When one culture becomes the default

There is another challenge faced by couples in intercultural relationships, and that is that one person's culture can gradually become the default culture of the relationship. This might happen because one partner's language is dominant, because the couple lives in their country of origin, because one family is more involved, or simply because one person's traditions are treated as 'normal', unlike the other's, which is treated as something different or reserved for special occasions.

Over time, one partner may begin to feel that they are constantly adapting. They might hear: "Why can't you just do things the normal way?" Or: "You're making this more complicated than it needs to be." Neither statement may be intended to cause harm, but both can communicate something painful: Your way of doing things is the strange one. Mine is the standard. This can gradually affect our sense of belonging within our own relationship. Couples may begin to compromise because it feels easier than repeatedly having to explain or justify themselves, rather than because they want to.

Which culture is right?

When cultural differences become a source of conflict, couples can easily get stuck trying to establish who is right, but this can be a difficult question to answer. Your partner's expectations may make perfect sense within their cultural and family context. Equally, yours may make perfect sense within yours.

Trying to decide which person has the objectively correct approach can turn the relationship into a debate that neither person can win. Instead, a more useful question might be: "What do we want to take from each of our backgrounds, and what do we want to create together?"

This restructures the conflict into a conversation, one where you begin to think about creating your own unique identity as a couple rather than demanding that one person adopt the other's culture.

Creating your own culture as a couple

Some intercultural couples find it helpful to think about their relationship as developing its own culture, one that doesn't have to be entirely yours or entirely your partner's. You might keep some traditions from your childhood and let others go. 

You might celebrate festivals from both backgrounds, or create entirely new traditions that neither of you grew up with. You might decide together how involved your families will be, or you might combine different approaches to money, parenting or holidays. You might even develop your own language: words, rituals, jokes and ways of showing affection that belong specifically to the two of you.

It means recognising that your relationship is also becoming a place where a new identity can develop. The aim isn't necessarily to find a perfect compromise where each person gives up exactly 50 per cent; it's about understanding why something matters to your partner before deciding what you want to do about it.

Look beneath the disagreement

When a cultural difference creates conflict, it is helpful to become curious about the meaning underneath it. Instead of: "Why do you always insist on doing things that way?" You might ask: "What does this mean to you?" "What did your family teach you about this?" "What would it mean to you if we didn't do it this way?" "What are you worried might happen?" "What part of this feels important for you to hold onto?"

These questions can transform an argument, as you may then discover that your partner isn't really insisting that you follow a tradition. Perhaps they are afraid of disappointing their parents, or that they associate a particular behaviour with being a good son or daughter, or that changing it feels like turning their back on their family.

And you may discover that your own reaction isn't really about the behaviour either, but that you are worried about losing your independence, you fear that your needs will always come second, or that you are trying to protect the kind of family life you imagined having. When we understand the meaning behind the disagreement, it can become easier to negotiate the practical issue.

Culture, identity and belonging

For some people in intercultural relationships, conflict can create a painful sense of being caught between two worlds. You love your partner but worry that you're losing part of yourself. You want to honour your family but feel that doing so creates tension in your relationship. You might have moved countries for love and discovered that the question of where you belong is more complicated than you expected.

These are signs that you are navigating a genuinely complex question of identity and belonging. A relationship is about building a shared life with another person, but of course we don't arrive in relationships as blank slates. We bring our histories, families, languages, values, experiences and assumptions with us.

Approaching cultural differences with curiosity

Cultural differences don't automatically make a relationship more difficult. In some circumstances, it can make couples more conscious of assumptions that other couples may never have to examine. You might find yourself asking questions such as: Why do I believe this is important? Where did I learn this? Do I still believe it? Is this something I genuinely value, or something I've inherited? What do I want my own family life to look like?

These questions can be uncomfortable, but they are also liberating. We don't always have to reject the cultures we grew up in, nor do we have to reproduce them unquestioningly. We can decide what we want to carry forward, and we can decide what we want to leave behind.

How couples counselling can help

If cultural differences are creating recurring conflict in your relationship, couples counselling can offer a space to explore what sits beneath those disagreements. It can help you understand each other’s expectations and find ways forward that respect both of your backgrounds, needs and values.

The goal of an intercultural relationship isn't to eliminate cultural difference; instead, it is to become curious enough about those differences that they stop making decisions for you, because when culture becomes the third person in your relationship, you may not be able to ask it to leave.