Inter-Cultural Relationships
Finding A Therapist To Help You COnnect to your partner
Falling in love can feel like an otherworldly experience. Sometimes, it really is. Inter-cultural relationships span the world in their breadth and variety, but many of the challenges couples from different backgrounds face are shared.
Whether you are facing stereotypes, communication struggles or are just acclimating to a new normal after a relocation, inter-cultural relationships face unique issues that we are uniquely suited to support.
Expanding Horizons
How we see the world is altered by the cultural lens through which we view it, and expanding those can be a confusing adventure. So whether you’re learning new skills in the kitchen or sharing traditions of your own with your partner, we want to celebrate that growth with you.
Communication Conundrum
The language we use to speak is not the only one we learn as we grow. Non-verbal and emotional communication are also largely rooted in our cultural identities. Cultivating the ability to decipher these forms of communication through experience and the support of a neutral party will help make sharing with your partner a more effortless experience.
Facing Prejudice
Global opinion evolves painfully slowly. When sharing your exciting news with the public, you may encounter opinions that feel uncomfortable or hurtful. Processing the trauma of intolerance and learning proactive ways to respond to ignorance are powerful tools in combating the prejudice inter-cultural relationships may face.
Balancing needs in a relationship can always be tricky to navigate but you don’t have to go it alone.
WE WILL MEET YOU WHERE YOU ARE
Aligning Expectations
When you add together blended cultures and expectations, it can feel like a daunting task. We can work together to create a method of navigating your relationship by overcoming miscommunications and aligning your expectations. By supporting compassionate communication, we will help both partners find common ground and confidence in working toward a unified future.
Confronting Condemnation
In a perfect world, your loved ones and extended support network would all be very supportive of any partner who makes you feel stronger and more confident when you confront the world together. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. But with guidance and an arsenal of strategies to diffuse judgment, you can live in a world where you feel empowered.
Worries and Woes
But things are going great!
Ensuring that each partner in a relationship feels heard and supported at all times is an important element of counseling.
Even when things are going well, there’s always room to make them better. Identifying where values and goals are shared, and where they differ will support a more unified vision for the future.
Defining your individual and shared cultural identities by cultivating effective communication tools will help to enrich your relationship in a myriad of ways.
What’s defined as “inter-cultural”?
Culture is shaped by country of origin, religion, language, ethnicity, and community factors. It begins at birth and continues to develop through life and into adulthood. Often, culture is shaped by the region and heritage of your family.
Any relationship between two or more partners who come from different backgrounds is inter-cultural.
All of these factors influence the culture(s) with which we identify, including our relationships with ourselves and one another.
How will we make big decisions?
It’s not always other people that contribute to strain when facing a big relationship milestone. Cultural differences may make those pivotal choices even more convoluted and may produce messy emotions between your partner and you. There are so many decisions to make when combining lives and worlds, but for inter-cultural couples, this is compounded immensely.
We can help you work through the logistics of living arrangements, family relationships, and the complicated emotions that come with such big changes.
Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.
| Jawaharlal Nehru |
KEYS TO CULTIVATING A HEALTHY BLENDED RELATIONSHIP
Give (and accept) grace
Discomfort and miscommunications are a given when partners are speaking from different lived experiences. Make space for the friction of needing time, space and clarification to truly get a read on your partner’s needs and intention. When one of you doesn’t get it right the first time, find the grace to ask for more information or to try again to understand from a new perspective.
Have hard conversations
Different cultures maintain varying expectations for relationship roles and ideals. Don’t shy away from having these uncomfortable conversations with your partner. Connection and clarity in the things that matter most to each of you may transcend the ideas that you were raised with but there’s no way to know until you’ve gotten those conversations out in the open.
Celebrate your identities
Inter-cultural relationships are a beautiful fusion of everything you each bring to the table. The way those elements meld together is important, but so too is remembering to develop and encourage one another’s individual values.
Make space to celebrate your identities, not just together, but as individuals.
