Is it better to marry someone from your own race or someone local in your community/country? I am fascinated by the idea of marrying someone who comes from a different country or race. But I’ve heard of some horror stories about men undergoing culture shock as they get to know their foreign brides better after getting married. Some found their partner’s cultural practices weird and some have had very unpleasant experiences with the foreign partner’s family. Anybody here wanna share some experience on this matter? Would love to hear from you guys.
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What’s it like to be married to a foreigner
I have a foreign wife, or rather, since we live in her country, she has a foreign husband; I also had two foreign fiancees before that (one Korean, one Russian) and a few longer-term girlfriends from other countries and races. My first thought is, yes, cultural differences can be a big problem; the love and sex is the easy part, it's the fighting and disagreement styles, general expectations for living together, and questions of authority in various parts of the relationship that can get pretty hard. For example, Korean women are expected to run the household and control domestic finances; if you're not fully ready for that, it can blindside you. (Fortunately I has some idea about that going in, so that wasn't as big a problem when we lived together as many American men have had.) And do let's not discuss the ways she'd fight during quarrels.
Second, cultural practices can be a bit of a problem if you're not aware of them, but that's why there are libraries. Okay, that was just me being silly. Even if you know about their culture, that doesn't tell you how it is in actual life. For instance, I love kimchi and enjoyed helping my Korean ex make it at home, but if you don't like it, that can be massively distasteful. (Or cleaning squid. No problem for me, but some people might be totally squicked out by that, and squid is quite common in Korean food, yummy yummy squid, mmmm. [Wipes drool.]) Even small things like which meal of the day is the biggest or how often you're likely to talk with your family in a given culture can make one partner feel badly fed or make one of you feel like the other is clingy, the other like the first one is a cold fish. (For example, just to give an example in US culture I read about recently, white Americans of my background tend to visit their folks a couple times a year or so, maybe call once a month. Among many blacks, it's much more frequent. Probably not a big deal, but maybe the difference would end up being big in your relationship for some reason. Add in phone calls overseas, which are at least a lot cheaper now, and it can actually create conflict.)
And what about taking care of your health when you're sick? You might be surprised at all the traditional practices coming up then that seem utterly random to you. Get used to it--she'll take care of you the best she can, and that might seem very very odd to you in places. Just be ready to ask her what you should do for her when she gets sick. (And you *will* do the same for her when she's sick, right? Good man.)
Religious differences can be a problem too, even if you're notionally members of the same religion. My joke at the time was that Koreans are all shamanists at heart with very charismatic views of religion, it's just that 35% of them are shamans for Jesus. Korean Protestantism is very charismatic and evangelical (the Korean Catholics among my friends seem to be less like that), and I eventually broke off our engagement when she started speaking in tongues and laying on hands (yes, really), because that made it clear all our differences before then were never going to lessen. (Or, to be snide about it, I wasn't going to stick around for the rattlesnakes.) On the other hand, my wife also started out nominally Baptist but ended up happily, not very observantly Episcopalian, and we get along fine there. (My Russian fiancee was virtually an atheist though nominally Orthodox--it was mostly cultural for her--and we were very well-suited there. And in other ways as well, culturally speaking, but she eventually started having bad dreams in which her grandmother asked her why she was marrying me and she didn't have an answer, and we mutually broke off our engagement; she was on the rebound at the time when she fell for me, and is now happily married to her first love, whom she had been on the rebound from.)
Family could be a problem too, of course. In the case of my Korean ex, her parents were strongly opposed to the marriage; her mother told her, "Sure, fuck him all you want, all girls need that, but DO NOT MARRY HIM." (Because I was white, of course. Rather, because I wasn't Korean.) Of course, my ex was the stubbornest woman in Korea (and they might be the stubbornest nation on earth), so she would eventually have won out, but it would have been an epic struggle. On the other hand, my wife's family is wonderful. I went from having one sister I never really connected with to having her and four new sisters who are very fine people. I would probably not have had any problems with the Russian ex's family either because they were from the intelligentsia; a more traditional Russian family would have been a lot harder to get close to, I think, even for a super nice guy like me. (Ha. The only person who ever described me as super nice was me, and I was very drunk at the time.)
Anyway, cross-cultural marriages can be very difficult, but you can usually make them work. If possible, live together first, at least a year, seriously. That is, not just for the love and sex, but to see that you *can* live together. However, that might not be possible (local communities of fellow countrymen, for example, might make it impossible--my Korean ex lived with me but no other Koreans knew it for two years, which was an epic work of subterfuge given all her Korean friends), so have a long courtship. And finally, to end on a funny note, don't buy into those silly ideas that Korean women (Asian women more generally) are shrinking violets or doormats or passive or anything. That's just their expected public personas. They're actually like this, and often even meaner if you cross them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4-StMGYAw&t=70s
Second, cultural practices can be a bit of a problem if you're not aware of them, but that's why there are libraries. Okay, that was just me being silly. Even if you know about their culture, that doesn't tell you how it is in actual life. For instance, I love kimchi and enjoyed helping my Korean ex make it at home, but if you don't like it, that can be massively distasteful. (Or cleaning squid. No problem for me, but some people might be totally squicked out by that, and squid is quite common in Korean food, yummy yummy squid, mmmm. [Wipes drool.]) Even small things like which meal of the day is the biggest or how often you're likely to talk with your family in a given culture can make one partner feel badly fed or make one of you feel like the other is clingy, the other like the first one is a cold fish. (For example, just to give an example in US culture I read about recently, white Americans of my background tend to visit their folks a couple times a year or so, maybe call once a month. Among many blacks, it's much more frequent. Probably not a big deal, but maybe the difference would end up being big in your relationship for some reason. Add in phone calls overseas, which are at least a lot cheaper now, and it can actually create conflict.)
And what about taking care of your health when you're sick? You might be surprised at all the traditional practices coming up then that seem utterly random to you. Get used to it--she'll take care of you the best she can, and that might seem very very odd to you in places. Just be ready to ask her what you should do for her when she gets sick. (And you *will* do the same for her when she's sick, right? Good man.)
Religious differences can be a problem too, even if you're notionally members of the same religion. My joke at the time was that Koreans are all shamanists at heart with very charismatic views of religion, it's just that 35% of them are shamans for Jesus. Korean Protestantism is very charismatic and evangelical (the Korean Catholics among my friends seem to be less like that), and I eventually broke off our engagement when she started speaking in tongues and laying on hands (yes, really), because that made it clear all our differences before then were never going to lessen. (Or, to be snide about it, I wasn't going to stick around for the rattlesnakes.) On the other hand, my wife also started out nominally Baptist but ended up happily, not very observantly Episcopalian, and we get along fine there. (My Russian fiancee was virtually an atheist though nominally Orthodox--it was mostly cultural for her--and we were very well-suited there. And in other ways as well, culturally speaking, but she eventually started having bad dreams in which her grandmother asked her why she was marrying me and she didn't have an answer, and we mutually broke off our engagement; she was on the rebound at the time when she fell for me, and is now happily married to her first love, whom she had been on the rebound from.)
Family could be a problem too, of course. In the case of my Korean ex, her parents were strongly opposed to the marriage; her mother told her, "Sure, fuck him all you want, all girls need that, but DO NOT MARRY HIM." (Because I was white, of course. Rather, because I wasn't Korean.) Of course, my ex was the stubbornest woman in Korea (and they might be the stubbornest nation on earth), so she would eventually have won out, but it would have been an epic struggle. On the other hand, my wife's family is wonderful. I went from having one sister I never really connected with to having her and four new sisters who are very fine people. I would probably not have had any problems with the Russian ex's family either because they were from the intelligentsia; a more traditional Russian family would have been a lot harder to get close to, I think, even for a super nice guy like me. (Ha. The only person who ever described me as super nice was me, and I was very drunk at the time.)
Anyway, cross-cultural marriages can be very difficult, but you can usually make them work. If possible, live together first, at least a year, seriously. That is, not just for the love and sex, but to see that you *can* live together. However, that might not be possible (local communities of fellow countrymen, for example, might make it impossible--my Korean ex lived with me but no other Koreans knew it for two years, which was an epic work of subterfuge given all her Korean friends), so have a long courtship. And finally, to end on a funny note, don't buy into those silly ideas that Korean women (Asian women more generally) are shrinking violets or doormats or passive or anything. That's just their expected public personas. They're actually like this, and often even meaner if you cross them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4-StMGYAw&t=70s
Rainbow Warrior
My younger sister is married to a Jamaican man and they get along great. He slips from English into Patois fairly often, and I have trouble understanding him sometimes, but my sister has been dating black guys all her life, so he seems to be a perfect match for her. I haven't seen any cultural clashes, but then my sister is so strong-willed and lovable, every man she's with bends to her wishes about everything.
Active Ink Slinger
Not easy at all. I live in the South (USA) and married a Northern gal. It’s been a cultural shock / awakening for last 46 years.
Quote by Guest
Is it better to marry someone from your own race or someone local in your community/country? I am fascinated by the idea of marrying someone who comes from a different country or race. But I’ve heard of some horror stories about men undergoing culture shock as they get to know their foreign brides better after getting married. Some found their partner’s cultural practices weird and some have had very unpleasant experiences with the foreign partner’s family. Anybody here wanna share some experience on this matter? Would love to hear from you guys.
My wife is Chinese, born and raised in Shanghai and migrated to Canada to do her doctorate. We met when I was a master's student in the same program where she was doing the doctorate.
Yes, the cultural difference has played a role in our relationship but less than I might have thought. For instance, I'm fairly adaptable when it comes to food so eating her home Chinese cooking has never been an issue for me. And she has some Western and non-Asian favorites, too. We are quite multicultural that way. Her English is quite good. She learned English before she came to Canada and various Canadian friends, including me, helped her get even better. Still, she does lapse into Chinese speaking patterns (e.g. mixing up he and she since their third person singular pronoun is neutral) and uses her own language for some things (she prefers to count in Shanghai Chinese, for instance). There is a language barrier with my in-laws. A few family members speak English (her sister, her late father, her brother a little) but many more do not. Since most of her family still live in China, though, I don't see them enough for it to be an issue. She definitely has a different values system than me but it's mostly just that she's more conservative in some regards and that could just as easily happen with some subcultures here (e.g. Canada often shows a strong rural-urban political split, with rural being more conservative). I'm centre to centre-left but we've kind of negotiated a truce on politics, esp. since I've gone outside the political mainstream and vote Green (who are socially and environmentally progressive but fiscally conservative) rather than the NDP, our traditional left party.
So, no real horror stories here. I think our age gap (she's 9 years older) has been more of an issue than culture. To be fair, though, her family was fairly Westernized going back to her grandparents in the twenties and thirties so maybe if I had married someone who had a more traditional Chinese background (e.g. someone from the countryside rather than a major city) perhaps it would have gone differently.
Her Royal Spriteness
it's best to marry someone you're in love with.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
The Linebacker
You have to put a nudie silhoutte stamp in their passport everytime you have sex. The feds will charge you customs dues on those.
The Bruiser
Quote by sprite
it's best to marry someone you're in love with.
I totally agree this, if your love with someone it shouldn’t really matter which country they are from, or their race.
For the past few months I’ve been using Instagram and been using the site to post my photography . Here’s the link to my profile
https://www.instagram.com/farmerroger1/
My recommended read
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-poems/amongst-the-arabian-sands
here’s a link to my photography album in my media
https://www.lushstories.com/profile/farmerroger/media?album=2399646
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I clicked here thinking we were going to talk about the band...
Wild at Heart
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Awww Jack! This is my favourite post you've ever written. This is beyond cute
Please don’t use the c-word.
