Cross-Cultural Christian Marriage: How to Handle Culture Clashes Without Losing Unity – Pesa Shayo

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It really felt like your partner's family is coming between you or like you're caught between owning your family and protecting your marriage. This conversation is for you.

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Welcome back to Empowered Conversations, an issue where real people share their struggles and how they turn them into strengths. I'm your host, Pesa Shayo. Marriage is adding up when it's just two people figuring how to live together, but what happens when it's not just two people? What happens when parents, in-laws, cultural expectations and family loyalty conflates into the picture? For many couples, especially cross-cultural couples, the pressure from outside can be intense and when the pressure rises, it's all too easy to to son against each other instead of facing it.

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And that's where today's guest comes in. Mr. Shire is an author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage. It helps cross-cultural Christian couples view the United Front, a way of facing pleasure or facing in-operational loyalty conflates and cultural clashes as one thing. His work is shared by his own cross-cultural marriage.

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and by years of having couples understand how outside pressure can quietly divide a home. And this message is simple but powerful. You don't have to keep fighting each other when the outside pressure rises. You can learn to face it as one team. So if you really felt like a partner's family is coming between you or like you're caught between owning your family and protecting your marriage, this conversation is for you.

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Before diving, if you are enjoying this conversation, please take a moment to follow me on part conversations on your podcast app. It's also this fine issue and it means you'll miss an episode. So let's get into it. Pesa, welcome to part conversations. I'm so glad to have you.

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year today. Thank you very much for having me and I'm really excited to be here today. Yeah, it's amazing. So let's talk about your journey that led to this conversation today. you and your wife in a cross-cultural Christian marriage what has that experience taught you about the unique challenges couples face when they come from different backgrounds? Thank you so me and my wife originally I'm from Kenya she's from the United States and we have been married for going to 22 years and we are in what's called a cross-cultural, cross interracial marriage.

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And through the years we came into the marriage with a lot of assumptions that basically as long as we love each other That's all we need, and all the problems that we might be having, every marriage we'll be having. So if we're having money problems, we just think, you know what?

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Every couple will have money problems, or if it's communication, oh, it's just a communication thing. But we did not appreciate how much the fact that we came from two different cultures, different worlds, two different countries, how much that was affecting our marriage. And we'll get to talk a lot about that.

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But that can be ignored because you just believe that as long as you love each other, as long as you're Christian, you are fine. But no, there's a lot of issues going on underneath. Yeah I think that's such an overwhelming experience. I mean you believe the tension yourself and most times we go out there thinking love is enough, love is strong to overcome all these differences, breakdowns and all but most times it's really not just enough. And you've said that love is strong but family expectations, cultural differences, communication breakdowns and loyalty conflicts keep pulling couples into the same argument.

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So what does that actually feel like and when did you realize you needed a different approach? So that it felt like for example when we were newly married and we were having our first child our first daughter. That didn't sound like a big deal until when we started coming up figuring out how are we going to name our daughter?

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My wife believed that as the mom she's just gonna name the kid and then maybe me and her can come up with the name but basically that's it. I came from a place where we believed that naming children comes from. We need to name our grandparents, we named the kids after our grandparents.

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So that did not make sense to her but for me, the idea that family lineage will continue, the family name, the family… how we'll be honoring my grandparents and so it was so important that the family line to continue I wasn't able to express it that way but that's what was really happening I was more interested in the kids continuing the family name, the family line She was just thinking in terms of what she just knows, which is you have a baby, you name the baby.

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And we had a big conflict there. Eventually we were able to get whatever we want, we were able to come up with a compromise and now the kids, we are able to name them The first name is what my wife chooses and then the middle name and the last name is our family name. So basically we can be able to welcome from continue the family lineage. But that took a lot of work because she could not appreciate that it's not just a name, it is more than just a name.

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And that way we start realizing culture was more than just what we thought it was. Yeah, I think that's the art of your work now. You've been through the day, you've been there and you've found a way through. And now, you and your wife founded Live Your Best Marriage to help other couples navigate experiences like this.

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So what is it like? And what do you help other couples do? We help other couples realize, especially the cross-cultural Christian couples realize that culture is going to multiply a lot of the problems they be dealing with. So we call it like the cultural multiplier and when you come to culture something like How many people are involved in the decision for many marriage marriages that don't deal with different cultures, um, they be, it might be just a private disagreement. It's always between the two people. That's it. Two people disagreeing. I don't like this. You like this.

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And that's it. But when you're having extended family who have their own expectations, like also they have they have the let's say extended family has raised a son and they paid for his college so that he can come back and help back home so they they are they are not they have a lot of expectations for that and that might not have been expressed well when these people are getting married.

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Also, there is authority. When people come from the same culture, they might not really appreciate that one in a cross-cultural marriage, One person, the parent might still have a lot of authority over them Okay So the idea that one person can even go and tell the parent or don't do that might seem like very Like out of out of line and when the parent is asking for assistance or siblings who expect support That's an issue that some couples who are from, let's say, America might not really appreciate that. But if you're bringing two cultures, and one especially coming from a different

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country, that might be something that they deal with. So we work with them and help them appreciate that eventually some of the problems they'll be having is more people will be involved in their decisions, the communication, the language. One person is speaking a language which is not their native language so they are not they might not really understand or express things the way they are supposed to because there is something we call lost in translation They might not really appreciate that the way they are saying things is actually offending other people, OK?

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And then so also there's identity like how a man should be treated or how a woman should be treated. Those are things which might be in the marriage but nobody had talked about and now they are offending other people in the marriage. So those are some of the things like because some people You know Americans just only care about themselves but that's a stereotype and somebody might say oh an African man doesn't like to listen to what a woman says that's another stereotype but it might be there in the back of their mind so those are things we help couples walk through. Yeah I think

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that's such an amazing approach and what you just talked about most times when couples face this outside pressure, not just from themselves, also from family members of their spouses. Most times they often turn against each other when this pressure arrives. And then you talk about building a united front in marriage, so what does that actually mean and why is it so important for couples facing outside pressure?

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Thank you. So one thing we've realized that and we took this from when we were dating before we got married is we believed at that time we could solve anything as long as we were working together. But when we get married we kind of forget that. We actually forget that we are friends and now we're just thinking it's a husband and wife. We don't think it's okay, this is my friend and we need to work together. So we were able to understand that actually the most important thing here is with all these issues that we might think

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are big problems, as long as we view each other as friends, we will always be able to find the way forward. And the reason why we brought up the United Front was that some of the things that we say are my in-laws or mother-in-law not listening or father-in-law or things like that most of And all the time it's because you and your wife or you and your husband are not on the same page.

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So the father-in-law can actually know what to say to your wife because they know that you are not on the same page. Let's say they are trying to help you financially. I might think, okay, I don't want to take money from my father-in-law because I don't want the strings attached with that.

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But if we're not on the same page, my wife might be say, okay, you know what? My dad is giving us money. Let's take, you see, because we are not seeing this. We haven't spent time to actually agree either we want the money or we don't want the money. I don't think it's, it helps when you are getting all this financial help because it makes it harder to set boundaries, but some people don't mind. So as long as you're not on the same page, it becomes harder to, to even set boundaries. So I always remind couples that even before you think about boundaries

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or even you think about like boundaries or setting boundaries with the in-laws and any outside pressure, think in terms of this is my friend, this is my wife, this is my friend, and then let's be on the same page first so that when we are dealing with outside pressure, can actually remember that we agree on this now let's deal with the problem

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and assess the pressure. And most times you see couples fighting each other for as long as they've forgotten, they even forget that they are on the same side And it causes this division in families, so I think that's such a very powerful approach. Thank you. Why do you think in-laws and family expectations create so much tension in cross-cultural Christian marriages?

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Thank you. expectations I feel like they bring a lot of problems because even because they might not have been expressed correctly so somebody maybe maybe maybe the husband is expected to go back home and take care of his parents or to take care of his siblings that was the expectation because maybe they paid for his school maybe they paid for him to come to America and things like that but he's supposed to turn around and help the other ones who are still back there so if this he's not able to express this clearly to his wife say hey this is the

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expectation I will still need to be sending money back home so that they can have this conversation first because we are not saying that they can the expectation is bad or good we're just saying that can the couple agree on it And can they figure out a way that this can actually happen?

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because saying no to your parents who have paid for you to come to another country might not even make sense at all it's like, no way They struggled so hard to send me here So I need to send them something back But is your wife even understanding what you are talking about?

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And sometimes we just think Yeah, I know they won't understand, so I need to hide this, but actually that makes it worse. So having that understanding, having that conversation first might make things better. And also sometimes even like there's some relatives who already believe if somebody's in another country, they have unlimited money.

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So setting expectations, and that's a hard thing because you might not even be able to talk to your uncle directly, or they will be so upset, or your father directly, they They'll be so upset if you even tell them that you need to have a meeting with them.

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But there's ways you can do. You can talk to their friend, you can talk to your mom, and then they can talk to them. There's many ways to be creative, but at the end of the day, you can be able to have these conversations. But at the same time, the most important conversation starts with the new farming that you are building, because you are moving loyalty from your family of origin to your new family.

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that loyalty but what we are saying is we are not forgetting them that's that's the difference with what we teach we are we don't forget where we came from Yeah, I think that's such an important distinction. Still acknowledging that you have the family but your family now with your wife and kids are your priority but you shouldn't actually forget your parents or your siblings or your extended family.

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I think that's a very, very important decision. So talking about honoring family, how can most couples tell the difference between maybe respecting family, honoring them or letting the family divide the marriage? Because most people don't know how to create boundaries between their family or their extended family and their family with their wives. Most times they let their parents make the decisions, let their family talk about their wife in some manner. So how can you actually create these boundaries or differentiate between honoring them or letting them divide your marriage?

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Thank you very much this is very important because it happens all the time we hear so many of these stories and it's very painful because when you think about it, it's so easy to solve. The first thing is where is your loyalty? Is my loyalty with… And when I say loyalty who are you loyal to?

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My loyal to my family of origin or the new family that I'm building here? That one question can tell you everything you need to know because the first time you ask somebody that question they will say hold on this is just a wife I just married. I'm going to stick with my family of origin because blood is thicker than water.

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And I'm like, okay that's your problem there. We are not saying ignore your family but if you're building something here, you're building a marriage here, you're building a new family and you are not putting energy to it the same The only way you had that date when he was building his, that's why you call it a family, but you don't view whatever you're creating here as a family. That is a problem. So once you have solved that issue, which is, I am going to put my new family that I'm creating

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here as a priority, that can start making things clear. Because now all of a sudden, if you're in that WhatsApp group and they are making jokes about your wife, you can no we are not I'm not gonna tolerate that because sometimes they just this conversations can keep going on and somebody who doesn't really want to upset their aunt or want to upset their sister or whatever they might not say, hey hold on guys I am not going to tolerate somebody talking about my husband or about my wife this way.

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So that's the first thing. The second thing is, once you've dealt with the loyalty, it's you and your spouse, are you on the same page? That I repeat that over and over because we find that it's so easy to divide people who are not on the same page.

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One person is okay with their spouse being disrespected, the other person is crying that they are being disrespected, things like that, over and over. So we have to work on that. And now the third step, now that's when we start dealing with the in-laws, that's when we start dealing with the extended family.

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And most of the time it's easy if we have already agreed, let's say we already know this is how, this is an easy example. These are the shows or the TV shows or this is the kind of place we want our kids to go. Let's say every time they go to their in-laws, for example people are smoking and you don't like smoking.

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Like for example they are smoking inside a house. This just an example. And you don't like that. And every time you bring it up, maybe your wife is like, ah, I don't know. I cannot tell. My dad has also smoked all his life. We cannot tell him to stop. So that's a problem.

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Also, we believe that you should not put somebody who is not from their family to go and have this conversation. What I mean is, if my wife, if we have agreed on something and it's something dealing with my in-laws, her side of the family, she should be the one to go and have that conversation versus me going there and they're like, okay, what is this person who just came into our family telling us what to do? See, we, in the same way on my side of the family, I should not expect her to come and tell my siblings what to do. I need to go there and

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have that conversation after we have agreed. And I think those three things, loyalty, being on the United and then having the person who's from that family having that conversation I think will help a lot to set the right boundaries with respect. Yeah, I think it makes such a good point and that's the shift because instead of staying silent you have to speak up and protect your spouse because that is your family, that is your priority.

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I'm still talking about communication. I mean how should a husband or a wife respond when they feel their spouse keeps choosing their family over the marriage or keeps putting priority on family decisions over them? Thank you. This is a hard one because this just goes back to the first thing we had talked about which is loyalty. As long as they are choosing their family of origin over the new family they are building here, they haven't worked on this issue of transferring loyalty. And that's where we need to talk to them and work with them to help them because sometimes

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they might think that maybe this had happened before, that if they put so much energy on their marriage, they might, they might, some people just afraid if I put energy in my marriage, And then I have a divorce. That means I will basically confirm what my aunts were saying.

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I will confirm what my uncle was saying that this woman was not the right woman. See, so they are afraid of failure. So they are saying, no, I'm not gonna go all in on my marriage. I'm going to be 50 50 a man who is not decided one leg here, one leg, the other place, because they are afraid that they will be seen as the dumb one who put so much energy on their marriage and then she left and now she's going back to quote-unquote his family of origin but I think if you believe it's gonna work and you work on it as a real marriage

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that dude, I'm working on my marriage. I don't think that should be the issue here. The issue is how much am I doing to make my marriage work? Not how much am I doing to prevent my marriage from not working? See those are two different ways of thinking.

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I can do all to make sure my marriage is working or I can be hedging my bets because I know it's not going to work. So do you even believe in yourself? Do you even believe you can actually make, you can influence another person to believe in what you're believing like, hey we got to make this work and that's the biggest problem.

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So most men or women they will be having the issue of loyalty, transferring loyalty because they don't believe they can actually make their marriage work. I think that's one of the problems especially in cross-cultural marriages So you said that differences in culture can create breakdowns, in convocation, can create clashes and there is this difference so what should couples do when they come from different cultural, ethnic or family backgrounds?

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It's, I think the first thing they need to know that the fact that you are coming from two different cultures That is what we call the cultural multiplier That will multiply problems which other people are still dealing with it So the fact that you're coming from two different cultures does not mean you are creating problems You are just multiplying the issues because either more people are involved or because you're bringing stereotypes, different ways of thinking and all these things make the problems look bigger.

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So what I'll say is to just simplify everything is know that yes, the fact that you are coming from different cultures it's going to be a multiplier but you can solve this problem by being willing being willing to grow and that happens when you, it makes easier when you view each other as friends who are working through something hard too so she's also going through a hard time I'm going through a hard time we are friends going through a hard time It's much easier versus just thinking she is making my life harder.

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If only she was more respectful, if only she was more thankful or grateful or whatever I can come up with. If I say also she's also going through a hard time, I'm more likely to help her because most of the times she might even not understand what's going on because I might not even know.

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So yes it might be hard, yes we need more communication but It's not just communicating, it's communicating from a place of friendship. Because coming from different cultures you might not even have the right words to say but she just knows or he knows you mean well that was the most important thing she just knows you mean well. I think that's That's the foundation and that's such a great point because coming off as a critic is a really bad place. So instead of criticism, maybe curiosity would be better as a friend wanting to know

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more about the person, wanting to know more about the culture. I think that will go a long way. So talking about fate, how does fate shape the way couples under conflict and outside pressure? Faith helps us to appreciate that she is a child of God. Sometimes the enemy makes us think that she is doesn't it's just this thing in my house but when you realize that this is a child of God too who's also going through a hard time makes it that you are more empathetic right? You are not dealing with

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Just an animal in your house. It's another human who's a child of God. I think just remembering that can make it that you can tone it down a little bit and also a friend of mine was we were talking about it and he was just he was telling me about this which he's like would you want your grandkids to see you acting like this and I'm like what do you mean and he was saying what if somebody is going around with the camera and just videoing videoing what you're doing every day so that one day your grandkids can watch it and learn how to do

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marriage and I was like oh my okay okay okay so that makes it wait if you know that you are being watched so you are being as a and when you talk about face I know God is watching me. So That helps me know that I'm not high cannot hide So would I want God to see me doing that? And the answer is no So it takes it that I also think that I need to be better or nicer I think that's such a great point and that's an important message.

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They should be a bridge and not a barrier, you should make them come together in unity. So Pesa what is one practical step a couple can take today to stop fighting each other and start facing pressure as one team? Okay, just if you're listening to this maybe on your way home or maybe you just got home Just start remembering all the great times you guys had because everybody has them Remember all the great times that you had before you got married or when like the first few years when things just made sense remember those times and if you can look at your phone

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and look at those pictures, you can do TBT, you can look back on some of the old pictures and why do I say this? I just want to put you back in that frame of mind when things just made sense because right now you might be listening to this and you're like oh my goodness she's not the same person.

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Yes, you are also not the same person, but you can look back when it just made sense. Get yourself to that energy. Get yourself back there. And now, Sula, when you are going home, you can actually call her or you can call him and say, hey, smile and say, I'm so excited to come home or send a text while you're still at work and things like that. It might not seem as a big thing, but you are making her happy. See, I've had friends when even when they pick up their phone and it's their wife and they're like, what is she, what is she calling

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me about? No, when, when you see her face, when you see her number, you should be like happy. Oh my God, my wife is calling me. So the easy thing is if you want to get yourself back to that mood, start looking at some of the great images. And maybe if you guys were writing letters from way back when, and you still save them, look at them, read them because they will get you back to that feeling of man, this is good. And everybody has them. Everybody has those great memories, we just have forgotten them because of in-laws,

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kids, a lot of animosity, grudges, that kind that gets forgotten. But we can get ourselves back there. Yeah, I think that's amazing. And this has been such a practical and encouraging conversation. So where can people find your resources and connect? thank you very much um we can always be found at Live Your Best Marriage.com so it's l-i-v-e you are best marriage.com and there

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The United Front Quiz takes two to three minutes and they will be able to see where they really are when it comes to being united and they will get an answer on what they need to focus on to start continuing growing that united front because I will believe if you are not united most of the things we are teaching will not work because you are just two different people in one marriage who are not on the same page.

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and it should be in show notes if you find yourself in this situation or just want to know how you can be united as a couple to face outside pressure, you can click the links and explore. Sophie, thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for joining me on the show.

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Thank you very much, I really enjoyed and just keep doing what you're doing precious. You're doing a great job. Yeah thank you so much for that. And if you are out there listening especially if you are in marriage, don't feel or that's feeling the weight of the outside pressure I want you to hear this clip. When our side pressure rises, you don't have to fight each other. You can learn to face it as one.

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Maybe you've been caught between honoring your family and protecting your marriage or you've been feeling like your partner keeps choosing their family over you Or you've been fighting the same arguments over and over and you're exhausted This showed us today that you don't have to stay stuck in death pattern.

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It showed us that you can learn to set boundaries without dishonoring family and that you can build the United Front, and that you can face outside pressure together as one team. So I want to encourage you, have the conversation, name the issue and remember that you and your spouse are on the same side.

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So if this conversation resonates with you, you can please take a moment to click the links and connect to the pacer and also check out Live Your Best Marriage. So we've been listening to Empowered Conversations. I'm your host, Precious Dee and I'll see you in the next EthQ.