When Marriage Becomes “Us vs. The Problem”: Culture, In-Laws & Building a United Front

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Welcome to the Ufuoma Show, where we have honest conversations about business, life, ideas, and the experiences that shape us. Today, I'm joined by Pesa Shayo, an author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage. Pesa has a unique focus. Epic cross-cultural Christian couples build what is called a united front when they are dealing with in-law prejudice, diatic conflicts, and cultural differences.

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And I think this is such an important conversation because marriage isn't always just about two people. Sometimes you're bringing together two families, two cultures, two sets of traditions, and two very different ideas about what marriage should look like. True is books, podcasts, and marriage resources. Pesha and couples stop turning against each other when our side pressure shows up and instead learn how to face that pressure together as one team.

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Pesha, welcome to the Ufuoma show. It's great to have you here. Thank you very much, Ufuoma. I'm very happy to be here. You're welcome, Pesha. Take us back to the beginning. What led you to become so passionate about helping couples, particularly cross-cultural Christian couples? You know, thank you very much. In the beginning, originally I'm from Kenya and my wife is from the United States. And when we were dating and eventually getting married, we thought everything will work out because we loved each other. That was great until we started dealing with a lot

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of problems after we got married and one thing that really disturbed me is she would explain saying okay I think we have problems but I at that moment just would go and talk to my friends. And my friends from my country will just tell me over and over and over that she's not appreciating and how much you are working, providing for the family so she is ungrateful.

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And this is what I used to hear all the time, she's very ungrateful, you need to not listen to her. Eventually it got me that actually the problem was not her, the problem was me. I was so stuck in my way of doing things and I used to think everything is common sense.

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As long as you just use common sense, it will make sense. But actually come to find out that there were two common sense in my house because she would see things totally different and for me, it was like no, how can you miss something as easy as this?

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Not knowing I was just looking at things the way I was raised, not the way things were. So eventually I was able to slow down and start realizing that unless I start working with her, figuring out the best way to move forward we would be having these problems.

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Most of them who are looking back right now it was just the fact that we came from two different cultures We had two different meanings and because I was also translating everything from I listen in English and then I translate in my mother tongue. There were a lot of things which were lost in translation, and it just never came out right when I'm having a conversation.

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That's some of the problems we had. So sorry you had to go through that. Yes. Was there a particular experience that made you realize how much outside family and cultural appraisal What was your first marriage?

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same time, me and my whole side of the family, my whole I'm talking about my whole side of the family. We had a tradition that we need to name the kid after family, so after my grandmother. So at that time for her it was just naming up a kid, just naming your kid but for us It felt like we don't want our culture to disappear So we want this child to have our culture We want this child to have our name That brought a lot of problems because she could not understand what was the big deal

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For us, we were like no, this is our child This child needs to know where they came from Eventually we were able to find a compromise She picked the first name which is an English name and we picked the second name which is my grandmother's name When you say a couple needs to build a united front, What exactly does that mean?

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So what we mean is when we talk about United Front, we usually mean husband and wife need to face the problem together instead of making each other the problem. That does not mean that they never disagree or they always disagree. What it means is that they will have discussions in their marriage behind closed doors and make decisions behind closed doors where both of their voices matter.

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Husband voices matter, the wife's voices matter. And then when they have agreed, now that's when they will go and talk to their in-laws or even to something like talking to the kids. It's very important to be on the same page because we all know children are the first ones to know when mom and dad are not on the same page.

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They will even just say they know. As long as I talk to dad, he's gonna say no. But if I talk to mom she's going to say yes because mom and dad are not on the same page. The children can manipulate them all the time so imagine what about the in-laws and stuff like that it can just get really crazy if they are not on the same page. Absolutely. Yes. Why do you think couples sometimes I think it's easier because sometimes we are not aware what's happening. We just have a problem and we are trying to make a decision and because we don't want to pause and just understand what's happening, we want to make a decision.

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We quickly, because we don't know how to solve the problem, so we quickly look at the person who's next to us. because they are the ones who are next to us sometimes it's our children but sometimes most of times the spouse and we see them as their enemy But if we learn some of these things We learn even to remind ourselves that she is not an enemy She is a friend just even reminding yourself that It can help you pause Also, just before making big decisions pause, slow down. And also there is something we teach

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when it comes to making decisions and that will help you know what kind where this decision belongs because there are some decisions that you as a couple will solve so let's say we are trying to figure out where the kids gonna go to daycare, where they're going to live,

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which neighborhood you're going to live. Things like that. You as a couple should just make that decision together but there's some things like… We call them family decisions like if they're planning for a funeral, if you're planning for maybe taking care of a family, taking care of a parent. Those things will have different siblings coming together to make a decision, but even in those situations you as a couple can decide how much you will help. And then the third way is there are some decisions like for example, are we going to go for Christmas with our

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family? Those ones you make the decision and then you inform the family. Let's say you're moving What have you learned from working with couples that has surprised you the most?

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The thing that has surprised me the most is how couples forget the good times they used to have when they were dating. When you remind them, it's like hey can you remember those good times? Do you have any pictures of when you guys were dating? Can I see do you have those text messages and some of them will be like wow we had forgotten and when they show you the pictures, they are so happy. And the good thing is it's so crazy that life has gone on for so long They have forgotten how much they used to love each other. That I feel like is something that if we can

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remind couples to remember those good days, it can really make their life easy now. Absolutely! They need to have one mind. Yes. When do people from different cultures get married? What are some of the biggest cultural classes that tend to emerge? The first one I think is

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just the translation, especially if you're in another country and you are in a country where your culture is not the main culture. So you are having somebody whose culture is there, we call it a home team culture. It's like that's their home culture and then you are coming into their culture, into their world so that can be a very big problem because now Now you are supposed, without knowing to abide to a new culture, their culture, without even you appreciating what's going on.

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So we remind couples that in your home one culture should not be more important than the other so yes you might be living in their country and when you're outside the home you You might be dealing with their culture but when you're in your home, both of your cultures should be equal and we are trying to find how to move forward.

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So we end up creating a third culture which is our culture like for us we call it Tim Shayo and Tim Shayo is basically what we've created in our own home that will help us navigate these two cultures, so that to make it easier for our kids to have, like, to appreciate both cultures.

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So, for example, our kids speak my language and it happened because even my wife is okay when I was teaching them my language because that can be, for somebody else might be like, oh you're in our country, you need to speak our language, like they are English, only English but because I don't want You have to ask spouse that have the same understanding with you.

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Yes, yes. How can something as simple as traditions around family, money, parenting, or other days become major sources of conflict? Yes, something as simple. Let's talk about money. So, like usually in many cultures, like if you're from the same culture, when you're talking about money, most of the time it's just going to be about budgeting, okay? How much do we have and how much do you want to give?

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So it's basically very simple. So, it's basically very simple. Yes couples still fight but it's mostly about budgeting. But when you're bringing a different culture into the conversation, the conversation stops being just about budgeting when it comes to money. Maybe for me, if I don't send money home, it's seen as I'm not loyal to my side of the family,

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or I'm seen as I was supposed to do something, but now I'm going against what the expectations were in the beginning. So it started as money, now it's like, am I going to be seen as a bad son, or am I going to be seen as somebody who left and then they are not helping anymore?

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So, when you realize that because of two different cultures, there are other issues underneath the conversation. If it's about money, if it's about respect, respect for your elders In some cultures they don't care about respecting for elders But in some the idea that you're not going to respect your parents is seen as such a bad thing So things like that, the fact that you're dealing with two different cultures I feel like it makes it more complicated, not worse but just more complicated and you need to pay attention to those things

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Absolutely Where do in-laws fit into these? At what point does L.D. family involvement become an L.D. interference? Okay, so this is very important and if both cultures are what we call individualistic cultures like just they're thinking about individuals. Yes, in-laws are still a problem but not a big issue.

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But if you're coming from a place where one side of the family is what we call a collectivist family. And that means like they do things as a group, so if it's families like cousins, uncles, dads, moms, all these people, they do things as a group. That can be a big problem because not But not only do they do things together, they expect to give their opinion and they want their opinion to be listened.

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So this happens sometimes, these days it happens because people are not living in the same area, so it happens in groups. Like I talk about WhatsApp group because we hear a lot of stories about that, but it happens group and everybody in the group wants to give their opinion about your life. So it's always funny if it's about somebody else's life but when it's now you and you are having a spouse who will be saying hold on that's a decision we were supposed to make by ourselves like why would somebody who's not part of

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this family make decisions for me. So now it becomes a big problem. But at that time, the in-laws still think it's very important for them to make that decision. So we have like- You

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like making decisions where the kids will go to school things like naming the kids, where the kids will go to school where the kids will spend time during the holidays or maybe when you go and visit in-laws they take the kids and decide what to do with them for a few days They don't think it's a bad thing but they are saying okay they need to meet this aunt, they need to meet this uncle and I need to go visit all these other people.

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And at that time, if the spouse is not from that area, the spouse might be like, hold on, they are taking my kids away. But maybe that's how it's done over there. So I feel like sometimes if it's a collectivist culture, they are more likely to speak up and try to control…

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They might not think they're controlling That's what they are doing. Absolutely. Yes. How should a couple respond when one partner feels your family doesn't respect me? Why the other feels you're attacking my family? Yes, yes that is like um… That's very important because we've had this situation all the time where uh we've had couples who one person feels like, oh you know I don't speak their language so they don't want me. They don't respect me. They are always speaking behind my back. I go to and visit them, they're speaking their language and they're excluding me. They're laughing and I feel like they're talking about me

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While my husband or my wife is there and is participating in this and is not backing me up.

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So I feel like what the issue here is, number one, you can start from just looking at it from what if you are the one in that situation? What if you had gone to their side of the family, you don't speak their language, and they are there in the living room laughing, they might not be talking about you, but it can be very uncomfortable. They're having a great time for two, three hours. You're sitting there by yourself with your kids, and nobody's talking to you, and nobody is even trying to accommodate you.

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and then your spouse is there connecting with them and they are not even connecting with you so that sounds very rude but also sometimes just realizing that We call it transfer of loyalty. Where does your loyalty stand? Does it stay with your family of origin? Or is your loyalty with the new family that you are building?

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Now, some people say, hold on, blood is thicker than water. I will stick with my family that I'm related to with blood. and also remember what if this was happening to your mother because your mother came to that family and she is not related by blood. So, what if they were saying okay the way you are mistreating your wife is the same way your mother was mistreated? Most people will say no I don't want that.

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So putting that in that perspective can really help you transfer the loyalty from your family of origin and now to your new family so that you can actually start building this family that you are saying you want to build here. That's why you guys got married. You wanna create a family, and you want to thrive in this family. So you need to also have loyalty to it versus having all the loyalty to where you came from and then no loyalty in this new family that you're building. Absolutely. Yes. For couples who are already deep

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I always say the first step is friendship, having that friendship. I think we can complicate everything, we can go to therapy and I'm not saying you should not go to therapy. I'm just saying that at the end of the day, all these problems can be solved if you are friends with your spouse and this doesn't matter if you're from two different cultures or from the same culture If you're not friends, if you're not looking forward to seeing him or seeing her every evening You don't remember that friendship that you had before you got married

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It's gonna be really hard because somebody will feel like now they in prison They're living with somebody who's then their enemy and some of the things you can do to bring that friendship back Can be as simple as when they call you, you are just happy to answer their call And that's for both of you So because I've seen a lot when somebody is answering their phone and it's their spouse They have this angry face. Like, what do you need? They have this angry face. And that was not there when they were dating.

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When before they got married, that angry face was not there. I mean, you would look forward for that phone call. Another thing is even just when you are at home, put the phone down and look at each other and spend some time with the TV off just talking.

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And even if somebody's like, oh, no, I'm not talkative, but you talk to your friends, you talk to your family, your family of origin, you talk to people at work. So we say, oh, I'm not talkative to your spouse, but you are still able to talk to a lot of other people.

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So start developing that friendship in your marriage because that one will take you Father than all the therapy and counseling you can get out there

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mistake you see couples making over and over again that could be prevented with better communication. The first one is they forget that they are friends and second is just forgetting to pause before attacking somebody like before yelling at someone, just pause and think okay why am I doing this?

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Why am I so upset because she did not cook the food the way I was thinking? Why am I so upset because I walked in the house and the house is dirty? Why am I so upset? You see, you realize maybe she's overwhelmed. Maybe she's sick. There are a lot of reasons why things aren't going the way you're thinking on your way home.

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So pausing, slow it down and pausing. I think it's something that can really help a lot of couples. Just pause before you react. Absolutely, be slow to action. Yes, you're right. You're right. Slow to anger. What should someone do if their spouse doesn't recognize that your family is creating a problem?

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Also, that's a good one because if they are literally thinking that they don't believe that their family is causing problems, I think we have a problem. Maybe they are…that's a hard one and I think you can talk with them, you can help them see maybe you can have a Our friend talked to them and let them see that what you're seeing, maybe a pasta, somebody trusted who can help them appreciate what's going on.

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But eventually this goes back to where is their loyalty? They might just be thinking that their marriage they are creating here is not as important as their family of origin and that is a hard one to help because as long as they're just fighting to not transfer that loyalty, it's that's hard. True your books, podcasts and resources what is the biggest message you want couples to walk away with?

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I want couples to walk away with remembering that friendship comes before them being lovers and also friendship comes before the responsibilities that they are dealing with in their lives. Because if they have that friendship, they will be able to go through a lot of issues that other couples cannot make it through.

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And it doesn't matter what season they are going through, they can be young and freshly married to maybe when the kids are growing to the kids leaving the house to maybe one is sick as long as somebody still feels like she's my friend or he's my friend and I'm gonna go and help him or help her they can really overcome a lot.

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Absolutely. Yes. If you could speak directly to a couple who is currently divided because of family or cultural appraisal, what would you tell them? I'll tell them that to remember to put their loyalty in the family they have created. So two of them became one and created a family. Put energy there, have the United Front and that does not mean that you are not going to disagree. When we say United Front, we mean that you are facing each other so that you can go and deal with the problems not fight each other. So as long as you are deciding that hold on we are not gonna fight

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Let's find out the best way to fix this problem and you're saying that all the time when somebody starts yelling at each other You say, oh no no no, you are not my enemy let's figure out the best way to move forward here I'm not gonna fight at you I'm not gonna yell at you I'm not gonna call your names because you are not an enemy Let's find the best way to move forward and deal with the problem I am NOT your problem The problem is out there If we can remind each other that, sometimes we forget, we really have a good marriage

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Absolutely Yes What does living your best marriage actually mean to you? So, living your best marriage means each of you came together You decided that we could make this work I don't know where you met but everybody has their own story and I call it Your Best Marriage.

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And, it's always different for different people but at the root of everything is two people, yes they love each other but they are friends with each other They might be rich, they might be poor, they might be working at the market they might be working at the biggest building in the city, it doesn't matter, they still see something in each other and they want to make it work. So, it doesn't matter how rich you are, it doesn't matter how poor you are, it doesn't matter which language you speak we always believe you can live L-I-V-E, your best marriage

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because that is the one that you want and we are just here to encourage you, to help you remember that when you guys started, you had these great ideas. Let's make those ideas work. Absolutely. Yes.

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Pesa thank you so much for joining me on the Ufuoma show. I really appreciate the work you're doing because these conversations aren't always easy to have but they are incredibly important. Marriage can bring together different cultures, families, expectations and beliefs and learning how to stand together through those differences can make all the difference. Thank you once again Pesa.

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It has been a pleasure having you on the Ufuoma show. Thank you very much Ufuoma I am so happy to have this conversation with you and just the fact that you are willing to spend time and help our message get out to more people. You're welcome Pesa. Please welcome listeners, learn more about the work you do and also connect with you. Yes so the listeners can come to our website which is liveyourbestmarriage.com and there they will be able to find and find the United Front quiz. This is very important because the United Front quiz will help them find where they are having gaps of coming together as a couple and what they can do about it.

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This quiz takes 2-3 minutes and what I like about it is they will be able to find where the outside pressure might be weakening their teamwork and then what they can do about it Again, the website is liveyourbestmarriage.com L-I-V-E, yourbestmarriage.com Alright, for everyone listening, remember sometimes the biggest threat to a relationship isn't the disagreement between two people.

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It's forgetting that you're supposed to be on the same team. Thank you for listening to the Ufumasho. Until next time, keep having honest conversations, keep learning and keep building a life that matters.