5 Relationship Tips for Young Multicultural Couples Out There!
Finding the perfect soulmate for your life in this vast world can be an extremely difficult task and also an amazing gift, I am lucky and blessed to have found my true love at this young age (22), especially after traveling all the way from China to the other end of the world. We are determined to continue to maintain and develop our healthy relationship as a young multicultural couple (I am Chinese and my wife is Caucasian). Hence, I have gathered some of our experiences and hope to share them with all the young couples out there. Hopefully, these tips can be helpful in order for you to develop a healthier relationship with your loved ones.
These advice are primarily for young couples who are looking for essential marriage tips to follow, however, you don’t have to be a multicultural couple like us to learn from these tips.
1. Learn your other half’s culture
To start, if you do come from different cultural backgrounds like us, it’s extremely important to learn to respect each other’s culture.
You will definitely run into some cultural differences during your everyday life, we have encountered countless numbers of differences to overcome. Just to give you some simple examples, my wife needed to learn and practice proper Chinese table manners when she spent time with my family in China. She’s learned that there are actually a lot of etiquettes involved around the dinner table such as how to drink your tea and pour tea for others, and how to address and talk with family members at the table.
As for me, I definitely needed to learn how to appreciate Christmas more, as well as how to talk to her family during dinner while nobody is actually sitting down and just eating pizza on their paper plates.
We frequently have conversations regarding the history of China and many local Chinese cultures such as traditional Chinese folklores, metaphors, and old poems. These are the topics Americans don’t learn in schools, so it lies on both of your shoulders to both educate and learn from your significant other. Your other half’s culture is now your culture together, and it is important to learn it not only because you should respect all cultures in the world, but also their family will appreciate it and enjoy having you more.
Therefore, it is important to note that you are not merely doing it for yourself but to essentially show your love and your appreciation towards their family.
2. Learn to forgive
Couples fight, of course, we all fight, let’s not pretend we are all perfect.
But we need to get down to the main reason why you fight. Is it because you want to stay your ground on something? Or is it because whatever they say annoys you? No matter what it is, most of the time it’s probably because you are really just being stubborn, and not ready to either forgive or to apologize.
The thing is, most of the time when we argue, we want to be the one that is in control and wins the argument. But honestly, why is it so important to show who’s the boss in a relationship? The two of you are together because you love each other, so ultimately, the only winning situation is when both of you are on equal grounds. You can never truly win in any relationship because you merely win the argument itself.
Hence, just try to have an open mindset, and know that sometimes it is okay for you to compromise. It can be really hard to open your eyes to the other person’s perspective when you are so stuck in your own way of thinking. So try to step out of your own personal viewpoint and try to look at the problem from their perspective. Maybe eventually, you’ll just realize that it’s actually not a big deal at all.
Ultimately, what can really be more important than keeping your loved one happy?
3. Communicate, communicate!
This is probably the most significant part of any healthy relationship.
A relationship is built on communication and trust, so constantly remember and remind yourself to actually talk to the other person about any potential issues that might come up for you.
Maybe it’s simply some tiny little things they did wrong that annoys you, but you are too lazy to bring it up so you just keep telling yourself like:
“Well hey it’s not a big deal, they probably didn’t mean that, they’ll probably not do it again.”
And the next time, they do it again, because you never actually told them that was something that got to you. So this time your annoyance was doubled, and the longer you wait, the more it piles up, and then suddenly, some irrelevant occurrence would make you snap and all the anger you have built up would explode. Then they’ll be like:
“Whoa, why did you get mad all the sudden?” and that’s when your small problem becomes a huge one.
That’s why our biggest rule is that we tell each other every single little thing that comes up in our minds. So that she’ll know if anything she does annoys me, and she’ll fix it, and vice-versa. So we are essentially like two cactuses whose spines got gradually softened for each other and by each other. Eventually, we then become the perfect pair. That’s just the thing, nobody is born as a perfect pair, if you love someone, then you will evolve together and hence become the ideal partners in the end.
Being in a relationship involves sharing yourself, your perspectives, and your ideas with the other person, not keeping it all inside.
4. Don’t avoid conflicts, address them.
This is a huge thing for my wife because her primary coping mechanism is avoidance.
“I never want to face the conflicts, I just tend to shut myself down and hope the problems will somehow disappear.” — My wife.
But that’s not how you should deal with conflicts, especially conflicts in a marriage. This goes along with my advice about communication, if you don’t speak your mind and tell the other person how something is making you feel, you won’t be able to grow with each other. Going a long time without bringing back up a conflict will only foster anger and create a bigger problem. It is similar to allowing a snowball to roll down a hill, the longer it rolls, the larger it gets, and eventually, it will crush whatever is at the bottom of that hill.
What you should do is bring to light those small annoyances or issues that come up for both of you as you go. This way, you crush those snowballs back into the snow on the ground rather than letting them roll.
5. Always resolve your issues before the day ends.
Ultimately, you don’t want the sun to go down with your anger, whatever happens, today needs to be resolved today.
We are the couple that hates and makes fun of those movies that show scenes of couples having a fight and then two of them just lay in the bed, turn away from each other, and go to sleep. Whenever they show a scene like that, you know they are certainly getting a divorce later on in the movie.
It’s so important to fix and be done with any argument you started earlier that day before you head to bed. If you don’t, it will only keep you up all night because it’s on your mind, or you may even just end up arguing later that night, either way, it will hurt not only your health but also your relationship.
So we have made it a rule in our life to never end the day without talking about our issues and dealing with them.
Final Thoughts
Last but not least, remember that it’s an effort that both of you need to put in to maintain a healthy relationship, ultimately, nothing should be able to stand in the way of the love you share. We don’t believe in personal space because we purely enjoy living together and simply cannot live without each other.
So I won’t really give you that advice, I think as long as you keep your relationship balanced and mutual, and learn to compromise, to forgive, and to communicate, your relationship will only get stronger and healthier.
