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Important aspects in which cross-cultural couples are likely to differ — at least to some extent — are their socio-cultural practices, rituals, and what they consider polite or appropriate behaviour. Even in Western countries, where customs and rituals may not be quite as important as in more traditional cultures, many habits are culturally rooted. Instances of such traditions may be the British pub culture, or the Swiss Sunday brunch, which is practiced by many families in Switzerland. Gonçalves (2013: ch 7) mentions a number of socio-cultural practices which the Swiss-Anglophone couples in her study consider to be Swiss, such as not wasting food, eating (high quality) bread, cooking proper meals, or using public transport. Moreover, there are a number of everyday rituals or social customs that are considered very important in Switzerland, such as waiting for everyone to sit down at the table and saying en Guete (‘enjoy your meal’) before starting to eat, or proposing a toast (repeatedly) before consuming alcohol. In contrast, Americans tend to be more accustomed to hugging each other, or celebrating Thanksgiving, while English people may find it important to queue properly. Not complying with such cultural practices may be considered rude. Thus, people from different cultures tend to have different ideas of what appropriate behaviour or polite manners are, and they may also have different ways of expressing politeness verbally.

Another area of conflict may be the stereotypical ideas partners have about each other’s culture, and expectations resulting therefrom (Rosenblatt 2009: 7). Stereotypes and expectations are likely to change if there is extended contact between cultures, but such contact “does not necessarily lead to a better understanding. On the contrary, it may reinforce mistaken judgments of the other’s intentions, and increase expectations that the other will behave a certain way” (Tannen 1981: 225). Of course, this can be true for monocultural couples as well, but such mistaken expectations may be more marked when there are larger differences between the partners, and when cultural stereotypes are involved. This becomes evident in Piller’s work on bilingual, cross-cultural couples, where national stereotypes often created conflicts between the partners (see section 3.3.2, “Bilingual couples”). She remarks that, in her research, “[t]he majority of instances of conflict between the partners occur when one partner ‘gets carried away’ with their chance to produce a list of stereotypes about their partner’s national identityidentitynational” (2002a: 210). This may be one of the reasons why numerous participants in her study claimed to be exceptions to their traditional national stereotypes (2002a: 211). Overall, however, it can be expected that preconceived notions of national characteristics are more complex and more differentiated among closely related cultures than among more distant ones, as the former tend to be in closer contact.