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To Talk Instead of Argue, Be Curious Instead of Accusatory

<Understanding>

One of my good friends, Mark, met the love of his life in London. Mark is Malaysian, and Sarah is Scottish. They have very similar values in life, which serves as a wonderful foundation for their relationship, but as far as background and culture go, they are as different as can be. As you can imagine, miscommunication and misunderstandings are hard to avoid.

Although Mark has been living in the UK for more than a decade, he is still very Asian in his beliefs, preferences, and habits, while Sarah is very Western in hers. For example, Mark gave Sarah all sorts of advice from the moment they started seriously dating. He would say what he thought she should or shouldn’t do, as well as what was or wasn’t a good idea in his opinion.

“The advice thing was really hard to get my head around, especially at the beginning!” Sarah told me when I asked her about it. “In my culture, as well as in my family, as an adult, people don’t give unsolicited advice unless you’re about to make some sort of very serious mistake that will cause huge problems!”

Sarah couldn’t figure it out at first. Was Mark offering advice because he was pushy? Was it because he felt she wasn’t capable enough to think for herself?

Meanwhile, Mark couldn’t figure out why Sarah would get so defensive or upset every time he tried to offer advice. He felt like she didn’t appreciate his efforts and support. It wasn’t until many heated conversations later that they each finally started to understand where the other was coming from.

“For Mark, he was giving advice to show that he cared, loved me, and wanted to help me find the best possible solution or conclusion. What I was hearing when he gave me advice was the implication that I was about to make such a big mistake that he had to intervene,” Sarah explained.

In the Asian culture, there is a tendency for family to poke their noses into each other’s affairs, and people generally perceive it as a reflection of love and caring. You’d always hear aunties saying, “Eat this, it’s good for you! You’re too skinny, you should eat more!” or “You’re getting fat, cut down!” In a Western context, this can be seen as disrespect or distrust.

Now that he’s aware of this, Mark consciously tries to offer less advice, because he really does trust and respect Sarah’s judgement. “But when he does say something,” she tells me, “I try to take it in the spirit that it is intended and not be defensive.”

Mark shared his thoughts too. “Just putting it out there—some people are generally just more comfortable with receiving advice than others. So I’m not sure if it’s purely a cultural difference or perhaps just a personal preference.”

That’s a good point. Race and culture aside, Mark and Sarah also had family conditioning that led to different expectations of what it means to convey love. Sarah’s family, and her dad in particular, had encouraged her to think for herself. They were always there to help when she needed it, but she grew up feeling that her parents trusted her capabilities and skills to figure out how to solve her own problems.

Mark has been giving advice to his brothers for as long as he can remember, and it was always welcomed and appreciated. He felt his brothers trusted him when he gave advice.

When you factor in the intricacies of family culture, they both had very many different expectations of what trust, support, and love mean.

According to Sarah, this was just one of the many things they had to adjust to in their relationship. They candidly shared, “It will probably always be something that we have to work at. But being able to talk about it and understand that things sometimes don’t translate the way we expect them to has been really helpful.”

Mark and Sarah’s very obvious cultural differences may easily lead to misunderstandings, but it can also lead to easier understanding. Because they look so different, they are constantly reminded that they are indeed very different people who have to work hard at understanding each other. Their differences are so obvious that it’s also more obvious that they need to communicate when upset, instead of just continuing to feel hurt, frustrated, or resentful. When one person does something and it upsets the other, they don’t automatically assume that it’s because he or she doesn’t care.

So in a way, it helps their communication because they are more mindful about trying not to take things personally, and most of all, being curious instead accusatory. The perspective is different, and therefore, so is their approach to communication. There are fewer expectations and judgements and less resentment, and more effort toward seeking to understand.

What about when we are dating someone from a very similar background, culture, and race? When someone looks and seems very similar to us on the surface, it is very easy to forget that the person is a completely different individual, with a completely different “normal” than ourselves. However, when we fall in love with someone, it is almost instinctive to expect our partner to embody the very same principles, beliefs, and standards that we assume are common sense. This is why when our partner does something that we think is not acceptable, we become really upset, because we genuinely expect them to know better.

However, based on our conditioning, we all define responsibility, ambition, kindness, generosity, consideration, respect, manners, and security in a certain manner and from a certain perspective. Just like Mark and Sarah’s differing family cultures, every person we come across also has their own thoughts, beliefs, preferences, and habits that have been influenced and shaped by their experiences growing up.

So when we are hurt by our partner, what really helps us is to remember that even though it feels personal, we don’t have to take it personally. This puts us in a better frame of mind to communicate, ask questions, and listen so that we can truly understand where our partner is coming from instead of measuring them against our own benchmarks of trust, support, and love.