The more that I think of these “culture barriers” the less I understand them to be honest. I mean at the end of the day we are all humans and we share the same needs, desires and aspirations. Sure we have differing ways of thinking, but these aren’t particularly tied to culture but more about upbringing and personalities. Especially in this day and age where we’re exposed to all sorts of cultures, even if it’s just online, I think it’s difficult for a person to be of just one “pure” culture that’s incompatible with other cultures. I don’t consider myself as being defined by one culture. I’ve lived in so many different places and have friends from some many different cultural backgrounds/ ethnicities and each has left a mark on who I am. But that doesn’t make me incompatible with someone from a different cultural background, it makes me even closer to them. I can easily appreciate the music, food, history and dynamics of other cultures and feel confident that this variety enriches life. And I have seen people with less multicultural experience have very successful marriages and relationships with people from other cultures. It comes down to two people in a relationship committing to making things work. The biggest issue in my case was that the way I dress (a headscarf along with normal Western clothes) immediately associates in people’s minds with one culture. And for my guy it was more about that outside perspective, the “what would people think” than any cultural differences within our relationship. On a number of occasions when we would go out he would notice people looking at us and that made him uncomfortable. He could very possibly have been projecting his insecurities. I never felt that anyone was looking at us in an outraged way, if anything they probably thought we made a cute couple 🙂
So anyway, that was one thing and the other thing was the family issue. And that was the biggest issue.My family would never accept me marrying a non-Muslim. His family would never accept him marrying a Muslim. So instead of getting our thinking caps on and trying to figure out a solution to that, he wanted to save us the agony of fighting that battle. I feel like lots of guys who are in that situation lose the strength to stand up for the relationship and instead they break it off so that you can find someone with whom convincing family etc of the relationship wouldn’t be a battle. That’s not to say that they aren’t equally hurt by the situation, they very well may be. But in their minds they’ve rationalized it as the right thing to do.
I hope @Alf and other guys who come across this thread can share their thoughts on this. Am I on the right track with this conclusion?