Intercultural Marriage Counseling

    In my counseling practice, I work with intercultural couples (particularly Filipinas married to foreigners here in the Philippines).  Foundationally, we want to understand the couples’ cultural differences by clarifying the values of each culture and their impact in the budding intimate relationship.  The first thing we do in counseling is “Getting to know ‘me’ as a Filipina or a foreigner:  my values, my hopes and my dreams, as well as, my fears.”   I do psychoeducation on how differing values and cultural patterns will clash.  Then we work together to explore ways to proactively face them.  By understanding both cultures, the couple becomes aware and equipped to develop their own family culture, unique to their relationship.  This also provides the couple a framework to set limits and boundaries especially in dealing with cultural obligations and cultural values that cause them to see each other as rivals.   Secondly, I teach the couple how to bond and create an environment where feelings of falling in-love can be nourished and grow.  Thirdly, I teach Emotionally Healthy Skills (developed by my mentors Pete and Geri Scazzero) that will help make them feel listened to and loved.  We go over how to confide both positive and negative emotions; how to have a fair fight for change; and how to make a complaint and ask for what one needs.  These skills provide a point of reference when they are caught in the middle of these clashing and seemingly irreconcilable cultural differences.  They can use Emotionally Healthy Skills in order to lovingly communicate their struggles without hurting each other deeply from collateral damage.

    Pfeil (2010) in her book, Counseling Intercultural Couples, highlights cultural values that cause gaps in intercultural marriage.  For instance, the Filipino cultural value of” Utang na Loob” (debt of gratitude) has very good aspects, but it brings a heavy load to children who are expected to provide for their parents and help their parents to raise the younger siblings as soon as they have income.   Pfeil (2006) stressed that the Filipino family system is bilateral with closely knit family ties, generational hierarchy, and respect for seniority.  Children owe their parents a debt of gratitude for giving them life and raising them.  Younger siblings owe their older siblings for having cared for them.  The failure to fulfil this obligation causes bitterness and broken trust.  The younger one who owes the debt will be incapable of expressing love and respect to parents and elder siblings if they ignore this debt of gratitude and the relationships will fracture.  This Filipino cultural value of financially supporting the Filipino family of origin is a big issue of marital conflict in a Filipino marriage and even more so if the Filipina is married to a Westerner who does not share that cultural value.

Here are some of the intercultural issues that I discuss in counselling Intercultural Couples:

• Punctuality
• Child rearing
• Organizational patterns
• Communication patterns
• Staple food preferences
• Personal Health Habits
• Ideas of loyalty
• Ways to ask and extend forgiveness
• Financial stability vs. Obligation to sharing financial resources to the extended family.
• Straightforwardness vs. Smooth Interpersonal Relationships (where it is ok to lie or make a cover-up story for the sake of saving someone from shame)
• The values of personal reward/enjoying the fruit of my labor vs.  The value of self-sacrifice for the sake of other’s happiness and well-being.
• Inner oriented vs. Other oriented (where I care so much about what people think or say, that most of what I do is motivated to do exactly what others expect of me or to prevent them from saying bad things about me)
• Personal responsibility vs. Group responsibility
• Respect as earned vs. Respect as ascribed (based on status)
• Group culture vs. Individualistic culture
• Nutritious diet vs. Cultural diet 

    The rising phenomenon of divorce is very alarming both in Christian and Non-Christian marriages.  The strength of society depends on the stability and emotional health of families.  A couple’s marital relationship deeply influences the couple’s emotional health and intimacy, as well as the self-esteem of their children.  When couples are in conflict, the children usually suffer as they are caught in the middle of warring parents.  When couples are unable to communicate about small annoyances, the frustration is usually repressed and eventually causes destructive emotional explosions or deep resentment expressed in passive aggressive tendencies.  The passive aggressive partner distances him or herself to avoid the struggles and pain of the relationship.  This will eventually lead to a loss of bonding in the relationship, which raises the risk of the partner seeking solace in an extramarital affair. 

    People do not get married hoping to divorce someday.  But when two people come together there is a great potential for conflict.  Conflict resolution and skillful communication are necessary in order to safely navigate these difficulties common to relationship.  Being married is one of the most difficult relationships, but it is also the most significant relationship where one can experience the deepest joy of what it means to be truly loved, cherished, and desired.  The marital vow provides boundaries and limits that protect the loving relationship, but often these boundaries are misunderstood and violated. 

    There are whole slew of marital issues that are common in both same-culture marriage and intercultural marriage.   Many divorced couples separated due to incompatibility.  That’s why instruments like PREPARE have been created to detect the differences between the prospective marriage partners in areas such as personality and personal values on finances, children, sex, and religious orientation (David Olson et al. 2000).  According to Gottman (1995) though compatibility is a significant issue in staying married, the most important thing is how the couple works out their differences.

Help Offered at Harner Marriage and Family Counseling Center:

Couples Counselling Intervention Program for engaged couples

For Pre-marital couples, I have designed a 10-session Counseling curriculum with specific inventories to identify major cultural value differences for discussion.   Even couples of the same culture find this enlightening and very helpful in preparation for their marriage. 

Couples Counselling Intervention Program for married couples

For Filipino, Chinese and intercultural couples I have developed a 10-session culturally relevant Couple’s Counselling Program.  This program has been particularly effective for a Filipina married to a foreigner here in the Philippines.  During the counselling, the couples develop their own goals and together we work toward achieving those goals.   The counselling sessions provide a place for the couple to look at the factors affecting their relationship:  hidden expectations, differing visions for their marriage, creating boundaries, unlearning bad relational habits, learning emotionally healthy skills and appropriate language for communication in intimate relationships.  In the end, the goal is to establish a new norm for the couple that will enhance intimacy and maintain strong attachment.  After the 10^th session the couples decide where they will continue the counselling or stop and evaluate the impact of session after few months.