INTERCULTURAL & BIPOC RELATIONSHIPS
Misunderstandings.
Partnerships are prone to misunderstandings, but when two people come from different worlds, it can often come up a lot more often. Having constant miscommunications and wishing your partner would finally understand you.
Different values. What initially drew you to this person, now seems to be an issue in the day to day of your relationship. You previously saw your partners’ different values as an exciting alternative perspective, but now it feels like you buttheads every time you need to make a life decision.
Family Stress. You have tried everything to express feelings about your in-laws or extended family, yet you feel unsupported by your partner in your effort to set boundaries. You feel stuck in the middle, trying to be there for your partner and your family.
Or your family does not support your relationship, and you often feel like it is you both against the world. This puts tension on your relationship, and expectations you are not sure you can meet.
Why does it have to be so hard?
Perhaps you are having past trauma triggers show up in your current relationship, and need a safer space to process some past events to help your partner better understand where you come from and why you are acting certain ways now.
Will they truly understand? Can they really get what it is like growing up…poor/black/religious..?
You are looking for a way to work through your miscommunications and reconnect on a new, more intimate level to help grow your relationship together.
What's at stake here is your love.
How you show it and how it is received is being lost or misunderstood in the miscommunications. If left to proceed as is, you might lose a great love, a person who truly brought light and beauty into your life. A person who challenged you to grow, but stayed step by step with you in the journey of life, exploring and growing together.
Could you find that again so easily? Is it not worth the work to try and save the love you have?
BUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP CAN CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
Identifying and acknowledging patterns of misunderstanding in your relationship, can be the first step towards change.
Reaching out for support to help your relationship, can help save you hundreds of fights and many hours of lost sleep and anxiety.
Working through issues in your relationship, actively, with the right tools in hand, can help you achieve the fulfilling, meaningful love you were seeking.
Many intercultural couples face issues related to miscommunication due to coming from two different cultural backgrounds, where roles, expectations, and values could have greatly differed.
Oftentimes, couples do not overtly discuss issues at the beginning of their relationship, and as their relationship grows and deepens and life happens, issues suddenly occur because of different mindsets on certain issues.
Couples under-communicate at times, assuming their partner knows certain things about them. This leads couples to feel disrespected or undervalued in their relationship, feeling they are not being seen or heard.
Managing these issues alone can be hard.
With the help of a therapist, you can change your couple dynamic to be more inline with how you want to be communicating with your partner.
Given the space to express yourself with a professional mediating and teaching you communication techniques, you will feel empowered to speak your feelings and feel your partner is finally understanding what you may have been saying hundreds of times before. The message will finally go through!
Therapy can create a safe space to talk overtly about cultural differences and values and how those play into your relationship.
Additionally, processing past traumas in your life and how those have shaped how you are in relationship with people now, can allow for more empathy and intimate growth in your relationship.
All of these things can happen, when you open yourselves up to attending therapy and working on your relationship.
After working on your relationship, you will finally feel you and your partner are on the same page again.
You will feel emotionally close once again and connected in a new way. The bond you share with one another will only grow, knowing you were both committed to working on your relationship.
And seeing the rewards from the work you both put in, will inspire you to continue being mindful of the way you engage with one another, long after therapy is over. Utilizing the tools you will learn to better communicate, you will feel reassured to tackle tough issues as they come, knowing you will feel successful in your communication.
You will once again appreciate your partner’s unique and special traits that attracted you in the beginning.
A mutual respect for each others differences can be fostered and help your relationship thrive!
Letting in a stranger into your personal relationship can be hard. It can trigger different emotions in people to let someone in and know what happens in your relationship. These feelings are all valid.
We recognize that you can’t just let “anyone” into the intimacy of your relationship.
At Grounded Connections Counseling, Inc., our BIPOC-identified therapists are here to support your relationship, by bringing in our own lived experiences and sharing many of our clients cultural and racial identities, allowing for greater understanding of your relationship needs.
Through reaching out, we can help you heal your relationship and get you back on track for growing your bond in a healthy, loving way!
Click below to schedule a consultation or call us now at 949.329.5233.