Edith Otavero writes about the pitfalls and promises of intercultural marriage from a unique perspective, as a Nigerian woman married to a Spaniard and raising their son in Barcelona. Here she unpacks what nobody tells you before the wedding, the small daily negotiations over tone, money, food and parenting that quietly shape a cross-cultural relationship long after the celebrations end.

When people talk about intercultural relationships, they often focus on the visible differences: the wedding traditions, the food, the languages, the music and the excitement of bringing two worlds together.

Those differences are real, but they are not usually the most difficult ones.

The deeper adjustments often begin after the wedding, inside ordinary life. They appear in conversations, family responsibilities, money, food, parenting and the different meanings two people attach to the same behaviour.

I am a Nigerian woman married to a Spanish man, and we are raising our family in Barcelona. Our marriage has taught me that loving someone from another culture is not only about accepting the obvious parts of their background. It is also about learning to recognise the invisible rules that shaped them, and helping them understand the ones that shaped you.

Sometimes, what looks like a personality problem is actually a cultural translation problem.

When the same tone carries two different meanings

One day, my husband and I were having a normal discussion, and I raised my voice slightly.

I was not angry. To me, it was the familiar energy of an animated Nigerian discussion. I was engaged in the conversation, expressing myself freely and making my point.

My husband experienced it differently.

He became quiet and later told me that my tone had felt aggressive. I was genuinely surprised because hurting or intimidating him had never been my intention. In my mind, we had simply been talking with energy.

That moment showed us that we were not only hearing each other’s words. We were interpreting those words through two different sets of experiences.

For me, a raised voice does not always mean anger. It can mean interest, emphasis, humour or playful debate. For him, that change in tone could signal conflict.

Neither interpretation made either of us a bad person. But if we had treated the incident only as “you are too aggressive” or “you are too sensitive,” we might have turned a cultural misunderstanding into a criticism of each other’s character.

Instead, we had to unpack what had happened.

I needed to explain: this is how I learned to express myself, and I need you to understand the heart behind it. At the same time, I had to recognise that intention does not automatically cancel impact. I could learn to soften my delivery in certain moments without believing that my natural way of communicating was something shameful.

He could also learn to pause before assuming that my energy meant I was angry with him.

We are still learning. I do not think intercultural understanding is something a couple completes once and never has to revisit. The important change is that we can now recognise some of these moments for what they are: two cultural meanings meeting inside one conversation.

Leigh Matthews, psychologist and founder of Therapy in Barcelona, explains why apparently minor misunderstandings can become recurring sources of tension:

“A small misunderstanding rarely stays small. Underneath it sits an unspoken rule about how things ‘should’ be done, and each partner learned a different one growing up. One person raises their voice because that’s how their family showed passion. The other goes quiet because raised voices meant danger. Neither is wrong, but neither feels understood either. Left unexamined, the same small friction resurfaces again and again, because the couple keeps treating it as a one-off disagreement rather than two different cultural scripts colliding. Over time it stops being about the dishes or the in-laws and becomes about feeling unseen by the person who’s supposed to know you best.”

The argument may appear to be about tone, dishes, lateness or a family visit. But underneath it can be a deeper question: Do you understand me, and is there room for the person I was before we met?

Family responsibility does not mean the same thing everywhere

Money and family responsibility have revealed another cultural difference in our marriage.

As the first daughter in my Nigerian family, I grew up with a strong sense of responsibility towards my relatives. After moving abroad, those expectations did not disappear. In some ways, they became stronger.

When a family member needs financial help, I usually tell my husband. He has always been supportive, but the meaning behind that support was not immediately familiar to him.

In his understanding, when one adult gives another person money, it may resemble a loan. There is often a particular purpose, an account of how it will be used and some expectation that it may eventually be returned.

In my experience, family support usually works differently. When I send money, I normally understand that the money is gone. It is not a formal loan, and I am not waiting for it to return to my account. I am helping because I feel a responsibility to help.

At first, this was strange for my husband. He could not easily understand why the needs were recurring or why so many people could look towards one person for support.

Those questions have not completely disappeared. He may still wonder why the requests are so consistent, and that is understandable. The responsibility does not sit inside him in the same way it sits inside me.

But over time, something changed.

After listening to me and understanding more about where the responsibility came from, he did not merely tolerate it. Sometimes, when my mother needs help and I say, “But I sent money recently,” he is the one who encourages me to send something. He has even offered to provide the money when I do not have enough myself.

That does not mean we now interpret the entire situation in exactly the same way. It means he has made space for something that matters deeply to me.

He may never feel this family responsibility exactly as I do, but he understands that marrying me also meant making room for the ties and obligations that shaped me. We do not need identical interpretations before we can decide how to handle those responsibilities together.

At the same time, cultural understanding should not mean that a couple can never discuss limits. Supporting family can affect a household’s finances, emotional wellbeing and future plans. Understanding where the responsibility comes from allows the conversation to begin with empathy, but couples may still need to agree on what they can realistically give and how they will make those decisions.

The goal is not for one person to surrender silently. It is to create a shared approach that respects both the extended family and the needs of the home the couple is building together.

The ordinary habits that suddenly need explaining

Not every cultural negotiation is as serious as money or communication. Some appear in very ordinary habits.

It might be what I eat, how I eat it or the time I want to eat it. It might be a household practice that feels completely natural to me but unfamiliar to my husband.

Sometimes, I quietly do things in my own way, not as an act of rebellion, but because they feel like home.

Living abroad can make small habits carry an unexpected emotional weight. A particular meal or familiar routine may be one of the few places where you do not have to translate yourself. It allows you to reconnect with the person you were before relocation required so much adaptation.

This can be difficult to explain to a partner who sees only the behaviour and not the history inside it.

In an intercultural marriage, curiosity becomes important precisely because not every unfamiliar action is a rejection of the shared home. Sometimes, it is simply one partner trying to preserve a piece of themselves within it.

The question becomes less about “Why do you insist on doing it that way?” and more about “What does doing it that way mean to you?”

That small change in language can produce a very different conversation.

Motherhood added another cultural layer

Becoming a mother made me think about culture differently.

Before having our son, Jaume, many differences could remain between my husband and me. We could explain them, laugh about them, negotiate them or simply allow each other to have separate preferences.

Parenthood introduced a new question: what will we pass on?

We are raising our child in Spain, but I do not want his Nigerian identity to disappear simply because it is not the culture surrounding him every day.

I want him to understand the importance I place on respect for elders, family connection and knowing where he comes from. I want him to recognise the Nigerian part of his story as something living and meaningful, not just a fact about his mother.

At the same time, I do not want culture to become a burden placed on him. I do not want to force traditions without explaining their meaning or make him feel that he must choose between two sides of himself.

This is one of the quiet responsibilities of raising a child between cultures. Parents are not merely combining celebrations or teaching different foods. They are deciding which values to carry forward, how to explain them and how to make room for the child to form an identity of their own.

My husband and I will not always attach the same importance to every tradition. That does not mean one of us cares less about our child. It means we are looking at parenting through the histories that formed us.

These conversations work better when we move beyond “This is how it should be done” and explain what a practice represents to us.

When I speak about respect for elders, for example, I am not only proposing a rule. I am speaking from a wider understanding of family, belonging and the way generations relate to one another. My husband may bring his own understanding of encouraging independence or allowing a child to speak freely.

Our task is not to decide that one value must defeat the other. It is to ask how both can exist in the family we are creating.

The invisible work of translating yourself

One of the most exhausting parts of living across cultures is repeatedly explaining things that once required no explanation.

You explain why a particular comment sounds disrespectful to you. You explain why a family request feels like a responsibility rather than an option. You explain why a familiar meal matters, why you reacted strongly or why a tradition you rarely discussed before moving abroad suddenly feels important.

This is a form of emotional work that is easy to overlook.

The partner doing the explaining may begin to feel that they are constantly defending their culture. The other partner may feel that there are rules they are expected to understand without ever having been taught them.

This is where curiosity becomes more useful than assumption.

Leigh suggests separating what happened from the interpretation placed on it:

“Instead of ‘you always interrupt me, you don’t respect what I say,’ try ‘I noticed you interrupted me there, and it left me feeling unheard. Can you help me understand what was happening for you?’ This keeps the door open for a cultural explanation rather than a character attack. Curiosity beats accusation every time. Ask what a behaviour meant where your partner grew up before deciding what it means about your relationship now.”

This approach does not excuse genuinely hurtful behaviour. Culture should not be used to dismiss someone’s feelings or avoid responsibility. But curiosity gives each person an opportunity to explain before being judged.

Expert contributor

Leigh Matthews is an Australian psychologist with over 20 years of experience and the founder of Therapy in Barcelona, a group practice supporting the English-speaking international community across Spain and Europe, in person and online. Based in Barcelona since 2011, Leigh and her team specialise in helping expats navigate the particular pressures of building a life, and a relationship, far from home.

What has helped us make room for two different ‘normals’

Our marriage is still a work in progress, but several things have helped us navigate these differences more thoughtfully.

Naming the cultural layer

Not every disagreement is cultural, but sometimes it helps to ask whether different assumptions are influencing the situation.

This interrupts the temptation to turn a behaviour immediately into a personality flaw.

Instead of “You do not care,” the question might become, “What did caring look like in your family?” Instead of “Your family asks for too much,” it might become, “What responsibility towards family did you grow up believing was normal?”

Explaining the meaning, not only the behaviour

Saying “This is my culture” can close a conversation if it sounds like a final answer.

It is more helpful to explain what the practice means emotionally. Why does sending money matter? Why does a certain tone feel normal? Why is a particular parenting value important?

Meaning makes understanding possible, even when agreement is incomplete.

Creating shared agreements

Understanding each other’s background does not remove the need for practical decisions.

A couple may still need to decide how financial support will work, how conflict will be handled, which traditions they will maintain and how they will raise their children.

The difference is that these agreements are created with awareness rather than imposed through assumptions.

Learning to repair

No amount of cultural knowledge prevents every misunderstanding.

Sometimes one person will still feel hurt. Sometimes an explanation will come too late. What matters then is the ability to return to the conversation, acknowledge the impact and try again.

Repair tells your partner: this relationship is more important to me than proving my interpretation was the only correct one.

Knowing when outside support may help

Some couples can work through cultural misunderstandings with time, honesty and patience. Others may find themselves repeating the same conflict without reaching the issue beneath it. Professional support can be useful when conversations consistently become hostile or shut down, when one partner feels pressured to erase part of their identity, when family or financial expectations are creating ongoing resentment, or when both people want to understand each other but no longer know how to communicate safely.

Seeking support is not an admission that an intercultural relationship has failed. Sometimes it is a way of learning a shared language when love alone has not provided all the tools.

Marriage is not the erasure of difference

Intercultural marriage has not taught me that differences eventually disappear.

It has taught me that understanding can grow around them.

My husband and I do not need to become culturally identical for our marriage to work. He does not have to experience family responsibility exactly as I do, and I do not have to abandon the natural energy with which I sometimes express myself.

But we both have to remain willing to look beneath a behaviour before deciding what it says about the other person.

The small negotiations nobody sees are not signs that the relationship is broken. They are often the real work of building a life together: deciding which traditions to preserve, which habits to adjust, which assumptions to question and what kind of family you want to become.

Two different “normals” can coexist.

Not because love automatically solves every cultural difference, but because two people can learn to listen deeply enough to understand what lies beneath them.