Familia kirjasto

Intercultural relationship change from partnership to parenthood 2/2

5/4/2018

How to improve and protect against a decline in relationship satisfaction

So to increase relationship satisfaction in couples and to help reduce relationship break down we need to foster skills such as (3);

Conflict communication
Marital interaction
Spousal support
Relationship maintenance
Emotional regulation skills

These skills are what can improve communication within the relationship to create greater chances of a more satisfying relationship for yourself, your partner, and your child’s development.

So how can you practically try to improve your multicultural relationship skills? Well here are a few ideas to start with;

Emotional regulation skills
Self-regulation is like a muscle and it needs to be exercised if you want to improve it. Meditation is a great way to do this and can increase your self-regulatory strength and has many other benefit. Below are a few links to free meditation websites with guides.

Conflict communication skills
Sometimes one of the biggest problems to communication is when you have an elevated emotional response. As soon as one person in the discussion has raised their voice, it is likely that false judgements and assumptions have been made. When you next feel misunderstood in an argument, or if you are discussing a subject that you know you both argue about, try the following and hopefully it will improve your listening and empathising skills within your relationship.

The first person states what they want to say
The second person repeats their understanding of what the first person said
The first person then states if that is a clear representation of what they mean and they are satisfied that the person understands them, if they are not then you go back to step one, if it is then the next person starts at step one.

This process quickly dissipates any emotional arousal and creates improved communication, greater acceptance and less defensiveness and helps empathetic understanding of each other (8).

Relationship Maintenance skills
Relationships can take an incredible amount of work to maintain, and that work is heavily dependant on communication. Research has identified 5 positive behaviours, that are associated with an increase in relationship satisfaction, and 6 negative behaviours that you should try to reduce, that are related to a reduction in relationship satisfaction (9)

Positive Skills

Assurances, implicitly or explicitly reassuring the partner about the future of the relationship, expressions of love and commitment
Openness, direct discussions about one’s own feelings and about the relationship,
Positivity, making interactions cheerful and pleasant
Social networks is spending time with and gathering support from shared friends, relying on the support and love of family and friends
Shared tasks, performing tasks the partners jointly face and sharing equal responsibility within the relationship (10)

Negative skills

Jealousy induction, behaviours that create jealousy such as flirting with others to make your partner jealous.
Avoidance, avoiding being physically being around or to avoid talking about difficult subjects within your relationship
Spying on your partner
Infidelity and flirting with someone who is not your partner
Destructive conflict, thing such as starting arguments with your partner and trying to control your partner’s behaviour.
Allowing control, thing such as dropping responsibilities and enjoyed activities because of your partner (11)

Tips
Learn each other’s languages, this can create a greater understanding, empathy and improve deeper communication between you both by discovering hidden meanings of words in the others language. This leads to a deeper understanding of your partner. As a by-product this can also help you to understand your partner’s culture and help with the integration process if you have move to your partner’s country.

Tips for native partner

If your partner has moved to your native country try to remember to be understanding and supportive, as discussed above there are a lot of extra stresses that you may or may not be aware of in moving to a new country. These extra stresses added to normal life stresses can elevate the risks of mental health problems with the non-native partner. Your partner could need your support in almost all parts of their lives at the beginning due to the complications of language and culture. Even in simple areas such as buying food or arranging a dentist appointment, this can be very debilitating for your partner to have to wholly rely on you.

Being open and asking questions, asking questions builds an awareness and an acceptance of the differences and similarities that that you face as a partnership and as a family. For example you will need to build a third culture together by finding out what things are important to your partner from their culture that you could both incorporate into your creation of your third culture. The value of this is to respect what is important to them and yourself to create understanding and acceptance of one another’s culture.

If supporting your partner feels like it might become too much, before it does seek further support. There are peer support groups available at Familia for both native and foreign partners that provide additional support or if you prefer you can contact a therapist or couples therapist to help further.

There many ways to improve relationships and you need to find one that works for you as individuals and as a family. Relationships and families can be hard work sometimes, and I think there is a need to recognise this and take a moment to think about it. Without work relationships might dwindle and fracture, but if you’re willing to create a cherished relationship they can be the most rewarding aspect of life. The loving relationship that surround you will reward you with happiness and life longevity.

(Timothy Hudd BA)
The author is a BACP registered Counsellor and psychotherapist in the UK, living and practicing in Helsinki, and married to a Finn himself.

References

3. Romano D. Intercultural marriage: Promises and pitfalls. 2008.
8. Rogers CR, Roethlisberger FJ. Barriers and Gateways to Communication. 1991;
9. Doing the Work of Relationships: A Maintenance Approach | Psychology Today [Internet]. july 19th. 2014 [cited 2018 Jan 11]. Available from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adventures-in-dating/201407/doing-the-work-relationships-maintenance-approach
10. Stafford L, Dainton M, Haas S. Measuring routine and strategic relational maintenance: Scale revision, sex versus gender roles, and the prediction of relational characteristics. Commun Monogr. 2000 Sep;67(3):306–23.
11. Dainton M, Gross J. The Use of Negative Behaviors to Maintain Relationships. Commun Res Reports. 2008 Aug 18;25(3):179–91.

Intercultural relationship change from partnership to parenthood part 1/2

6/2/2018

Having a baby for many couples brings about joyous nourishment for all involved and is said to be more work and more rewarding than you can ever imagine. This new change can also create a significant decrease in satisfaction within the relationship. This article series is based on the relationship changes during this life transition, the effects on the communication within the relationship and the possible ways to improve these skills for the betterment of the relationship and the baby’s psychological and emotional development.

During this transition from partnership to parenthood, the focus of the relationship is switched from the self and partner to the new born baby. Half of all new parents report a decrease in their relationship satisfaction. This disconnect has been historically explained through the ‘rose tinted’ view of child bearing perpetuated by society and the actual reality of work load associated with parenthood. This transition creates a dramatic reorganisation of the relationship dynamics and the needs within them (1).

After the child is born the new parents patterns of intimacy and communication change, sexual satisfaction tends to decline, and new parents report an increase in conflict and disagreement. This might lead to a reliable decrease in relationship satisfaction and seems consistent across western cultures and is therefore likely to affect intercultural couples in Finland. The importance and impact of this decrease in relationship satisfaction upon the baby’s development can be seen in the link to depression, attentional and emotional related problems, withdrawal, poor social competence, low self-esteem and conduct related disorders later in life. The environment that is provided by the parents is shaping the way in which the baby’s brain is developing and can inhibit the emotional and intellectual development of the baby. If the parents are experiencing a reduction in their relationship satisfaction then they are likely unable to provide a healthy emotional environment for the baby’s development (1,2). Furthermore, women in the partnership tend to experience a larger change in their relationship satisfaction than men. This can be partially explained by the stereotypes of labour distribution for gender roles within the home, as the mothers are more likely to have disproportional demands on their time over the fathers (1).

This major life change of parenthood, forces the re-examination of the prior arrangements within the relationship and changes the perceptions of imbalances and injustices. The problems that existed in the relationship before parenthood become exacerbated with the additional dynamic of a baby. This new dynamic creates issues common to both mono and intercultural couples alike for example;

disruption to sleeping patterns
reduced quality one to one time and agreement on how that time is spent
reduced physical and emotional intimacy
conflict and arguments, like the division of labour within parenthood
a reduction in relationship satisfaction
a realisation of expectations verses reality
the time that partners spend together and how it is spent

Intercultural couples additionally suffer from stresses related to their change of circumstances, for example;

A reduced social support network, as the foreign partners have likely moved away from their family, friends and familiar networks.
A lack of acceptance and support in the host country, due to discrimination, migration, unemployment and integrational issues.
The stresses of developing a third culture, this is the way that couples combine their cultures and traditions to create a third culture for their child and themselves to celebrate (3).
The stresses of differences in cultural communication styles, this is the differences in the implicit values of meaning of what is being communicated within the relationship and difference in the cultural understanding of the concepts being communicated, e.g. such as implied difference in gender roles within a culture (4).
The stress of cultural bereavement, this is where the foreign partner has to deal with the loss of his or her own culture through the loss of social structure (friends and family), cultural values (traditions and values) and self-identity (sense of belonging). This can create feelings of grief and loss, cultural confusion, feelings of alienation, isolation and depression (5).
Culture shock, where the foreign partners go through a process of acclimatisation and integration to the new culture e.g. learning a new language and creating a new social network and this can create feelings of cultural confusion, alienation, isolation and depression (5)
Cross cultural communication, the difficulties in the language of communication that is used within the relationship and the difference in the understandings of that language. This can lead to frequent misunderstandings and lack of depth of connection within the relationship.

These additional stresses, and many more within intercultural relationships are clearly reflected within the per year divorce rates in Finland, being three times higher for intercultural couples than mono-cultural couples (6).

Keys to success

As we now know this worrying statistic, it is important to keep in mind what factors create success in relationships. The key differences that predict a stable or an improvement in relationship satisfaction are for example (Romano, 2008);

Commitment to the relationship
The ability to communicate
Being sensitivity to each other’s needs
A liking for the others culture
Flexibility
A positive self-image
Love as the main marital motive
Common goals
Spirit of adventure

During the transition to parenthood any relational problems that are present in the relationship or individual psychologies before the birth of the child can grow to become more of a problem. This can be explained by the couple’s self-regulatory strength depletion. Self-regulatory strength can be understood as the ability for a person to repress, change or regulate their own behaviour. Self-regulatory strength can be temporally weakened by recent exertion and stresses common to new parents such as time pressure, noise, fatigue etc. This can lead to the decline in the relationship satisfaction as the depletion can affect the parents emotional regulation, choice-making, physical persistence, impulse inhibition, and high-level cognitive performance (7).

The couple’s individual psychologies interact with the transitional issues, who we are, the circumstances we encounter, and create the way that we respond. This will define whether there will be a decline in the relationship satisfaction or not (1).

The negative transitional issues that are associated with a decline in relationship satisfaction are;

A decline in communication and discussing of problems
The ability to express needs, intimacy and closeness
Declining feelings of love
Increasing conflict and increasing feelings of ambivalence

In part 2 we will read more about how to improve and protect against a decline in relationship satisfaction.

(Timothy Hudd BA)
The author is a BACP registered Counsellor and psychotherapist in the UK, living and practicing in Helsinki, and married to a Finn himself.

References

1. Kluwer ES. From Partnership to Parenthood: A Review of Marital Change Across the Transition to Parenthood. J Fam Theory Rev. 2010;2(2):105–25.
2. Shapiro AF, Gottman JM. Effects on Marriage of a Psycho-Communicative-Educational Intervention With Couples Undergoing the Transition to Parenthood, Evaluation at 1-Year Post Intervention. J Fam Commun. 2005;5(1):1–24.
3. Romano D. Intercultural marriage: Promises and pitfalls. 2008.
4. Hofstede G. Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings Psychol Cult. 2011;2(1).
5. Bhugra D, Gupta S, Bhui K, Craig T, Dogra N, Ingleby JD, et al. WPA guidance on mental health and mental health care in migrants. World Psychiatry. 2011;10(1):2–10.
6. Lainiala L, Säävälä M. Intercultural marriages and consideration of divorce in Finland: Do value differences matter?
7. Vohs KD, Baumeister RF. Handbook of Self-Regulation, Second Edition: Research, Theory, and Applications. Vol. 35, Vie pédagogique. 2005. 609 p.