Mixed Couples in real life (was: on American TV

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., golden faile <golden_faile at y...> wrote:

> I was fortunate enough to be raised in a very diverse
> area, made all types of friends and have been blessed
> to have been around many different types of families
> and have come to realize that yes there are a few
> differences, but for the most part it's all the same.

But it's NOT *all* the same. For example, when I lived in New York 
City, one hell of a lot of couples I knew consisted of a woman of 
Jewish ethnicity and a man of white Protestant ethnicity. Every one 
of these couples (including mine) had problems with conflict, because 
the woman would speak of her annoyance, the man would pointedly 
ignore her, the woman would shout, the man would go into another room 
and slam the door behind him, and if the woman followed the man into 
the other room, this could lead to him hitting her. These was because 
of cultural differences in how to deal with conflict: in my culture, 
I was raised to discuss conflict (sometimes loudly) until resolution 
was achieved, and Toad was raised in his culture to clam up about 
conflicts and go down to the pub until it blew over. The differences 
between the cultures was exacerbated by the larger USAmerican 
culture's having taught us women to talk about feelings, and them men 
not to talk about feelings (for which reason, the one Irish-American 
woman, Jewish-American man couple I knew dealt with conflict more 
compatibly: both yelled and no one got physical).