Mixed Couples in real life (was: on American TV

[joanne0012]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "catlady_de_los_angeles" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> 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).

This Jewish/Protestant distinction also happens along Italian/Irish lines -- having 
been brought up with an Italian let-it-all-hang-out style for family 
commmunications, I was baffled by my Irish-American husband's sulking.  
Whereas he had to warn me to tone it down when we visited his family, lest they 
think I was constantly rude and hysterical.  Furthermore, most of the 
dinner-table topics that we enjoyed at the Italian family get-togethers were 
absolutely forbidden at his family's events.  Booorrrrring!