My in-laws are driving me crazy! A must read for ALL in-laws

Hehe, I got you with this title. This is not a rant about my in-laws.

I have stumbled across a book that I would like to recommend to the entire world. Ok, just people who are or have ever been married, or related to someone who is or has been married, have kids who are or have been married or parents who are or have been married. That is probably 92.8% of the world's population, taking into account that that statistic is totally made up.

It's called Don't Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws into Family by Ruth Nemzoff. As people who know me or read this blog know, I'm in a cross-cultural marriage, so my in-laws have a different culture than I do. Before we got married, perhaps the number one question I heard was "How do you get along with his family?" accompanied by a cringe from the questioner. Turkish (and Greek, and Italian, and maybe all) mother-in-laws have a really bad reputation. Even Turkish daughter-in-laws rarely get along with their mother-in-laws, so throw in the cultural difference and people figured I was toast. And I have to say honestly, it has been a bumpy road so far for all of us. I'm not going to go into details because that won't be helpful. Reading Moonpie's birth story might give you an idea. But what is helpful is this book I'm reading. And she points out what I pointed out in my previous blog post - ALL marriages are cross-cultural. ALL marriages are the coming together of people from different backgrounds, and the coming together of two different, sometimes VERY different, families. It was really nice to read that and confirm what I had suspected.

This book is just so, so helpful. She addresses each chapter to different relationships, first parents in relating to their children's spouses, then adult children relating to their spouse's parents, then siblings relating to their sibling's spouses, then both sets of parents relating to each other, etc. She gives lots of examples, which won't ring true for everyone, but demonstrate principles to live by. Her main point, if I may summarize it, is that we are all different, and that is not a bad thing. Especially in in-law relationships we need to leave room for difference while giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and we need to turn the other cheek. A lot.

This book is by no means written from a Christian perspective, but it honestly gives better practical advice that I've read in any "Christian" book or website, which usually mention Ruth and Naomi. I wonder how many situations that story actually applies to in terms of losing all male relatives, converting to your mother-in-law's beliefs and moving with her back to her hometown where you marry one of her relatives and become an ancestor to the Savior of the world. I also wonder if the story of Ruth and Naomi was meant to be a model for in-law relationships, or rather a demonstration of God's generous redeeming grace. Anyway, I digress...

Another of her main assumptions is that you can't change other people, but you can change your attitudes and responses. If you really want to change your in-laws, you probably won't like this book, and if you just want to rant and rave about how crazy they are (I have been guilty of this), it also won't be your favorite book. It is a really challenging, but really rewarding book.

I think even people who think they have a great relationship with their in-laws should read this book. As she pointed out, big life events in a family like marriage, birth, illness, death, and divorce all ripple through a family and can change dynamics, possibly souring what was a great relationship if unspoken expectations aren't met. I wish someone had given me this book before we got married.

All this to say, I won't force you or twist your arm, but seriously, read this book.

                                                             

Cross-Cultural Marriage Series Part 4: Starting from Scratch

For the final part of this cross-cultural marriage series, I am going to get all philosophical on you. When I was brainstorming this series, I naturally asked my other half what HE liked about our cross-cultural marriage. And do you know what he said?

“I like that we had to take everything we thought we knew, throw it out, and start from scratch together.”

I couldn’t have said it better. When we grow up, we learn things from our family, friends, neighbors, and people in general around us about how the world works or should work, and this forms our culture. It shapes how we understand the world, how we believe we should act, what we value, eat, drink, pretty much almost everything we do. It also informs our expectations in our marriage. When I married my Turkish husband, I began sharing my life, and possibly more difficult – my living space – with someone who thought differently than me on a lot of issues. I gave some examples in the first post – from when one should eat ice cream to when one should go to the doctor, that first year we were discovering differences almost every day. But beyond these there were bigger issues, like what is really important in our lives and how we spend our time and money.

Instead of getting in a cultural tug of war, we look to our mutual “most important” – God, His Word, His grace. Since we committed to follow and serve Christ together on our wedding day, we realize that we have to evaluate every other thing, including our cultural values, in light of Him.

So, that first year, I had to let go of things I thought were my “rights”, but really turned out to be materialism and selfishness because the Bible says things like “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” and “Wives, submit yourselves to your own to your husbands as you do to the Lord.” He had to let go of the macho male attitude that most other Turkish men have because the Bible says things like “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” He is really, really good at doing this, by the way, whereas I have a ways to go in loving my neighbors and submitting.

I love that our cross-cultural marriage doesn’t let us go with what feels right or what everybody else is doing. When we encounter a big difference, it’s a chance to look to God and see what really is the right way to go.

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 3: Variety! And more variety!

This is kind of predictable, but with a cross-cultural marriage you get a lot more variety. It’s most obvious with what we eat. I’ve definitely jumped on the eggplant wagon since getting married. Those things are tasty! Our newest eggplant discovery is eggplant soup. Delicious! Maybe I should start posting recipes on here? Let me know if that’s a good idea by posting a comment.

Moonpie munching on artichokes. In a laundry basket. On our balcony.

Turks, especially where we live, love to eat outside in the summer. This usually takes the form of eating on the balcony. Someone commented that there is a “balcony culture” where we live, and it is so true. In the summer you can see many families eating together on their balconies. Incidentally, people also love to eat outside in Arizona, although usually more in the spring than the middle of summer. There’s no balcony culture in Arizona, but there is The Backyard Barbecue! We have sort of combined the two into a balcony barbecue thing we do every now and again. We use an electric grill, so not quite the same as my dad’s awesome propane “grill the heck out of everything simultaneously” grill, but it’s still not bad. We also usually have avocado on our burgers, which my husband has discovered because of me and now loves, as does Moonpie. I already included a picture of grilling burgers in my 4^th of July post, so I won’t delight you with another image of raw meat.

Turkish Breakfast...on our balcony

Another big food culture thing here is Turkish breakfast. Now, I have to say, when Americans first move here we usually aren’t too enticed by the Turkish breakfast. The thought is usually that one has given up a breakfast food called “bacon”, which is not readily available here, and has been offered instead a breakfast food called “cucumber”. No thank you. However, I have found that once you take Turkish breakfast as a whole, it is really quite good. The flavors meld together into a perfect mix of yumminess. The traditional Turkish breakfast includes eggs in some form and meat in some form. If you’re lucky, this will be beef sausage. If you’re not, this will be bologna. Then you have the cheese, tomato, cucumber and olive plate, which is rounded out with a big basket of bread and something to spread onto said bread. If you’re lucky, this will be jam. If you’re more lucky, this will be honey and cream. There are variations on the way the eggs are cooked, types of cheeses, types of meat and sometimes there are different veggies or bread products, but basically that’s it. Oh, and of course, the tea. You usually have tea with breakfast and maybe coffee after. It is way more delicious than it sounds. It really grows on you!

And when we get tired of all this, we just make ourselves some blueberry pancakes!

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 2: Pick a language, any language

"Dil" means "language" in Turkish

Moonpie was nice enough to contribute the picture to the left to this post. She's so advanced. She is already bilingual as evidenced by her agile switching between “Baba” and “Dada” (no “Mama”? Really?) In a funny twist, “mama” is Turkish baby talk for “food”, so that could function really well for her. But no “mama” yet.

Anyway, I love that we have more than one language in which to communicate. Probably the most common question that we get asked is “Which language do you speak at home?” The answer truly is both! We go back and forth and back again. Sometimes we have conversations where I speak English and he speaks Turkish, and sometimes we have conversations where I speak Turkish and he speaks English. Sometimes we both speak English, then switch to Turkish, and the other way around. Now, right about now some of you are probably feeling really sorry for Moonpie to be growing up in this muddled linguistic environment, but kids almost always figure it out and do just fine. “They” say (whoever “they” is) that bilingual kids generally talk later, but catch up and surpass their peers in three or so years. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Here is a typical phone conversation:

Me: Merhaba

Him: Merhaba, nasilsin?

Me: Oh, I’m fine. Sen?

Him: Iyiyim ben de. Ne var ne yok?

Me: Did you take the car today?

Him: Yeah, I did. Were you going to go somewhere?

Me: IKEA’ya gitmeye dusunuyordum but that’s ok. It’s not urgent.

Him: Ok, yeah, I’ll leave it tomorrow.

Me: Tamam. Optum.

Him: Love you

Yes, you see IKEA in there. I love IKEA here. It’s a bastion of normal products at normal prices, a stronghold of plain and simple in a wide open field with glitter and oversized and overpriced ready to attack you from every side.

Compare:

     

 








 and

Anyway, this was a post about language. We use both. I love it.

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 1: Throwing our differences in the culture pile

When you have the extra layer of cultural difference in your marriage, it can be a great reason to give each other the benefit of the doubt that the difference (i.e. weirdness) you encounter is because of a cultural difference and not just because the other person is just weird. I suspect that some places where we differ might possibly be a matter of personal quirks, but since we have the cultural difference, if it doesn’t really matter we just throw it in that pile. Problem solved.

These are some examples of actual conversations:

You can't tell, but this is milk.

Me: “Do you want some milk with your cookies?”

Him: “No, of course not. I’m frying fish tonight.”

Me: *blink*

Him: “You shouldn’t have any either.”

Me: “Do you want some tea?”

Him: “Yeah, we’ll have tea.”

Me: “Now?”

Him: “Now?”

Me: “Now.”

Him: “But we’re eating dessert.”

Me: “Do you want some ice cream on your brownie?”

Him: “It’s winter.”

Me: “Yes. So, ice cream or plain?”

Him: “It’s winter.”

Me: “It’s soooooo hot. I’m turning on the a/c.”

Him: “Can you hand me a blanket?”

Me: “Aren’t you hot?”

Him: “Yes.”

Wouldn't only two pillows look boring?

Him: “Why do we have 6 pillows on our bed? I don’t use any.”

Me: “Well, I use two.”

Him: “So why six?”

Me: “It just looks nice.”

Him: “Who’s looking at our bed besides us?”

Me: “No one.”

Him. “Right, no one.”

Him: “Why do you use rags to clean the bathroom?”

Me: “Why don’t you use rags to clean the bathroom?”

I could give SOOOOOO many more examples. When situations like this come up, once we realize what’s going on, we just look at each other and say “cultural difference”. We literally say this out loud. Most of the time, if it’s not something of mountain-sized importance to us, we just shrug our shoulders and it stays there. I love this about our relationship.

Mail from America and a new series

Sad and unused mailboxes

Our mailman rang our doorbell today with a stack of cards from America. Always a fun day when cards arrive! Actually, he used to leave them downstairs with the rest of the mail. Funny thing – everyone has their own mailbox at the apartment entrance, but no one uses them. The mail is just left in a pile in a slot by the door, and you have to sift through it all to find out if any of it is for you. Usually someone (I don’t know who) would take my cards from America out and put them into our mailbox, presumably because they looked special and they didn’t want them to be stolen (I don’t know who goes around stealing cards, but that’s very nice of them). 

About 6 months ago I ran into the mailman while taking Moonpie out for a walk. He said, “Hey! Are you Marie? In Stitches?” And I was like, “Yes, yes I am.” He said he was so curious about this foreigner to whom he was delivering brightly colored envelopes from America, and I said, yes, it is I. Sending cards isn’t really a thing here, so I imagine those bright reds, purples, and blues stand out in his stacks and stacks of bills and bank statements. After he saw me that day he started hand delivering our American cards to our door instead of leaving them down by the main entrance. He also loves seeing Moonpie. Today she was munching on some cheese when I answered the door, and he really got a kick out of that. We also saw him on our walk today. He was sitting down resting a few blocks away, but he came over to pinch Moonpie’s cheeks when he saw us. People here really like babies, but that’s another post. I know what you’re thinking – everyone likes babies. But Turks are real, bonafide baby lovers.

Anyway, why all the cards, you might ask? This past week we just celebrated our third anniversary, and my family is just awesome like that to rain cards on us. 

In honor of our anniversary, I thought it might be the perfect time to reflect on the things I love about our cross-cultural marriage. I brainstormed with my husband (who I really need a blog pseudonym for), and I think I’ll do four posts over the next couple of weeks. There are lots of things I love, but these four just make life really fun.

 Pentalingual anniversary napkin (If you haven't noticed by now, I make up words)

Disclaimer: this isn’t meant to be a how-to or you should/you shouldn’t advice kind of thing. Every person and thus every couple is unique. That being said, I’ve found with other friends in cross-cultural relationships that there are definitely shared experiences.  Please chime in with your comments!