With non-Jews or assimilated Jews, who don't follow a separate value system (like frum Jews merit to do), then the culture is a lot more defining because that IS their value system, customs, and etiquette.
For example, outside of Torah, there is no reason why you can't say lashon hara to your spouse, especially if you know he'll never repeat it.
But according to Torah Law, you must have a solid to'elet reason and even then, you still need to stick to certain detailed parameters.
So even if a Torah Jew finds himself in a gossipy culture, he's still expected to rise above it based on halacha.
One of the most devastating aspects of intercultural marriage lies in how often it conceals mental illness:
The daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, Sheindy grew up speaking Yiddish in her Chassidish-American home.
In her late teens, her parents thought it a good idea to send Sheindy to live with relatives in Yerushalayim and attend school there. After all, America still lacked the solid educational institutions and culture they wanted for their daughter.
The Yiddish Sheindy grew up speaking at home and the Yiddish of Yerushalayim was different, but she adjusted.
A nice, likeable, and sincerely frum girl, Sheindy's Yerushalmi relatives found a great shidduch for her.
Everyone, including the couple and Sheindy's parents, agreed to the shidduch.
What no realized at that time was that certain "quirks" in Sheindy's behavior signaled the beginnings of schizophrenia — a diagnosis she only received after years of marriage.
Sheindy refused medication and somehow always sensed if it was slipped into her drink.
She and her husband raised 13 children together.
Apparently, she was a good mother and everyone in the community (including her children) know her as a loveable loon — everyone except her suffering husband.
During a massive family gathering at a Purim seuda in Yerushalayim, Sheindy suddenly rose from her chair and left.
The other women didn't think much of it because lots of women were rising from their chairs with exclamations of "Oh, I forgot to bring the potato kugel! I'm just going to run home and get it."
So Sheindy's quiet exit didn't raise an eyebrow.
Not long after she left, the police showed up at the door with the intent to take Sheindy's husband and his friend to the station for investigation regarding a particularly lewd accusation just lodged against them.
It took some wrangling to figure out where on earth the accusation came from, but Sheindy had gone straight to the police and accused her husband and his friend of particularly lewd and aberrant behavior in the living room during the seuda.
The family showed the cops how impossible it would've been for such a thing to happen in the living room with everyone milling around (Yerushalamis typically have huge families in small apartments, so family get-togethers tend to be PACKED).
Fortunately, for Sheindy's husband, the mass of family members cheerfully made an exodus to the police station to explain Sheindy's condition and the absurdity of the accusation (particularly Sheindy's nonsensical claim that it took place in the living room before dozens of witnesses, including children).
Finally convinced, the cops let Sheindy's husband and his friend go free and everyone marched back to the seuda, laughing about the unexpected nuttiness.
Except Sheindy's husband.
The Israeli police tends to be crude and hold onto a lot of animosity against Chassidim.
The initial accusation and interrogation must have been a torturous and humiliating experience for this well-brought-up sheltered Yerushalmi man.
But there was nothing he could do.
He'd realized a long time ago that he could not divorce the mother of his children (for their own well-being & other practical reasons) , and just as she refused to take medication for mental illness, she refused to consider contraception.
So he was stuck because he refused to abandon what ended up being 13 children.
(Having tons of supportive family in the neighborhood helps tremendously in this kind of uncommon situation.)
And while their children turned out well and the family and community is both aware of Sheindy's problem and provides support for the children and Sheindy's husband, there's no denying he suffers a lot with no end in sight.
How was such a serious mental illness missed?
"Oh, That? Heck, They're All Like That."
A very common, yet wrong tendency even good people share is the tendency to view other cultures as "other" and less than one's own.
For example, many non-Americans view Americans as "quirky."
There's some truth to this, of course, but not all "quirks" are alike.
Like most immigrant parents (Sheindy's parents were Polish chassidim who came to the USA after surviving Auschwitz), Sheindy's parents saw how she differed from them and their idea of "normal." After all, their daughter was American.
(We Anglos in Israel experience this with our Israeli children.)
So on her visits home as a teen spending most of the school year in Yerushalmi schools, it was easy to write off odd behaviors as either American or something she picked up in Yerushalami culture.
For the Yerushalmis who hosted her and taught her, it was easy to assume her odd behaviors resulted from the American culture in which she grew up.
And as mentioned above, people saw Sheindy as a very likeable frum girl with a couple of quirks.
How were they supposed to know her quirks weren't cultural, but mental?
And they would metastasize into something much more challenging?
Between cultures, this kind of misunderstanding happens more frequently than most people realize.
Very nasty issues like personality disorders frequently fall through the cracks, disguised as cultural differences.
Please Never Use Culture as an Excuse for Abuse
While differences in communication and expectations exist between different cultures, this is no excuse for bad middos (or to refuse to work on middos).
Unfortunately, a lot of people involved in shalom bayis (whether professionally or clerically) do not seem to understand this.
For example, the stereotype of British culture is that it's cold and formal.
Yet if a British spouse consistently behaves in a cold, critical, mocking, nitpicky, rigid manner, it's not because he or she is British, it is because that Brit is a nasty person.
If a Moroccan spouse consistently behaves with emotional, verbal, or physical volatility, it's NOT because he or she is Moroccan; it's because that Moroccan is a nasty person.
If a woman behaves with toxic femininity, it's not because she's female; it's because she's a nasty person.
If a man behaves with toxic masculinity, it's not because he's male; it's because he's a nasty person.
I could go on with a long list of examples, but I don't want to start offending people with all the different cultural stereotypes.
Another Israeli woman married to an extremely dysfunctional British man told me he's hard for her because he's British and he does this because he's British and that because he's British...
But due to her lack of experience with British people, she has no clue how wrong she is.
In fact, I consider her husband one of the least British people I've met from England. Aside from his accent, he doesn't fit in with British culture (which might explain why he either sought out or was open to a shidduch with an Israeli girl).
Every complaint she listed about him either was not characteristically British or even the opposite of British culture!
Part of the reason she never managed to receive appropriate help is because she and her Israeli therapists and friends cannot see that his dysfunctional behaviors result from his dysfunctional personality, and have nothing to do with his nationality.
Why is Culture Never an Excuse for Abuse?
What can happen with shalom bayis counseling is the advisor starts either excusing or demonizing certain behaviors as a result of one spouse's culture (always the spouse who is different than the advisor's culture, of course).
For example, if the advisor insists that "all people from that culture are rude" and therefore, the spouse from the advisor's culture just needs to adjust, then that's wrong for several reasons:
Reason #1: Not all people from that culture are rude.
For example, I can think of at least 3 cultures (a certain area in America, another Middle Eastern, and another European) stereotyped as being rude.
But there are also tons of people from these areas who are exceptionally sensitive and tactful people.
I've met them. And I've learned extra tact and sensitivity from them.
So if a person from one of those areas is being consistently rude or verbally abusive to their spouse, it's not because of his culture; it's due to bad middot.
Reason #2: If a certain behavior derives from culture, that neither makes it okay nor incurable.
Culture is NEVER excuses indulgence in a bad middah.
Rav Avigdor Miller invested decades of effort and wisdom into extracting all sorts of cultural mores out of the heads of his listeners and talmidim.
So if a culturally imbued behavior causes a problem in a marriage, that is a golden opportunity for that person to change it.
Another problem occurs when the advisor (often unconsciously) starts to despise the spouse of the advisor's culture for having married someone they should have known who be different in that way.
But as noted above, being different "in that way" is no excuse for any kind of abuse. Only in the advisor's mind does there exist that assumption that most people from a particular culture behave abusively. (Again, we're speaking of frum Jews who possess the ability to know better due to halacha.)
Furthermore, let's say everyone knows that Brits and Nordics are wholeheartedly committed to punctuality while Israelis are not.
To display impatience and condescension with the Israeli spouse because they "should have known" their British or Norwegian spouse would insist on being ready on time — and even leaving early "just to make sure" they arrive on time — or to get irritated with the British or Nordic spouse because they "should have known" their Israeli spouse would be a lot more laid-back and disbelieving that being 10 minutes late would matter — is moot.
It's too late now for regrets.
Right now, the goal should be to help the couple work out this difference.
Not need to hate either one of them for being what you might perceive as "stupid."
You Can't Know What You Don't Know
People contemplating any kind of intercultural shidduch need to remain aware that if they do need guidance after the wedding, it will be almost impossible to find any for the reason mentioned in the section above.
For example, an American-Israeli couple seeking help from an American "expert" often faces either ignorance of aspects of Israeli culture (even if they live in Israel) or anti-Israeli stereotyping (or both).
This happens with any kind of advisor, including your local rabbi or rebbetzin (unless they are mamesh Gedolim, or very experienced with both cultures).
And if they go to an Israeli advisor, they'll often face ignorance of American culture and/or anti-American stereotyping.
In fact, I knew a female American BT therapist who only spoke English and despite living decades in Eretz Yisrael, she never learned Hebrew so well, and she never developed deep friendships with anyone other than other American, English-speaking BTs.
That's not a problem in and of itself. But it means she probably lacks insight into anyone different than her culture.
Meaning, if she encounters a couple in which one spouse is FFB or French or Israeli or feels more comfortable in Yiddish than English, how will she be able to understand their nuances and mindset enough to help them?
Even if she's helping an English-speaking British BT, there are enough differences in communication style and mentality between the Americans and Brits to create a stumbling block in the therapist's ability to truly understand and thereby help this person.
"I Just Can't Relate."
If people don't intimately know and APPRECIATE a certain culture, their autopilot mode will be negative when dealing with someone from that culture.
Meaning, if someone holds some negative attitudes towards Sephardim, yet attempts to counsel a mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardi couple, the results tend to be useless at best and disastrous at worst.
Some advisors even see this as a welcome opportunity to finally tell a member of the culture they dislike how problematic they are, or even yell at them.
Such advisors see themselves and giving the person what they finally deserve by giving the person a good telling-off.
Unfortunately, this includes attitudes toward gender.
(As noted in Part 1, the Gemara considers men and women as two different cultures.)
Some women dislike their own gender.
Conversely, some women consider men inferior.
And some men consider women inferior.
Unfortunately, sometimes these types choose to engage in shalom bayis counseling.
And they almost always cause problems due to their instinct to blame or dismiss one spouse or the other purely based on gender.
So let's take a look at a mid-tier rabbi who thought he understood women (but didn't) and was also blocked regarding culture (which he did realize).
Either way, someone like him really shouldn't be working with couples or parents, but instead, find something he's good at it (which he also did, but should've done that exclusively).
So this mid-tier rabbi invested a lot in teaching others middot work and shalom bayis and chinuch.
Imagine my shock when I heard him admit, "I don't like to deal with Israelis in my work. I just can't relate to them. So I don't feel I'll be effective when working with them."
I found this extraordinary because he'd been living for a couple of decades in a predominantly Israeli neighborhood. And also how he referred to Israelis as a whole. Many different groups and individuals exist within that whole.
I didn't even understand what the meant: "I don't relate to [an entire group of fellow Jews]."
Actually, I still don't understand. I can't relate to his inability to relate! (Ha-ha.)
"You mean, like, secular ones?" I asked.
"No, no," he said pleasantly. "All of them. It's a cultural thing. I just can't relate."
"Even the FFB Israelis like you? Even the ones from your specific group?"
"Yeah, yeah. I just haven't found a way to relate to them."
"Is it a language issue?" I said. "Like, if they speak one of your native languages –"
"No, no," he said, still pleasant yet looking increasingly uncomfortable. "The language doesn't matter. Just something about the culture — I just can't relate to it."
"Because you don't like —?"
"No, no!" he hastened to correct me. After all, he'd lectured a lot on ahavas Yisrael! "I like them! I just can't RELATE. Something about the culture — I just can't relate to it."
At that point, I realized my conversational style had turned interrogative, so I withdrew.
In hindsight, I don't think I was right to pursue the issue the way I did. But at the time, I honestly didn't realize how I came off to him because his attitude so flabbergasted me, my mind "tripped" into trying to understand it, like a dog wrestling with a bone, rather than being more tactful.
Much later, I realized that while he was very good at guidance in working with specific middot, and his lectures and articles genuinely and deeply assisted people struggling with these specific middot, he displayed a poor ability to "relate" to anyone who was different than him in any way.
For example, I later realized he didn't really "get" women.
(For a positive example to contrast, the late and great Rabbi Wallerstein possessed a profound understanding of women and girls.)
Unable to understand any other mentality than his own, he never would be able to help much in shalom bayis or chinuch — in which getting into the other person's head is essential.
This mid-tier rabbi had a rabbinical friend who was like him in every way, except from a different group, but that rabbinical friend knew how to reach out to people very different than himself, and so made himself "relatable" to the above rabbi.
Aside from his very real excellence in working on certain middot, I believe this rabbi should not have been involved in chinuch, shalom bayis, or how to get along with others.
He simply lacked the ability to enter into anyone else's head – unless the person was exactly like him culturally.
I don't know all his situations in which he tried to "help," however the handful I know of, he made things worse for couples.
In one shalom bayis case, he really caused long-term emotional injury to one of the spouses.
To me, it was obvious he completely mishandled their situation and I've no idea why he dealt with it the way he did. But reading about almost identical situations addressed by Rav Avigdor Miller, Rav Miller would never have handle those shalom bayis situations like this rabbi did.
It's like what Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender said: Give advice resembles creating a zivug with someone — you can destroy a person with advice.
And Rav Miller was already popular at that time and his cassettes readily available in that rabbi's neighborhood, so I don't know why that rabbi didn't try to learn from the master.
(Maybe he just couldn't "relate" to Rav Miller's wisdom!)
Good Advisors Exist, But are Simply Hard to Find
Some people have so much deep experience with different cultures and they know different languages, they're able to help wonderfully.
Others simply understand how to help people work on their middot according to Torah, regardless of culture.
But because it's so difficult to receive proper guidance for an intercultural marriage, that's something to keep in mind before marrying someone from another culture.
And if you find yourself in listening mode, whether as a friend or advisor, it vital to keep the above stumbling blocks in mind.