- Joined
- Aug 20, 2022
- Messages
- 32,516
- Points
- 113
Culture practice between multicultural couples.
GeneralI wanted to ask if there are any Vietnamese–Singaporean couples here?
I’m a 32-year-old Vietnamese woman, married to my 32-year-old Singaporean husband. I lived in Vietnam for 32 years before moving to Singapore three months ago, and we’ve been experiencing quite a few cultural differences. Here are some of the things we’ve been arguing about:
Issue #1: My husband is very close to some of his female colleagues. They already spend the whole day together at work, and after work they’ll add each other on Instagram, send each other Reels, and laugh about them. It’s not excessive or anything, they don’t message every day, just little interactions here and there.
He says this is completely normal in Singapore. From my cultural perspective, though, it feels a little odd.
Some of the women he added are already married. He sends them Reels too, but they rarely reply. The single female colleagues, however, tend to respond much more often.
Issue #2: He leaves home around 9 a.m. and doesn’t get back until after 10 p.m. His official working hours are 9 to 6, but he goes to the gym after work before coming home.
When I tell him I don’t like how late he gets home, he says, “Everyone in Singapore lives like this.”
But as a Vietnamese person, it feels strange to me.
The biggest issue, though, is that whenever I react according to the values I grew up with, he calls me insecure or says I’m jealous. From where I come from, my reactions feel perfectly normal, just as the things he does feel questionable from my perspective.
Whenever I bring up these concerns, he tells me that I need to be more open-minded and adapt because I’m living in Singapore now.
I understand that I need to adapt, but I don’t think it’s realistic to simply erase the cultural values that have shaped me for 32 years overnight.
So I’m wondering if there are any other Vietnamese–Singaporean couples here who have gone through something similar. How do you communicate through these cultural differences? How do you compromise and find a balance that works for both of you?
