Reply to my wife's thin skin

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP.  Your issues large stem from conversational differences that set you guys up behind the eight ball before you even start a discussion.  You have different ways of communicating and you have to learn to compromise and speak in ways that will make your partner more receptive to what you have to say. [/quote]

I hope you are right. That is, I hope the problems arise from conversational differences. If so, I think we can solve our problems.

I wonder, though, if for some issues my wife simply can't reason her way through. She sometimes leaps from A to Z, and I'm unable to trace the thought process that falls in the middle. When I ask "can you explain why you feel that way?" she is sometimes unable. She can't explain how or why she reached her own conclusions. There have been odd lapses in judgment now and then which suggests that no real thinking is taking place ... kind of like a teenager who doesn't look before they leap. This makes me nervous, because when a parent is responsible for a child's life, the parent MUST look before they leap.
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PP from above.  You have to have an element of trust, basically that your wife has just as much care and love and intrinsic parental concern as you have, but has a different perspective.  Your wife comes from a different culture and it sounds like English may not be her first language.  Sometimes the reasoning behind why she feels a certain way is cultural instinct based on the culture she was raised in.  For example, I'm first generation American and I know that my parents have certain cultural biases for the way kids should be raised.  They instilled those values is me.  Growing up bi-culturally, and with English as my first language, I can articulate how my parents came to certain conclusions and decisions, but they can't, at least often not in English.  There are certain concepts that don't exist in American English that exist in my parents culture.  If my wife wants to understand something, I can translate and explain how such a thought, custom or practice is prioritized.  My wife understands my parents and family better because I can explain some of the customs and practices in English in a way that she can understand.  I understand both my wife's defaults and my parents and can bridge that.  I've seen a lot of immigrants from my parents country (although my parents came in the 1950's) have difficulties explaining their cultural heritage, customs and practices to their American-born spouses.  Sometimes it's hard to explain something that you were just raised with as a cultural norm and you don't always have the words to describe it.

Have you ever done any reading up on family raising practices from your wife's culture?  You may find that issues that she can't explain are better explained by understanding the culture she comes from.[/quote]

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