Dialog across difference #19: Assessment

 Jacinta and Troy are a fairly newly married couple who have deepening conflicts that threaten to overwhelm their bonds. Neither understands why this is happening and each is flabbergasted at the behavior of the other. Did they marry too soon? 

Jacinta is starting to think so. She confided in her brother, "I was so infatuated with Troy that I accepted his proposal after knowing him just three months. We've been married barely a year and we are bickering all the time. It feels like we are falling out of love--he has no patience for me any more." 

Troy is indeed starting conflicts with Jacinta more and more frequently. He is seemingly always irritated with her. He finally asked his mother for her advice. 

"It's not my place to give unsolicited advice," his mother said, "but since you asked..."

She went on to tell Troy how she and Troy's father went through a similar patch and finally got some counseling that worked. She told him: 

"Assess Jacinta by asking with the intent to understand, not to judge, and learn more about her culture as you do. Think about how her family and culture of origin made her into the person she is, including the woman you fell in love with."

"Assess yourself by imagining that you are a counselor trying to assess you, given what the counselor can see." 

"Assess Jacinta as if you are a mediator with no prior knowledge of her or you or your marriage but with excellent cultural competencies."

"Assess yourself as if you are Jacinta's brother, primarily knowing their culture. "

"Assess your marriage as if you are a counselor with serious multicultural competencies." 

"Make notes as you do each of these. Then take some serious time to think through your notes and, during that time, do not allow yourself to be triggered by anything Jacinta does or says. Make a list of your own areas of ignorance. Finally, based on the love you want and that you are willing to give, ask Jacinta to join you in as many deeper conversations as necessary so you radically reduce your areas of ignorance."

"Let me know if this works for you two as well as it did for your father and me."