Marriage
Addressing Identity and Belonging in Cross-Cultural Marriages
The making of a shared life.
Posted January 19, 2026 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
Key points
- Cross-cultural marriages can create identity conflict, expansion, or marginalization for partners.
- Belonging is complex and multidirectional, spanning family, partner, culture, and society.
- Healthy couples honor each person’s roots while co-creating shared values, rituals, and identity.
When two people from different cultural backgrounds choose to build a life together, they are not only blending traditions and families but also continually renegotiating questions such as “Who am I now?” and “Where do I belong?”
For cross-cultural marriages, questions of identity and belonging often sit just below the surface of daily life. Choices about language, holidays, child-rearing, faith practices, and even food can evoke powerful feelings of loyalty, loss, pride, or conflict. Over time, these everyday choices shape how each partner may understand themselves and the “we” they are creating together (Popescu & Pudelko, 2024).
Recent literature explores the idea that, in cross-cultural marriages, each partner brings a complex, layered identity (Ducu & Hossu, 2025; Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). Over the course of their marriage, partners may experience identity expansion, a feeling of enrichment from new traditions, languages, and perspectives; identity conflict, when one may feel torn between cultures or pressured to choose one; and identity marginalization, a feeling of not fully belonging in either cultural world (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). As practitioners, it is important that we normalize the understanding that identity often shifts across milestones such as marriage, relocation, parenting, or loss.
As practitioners, I want us to explore how cross-cultural marriages navigate issues of identity and belonging within the context of their cultural backgrounds, and how we can support them in this process.
The Experience of Belonging: “Where Do I Fit?”
Belonging is the felt sense of being accepted, seen, and valued by important groups, such as family, community, culture, faith, and a partner or spouse. In cross-cultural marriages, belonging often feels multi-directional. Partners in marriages may wonder whether they are betraying their own family by adapting to their partner’s culture, or whether they will even feel accepted. When belonging feels threatened, partners may become protective, defensive, or withdrawn (Berry, 2017). Other common challenges around identity and belonging could include feeling not enough, competing with expectations from families and communities, or even the invisible labor of cultural translation. For example, one partner may repeatedly explain customs, translate language, or smooth misunderstandings. Over time, this can lead to emotional fatigue, resentment, and a sense that their culture is a problem that needs constant explanation (Ducu & Hossu, 2025).
Co-Creating a Shared Sense of “We”
As practitioners, we can help create healthy cross-cultural marriages that allow each partner to stay connected to their roots while growing into new aspects of identity and belonging. These shared practices can communicate that marriage is not about erasing either culture, but about building something new from both (Silva et al., 2012). Applying a posture of mutual cultural curiosity by asking about the stories, meanings, and flexibility behind practices can transform conflict into connection and reduce stereotyping. To create this shared sense of “we,” we can promote the following for couples:
- Reflect on questions such as: What parts of my culture feel essential? What do I want to carry forward? What no longer fits? In our previous discussion in this series, we discussed several visual tools, such as a culturagram, that can support the exploration of migration histories, experiences of privilege and oppression, and core values.
- Normalize grief, invite expressions of sadness or nostalgia, and reassure partners that longing for home does not diminish love for one another.
- Encourage self-compassion, which helps partners recognize the courage it takes to live between worlds and reframe identity as actively creating something new.
Belonging and Identity as a Shared Journey
Cross-cultural marriages invite partners into a lifelong journey of self-discovery—of each other, and of the worlds that shaped them. Identity and belonging are not boxes to be checked, but stories that unfold over time.
By honoring cultural roots, staying open to growth, and intentionally creating shared traditions and values, couples can transform potential points of tension into sources of strength. With the support of culturally attuned practitioners, partners can move from feeling fragmented to experiencing themselves and their relationship as integrated and deeply connected.
Remember, every step toward understanding identity and belonging is a step toward deeper intimacy, resilience, and shared meaning.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
References
Berry, W. (2017). Theories and models of acculturation. In S. J. Schwartz & J. Unger (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of acculturation and health (pp. 15–28). Oxford University Press.
Ducu, V., Hossu, I., & Telegdi-Csetri, A. (2025). The well-being of transnational families: views and relationality. Global Networks, 25(4). doi.org/10.1111/glob.70031
Nguyen, A.-M. D., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2013). Biculturalism and adjustment: A meta-analysis. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(1), 122–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111435097
Popescu, C. & Pudelko, M. (2024). The impact of cultural identity on cultural and language bridging skills of first and second generation highly qualified migrants. Journal of World Business, 59(6), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2024.101571
Silva, L., Campbell, K., & Wright, D. (2012). Intercultural relationships: Entry, adjustment, and cultural negotiations. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 43, 857-870. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.43.6.857
