The Other Side: Patience Is a Virtue

I've been dating my boyfriend for almost two years now. Probably the most important lesson I have learned is patience. I have learned to have patience as he tries to learn things about my culture. He is wonderfully interested in the language, food and traditions of India, but at times I forget that he himself is not Indian. There are things I just assume he knows, such as the fact that Indians in general are not openly affectionate with their significant other. Especially at my house, husbands and wives don't kiss each other goodnight in front of the rest of others, for example. We don't hold hands or cuddle up on the couch with our significant other when we all sit down to watch a movie together as a family. My boyfriend is not used to that. At his house it's perfectly acceptable to sit on the couch together and cuddle while the rest of his family is around. Of course there are always boundaries, but the boundaries at his house are far less strict than those at my house. I often forget that he just does not know these things. But how could he? It is my job and responsibility to teach him these little nuances whether they pertain to our cultural differences or just our differences as people. Even when I teach him something, I have learned to have patience and not expect him to remember everything I tell him and learn everything right away. It is, after all, just like learning a whole new way of life. He is sensitive to the fact that me and my family are different from him and his family, and I have tried my best to remember exactly that because that is what is most important. Whether he learns the language or masters his skills at cooking Indian food are, at the end of the day, irrelevant. What is most important to me is that he recognizes we are different, and rather than try and make me be more like him, he encourages our differences and tries to share in that part of my life. This requires patience on both our parts, but more so I am reminded not to expect the world from my boyfriend and to celebrate the differences. Patience to work through our differences and build a stronger relationship because of our differences rather than in spite of our differences is my ultimate goal; from what I've seen of my boyfriend, it is his ultimate goal as well.