Episode 4 – Cultural Differences
When Detroit Met Grand Rapids: Our Cultural Clash Story
We did not just marry each other. We married each other's childhoods, religions, neighborhoods, and rules about what it means to be good.
This story is part of the Built on Us Story Series, where my husband David and I share the real moments that almost broke us and the tools that helped us rebuild. We are a blended family, a second marriage, and we now host a couples retreat in Costa Rica shaped by everything you are about to read.
Two Worlds Under One Roof
When David and I first started building a life together, it became obvious very quickly that we had grown up in completely different worlds.
David was raised in Grand Rapids on the west side of Michigan, in a conservative Jehovah's Witness household. His upbringing taught him stability, structure, and survival through silence.
Do not show too much emotion. Do not mingle too deeply with people unlike you. Do not question the rules. Be a man long before you are grown.
My story looked nothing like that.
I grew up in Detroit in the eighties. Addiction surrounded our community. My father passed when I was just eighteen. I was raised by a young mother who did not have the luxury of slowing down.
We did not get sermons about how to move through the world. We had hustle and survival. We had my mother, a hairstylist who went back to work two weeks after a C section. She made sure we understood that there was no such thing as "sick."
You show up. You work. You do not complain.
So here we were, years later. David with his rigid moral compass and expectation for conformity. Me with my instinct to stretch, live in color, test boundaries, and push possibilities.
It was not just that we liked different music or carried different traditions. Our entire wiring around how life should look clashed.
What Safety Looked Like To Each of Us
For him, safety looked like rules and order.
For me, freedom looked like options and movement.
Often, we did not just misunderstand each other. We could not even imagine what the other person was talking about.
Through His Eyes
"I could not understand how she could live with so much fluidity. I thought structure was love. Showing up every day, keeping things steady, not letting emotion spill out. That was what made a man a man. When she wanted more openness, more dialogue, more softness, it felt reckless to me. Unsafe. Almost dangerous."
Through My Eyes
"When I looked at him, I sometimes thought, how can anyone live like that? So tight, so guarded. I equated love with freedom. Let me move, let me breathe, let me grow. His rules felt like chains, like he did not trust me to create my own path. And yet, there was a steadiness in him I secretly craved, even when it frustrated me."
Because this was our second marriage, we shared at least one conviction.
Legacy.
Not just the financial kind, but something our kids, grandkids, and their kids could look at with pride. A story of endurance, repair, and building something greater than what either of us had inherited.
The question was how to build that legacy without trying to erase each other's past.
Cultural Differences Are Not Walls, They Are Maps
What I wish we had known earlier is this.
Cultural differences are not walls you have to climb. They are maps.
They show you where your partner comes from. They explain the rules they are defending, the fears that get loud, the habits that feel non negotiable.
The danger is in using the map as proof that you are right and they are wrong.
When you weaponize the map, you build walls. You say, "My way is the only way," and everything turns into a debate about whose childhood was correct.
When you use the map with curiosity, you start to chart a future together.
You can say, "I see why this matters to you. Here is what safety looked like where I come from. How can we build a home where both of us can breathe?"
Reflective Takeaway: Charting a Shared Future
We could not change the neighborhoods or religions or losses that shaped us. What we could change was what we did with that information.
Our shared commitment to legacy became the bridge.
Instead of trying to win, we started to ask better questions.
What do we want our kids to remember about this house?
What parts of our upbringing do we want to keep?
What parts need to end with us?
That is legacy work. Not just surviving your story, but choosing what continues.
Questions for Your Own Partnership
Use these as conversation starters or journaling prompts.
What did safety look like in your childhood home? Quiet, order, presence, performance?
What did safety look like in your partner's home?
Where are those definitions clashing in your current life together?
What is one small practice you could create that honors both of your backgrounds?
Built On Us: The Partnership Pact Retreat
At Built On Us: The Partnership Pact Retreat in Costa Rica, we invite you to step out of your daily environment and into a place that can hold both of your stories.
Through guided conversations, rituals, and time in nature, you will explore where you come from, what you want to keep, and what you are ready to end, so you can build a legacy that feels intentional instead of inherited.
Build a business that works for you, not because of you.
Lead in a way your nervous system can live with.