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When you consider the fact that my husband and I were born barely fifteen miles away from each other, you would think that we grew up in pretty similar circumstances. After all, it was the same part of the state, and we are only a month or so apart in age. We should have had the same kinds of experiences growing up, or so you would think. The reality is that, for all our relative closeness of birthplaces, we might as well have grown up on two different sides of the planet.

In just about every possible way, our upbringings were completely different. His family is fervently Protestant; mine is Catholic with a whole bunch of lapses. I went to public school; he was home-schooled. He was raised in rural isolation; I grew up in the heart of a bustling city. My parents were divorced; his parents think divorce is the ultimate taboo. He never watched television until he was in his late teens; I can't imagine my childhood without Saturday morning cartoons. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. So as you can see, we both come from two very different places, despite the closeness of our starting points. So where to find common ground?

Much of the gap can be breached by keeping an open mind. Just because one family does things quite a bit differently than yours did doesn't mean that it's weird; it just means that they're different. So while my family thought nothing of letting us kids get all dressed up in costumes and going trick-or-treating every Halloween, it doesn't make my husband's family strange for refusing to let their children do the same. They were doing what they felt was best, according to their personal moral code, and that is to be respected.

That's another thing - respect. Nothing is surer to raise the hackles than the feeling that one's morals or views are being slighted, so it never hurts to give them their due. I'm not saying you have to be a doormat and turn your back on everything you hold to be true, but in order for tolerance to thrive it does have to be a two-way street. So unless your in-laws go in for something completely unsupportable like ritual human sacrifices, what's the problem? They're not asking you to convert; they just want a little respect. At the end of the day, that's all we really want, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that your in-laws would like some, too.

Yet another way is to focus on what you actually have in common, instead of what's not. You may not be able to trade pop culture references, but surely there's got to be something you have in common. Are they artistic? How about sports? Any musical inclinations? Sure, this may not be the stuff of which deep bonds are formed, but at least it's something you can agree on, whether it's how much you hate the New England Patriots or which kind of lens is best for taking photographs. In other words, it's a start.

If this sounds like an awful lot of effort, that's because it is. Just like it takes work to make a marriage work, it takes just as much work to forge (and foster) good relations between the families. Some may take less, others may take more, but there's still a lot of effort involved when you're dealing with two very different groups of people. But it's worth it. Besides, chances are good that you may be dealing with these people for a long, long time. You might as well make it easier on yourself, as well as your spouse.

Learn more about this author, Rose Calder.
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