Marriages across borders and racial lines continue to rise in the US. Couples and experts say that cultural differences remain the touchiest issues in the success of intermarriages.

According to a survey released by the Pew Research Center in 2013, the proportion of interracial marriages has reached an all-time high in the US. There is one interracial or interethnic couple in every 12 married couples while the figure was only 3 percent in 1967.

Americans' tolerance toward intermarriage has been growing. The Pew survey indicated that nearly two thirds of Americans say that they would be fine if a family member decided to marry someone outside their own racial or ethnic group.

Despite the growing acceptance among the public, experts say that cultural differences remain the most challenging aspects of intermarriages and tolerance is the only solution.

A 40-year-old teacher, surnamed Wang, from East China's Zhejiang Province, told the Global Times that her intermarriage with an American man has been quite a learning experience for her.

Wang said that she encountered her ex-husband "John," who went from Los Angeles to China on a trip, and they fell in love with each other. Their romance was once such a popular story in Wang's hometown that it encouraged many single women to find their Mr Right through intermarriages.

She spent a happy time with John in LA during the first few years of their marriage, Wang said. However, the cultural divergence then started to surface and eventually broke them apart. Wang felt that her husband was not as caring as he had been previously, and they argued more frequently over trivial matters, as John often complained that Wang used plastic bags as garbage bags or that her cooking produced smoke throughout the house.

Their passion died away after frequent quarrels and they divorced. Wang did not understand why they had to end their relationship as many Chinese couples maintain their relationships despite having problems, but John insisted there was no need for them to remain together after finding that they were unsuitable for each other.

In another example, an intermarriage between a Chinese woman surnamed Mei and her American husband "George" also ended in divorce. Mei, who works at a high-tech company in the Silicon Valley area in Northern California, has a successful career, but her aggressive personality did not help in her family life.

Mei told the Global Times that cultural differences were a problem, and that she and her ex-husband could not tolerate their differences. They finally got a divorce when George called the police and applied for a restraining order after Mei beat their son. Mei argued that being strict and using physical punishments are also ways of  showing love for their child, but George considered it  domestic violence.

There are happy endings to intermarriages as well. In one example, a Chinese woman named Rene married an American after an earlier failed marriage. The couple now lives in Los Angeles after Rene migrated to the USe Even though her husband had been frequently warned by his friends that the marriage might just be a convenient way for Rene to get her green card, she proved to be independent and won her husband's heart.