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It would be nice if life were that simple. Despite their prejudices, he loves his family. He is in the middle. If he was not close to his family, this would not be an issue. It is pointless to continue to cry about it. He knows. She knew what she was getting into when she married and had children with this man. Her in laws will never change. It is not his or her job to make them racially tolerant. I watched a woman go through this for 10 years. I do not know who she is anymore. It wears on you and breaks you down. The "best" solution is acceptance and to stay away. The children can forge good relationships with family members on their mother's side. If the family members on their father side are interested, they will seek her and the children out. Unless he was trying to stick it to his mother, he loved her enough to marry her. Marriage is about compromise and sacrifice.
This is complete garbage. This is the type of weakness that still prevails among people who don't want to rock the boat because they are afraid of confrontation. Confrontation is good when you know you are right. Discriminating people based purely on their skin color is absolutely not acceptable. I'm sure glad the world has enough people with courage to fight the good fight or else we would have never made any social progress.
Don't think that it would be more accurate to say that some white people still look at the black race as inferior? If it was all of them, there wouldn't be any black and white marriages or relationships. Many people marry the person not the race - that doesn't mean they love all white people or all black people, just the person they married.
That's true. Sorry. I meant some. Of course, I don't believe that all white people think like that. There are some very good white people in the world, whom I know personally (I have a male cousin and a female cousin who both have white spouses, and my aunt was married to a white man for many years and he was one of the nicest people I've ever met).
I would suggest that you take your husband to a sporting goods store so he can get a pair of balls. It is his responsibility to set boundaries around his family...especially his mother. His stress level is high because he does not have the backbone to stand up to his mother. That's unfortunate because he is allowing this to take a toll on you, himself, and your children. If she cannot respect you as his wife, he needs to stop dealing with her, or at a minimum, make is hard on her if she insists on continuing this disrespectful, racist behavior. That goes for the rest of the racists in his family, too.
It would be nice if life were that simple. Despite their prejudices, he loves his family. He is in the middle. If he was not close to his family, this would not be an issue. It is pointless to continue to cry about it. He knows. She knew what she was getting into when she married and had children with this man. Her in laws will never change. It is not his or her job to make them racially tolerant. I watched a woman go through this for 10 years. I do not know who she is anymore. It wears on you and breaks you down. The "best" solution is acceptance and to stay away. The children can forge good relationships with family members on their mother's side. If the family members on their father side are interested, they will seek her and the children out. Unless he was trying to stick it to his mother, he loved her enough to marry her. Marriage is about compromise and sacrifice.
Your "best" solution is actually the worst solution. Obviously you are okay with letting the racists win, especially if you're advocating the wife and children to "stay away". It'd be completely foolish to overlook the ramifications that your "best" solution will have on the wife and their kids. The husband might as well just get on ahead, divorce his wife, renounce/ignore his children (because it's basically agreeing and declaring them as being less than humans) and be a good lap-dog, desperate for the unfulfilling approval of his mother/aunt. He will never be happy, being under the command of his mother and aunt. It's not about making the aunt and mother "racially tolerant"-- it's about telling them their shenanigans will no longer have the effect that they (aunt/mother) want and that they have no such power. Which means the husband needs to stop what he's doing now and seriously decide what his next step is... with his wife. If they can't figure out out, then counseling is in order.
The "friend", that woman you speak of... Well, she was an idiot. She tried to play/win a game that's designed to make her the ultimate perpetual loser. She obviously never wised up to that fact and done herself a huge disservice by not disengaging. That kind of game isn't only played by racists, its played by master manipulators who thrive on messing with toxic-control-insecurity issues. The only way for others to win is to back out and not play into it.
I have this problem - my husband is black I am white and to make matters worse from England !!!
We have been together 28 years
My in laws well they really are a piece of work their favorite phrase is " them white folks"
My husband and I have always worked together as a couple but to listen to them you would think I sat around on my backside spending all our money lol
Have heard so many times when we are all together with the family "everybody is looking at us" that's because I'm the light bulb in the family lol
I have always known that in their eyes I am the "wrong colour" plus they are very religious and we are not
They made their kids go to church till they left home, they all hated it so when hubbyleft home he stopped going. Well of course the white dil got the blame for that one !!!
Mil has never had a picture taken with me - you have to laugh
We have two sons who are doing very well for themselves but to listen to mil u would think they were the worst
In all the years we have been together I have never had a birthday card or gift of any kind from them, Xmas cards are addressed to my husband
My advise leave your in laws to get on with their lives and live yours
Like you we are fortunate enough not to live near them so we don't have to deal with them - fortunately
There is no point in leaving him, because then he will think his family was right and he doesn't want for them to be right which will leave him estranged from his family (for separating you two) and then from you (for giving his family the benefit of the doubt.) At least, that is how he will interpret this.
I say forget the old lady and her sister, and focus on everyone else that doesn't have a problem. Remember that the problem is not you, your daughters, your husband, society; the problem is the two women that have it.
Your daughters have loving families on both ends and its not fair for them to have to pick one family over another because a few isolated cases in each have issues.
Don't get cynical with the rest in his family that don't have problems with this, but don't say anything. In many families there is a strong unwritten rule of respect for the elders in the family and this type of respect is usually conferred even when people don't agree with some of things those elders say or think. Its very hard for most people to break this habit that has been ingrained in them since they were kids, so don't judge them as accomplices, at least without cold hard proof.
I am a 35 y/o Black woman who has been married to a 36 y/o White man for 5 years. We have twin daughters (three years old). DH's family are a mixed bag. DH's generation and younger are very nice, but the older generation is where things get hairy. FIL is a great guy; very laid back and has always been kind, respectful and open-hearted. MIL is not so great. She has been staunchly against our relationship from the get-go, afraid of what people will think, so on and so forth. DH's family is Southern upper middle class, and interracial relationships among the older folks there are seen as "trashy for people of their social standing." I wish I were exaggerating, but this is the exact phrase I have heard used. DH and I accepted long ago that, it being hard to teach old dogs new tricks, the older folks are free to believe as they choose as long as they treat me with respect. They have begrudgingly done so since we have been together, but only to my face. Here is the problem: I underestimated the amount of stress their shenanigans can cause, even long distance (we live over 1500 miles away). The worst offenders are my MIL and her sister, who are hyper vigilant about making sure their friends & neighbors do not find out about DH "and his Negros." A neighbor who asked about me was told I was a housekeeper. There are no photos of my daughters in my MIL's home, but tons of photos of DH's nieces and nephews. When we came to visit about a year ago, MIL nearly had a heart attack b/c FIL wanted to take the DDs for a picnic by the lake where he plays golf because there would be lots of ducks (one of the twins absolutely LOVES birds). She was worried one of her friends would be there for lunch or something and discover her secret. MIL and her sister are constantly calling each other or meeting to fuel each other's outrage about DH and I's marriage/family. Afterward, DH always gets an admonishing phone call, which turns into an argument or him hanging up on one of them, and him being in a bad mood for a few days afterward. DH has missed two of his close cousin's weddings (He was invited to both, but I was not. DH's aunt did not want a "Black face ruining the photos." Cousins were not happy about this, but their mother controls the purse strings so what she said ruled). My family has never been invited to Thanksgiving/Christmas (just DH), though it is "okay for us to drop by a couple days after." This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the picture.
How do I deal with DH's mounting stress and moodiness every time one of his family members acts up? I have watched a happy, carefree man turn into a very stressed and angry one. He stands up for me and our DDs every single time and always has, but I know he is battle-weary, and just wants his life back. He won't say it, but I know he misses being with his family and friends from back home. Unfortunately, I have started to have thoughts that maybe it is best if the girls and I leave him. I do not want my daughters to grow up being exposed to my DH's poisonous family. I don't want them feeling as if they caused their father to be estranged from his own family that he was once a happy part of. To be fair, most of DH's family do not seem to feel the way that MIL and her sister do, but no one but my DH has ever openly objected to their obnoxious and hurtful behavior. Thus, I feel their silence makes them complicit. I was raised to speak up when someone is being mistreated, and would never tolerate anyone in my family treating another human being poorly. I love my husband, but he deserves peace, and so do my girls. Any advice?
Something people should think about before jumping into interacial marriages...especially black women.
Something people should think about before jumping into interacial marriages...especially black women.
Bullpucky. Thankfully fewer and fewer people care about melanin, and more and more people care about character. It's not the OP nor her DH's fault that the older family members are racist.
why would you deal with them at all? They are not living in the same century as the rest of us. They aren't gonna change and you should consider people like that to be beneath you. You shouldn't feel the need to impress them, they're broken, brainwashed human beings. There's no reason why you should ever interact with them again.
Something people should think about before jumping into interacial marriages...especially black women.
Why especially black women? Black men are hated equally as well. Afterall, they are black people as well.
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