#10 Mom doesn't support my mixed racial marriage / Should I continue to make my mother wrong?
Dear Prudie: I’m in this great relationship. I couldn’t ask for anything better. I have a guy with a great personality, great physical appearance and a great job (and future). Even his parents love me! We have been getting very serious lately and plan to get married in at least two years.
The only problem in this near-perfect relationship is MY mother. My boyfriend is of a different race, and it’s not that my mother’s racist—she just wants me marrying within my own. I told her every detail about him when we started dating, including his skin color, but I guess she never thought we were going to get serious.
When I asked, "So you’d be mad if I married a guy outside of my race?" she looked at me like it was very obvious and replied, "Yeah!"
I’m going to marry this man because he has treated me so much better than my ex-boyfriends. However, I don’t know how to approach my mother about it. I want her to walk me down the aisle since my father hasn’t been in my life, but if she disapproves, she might not want to come. Then I’d have no one to walk me down the aisle. How do I explain to her that I don’t care about his skin color, just his heart? – STUMPED
Dear Stumped: You explain it just as you have here, by talking about your feelings and experiences. Prudie hopes your mom will respect your resolve. And if she doesn’t, you’ll have to be strong. With luck, your mother will thaw out before the wedding is planned. – PRUDIE, HOPEFULLY
Gabby's Reply:
Hi Stumped: I’m not getting something. You say she’s not racist. Not many readers would agree. Most would say you are in denial. I trust you are aware that you also are racist. Why else would you think to covertly warn her early on? I doubt you felt the need to inform your mom up front about your previous boyfriends, "Oh, mom! He’s the same color as us."
You’ve known your mom since birth and as such it’s impossible to not know where she stands about such issues. Part of a mom’s job is to communicate her desires for you. High school diploma, college degree, be a professional woman, marry into any religion except..., marry a businessman, marry someone of the same race, etc. Parents who have unresolved racial issues let it be known in so many subtle ways, always so as to let it be known that they are teaching you to not be prejudiced.
Most everyone is working on their own prejudice and so they welcome opportunities to interact and break though the paradigm. That is to say, they will go overboard to try not to be prejudiced, to show they are not prejudiced, prejudiced (but coming out the other side of it) never the less. That’s where I think you are. It’s possible you are unconsciously trying to teach your mom (or the world) a lesson. I even detect a covert prejudice (make-wrong) of men your color. You ignore the fact that it was you who chose them and rewarded their behaviors, possibly what you were unconsciously up to was to make them wrong by choosing a man not your color?
I can get that the realization of what you’ve known all along about your mom has finally sunk in, and that it's shocking and sad. But you’re reaping the results of your own covert, albeit unconscious, deceit; otherwise it just doesn’t make sense for you to be forcing her hand. You telling her up front was a setup. You did it in such a way that you led her to believe that nothing could come of it, that it was just another growth experience. What would have worked back then was, "Mom, just so I’m clear. Where are you about me marrying someone outside our race?" That was the time to have staged your protest, the time to have tried to change her. Now you dump this enormous problem in her space, making her wrong for the way she’s been her entire life. No matter how many know/believe she is wrong, it’s still abusive to try to change someone without his or her permission/request to support him or her in changing.
It’s obvious that you are not of the opinion that your task is to find someone to bring into the family that your parents approve of so as to ensure harmony and mutual support within the clan. It verges on suicidal behavior to try to bring someone that either parent doesn’t like. Aside from not being able to tap into your family’s full loving support—for life, (one or both covertly silently hexing the success of the relationship so as to be right) it’s a great disservice to the outsider. Definitely it’s not a gift of love to the outsider. A woman from a loving supportive family is absolutely intent on serving her parents; their happiness is of prime importance, and in so doing all her successes (beyond her wildest imaginations) stems from service to them.
The only peaceful solution I see is to acknowledge to your mom your deceit and what it's about. Then ask her if she'd be willing to work though it, through to absolute loving support.
An aside about asking: If you "ask" then you have space for, and will support, the answer without upset. The upset must be processed prior to the asking. If you present an ultimatum, "I want to know how you feel about... however, I'm going to do what I want" then your are not asking. To ask means you are not presenting any covert pressure for the answer you want. The person clearly has a choice without fear of an angry response.
It is an important question to ask. For example: Ask some WWII vets if they’d be willing to forgive the Japanese and you get a clean clear, "No way. Never." With them there is absolutely no space for communication. It all depends upon your mother's yes or no answer; it’s got to be that clean. Not, "Well, I’ll try. Just to make you happy." "No mom. You’ll work through it because it’s not ethical to treat others differently because of their color. Yes, or no?" "Will you meet with me and ___ and we'll spend an evening sharing our considerations so as to arrive at an experience of love?" If she answers no, then you’ll have your work cut out for you. You’ll see what it means to take a stand, in this case, in support of a minority. I assure you it will not feel good to your boyfriend for you to continue relating/interacting with racists (your mom). In other words, your choice will become the decision from which you live the rest of your life. It will give your mom the choice of her life. To share and grow or to stay stuck and die alone. If you play the middle road you will doom your husband to unconscious thwarting from an extremely powerful woman. If you opt to support and empower him 100% then her conscious/unconscious hexing will be nullified.
You say his parents support the relationship, I think not. If they did they would have gotten clear, up front, whether or not you had your parent's/mother’s support. As it is they supported you in your deception. It won’t work for them to support their son in supporting you in thwarting your mother. You say "great," yet his communication-leadership skills produce divisiveness, as do your skills, not a good match.
Also, whenever you see two at odds with each other (you and your mom) there is always a third party who is intending the conflict. Usually this person pretends to be an ally. Your intended knows that he should have asked up front, "How do your parents feel about you dating outside your race?" It's a question minorities live with daily until answered. That question would have woken you up. That he didn’t get clear is a deceitful setup on his part. If you leave him in favor of your mom’s wishes he’ll blame his loss on racism rather than on his own deceit. Thank you for the very valuable letter, Gabby
BTW: Babies, to be whole and complete, need unadulterated adoring love from grandparents—that you don't mention them leads me to suspect that you have some incompletes with yours, and of course his. You need the support of both sets of grandparents. A "no" from any one of them will be extremely unhealthy for your relationship. To invalidate a respected elder's wisdom, especially the wisdom of your lineage, has its own specific karma.