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 mother since birth and as such it’s impossible to not know where she stands about such issues. Part of a mother’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, quite often to let it be known that they are teaching you to not be prejudiced, but communicated from hypocrisy.
Most everyone is working on their own prejudice and so they welcome opportunities to interact and break though the paradigm. That is to say, most 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 suspected all along about your mom has finally sunk in, and that it's disappointing 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 dating 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 you are informing, 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.
You say his parents support the relationship. For certain it looks that way, except that what you and he and they did, their "support," caused deceit and divisiveness. One can support something working or unconsciously have an agenda to support it in not working. The test of one's intentions are the results. If they were supportive in favor of everyone winning 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. "Son, you know that most people of other races have a problem with us dating their daughters. Make sure you have their parent's positive support, up front." 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 he should have asked up front, "How do your parents feel about you dating outside your race?" It's a question mixed racial daters 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.
Question: Is a person who hangs around a racist also racist? Does one's company not reward and empower a racist? Put another way, what would it feel like for a person of color to know that their Caucasian friend goes social drinking with an active member of the Ku Klux Klan? A bit of an exaggeration but you get my point.
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. The alternative is to estrange yourself from your mother.
- "I'll know when you want to be a part of my life when you both can tell me you've completed 25 sessions of counseling having to do with prejudice as an addiction, and, that you're willing to spend an evening with me and my intended and share all of your thoughts and considerations. Until then I'll not be in any form of communication with either of you, for life."
Last edited 4/12/20