How do you stay solid when both families make it harder?
Me and my girlfriend have been together almost 3 years now. I’m white and she’s Latina, and honestly the hardest part hasn’t even been strangers, it’s been our families acting like we’re some kind of problem. Her dad still won’t really look at me, and at Thanksgiving in San Antonio last year he kept switching to Spanish when I walked into the room, which was obviously on purpose. My parents are polite to her face but then my mom will ask if she’s “really serious” about me because she’s got tattoos and doesn’t fit their idea of the perfect daughter-in-law.
We’ve had a couple run-ins with random people too, like in Dallas when a cashier asked if we were “together together” and then laughed like it was a joke. We’ve gotten good at pretending not to care, but sometimes I think we’re both just tired. How do you keep your relationship strong when it feels like you’re constantly defending it? Do you guys talk through every comment, or is it better to just let some stuff go?
1d ago
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2 repliesB
Ben O'ConnorPREMIUMYou do need to talk through it, at least with each other, because if you don’t, the resentment just piles up. My husband and I are an interracial couple too, and early on I kept trying to act like stuff didn’t bother me. It absolutely did. Once we started debriefing after family stuff, even if it was just ten minutes in the car, we stopped feeling so alone in it.
As for the families, I think it helps to remember you’re not trying to win them over in one conversation. Some people are gonna take years, some never will. We focus on making our own little bubble strong. That means leaving early when things get weird, not forcing visits, and not arguing with every ignorant comment. Saves your sanity.
T
Test UserI feel this so much. My girlfriend and I are in Seattle and her mom still makes little comments about me being “too quiet” or asks if I’m sure I’m not using her daughter for a green card, which is wild because I was born in Oregon. It used to make me want to disappear, but now we just laugh after the fact and call it what it is: disrespect.
What worked for us was picking one boundary each with family. Mine was no jokes about her body or appearance, hers was no questioning my intentions. We told them once, calmly, and after that it’s on them. If they cross it, we end the visit or hang up. It’s annoying, but it also makes it clear we’re a unit, not two people asking permission.
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