Regrets about marrying interracially?

[Anonymous]

I'm in an interracial, international marriage. We were also raised different religione (him strict Catholic, me not very religious but nominally Protestant). We are also very different in class background. He grew up very poor in a big family in a tiny Village in his country and I grew up upper middle class in NYC.

We're really happy after 10 years and 2 kids. Things which help are:

We're both now atheists so religion is not an issue
We live in a third country/culture where we're both foreign
We love trying new foods and enjoy travelling to each others countries. He celebrates Thanksgiving with me and my American friends and we celebrate holidays from his country too.
We have a very similar world view
We enjoy doing the same things more or less
We really love eachother and respect eachother

Negatives are that sometimes our communication styles are different and also we disagree on some parenting things like strict ness.

I would advice you to discuss things like expectations re raising kids. For example, would you like to stay home? Or him? How strict do you want to be and do you want them to go to church or synagogue?

[Anonymous]

The big regret I have is that I didn't understand the depth of the cultural differences and how extremely different the basic assumptions and expectations could be. I'm not sure I would have signed on for it, if I'd known that underneath the polite face, my Asian in-laws despise non-Asians and consider us to be almost sub-human. And what's worse is that they never stop trying to push me out of the picture. It helped twist things up between my spouse and me for quite a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The big regret I have is that I didn't understand the depth of the cultural differences and how extremely different the basic assumptions and expectations could be. I'm not sure I would have signed on for it, if I'd known that underneath the polite face, my Asian in-laws despise non-Asians and consider us to be almost sub-human. And what's worse is that they never stop trying to push me out of the picture. It helped twist things up between my spouse and me for quite a few years.

Pp right above this post. Sounds like your inlaws are racists. Not all Asians are like this. Try to marry into a nice family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's very bad to have different religions between spouses

Especially when two people are too immature to accept people for who they are, and not define them by a religion.

[Anonymous]

OP is black, catholic and speaks Portuguese
Her DH is white, jewish and speaks English

Main issue in USA is skin color and how kids would be raised-black or white as in US it's black or white-no "dark skinned"

[Anonymous]

Dear OP-

From someone who has been in long term interracial and interfaith relationships:

interracial:
I do not think race in general is enough to fear issues unless YOU have a problem with it. This may not be fully apparent on its face. Example: I dated a Chinese-american woman for a year who was wonderful as a person and did not appear to have an issue with my race (AA). Her family obviously did not like us together and her friends were borderline tolerant. Turns out, she would let her family and friends say terrible things about me in my presence, in Mandarin. I did not realize this until someone from her circle emailed me in confidence out of pity (she later acknowledged it but said she did not address it b/c it was ignorant). Also, as we learned about each others views of politics and policy, I learned that she essentially felt blacks in general are lazy and need programs like affirmative action to succeed whereas people from her community come here and do not need such support. She is ivy-league educated and quite liberal, so I was shocked to see she held these views. She later changed her views after actually learning some AA history and government policy, but this made me very unsettled. Long story short, if interracial, really get to know their views and reactions to being around other cultures. When challenged, you may learn a lot about that person.

interfaith:
I would strongly advise against marrying someone from a different faith. I am Christian but did not seriously follow my faith at the time. My ex-wife came from a Jewish family, but did not seriously follow her faith. Her family, while very cordial to me personally, was deeply religious and did not approve of our relationship b/c of our faith differences. When we started talking about marriage and growing a family, we initially negotiated "rules" to account for our religious differences.

These rules worked for the first year or so after marriage. Child planning is our faith difference became a problem. Our initial rules stated that we would expose our children to our separate faiths and let them decide for themselves later on. Well turns out, she really wanted them to follow Jewish tradition. That and her family would essentially disown her and our future children for allowing anything otherwise. I underestimated how this would affect me.

It also didn't help that I became a saved Christian towards the end of our marriage and really started to learn more about my faith. Surprisingly, towards the end of our marriage my ex identified more with the my faith than her family's, but at the end we ultimately ended up divorcing b/c of our faith differences (amicably, I might say. We are still good friends and she remarriaged to a Jewish man). All this does not touch on the racial aspect of our marriage (I am AA). There were issues from her family's side (mostly those who lived in Israel) regarding this as well, but they were manageable as they did not reflect my ex's beliefs and they treated me fairly, all things considered. The combination of the two might have ended up being too much though.

No regrets, but I would never advise anyone to do it. Even if you think you have all the details ironed out. Its like building a home with straws at the bottom of the foundation. A small shift can bring the whole thing down.

[Anonymous]

I was surprised at how dismissive the first comments were. Head-in-the-sand approach does not help.

[Anonymous]

I am white catholic American. Upper class from NE region
DH is Arab, his family is Muslim. He's not religious
Our children are all baptized and have made 1st communion
My American family is very welcoming and love him as if he were blood.
His Arab family is very cold and not welcoming.
I think Americans are much more tolerant of other cultures, but non Americans seem to be very close minded.

[Anonymous]

OP, remember that you marry into a family, not just a guy. Try to imagine what your life will be like over the years with holidays, grandparents, etc..

I split with one boyfriend who matched me almost perfectly in race, religion, class, etc., because his family was never going to make room for anyone else. I would be very aware of those dynamics in an interracial situation.