Anonymous wrote:I married an Arab Muslim. Our biggest challenges are food (he's a red meat guy and I'm a wanna-be vegetarian), and household temperature (he wants it 80, I want it 65).

We ironed out religious issues before marriage. Fortunately neither of us is super-religious, so we haven't had any conflict there.

His family tries to get me to convert and my family tries to get us to baptize the kids. So we piss off everyone on that front. But mostly it's been pretty easy. We have very similar values, similar financial goals, similar outlook on children and their education. So we haven't had too much conflict, honestly. We've been married 10 years now.

I am a SA Muslim married to an American Catholic guy.

You'd be surprised at how much we have in common. Although, it helps that we both grew up in northern virginia and wound up working in the city. Between us, we have no conflict that is related to our ethnic backgrounds or religion. I celebrate christmas and thanksgiving with him, he celebrates eid and ramadan with me. We are going to raise our children muslim with a solid appreciation of christian culture (christmas etc).

The only issue we have is that our inlaws are so vastly different. His family is rednecky and they arent very world aware and I never really feel like they're my family.

Other than that...I'd encourage it. a 100%

Anonymous wrote:I married interracially and it's never been an issue. But, we're both atheists and born and raised in the US, so our lifestyles were very similar from the beginning.

I married interacially and we haven't had problems, either. Same religion (none, with Buddhist leanings) and from the same state, but with very different family backgrounds.

More importantly, we've both liked the same music over the last 20 years

The key is understanding any unconscious beliefs you both have. My Mom Japanese, my Dad white American. He is very catholic and thought my Mom was Christian because she went to a Christian HS in Japan. But she is more culturally spiritual (puts a offering out by a picture of Buddha, but not Buddhist) and is offended by my Dad wanting to hang a picture or statue of a dead guy (Jesus on the cross).

While they were dating, she was the sweet submissive Japanese woman. What he didn't realize is that in the Japanese culture, the wife is 100% in charge of home life. His job is to go make money, come home and shut up and do what she says. Not to mention he thinks she is kinda dumb since her English isn't great. (But she is much smarter than him!!)

So it took over 30 years of constant fighting for them to work out their issues.(And I was collateral damage) And now they just put up with each other. But they'll never divorce.

OP-since you FI is from a culture that has such different views on woman, you guys should really talk about that. Will his expect to be 'in charge' in the marriage and you just agree with him. Will his views change once you become a Mom? How does he see raising a girl vs a boy?

I'd be most scared of marrying someone who, if we got a divorce, could take my kids to his country and have their courts give him full custody. Would he be willing to sign an agreement that in the case of separation or divorce, the kids would stay in the US?

Anonymous wrote:Jewish men make the best husbands OP so no reason to worry.

Some of them missed the memo, apparently.

I'm curious where these small-town, narrow-horizoned, parochial American Jews are from.

Jewish men make the best husbands OP so no reason to worry.

Anonymous wrote:
Plus side: we have the most gorgeous mixed kids ever; people are constantly going out of their way to tell us how gorgeous our kids are

Mine, too They are half Korean/white.

I married an Arab Muslim. Our biggest challenges are food (he's a red meat guy and I'm a wanna-be vegetarian), and household temperature (he wants it 80, I want it 65).

We ironed out religious issues before marriage. Fortunately neither of us is super-religious, so we haven't had any conflict there.

His family tries to get me to convert and my family tries to get us to baptize the kids. So we piss off everyone on that front. But mostly it's been pretty easy. We have very similar values, similar financial goals, similar outlook on children and their education. So we haven't had too much conflict, honestly. We've been married 10 years now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP:

My fiancé is a good man, but I do worry about the homogeneity of his social circle. His parents are rather unintelligent people who have no idea how to relate to those of other backgrounds, so I already know I will never be close to them. I also find his friends tedious and parochial (all raised in a small town and never left), while he likes my friends. I would like to hear more from those who made this work without being close to their in laws. Do you wish in hindsight you had married someone whose parents you and your kids could be close to?

This does not bode well.

Once you have kids, this will go very badly.

Mark my words.

Agreed.

OP - how close is he to his parents and friends? How often will you be expected to see them? If he isn't close now, do you think he'll get closer once there are kids? I know more than one guy whose view of the world was - I'm not close to my mom, we can see her 1x a yr. Yet once babies came, the guy became all about raising his child like HIS side of the family, not wanting the wife's parents to be the key grandparents which they usually are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Why? I've been happily married 20 years to a man of a different faith, and I still don't get this.

OP:

Are either of you religious or are you just culturally affiliated with the religion in which you were raised? I am not worried about the religious front because I am unusually nonreligious for a Brazilian. I am fine with my children being raised Jewish.

DH is "culturally" Jewish but agnostic. I'm a "fallen away" Catholic. We sparsely celebrate major holidays of both faiths, i.e., Chrismukkah. We have a Christmas tree and a Menorah, just like we have Easter baskets and a Passover Seder. He takes off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but that's about it. It works fine for us because during the rest of the year, we like to keep it light. We know of organized faith groups that are friendly to interfaith couples, but we don't go because we're just not religious. It works for us, but also for many other couples we know.

The arrival of a baby may change this approach. For many people (including me; I'm the PP married to a Jewish man), the arrival of a baby shifts things, and makes a person want to rekindle connections to his/her roots. I was a fallen away Catholic but when my son was born, it suddenly felt very important to me to have him baptized. And I returned to church. And have raised him as a Catholic. I would never have predicted any of this 20 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:OP:

My fiancé is a good man, but I do worry about the homogeneity of his social circle. His parents are rather unintelligent people who have no idea how to relate to those of other backgrounds, so I already know I will never be close to them. I also find his friends tedious and parochial (all raised in a small town and never left), while he likes my friends. I would like to hear more from those who made this work without being close to their in laws. Do you wish in hindsight you had married someone whose parents you and your kids could be close to?

This does not bode well.

Once you have kids, this will go very badly.

Mark my words.

I'm a Catholic married to a Jewish man and I would not recommend intermarrying religiously. It is far more difficult than it seemed when we married 18 years ago - we depart from different cultural assumptions and this has created a lot of conflict over the years.

We do not share basic world views in many ways, or share a spiritual life.

When I am with his family, I never feel that they are my family - their ways of being in the world and interacting with one another are very foreign to me and all these years later, still not comfortable.

I would not do it again if I could turn the clock back. And I would not recommend it to anyone.

"Is he a good man? Do you love him?" <---- doesn't begin to address what is required for a good, strong unified marriage.

We're getting older and a recent point of contention is, believe it or not, where we will be buried. He wants to be buried with the rituals of his church and in his cemetery. I did not convert so I cannot be buried there. It may sound silly but it really bothers me to think of us not being buried together.

Regrets, no, but have there been more challenges because of it, yes.

I am white, DH is Chinese.

Challenges: family acceptance- his family was not so accepting of me for awhile. It has lead to a lot of fights. No issues with my family though.

parenting philosophies. He insists kids go to Chinese school, i hate the battle of getting them to do Chinese homework and could care less if they learn Chinese.

Overall though no issues that would make me leave my DH.

Plus side: we have the most gorgeous mixed kids ever; people are constantly going out of their way to tell us how gorgeous our kids are

No regrets at all about our multicultural, interfaith marriage.

My inlaws speak little to no English so I've learned some of their language; my children go to language school every weekend with my full support. I want our kids to really know their foreign grandparents.

As far as religion, my wife converted and we both like the religious values of our church - lots of community service, helping the needy locally and abroad; praying every Sunday for the less fortunate where we are unable to materially help them; fellowship with other Christians, etc. That is, to us, one of the real meanings and intentions of God's church.

We are the same race, so that was never an issue.

I do think both of our parents would have preferred that we married someone from the same culture/country. But it's our life, not our parents.

Don't worry and don't have regrets OP. If you love the human you are about to marry, then go ahead and do your very best to build a solid married life together.