Community Question: Kari

3 thoughts on “Community Question: Kari”

• This seems to be a common theme in interracial relationships and one that I have encountered personally. Here is the thing, its not necessarily a problem that he is nervous about introducing you to his family. It’s okay that he is nervous, as long as he can get past it. The real question is how long you feel it is appropriate to wait for him to get comfortable. A month? A year? Obviously at some point he will have to make the intoduction if family is important to the two of you. Only you can decide what is an appropriate amount of time to wait. Question for you: have you met any friends of his? If you’ve been dating for an amount of time where you would normally have done so and you haven’t, you may have a problem. Ultimately the two of you have to decide how committed you each are and what’s important to you. Make sure that he knows that this issue is critical to you (assuming it is). It is completely reasonable to let him know how this making you feel. Good luck!!

• This happened to me when I was dating a Jewish girl who came from a conservative Jewish family. I am a bi-racial, black and white man, but the issue wasn’t about race, it was about religion. I come from a Christian background. I never encountered this issue before, and I had a few friends who were Jewish and had dated people outside of their religion; some who even married non-Jewish folk. So I guess I was naive because I seen so many interfaith relationships succeed. Anyway, this girl never mentioned to her mother that we were dating, and it wasn’t until I sent her a care package when we were away in different states that her mother had an idea that we were seeing each other. The relationship lasted a year, but the breakup really affected me. While she gave me no reason why she broke up with me and the actions she took to do it, I know in my heart it was because of religion, and I think her mom and her friends persuaded her. It was a beautiful relationship nonetheless. I guess the moral of my story is that you have to face the issue instead of hiding from it. With avoiding, a couple can make incorrect assumptions. The time to talk about it is NOW rather than later.

• You should tell him that there is no point in worrying about stuff that may never happen. You may as well get the first meeting over with to see what happens, and he should be proud to be with you. My boyfriend is black African and before my grandparents met him, they had some stereotypes in their heads. But when they met him, they realised that he was not a stereotype and now absolutely love him and are always asking him to come over and sending him Christmas presents! If his family are nasty to you, they need to know that you cannot tar everyone with the same brush. Here in Scotland, LOTS of white men cheat on their partners and have kids with other people, it’s not a thing reserved to one race! No one likes being stereotyped, and it’s funny how people usually notice the negative things about people rather than the positive. Your boyfriend needs to be proud to be with you rather than ashamed, and if he loves you then his families silly insecurities should not matter.

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