Is My Husband’s Family Racist?

Photo by MatHampson - http://flic.kr/p/44gx8A - For illustration only

Reader’s Question

My husband and I met while we were both working with minority communities to give a voice to their injustices in the home and workplace. We were both very close with our families until the day of our wedding.

On that disastrous day, his mother claimed to feel ill and refused to help me get ready or even to attend the festivities. When my husband went to check on her, she confessed she had felt ignored by him and that was the real reason she wouldn’t attend our wedding. But he somehow convinced her to go after all. Later, the best man — the only person in the wedding party — showed up late for the ceremony and left me, the bride, with no transportation because he agreed to take my husband’s mother to the ceremony. This snowballed into my family absorbing additional costs, a shortened ceremony, and my family actually missing the ceremony to pick up flowers that the best man was supposed to pick up. The best man only made excuses, and my husband’s parents only made jokes about the whole ordeal during a family dinner the day after the wedding.

Months later, we both expressed to my husband’s family how hurt we were by these actions, but they only dismissed our feelings and told us to get over it. My husband has repeatedly tried to talk to his family about how disrespectful we felt they behaved, but he’s only been met with ultimatums, threats to cut him out of the family, and even telephone hang-ups.

My husband’s family and the best man’s family have traditionally been close. Now, his family blames me for the separation of the families, and it’s escalated to the point that I’ve received nasty emails from his mother and sister. The last straw was when my husband confessed to me that his mother made a racist remark about me to him. While he looked shocked and ashamed that his mother would resort to that kind of thing, he’s asked me to forget it since she said it in anger. This has shaken our relationship to the core, as I never thought he would think it okay for anyone to make a racist remark. My husband even went so far as to suggest that a racist remark is forgivable if it comes from family.

My husband’s mother continues to bad mouth me to her son, and he has distanced himself from his family because he’s tired of his family not caring how their behavior has made us feel. Still, at every holiday or family birthday he blames me for the distance between his family. These feelings are also preventing us from getting pregnant because I don’t want his family around our children on the off chance they belittle them like they have me and my family. We’ve seen a few counselors to get help with issues to stabilize us financially, and to be more intimate, and they’ve all expressed a concern with my husband’s inability to stand up to his family. I feel like I’m with someone very different from the man I thought I was marrying and don’t know what to do.

Psychologist’s Reply

Talk to a Psychiatrist or Therapist Online
(Please read our important explanation below.)

Your situation sounds fairly complicated and emotionally charged, and it’s advisable that you keep working with a counselor or therapist trained in the issues with which you’re dealing. But it appears that you believe that racism underlies much of the problems. If that is indeed the case, it probably needs to be addressed directly.

Marriage is a noble institution, but it can be a difficult and challenging enterprise even in the best of conditions. It can be a particularly daunting endeavor if family support is lacking. And if racism is at the center of the lack of family support, conditions probably won’t improve unless that issue is confronted head-on and resolved.

You are right to be concerned about the environment in which you and your husband might conceive and raise children. You’ll need to know not only that no racial biases threaten your relationship, but also that the commitment you have to one another is strong enough to handle the slings and arrows you’re likely to face as a couple.

Please read our Important Disclaimer.

All clinical material on this site is peer reviewed by one or more clinical psychologists or other qualified mental health professionals. Originally published by on and last reviewed or updated by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on .

Ask the Psychologist provides direct access to qualified clinical psychologists ready to answer your questions. It is overseen by the same international advisory board of distinguished academic faculty and mental health professionals — with decades of clinical and research experience in the US, UK and Europe — that delivers CounsellingResource.com, providing peer-reviewed mental health information you can trust. Our material is not intended as a substitute for direct consultation with a qualified mental health professional. CounsellingResource.com is accredited by the Health on the Net Foundation.

Copyright © 2024.