I'm trapped... can anyone offer any advice?

[Multipotentialite]

Potentially outting hence name change.

DH & I used to earn about the same pre-children. After we had children, he became the main earner because I was working part-time hours. We moved to a new area 2 years ago because of his new job. I did not love it but I thought I could get used to the area.

Truth is I cannot get used to living here. It's making me more and more miserable. Lockdown did not help. Now that the children are back are school and I'm starting to earn properly again, I will be earning more than DH.

I want to move to London. DH is worried he will not get a job earning as much. I want him to start looking.

How can I approach this? This will be the end of our relationship if it needs to. I feel sick living here.

Which part of the country are you in? Could you move to a local city that might be more diverse.

I think you're right to want to move, but you need to tell your husband what you've told us.

This is really not the place for white people to be all "I wasn't there and I've never been Black/visibly minority ethnic but I don't think that was racism".

Yep

What part of London were you in before & what areas are near your DH work? I know London is very diverse but it's not particularly an even spread if that makes sense. Wandsworth for example which is very popular on here is 78% white & you can walk down lots of roads & private schools where there is v.v little BAME representation whereas somewhere outside London will have more representation vs Wandsworth.

Having read further, I would say your DH should consider your happiness and relocate, I've read that it's difficult for people of colour in stuffy middle class insular communities. I'm sure most people aren't like this but this is just awful.

@shivawn

He's your husband, maybe you need to communicate more, really consider his concerns and give him a chance to get used to the idea. Can you compromise on a different location?

I couldn't imagine deciding to leave my husband over something like this but we are madly in love so we would be happy anywhere that we're together. How is your relationship generally?

Also, to those posters denying it was racism, just don’t...

@NormanStangerson thank you for this.

To be honest, DH asked me the same question. How do you it was racism? It’s a strange one... and often racists make it out like it is a hygiene issue or they are afraid or need to be protected. It’s very difficult to explain. I’ll just say that I reported that person because I had 2 encounters with her. The chain took it seriously enough to take action.

@giletrouge

Have you thought about some where like, for instance, Bristol? Very diverse and lively, cheaper and smaller than London, both London and countryside are easily accessible. Compromise possible. But he does need to understand that you need to be somewhere that isn't constantly making you feel uncomfortable, unwanted and ill. That's not tenable.

I live in Bristol. My son-in-law, who is West African, visited for the first time last summer, and experienced similar treatment - including being asked to stand further away from the till! I was horrified that this was the first impression he had of this country, in a supposedly diverse country. Twats are everywhere but I understand why you want to go back to an area you feel accepted

@AtlasPine

It’s so easy to say these things aren’t racist when we are white and not subjected to them but it negates how the OP has been made to feel. She knows what it felt like - we don’t.

This. I’m sorry you’re experiencing what you are Op. I can completely understand why you want to get out of there, and move somewhere more diverse. As PPs have asked,

• did you live in London previously?
• can you tell us broadly where you are as people may be able to suggest other places nearby that are diverse and might enable your DH to stay in his current role.

Sorry, diverse city obviously!

I am shocked and really disgusted at the amount of posters that can't see its racism!!!

It's undeniable that racial and other bias exists at some level in pretty much everyone. Acting on it is racism.

I can't imagine what it's like to live as such a minority in a middle class village- they tend to be cliquey and your face not fitting at the best of times!

I think there must be a compromise place to live that is more diverse and offers you professional work whilst your DH keeps his current role?

DH is North African and would never pass as non-BAME, the DC do pass. I genuinely don’t think we could move from London to a small rural town or village. Even if everyone was absolutely lovely I think DH would still feel “other”. Where we are in London it is mixed enough that DH is not different.

@Multipotentialite

I genuinely think that DH doesn't understand the impact that racism has on me. To him, it's just someone who refused to serve me...

First time, I was stood on the dot that they make you stand on when queuing for social distancing. Everyone was doing the same. When it came my turn, said woman asked me to step further back. I told her I am stood on dot, everyone else before me had been stood at the same spot. She then said that she felt vulnerable with me there and her not having more protection. I simply walked away.

Second time, lady was just finishing cleaning a table. Just as she finished, my son and I sat down. There was no one else around. She asked me to leave as she had cleaned that table for someone else. I called her a racist, I left and called the head office.

I work hard and I cannot even have a cup of coffee at at the local cafe.

I really hope you get an answer from HO, That is beyond appalling

I am sorry you have been the victim of Racism .This is not acceptable at all.Many small towns and villages can be small minded .You need to tell your DH what you have told us .If he loves you he will listen to you . And get some details about homes in London for you both to look at ?

The cafe workers attitude is disgusting! This is illegal,but still so many people seem to think they can get away with it!Did you have a reply to your complaint ? WTF does she mean "she feels vulnerable there with you and not having more protection " FFS!

I’m so glad I posted about this. The support here is incredible. I’m so grateful to you all.

If we lived in Bristol, Swindon or Oxford DH could still commute to work. I’m not ruling these places out, I just never lived there before. I lived in London before we got together and also for a number of years before the DCs were born. DH was keen to have DC outside London for better quality of life, less pollution etc. I kind of went along as DH had to be the main earner for me to have children etc.

@Wimpeyspread I’m sorry for your SIL... he just have felt as awful as I did.

I will speak to DH properly about it. I want to come up with a plan about practicalities.

The chain took my complaint over the phone and they sounded like they cared. They said this did not represent their brand. They said I should not be made to feel the way I did. They offered me a voucher and asked me to keep using that place. I declined their voucher. They asked if I wanted to be kept informed and I said I did.

I received a call about a week later. They said they had reviewed what I said and what was on video. The area manager was dealing with that staff member.

@Multipotentialite
I'm a mixed race mum, with white British husband and darling white baby, bless her! (It was a bit of a surprise how fair skinned she was when she was born! But she's perfect in every way!) I live in London and 100% would never live anywhere else in the UK. Whenever I leave London I feel how non-diverse the rest of the country is, in a thousand subtle ways, like people staring or talking extra clearly at me (English is my first language and I have the queen's accent ffs). Or people asking me "where are you from", hmm what makes you think I'm foreign I wonder? Hehe sorry to moan. But even forgetting about clear cut racist experiences (like yours in that cafe, I'm so sorry that happened), 100% I wouldn't want my daughter to live in places like that. I wouldn't want HER to stare or speak extra clearly to a non white person, when she is older. I would want her to have friends and colleagues of all races. IME if you are white then it is hard to understand, how hard it is to stick out like a sore thumb all day.

You listed a few towns that your DH could commute from. Well, by coincidence, I went to school in one of those specific towns and uni in another. I was "that Asian girl". One man I was flirting with in a bar, said "you're pretty fit for an Asian" (his mates were shocked and he was a bit embarrassed it slipped out). These aren't even strictly racist experiences, just uncomfortable and frustrating. But since I moved to London after graduating, it's been so rare. I love it here.

If you do decide to move here, send me a PM and I can have another mum friend :)

It's so important for me to live here that, before I married my DH, I said that I'd want to live here all my life and is he OK with that. I also repeated this wish before TTC, that our baby would grow up here. He understands, maybe not completely but sympathises. We have a lovely little house in an inexpensive, diverse area of South London which is very safe and full of young families. To the PP who said moving to London is "extreme", I just want to gently respond that perhaps you don't understand.

You may well experience racism in London as well though. My BiL has many times. You really need to work on your relationship & communication with your DH.

Op where are you based? Is your house bought or rented?

Bristol is a great option. Lots of people leave London for Bristol.

I'm interested in why it doesn't seem obvious to your DH

Maybe for the same reason it’s not obvious to all the white people on this thread trying to tell a BAME woman that what she knows to be racism isn’t actually racism

I’ll give you a clue: it starts with ‘white’ and ends in ‘privilege’.

Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for your position, I am bemused at your stark rendering. So basically your husband must give up the job he loves and which pays well in a period when finding another that pays well and he even tolerates may be impossible. Or you are leaving him. How does that benefit you, the children, and him. How will you afford that three bedroom flat in London when he is out of work? How will you afford the lifestyle if he is out of work? Or, if he refuses, you are going to do what with the children? Take them?, Leave them? Be a single parent and what - work when and if you can? Because splitting the family won't make anything more affordable so you may need to reconsider what you can afford.

I can totally get why you are unhappy. Your solution, however, seems to be to rip apart the family or force your husband to do something he doesn't want to do. Does that not seem rather selfish?

Sorry to hear about your experiences OP. I’m a mixed-race Mum with a white husband and two children who appear white. We moved out of London to a semi-rural village a few years ago and it was a difficult time. There was one black family in the village school, the Asian family who ran the Chinese takeaway, and myself - otherwise the whole village was white.
I too was asked whether I was the boys’ nanny at school pickup (even if the genetics is weird, have people never heard of the concept of adoption? How nosey!). Kids teased DS2 about him having different skin colour to me.
We ended up moving a short distance to a nearby town which had a much better mix of people. It might not be as idyllic, although we still have a much better pace of life than we did in London. But the kids go to a school where they have schoolmates from many different cultures and religions, and I don’t feel like a freak when I walk down the street!

Obviously those incidents were racist and im amazed your dh didn't get it. I guess he really wants to stay.

I get it as far as a Caucasian can. A million years ago (2001) i moved from London to Hampshire. Went to a market in a small city and was trying to behave normally while being completely creeped out and not able to work out why. Eventually I was standing by a wall looking at the whole scene and the penny dropped that nearly everyone was white. Also a very similar look - blondish with similar clothes. I also fitted in completely, I was just like them, so I wasn't experiencing exclusion myself. I lived there 2 years and never settled. I didn't move back to London but to one of the cities you've mentioned where I've been settled ever since.

The bottom line is that you both have a huge stake in this. Truth is if you were 9n your own youd have gone already, so right now you are staying for him. He has to understand and accept that this is a major problem for you both, he needs to have your back and you his, or you are not going to be able to stay married. You might need a therapist just to work out what the red lines are for each of you and whether you can find a way forward. But a friend of mine has come out of a really bad patch in her marriage without therapy using the book Rapport (i think, will look for a link).

Saying that, I didn’t pull them out of school before they were due to move anyway - we just moved house so we were in the new town in time for secondary applications.

It’s a hard choice to uproot the whole family for a big move depending on school stages and jobs, but as others have said if you are being subjected to racism on a regular basis then you will need to do something about the situation.