Conversations around race with your partner

[ireallyneedsuppport]

NC for obvious reasons

I'm in an interracial relationship and struggling with DH's reactions to racist incidents.

Recently, a member of his family used a horrible racial slur during an altercation. Instead of being disgusted, my husband's initial reaction was to say the other person "shouldn't have started it" and that if you provoke someone, you should expect them to try to hurt you and that see, you're hurt clearly it worked to try and get to them with the racial slur.

I had to push hard for him to finally acknowledge that what his family member did was horrible. What's even more troubling is that this family member has dated people of color in the past.

This isn't an isolated incident. Whenever there's an issue regarding race, my husband tends to minimise it instead of showing sympathy for the victim. He often sides with or makes excuses for people who have said or done racist things. When we discuss, it always ends in an argument.

As a person of color myself, I find his reactions deeply upsetting and hurtful. It makes me feel unsupported and invalidated in our relationship. I'm not sure how to address this ongoing issue with him or if it's even possible to change his perspective.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation in an interracial relationship? How did you handle it? Any advice on how to approach this with my husband would be appreciated.

@Merryoldgoat I had already said he had said he feels under attack on this thread, I just wanted other peoples perspectives on it.

I'm attending counselling to work through this, not sure at this point what else to do.

You should leave him. That’s what you should do.

No black person has any business being in a relationship with a racist.

It’s as simple as that.

Your thread (which got taken down) was full of people telling you what an idiot he is. Not a single person told you he had a valid viewpoint.

Counselling isn’t witchcraft - you aren’t going to get a racist to suddenly stop being racist.

I honestly don’t understand how you can be with him.

Is your counsellor someone who specialises in the issues that have caused you to quite rightly seek support to help you work through this?

@panachronic no, I'm struggling find one that specialises - if anyone has suggestion please let me know

Your white partner feels under attack because his Black partner has highlighted that his indifference/tacit acceptance of racist behaviour is not ok??? Do you not see how wrong that is?

I shudder for the mental gymnastics your mind must be doing to live through this kind of gaslighting trauma. Counselling will NOT help you here, unless your therapist is a person who "doesn't see colour".

You need to leave him before it gets worse.

@Starseeking

I’m not sure if you saw OP’s thread last night under a different name, but it’s more than that.

He thinks ‘white people’ are under attack.

He’s an absolute piece and I’ve lost to ability to be patient with the OP.

She has no children, has family and friends, she works. She is married so has rights to any assets they have.

She has no reason to stay. None.

Counselling will do absolutely nothing to change him and that’s her aim. She’s not going to counselling to help her leave - it’s to help her understand his viewpoint. I’m at a complete loss as to how or why she’s still with him.

She’ll be here in a year asking the same questions.

https://www.baatn.org.uk

If your current counsellor does not share a similar lived experience to you as a Black women, I would stop seeing them immediately.

Thank you so much @panachronic

I may have misunderstood here, what do you need a counsellor to specialise in?
Is it to help you understand your husband's racism in order to help him overcome this? Or is it to give you the tools to recognise and overcome the racist trauma you endure every single minute of the day you choose to remain with this POS and leave him?

I didn't see OP's other thread, it sounds awful.

I'm no psychologist but living with a man like this screams of carrying deep trauma from childhood which drummed into her that she was worthless. How related to being Black and female that was I couldn't say, but a specialist therapist/counsellor could help the OP to develop enough self-worth and love for herself to leave this situation. BAATN is a good place for her to start.

Until then she'll live for the good parts (there must be some) of this relationship and pretend the gaslighting abuse isn't happening. Hopefully she doesn't develop mental health problems in the meantime due to the amount of cognitive dissonance she'll need to apply to live in this manner.

Interestingly just now my husband’s aunt made some racist comments in our family WhatsApp group.

I challenged them, she doubled down. I told her I was disappointed in her viewpoint and left the group.

My husband is outraged. He’s left the group too. He’s ready to start WW3 (which isn’t necessary). He didn’t minimise, ask me if I’d misunderstood, excused it because she’s old etc.

She was wrong and we’re not exposing ourselves to it.