Am I overthinking this

[TheRareHare]

I don’t know if I’m overreacting or not but I’m slightly shaking and feel almost scared but not scared I don’t know my emotions are everywhere right now. I’ve been with my partner for 5 years now and have a child with him. I’ve only just been speaking too his sister recently online and met her properly for the first time at there mums a few weeks ago as it was my first time going to his mums. I saw on her social media account in her bio she had 2 flags which was a Spanish flag and a Bangladesh flag. Now my partner and his dad havent seen eachother in years , I’ve never seen any photos of him or anyone in that side of the family and he doesn’t have anything to do with them because of the way they treated his mum and him and his sister he says.

I go too ask his sister hey what’s the Bangladesh flag for and she says oh I’m Asian aswell my dads side is Bangladesh. My partner told me all these yrs his dad’s side is Italian and St Lucian which his sister says they’re not and says she use to say Italian aswell in the past… then says “I didn’t know that you never knew I was Bengali ahah”

My partner always use too say things about himself like oh that the Italian in me and the same with our daughter to saying that’s the Italian in her and I use too say it too thinking they were Italian..

I'm not sure why you're shaking? Maybe just ask him to explain? Families are often from all over the place, my own included.

I can understand why you’re shaking! You’ve been with someone for 5 years and suddenly you’re questioning whether anything he’s said about himself is true? Yup, I’d be shaking. And tbh I’m sort of uncomfortable that it’s taken 5 years and a child before you’ve met his family at all. It just doesn’t sit right with me, it’s not normal. And the family history shit just makes me feel he’s too comfortable with telling, living a lie. It’s time for some hard truths

I appreciate your comment but it’s not something I could just ask him as I have before in the past when I had a gut feeling he was from somewhere in South Asia and he’s got really angry and defensive about it… denying it

yess it’s the fact it’s been 5 years and a child and saying she’s got certain things from her “Italian” side.. what was the need too lie all these years..& yes it’s all so strange how I’ve only gone there for the first time in years when my daughter had been going every other weekend. My nan once put in the effort and made my partner a platter of Italian food saying she’s done this food because of his Italian side being so thoughtful bless her but turns out this isn’t the case. What else is there

Probably telling you nothing you don’t know but - you need to find out the whole truth. And the reasons for the lies. And then decide if you can actually trust him going forward (which might be the trickiest bit). It’s a proper head-fuck and you might need a bit of time and maybe someone you can trust to help you think straight about what you’re told. Time to unleash your inner tough no-nonsense bitch!

I don’t think it’s terribly unusual for people who have grown up with undertones of racism around them, hearing racist comments or seeing other people treated badly because of their skin colour or race, to try to quite literally whitewash their heritage and pretend that they actually have olive skin from e.g. a southern European ancestor rather than an Asian or African one. It’s also not unheard of for children who are estranged from a parent - not at their own choosing - to want to distance themselves from that parent and create a new history for themselves. If your boyfriend’s sister also used to say that she was part Italian, it may also be that this is something their mum told them, because of her own mixed feelings about her ex and his race.

You can raise it with him in a matter of fact way: “I was talking to your sister and she was telling me that your dad is Bangladeshi not Italian. It doesn’t bother me at all that you have Bangladeshi heritage, but it does bother me that you would lie about it, so I’d prefer to just hear the truth from you and then we can move on from it.”