I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/chatshitgetbanged101. Posted 6 years ago on r/relationships.

My [22M] girlfriend’s [21F] family said some pretty racist shit about me during Thanksgiving, not sure what to do?

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3v2maa/my_22m_girlfriends_21f_family_said_some_pretty/

So to give some context, I was born in India, and moved to America when I was 5 years old, while my girlfriend on the other hand is white. We’ve been together for two years now, and it’s been an absolutely incredible relationship. She’s kind, sweet, fun, and I really do want to spend the rest of my life with her. We’ve never really faced any sort of confrontation or prejudice for our relationship at college, nobody gives a shit, which is why I wasn’t prepared at all for her family.

Anyways, we are getting pretty serious now, we’re planning to move in together next semester, and I’m planning on proposing after we graduate. She wanted me to meet her family, I guess to take the next step or whatever, so she invited me to her place for the Thanksgiving weekend. She warned me her family was kind of different, and to try and interact and be nice to everyone.

When we got there, and she introduced me to everyone, they all looked at me as if they’d never seen a brown guy their entire life, it was really awkward. While I was shaking everyone’s hand, her two older brothers ignored me and walked away when I stuck my out hand out to them. At first I thought it was because they were weird around new people, so I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t really get a chance to talk with anyone as we got in late at night and I was dead tired. The next morning, on Thanksgiving, everyone was watching football in the living room so I went and joined them. Her brothers were talking some football strategy when the Eagles were getting their asses kicked, and so I commented on one of the things they said. They immediately started laughing and said “What do you know about sports? Did you even play any?” I told them yes, I played basketball and did track in high school. They laughed and said “Your sports teams must have been shit, I’ve never seen an athletic brown guy”. I didn’t say anything in response; I just got up, left, and ignored them for the rest of the day.

Then later on, during the dinner her Uncle asked me what I was studying. I told them I was doing a Business degree and was planning on going to Law School. Her douche bag brothers then chimed in and said, “I thought you would follow the family business, you know, go run a call center or 7/11 or whatever”. They also noticed how I wasn’t eating any meat, so they asked my girlfriend why and she responded saying I am a vegetarian, and their response was, “No wonder I’ve never seen a buff brown guy my entire life”. At this point I was so close to just leaving, but I thought I could put up with them a bit more for my girlfriend. A bit later, her Dad and some other relatives were talking about Trump and how he’s completely right about Muslims cheering during 9/11 or some bullshit, I completely zoned out to their non-sense. Then her Dad asked me, “Are you Muslim”, which I said no to. Her Grandma then said “Bullshit. You look like one, and your name is like one. All of you terrorist bastards disgust me”. After that I was fucking done, I tried to be kind, but these fuckers treated me like shit, and insisted on saying stupid and prejudicial things about myself and my race. My girlfriend followed me up to her room. I told her I was leaving and going to stay in a hotel, but she begged me to stay for one more night and that we would leave early in the morning. She apologized for their behavior, but told me this is they way they’ve always been and that she was sorry for not defending me. I was about to lay into her for not saying shit to defend me, but I didn’t feel like getting in an argument in front of her family. I stayed in her room for the rest of the night, avoided all of her family, and left early the next morning.

We’ve both avoided the entire incident since, but I really want to address this before it becomes a further issue. We’re getting pretty serious, so I’m probably not going to going to be able to further avoid her family, so I want some advice on how to deal with these types of people. What should I do?

tl;dr: Girlfriend's family said racist shit during thanksgiving, how do I deal with them in the future?

[Update] My [22M] girlfriend’s [21F] family said some pretty racist shit about me during Thanksgiving, not sure what to do?

https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3vbo4l/update_my_22m_girlfriends_21f_family_said_some/

So yeah, a lot of shit has gone down since my original post. First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for their responses. I was blown away by the attention my previous post got, and wanted to thank everyone for their time and input.

Moving on, yesterday I texted my girlfriend to come over to my apartment to talk. I was planning on telling her that I was really upset by the fact that she didn’t defend me at all from her racist relatives, and that she didn’t prepare me by properly informing me of how her family behaves. In addition, I was hoping we could make an agreement for the future on how to properly deal with these sorts of situations.

So she came over later on in the evening. We sat down, and I first began by discussing what how pissed I was that she neither prepared me for the incident, nor defended me when it occurred. She immediately broke down and started crying. Then, she started saying how sorry she was for putting me in that situation and that she had her reasons.

Apparently, she had kept me a secret from her family for the past two years because she knew they would not approve of her choices. A few months ago, one of her family friends that we go to college with saw us together on a date or something. She then went and told her family that my girlfriend was dating an Indian guy. So for the last few months, without my knowledge, my girlfriend has been constantly getting phone calls, texts, emails from her family, old friends, that she should break up with me, she could do a lot better, and that she wasn’t safe around someone like me. She basically ignored all of their requests, and repeatedly tried to explain to them that she was happy with me and they should try and respect her feelings. She showed me some texts and it displayed how they were emotionally blackmailing her, saying bullshit like they put food on her table and took care of her for all these years, and doesn’t she care for her family at all? After a few months of this, she told them that they should at least give me a chance and meet me, with the hope that they would somehow change their opinion and understand her feelings. She didn’t want to tell me the full scope of how fucked up her family was because she was scared I would break up with her. I was really saddened to hear this, because that would NEVER happen. Also, the reason she remained quiet during her family’s racist talks, was she thought arguing back would further exacerbate the situation, and we would have no chance of them changing their opinion.

After I had left their house the morning after Thanksgiving, her parents told her how rude and disrespectful they found me, and also how it wasn’t “proper” for her to date outside of her race. Her Grandmother apparently thought I was part of Obama’s Muslim brotherhood, sent here to fight for the islamification of America (Lol I know, I had no idea idiots like this existed). They then gave her an ultimatum, either end our relationship, or they would cut her off completely. Her parents pay for both her college and residence expenses. She was trying to find the right time and best way to tell me this, which I’m guessing is why she avoided this topic for the past week. She came to the decision that she wanted to continue dating me, and informed her family of that decision.

For the next hour, we discussed whether or not this was the right decision for her. I felt guilty that I would be the reason she goes into massive student debt, but she told me this was the right choice. She could no longer stand their toxic presence in her life, and the way they treated me was the last straw. So I guess this is where we’re at right now, we’re trying to figure out how to deal with all the fallout together.

In all honesty, I’m very proud of her for the way she handled an extremely difficult situation. I wish that she had told me beforehand, so we could have dealt with this together, but she held strong to what her personal feelings and didn’t allow herself to be walked all over by her family. She’s been through a lot of shit in her life, and I’m really happy that she stood up to them.

tl;dr: Turns out her famly was trying to get her to break up with me, she tried to introduce me to hopefully change their opinion. It didn't work, they cut her off because she is continuing to date me, we're dealing with the fallout now.

Reminder: I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

The original poster is u/chatshitgetbanged101. Posted 6 years ago on r/relationships.