minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minoanmiss) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
agonyaunt2020-07-27 10:41 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-07-27 10:41 am
Entry tags:
Dear Prudence: I dread my boyfriend's father
Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend and I have been together for two years, and I couldn’t be happier with him. He’s my favorite person in the world, and I feel so appreciated and supported by him. I even like his family—except for his dad. I’m uneasy and stressed-out around him. Once he invited himself on a long drive with me (that I’d been planning on taking solo) and we sat in almost total silence for seven hours. He turned off the music right away, drank from my water bottle without asking, and made what appeared to be a charged comment about my parents’ ethnicity (I was later assured that it wasn’t).
I’m involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and dread his jokes about how “stupid” it is to try to take down statues of Confederate generals. I end up biting my tongue a lot. My boyfriend’s family keeps inviting me over, and while I’d love to see them (I haven’t seen anyone in a long time due to the pandemic), I’m dreading seeing his dad again. As I look ahead at a possible future with the person I adore, I wonder if I’ll have to spend years feeling awkward around his beloved parent. How should I express this to my boyfriend, if at all? Do I speak up or bite my tongue to keep the peace, especially as a guest in their home?
—Dad Silence
Consider what your life with your boyfriend might look like if you committed to never mentioning your discomfort with his father even once: hiding your dread in the lead-up to every family trip, biting your tongue every time another relative informs you that you’ve “misunderstood” one of his racist comments, covering moments of awkwardness or distress with a tight smile, all the while worrying that your boyfriend has already intuited that something’s wrong but doesn’t want to know what or why. Even if things really are great the rest of the time, that’s an awful lot of time dedicated to keeping your feelings from your boyfriend. Why is protecting him from possible hurt so much more important than protecting yourself from your own discomfort?
You say your boyfriend appreciates and supports you. Is he in the room when his father makes dismissive jokes about racism and the Confederacy? Does he later assure you that you’ve misunderstood those jokes, too? Or does he pretend not to hear them? What does he think about your involvement with Black Lives Matter, and does he share your commitment? Perhaps most importantly: Are you really afraid of breaking your boyfriend’s heart, or are you afraid that if you tell him, he’ll say that you’re making a big fuss over nothing? You’re not asking your boyfriend to cut ties with his father or denounce him in the public square. You want to tell him what’s been bothering you, enlist his support in declining impromptu “Can I come too?” requests in the future, and ask him to push back when his father dismisses your civil rights work. Those are very modest requests to make of someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Give yourself permission to make them.
My boyfriend and I have been together for two years, and I couldn’t be happier with him. He’s my favorite person in the world, and I feel so appreciated and supported by him. I even like his family—except for his dad. I’m uneasy and stressed-out around him. Once he invited himself on a long drive with me (that I’d been planning on taking solo) and we sat in almost total silence for seven hours. He turned off the music right away, drank from my water bottle without asking, and made what appeared to be a charged comment about my parents’ ethnicity (I was later assured that it wasn’t).
I’m involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and dread his jokes about how “stupid” it is to try to take down statues of Confederate generals. I end up biting my tongue a lot. My boyfriend’s family keeps inviting me over, and while I’d love to see them (I haven’t seen anyone in a long time due to the pandemic), I’m dreading seeing his dad again. As I look ahead at a possible future with the person I adore, I wonder if I’ll have to spend years feeling awkward around his beloved parent. How should I express this to my boyfriend, if at all? Do I speak up or bite my tongue to keep the peace, especially as a guest in their home?
—Dad Silence
Consider what your life with your boyfriend might look like if you committed to never mentioning your discomfort with his father even once: hiding your dread in the lead-up to every family trip, biting your tongue every time another relative informs you that you’ve “misunderstood” one of his racist comments, covering moments of awkwardness or distress with a tight smile, all the while worrying that your boyfriend has already intuited that something’s wrong but doesn’t want to know what or why. Even if things really are great the rest of the time, that’s an awful lot of time dedicated to keeping your feelings from your boyfriend. Why is protecting him from possible hurt so much more important than protecting yourself from your own discomfort?
You say your boyfriend appreciates and supports you. Is he in the room when his father makes dismissive jokes about racism and the Confederacy? Does he later assure you that you’ve misunderstood those jokes, too? Or does he pretend not to hear them? What does he think about your involvement with Black Lives Matter, and does he share your commitment? Perhaps most importantly: Are you really afraid of breaking your boyfriend’s heart, or are you afraid that if you tell him, he’ll say that you’re making a big fuss over nothing? You’re not asking your boyfriend to cut ties with his father or denounce him in the public square. You want to tell him what’s been bothering you, enlist his support in declining impromptu “Can I come too?” requests in the future, and ask him to push back when his father dismisses your civil rights work. Those are very modest requests to make of someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Give yourself permission to make them.