Dear Prudence: Our Daughter Is Dating a Flagrant Bigot

[minoanmiss]

My family is proudly Iranian and Muslim. Although my adult daughter is no longer religious, she was brought up to respect her heritage. Or so I thought. She’s now dating a white man, whose race I only mention because of the way he spoke to us at our disastrous first meeting. Although I apologized and explained, he called my not shaking his hand “sexist,” and said he was glad my daughter had “unlearned that internalized misogyny.” I remember that phrase word for word because he used it over and over, bringing up facts about our (and other Eastern) cultures out of context and asking us if we practiced them, with a judgmental tone. My husband and I tried to politely either explain or redirect to a less touchy subject, and our daughter kept sort of laughing and half-heartedly protesting, which it seemed only encouraged him.

White people often think they can ask us to speak for all of Islam or Middle Eastern conflicts, but we were saddened to see that our daughter not only seemed only willing to go along with it, but begged us to as well. I also thought that perhaps he was nervous about making a good first impression, so I did try to show him that we didn’t have to talk about our culture and religion (while not letting him disrespect us).

My husband is a patient man, but he reached his limit when this boyfriend asked him if he needed to watch out for my husband “selling” our daughter into an arranged marriage. My husband stood and told the boyfriend that he was being ignorant and disrespectful, and that our family, especially our daughter, deserved someone who cared enough to actually listen and learn about our culture with an open heart, instead of assuming he knew everything from racist news headlines. This caused a fight, where the boyfriend hid our daughter behind himself and acted like he expected my husband to attack them. When he finally left, he took our daughter, yelling that she couldn’t be ordered around when I tearfully asked her to stay. I’m at a loss for how to deal with this. I always wanted to be the loving and accepting mother-in-law, but I am offended and sick at the thought of our daughter being treated this way, and I don’t think I’m wrong for that. Our daughter won’t pick up the phone or answer emails from us or her brothers. Although we’re angry at this boyfriend, we just want to talk to our daughter, not fight. I’m at a loss.

—Worried Mother

Dear Worried,

Yikes. We need to sound the alarm on this dude. It’s clear to me that this guy is a raging bigot. The big issue for me is the disrespect this man showed to you and your husband.

What you describe here is concerning, and I’ve seen this playbook from men like him before. It seems as if therapy would benefit your daughter immensely—to talk through this relationship, as well as her own self-esteem, but only if she’s willing to help herself. If he can act that way towards you, imagine the stuff he’s saying and doing to your daughter behind closed doors. This relationship could end up becoming extremely dangerous in the short and long-term if left alone, which is bad news all around.

Continue to reach out to her. Please let her know how concerned you are. If you can’t reach her by phone or by text, have one of your sons, your husband, or go to her home yourself to make sure she is OK. Once you know she is safe, make sure that she knows how much you love her and care about her. Rather than retread the details of what happened, tell her what concerns you have about this man’s behavior more broadly. Research the signs of domestic abuse and make sure that she knows them, too.

Unfortunately, since your daughter is a grown woman, you can’t make her go to therapy. (That said, if you make amends and she tries to bring the boyfriend home again, you should put your foot down and say he is not welcome unless he apologizes for his behavior to you and your husband.)

You are absolutely not wrong for feeling the way you feel. Your daughter deserves better and you deserve better.

Comments

Dear LW's daughter

[minoanmiss]

I have been where you are. This man is not a force for liberty or goodness in your life.

(And no, my known-to-be-abusive parents couldn't describe meeting my sweetie or my bestie like this, not without lying so much the holes in the story would show, because my sweetie and my bestie have been polite when meeting them. But I dated a couple of people who would have acted like this and soon learned they're turn their bigotry on me.)

[tielan]

I don't see any good way out of this situation, at least, not until the daughter leaves the boyfriend. She's an adult; she's unfortunately permitted to fuck up her life with a man who doesn't respect her background, alienates her family, and isolates her from her past and connections.

[liv]

Wow, wow, this one is so hard. I normally have a rule that if someone writes to an advice columnist saying that their adult offspring has stopped talking to them, the correct advice is to respect their boundaries. But here the breaking off contact is pretty clearly a consequence of coercive control by the boyfriend.

Here I think Prudie's answer is mostly good, particularly that she explicitly names abuse rather than dancing around it. But I have two problems with it; one, saying the daughter should go to therapy seems anti-helpful here. She doesn't need therapy to work on her self-esteem, she needs to exit the abusive relationship. Which brings me to the second problem: the letter is missing useful advice about how to respond when someone you care about is in an abusive relationship. I personally think going to the daughter's house is a bad idea and likely to strengthen the boyfriend's case that her parents are controlling and she should distance herself from them, even if it doesn't provoke violence.

LW needs advice about making sure to offer unconditional support to her daughter, and not to criticize her horrible boyfriend because that just feeds in to the false narrative about why daughter should trust only him and isolate herself from her family and friends. I wonder if rather than trying to invoke a hypothetical therapist, could LW seek support from a domestic abuse org? I'm guessing they can't intervene directly unless the daughter herself approaches them, but they might have advice.

[green_grrl]

I personally think going to the daughter's house is a bad idea and likely to strengthen the boyfriend's case that her parents are controlling and she should distance herself from them, even if it doesn't provoke violence.

Agreed. I immediately worried that BF would see father or brothers at the door and start ranting about honor killings. I can’t imagine it going well. :-(

[azurelunatic]

The only way I could see coming by working out well would be something like coming by to drop off a container of home-cooked something and leaving promptly (but making a weekly or fortnightly habit of it). But that would still risk setting this dude off.