Gori Girl

I would first like to say hi! I can't tell you how excited we were today when I stumbled across this website. It is so exciting to see that we're not alone in this journey. I know especially for Lanny, as the Indian portion of this relationship, it is very helpful emotionally just to know others out there are struggling as we are. Although I wish none of us had these challenges, we should all be grateful for such a great place to turn to seek advice and a much needed shoulder to lean on…even if it is a virtual shoulder!! So here is our story…a bit of background info and then we both wrote a bit about how we feel the situation is going. If you have any words of advice or encouragement please share them…we are in the thick of things and are desperately seeking the light at the end of the tunnel.

Background:
In 2002 Lavanya, his 4 year old brother and parents moved to Texas from Hyderabad India to fulfill his dad's aspirations of living the "American dream" in the United States. They landed in Texas because they had a small amount of family in that area and felt that there would be the necessary support system. Immediately L started college during the day and working overnight to help support the family. After four years he graduated and accepted a position in another Texas city so off they went. L's dad was able to find a good job as well and both worked to support his mom and brother. After that year L began to venture out and make new friends, including his future girlfriend. The relationship started off as friends and slowly began to grow into a loving relationship which will be explained later. During this time his dad kept working, his little brother started public school and his mom began her descent into loneliness and possibly depression over the move from India and lack of emotional support for her. In India she was a successful Pharmacist and even was considered the "bread winner" for a portion of her career. She wanted to support her husband's desire to move to the US and was convinced she would be able to continue her career once they arrived. Unfortunately she never had any formal English language training so it came as a much unexpected shock that she could not pass the necessary exams in the US to continue to practice as a Pharmacist. After multiple failed attempts she gave up and decided to commit herself to looking after the household and raising her two sons. Years later, she finds herself home alone most of the time because her eldest son works full time and has friends and a girlfriend, her husband works over an hour away so spends most of his day at work and commuting and her youngest has just entered middle school and his finding his way through his preteen years playing sports and spending time with his many friends at their homes, instead of his. Now that you have an understanding of this family's history, here is our story from our individual perspectives…

From Lavanya's perspective:
I am South Indian (Telugu) and girlfriend is from Texas, white. We have been dating for almost two years. I am very close to my mom, and have considered her my best friend and I would almost tell her everything and anything. I knew she will be upset outrageously if I told her that I was dating a white girl. But I still told her three month into dating, and she reacted the way I expected. And my dad was also completely against it. She pushed that there is no way it's going to work told me we had to break up, no exception. I really love my girl friend so I kept seeing her secretly. I would tell my mom that I was going out with my friends or whatever and I would go out with gf. Last week she confronted me and asked me if I was still seeing the girl. I told her the truth that I was seeing her and I want her to meet my gf, this way she can understand why she is so special to me. But my mom is completely against meeting her and just tells me every second she gets to break it up and not to go out with her. My girlfriend is very frustrated as well and is ready to do whatever it takes to convince my mom. As an example of this, when I confessed everything that my mom last week she told me to have my gf write her a letter explaining her intentions which my gf immediately did but now my mom is mad because she thinks it was too blunt and doesn't care what my gf's intentions are we have to break up. My mom had said she needed more time but would be open to meeting her someday but now she is saying she is not even open to meet her at all. Every hour at home is a living hell. Every time I go out, even just to the grocery store, she keeps calling every 20 min and tells me that I need to come back home and not see my girlfriend. I am really not sure what to do and what the solution is. One of my mom concerns is that my gf comes from a divorced family and she thinks for the same reason we will end up in divorce. But I keep telling her just because her parents are divorced we won't end up the same way. She also has no idea how hard my gf has worked to have an accomplished life and works harder than anyone I've ever known to be self sufficient and is just an amazing person. I do understand she is looking for my future but for some reason she fails to understand that I have found true happiness and we will be together no matter what. But I love my family and believe it is my responsibility to take care of them and provide for them and know my gf would be a great addition to us as a whole, not just me. How can I blend this all together and allow my parents, especially my mom, to see the good in this?

From Courtney's perspective:
Eleanor Roosevelt once said "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I have always been a dreamer and I've absolutely always believed that my dreams would come true. Some would say I've had a challenging life…the daughter of divorced parents who barely got along; we often did not have money to buy groceries or new shoes to start the school year. Neither of my parents have high school or college diplomas hanging on their walls but both have always had a fierce determination and a slight flare for the dramatics. I have a twin sister who has a degree in art and spends her days tutoring middle school and high school kids in math and her nights exploring her passion for belly dancing. My oldest sister is a wife and mother of two young boys and spends her days as a homemaker. I have always been the independent type. When I came home one sunny august day in high school and told my mom I had signed up to participate in the December Honolulu Marathon in Oahu in support of a local youth organization, she told me not to get my hopes up because we didn't have the money for such things. Within two months I had raised $3,000 for the charity and convinced American Airlines to donate my airfare and cover my hotel accommodations for six days. I went to, and graduated from my top university pick, student loans in tow. And now, by the age of 25 I am a director over a multi-million dollar resort living the dreams I always worked towards. To add to that I have found the man who makes my days more exciting then I ever thought possible. When I have worked 80 hours in five days and have no groceries at home, he is the one to meet me at my door with take out so I don't even have to think about what to eat. He has taught me a level of patience and understanding that I had no idea I possessed. Together we have traveled (secretly) to various parts of the world that neither of us have ever had the opportunity to explore. Not a day goes by that we aren't able to learn and teach each other new things. For two years I have struggled desperately to understand his family and piece together the puzzle of how we can make this work. He has met all of my family and even (secretly) spend Christmas with my entire family, including grandparents, aunts and uncles and all. I have met his little brother and we try to take him out at least once a month so he can get more comfortable with me. I've been to every little league football game, basketball game, band concert and parents night he had for the past two years…always sitting on the other side of the room so his parents won't see me. About a week ago Lavanya's mom came to him and asked for the truth. He spilled his heart out to her and told her everything, there were tears, heated moments and the sweetest moments they have shared as mother and son. She did express that she was not comfortable with the situation and felt that it would cause them to be an embarrassment to their family back in India. But, she also said she understands that times are changing here, and back in India so maybe, with time, she would be more understanding and open to the idea of meeting me. She also told him that she needed to know from me, in my own words, what my intentions with him are because she has heard terrible stories of white girls using men for money and pressing false charges on them and all other manner of things. So I did just that…considering the obvious language barrier I tried to make it short and sweet. Three days later he handed his mom the card and went off to work. By the time he got home from work she was furious and literally yelling that she couldn't do this and we had to break up immediately. He asked her what had happened and she told him the card was not personal enough and was too blunt. Apparently in the midst of translating it some of the phrases didn't translate as well as expected and even though we still don't know the specifics…she is a brick wall. For the past 48 hours she has turned the family upside down making her youngest son do nothing but sit in his room and study, not allowing him to attend planned activities with his friends this weekend. And is keeping a very close eye on Lavanya to such an extent that even when he left to go to the store she called him constantly tell him to swear on her mother's life that he would never see me again, which he told her no. She is threatening to put the house up for sale and move the family to another city. Even though we went through these three months into the relationship I think we can both agree that we didn't see this one coming. We thought time heals all wounds and that we are both good people and that somehow it would all just be OK. How do we make this work…It has been thrown out there that I just either stop by their house and ask to speak with her or maybe just introduce myself at the next basketball game. I don't know what to do. I do know that the longer she sits in that house without actually meeting me and starting that process she is only going to think more about the situation and convince herself of the worst. In my mind there is no way we can make forward progress without the key players at least having face time. Any advice and insight would be so very helpful…

Sounds pretty intense…I'm so sorry you're going through this. There's lots of advice and stories sprinkled through the forums…what stands out to me for this is that many, but not all, Indian parents reconcile after the wedding and especially after grandchildren. It's been explained to me (by Telugu and Gujarati women) that Indian parents will do what they can to cajole the children into marrying who they want them to marry, but that ultimately they respect marriage and value family so much that they'll settle down after the wedding (or when it's clear they aren't going to win). Of course, this is assuming a well-functioning family within that culture…it sounds like Lavanya's mother is a wonderful person in an awful situation (feeling isolated, depressed, and empty because she can't work and family isn't around much). She might feel like this is one more place where she'll be isolated, where she can't connect with someone (which would explain why she's so desperate to prevent it). It helped me to realize that my MIL needed to grieve for the Indian daughter-in-law she will never have. She will never chat comfortably in Gujarati, never meet parents with similar backgrounds to her, never have the same kind of family unity that she had pictured. On the other hand, we're having a Hindu wedding, I love love love her chai, she's slowly teaching us to make simple Indian dishes, and I'm hoping to get to the point that she can speak in mostly Guj around the house and I can follow (I can now pick out maybe 20-30 words and have some sense of the topic)…I think there are probably much fewer losses than she was initially anticipating.

Lavanya, it must be incredibly difficult to draw firm boundaries with your family while living at home, but if you wish to continue the relationship and keep your sanity, you will have to do so. One of those boundaries may be that, if they leave town, you will not leave with them (i.e., she can't make the problem go away by moving). I'm not sure what your timeline is for moving in together or getting married (if any), but you could perhaps compromise by letting your mother know that you will not end the relationship or promise not to marry without her blessing (be wary of making promises you're not willing to keep!) but that you will not make any deeper commitments for (6 months, 1 year, whatever you're comfortable with). This might reduce the sense of urgency for her. 

Emotional appeals don't move things forward – try to figure out the thoughts and fears underneath. Listen closely and ask gentle, open-ended questions - maybe she's been secretly dreaming of returning to India and she sees this as the final nail in the coffin for those dreams (you might clarify what your intentions to return would be with and without this relationship – maybe you'd return either way or want to stay either way). She also may be worried that a White woman would not allow an Indian husband's parents to live with them (which is also an important conversation, especially when there's tension – our solution was "if they're sick, I'll do what I have to do, and if they just want to live with us, I'll try it for at least six months and if I feel like I'm not being treated with respect, he'll support me"). Divorce seems to be a universal fear when a White woman is introduced to South Asian parents – but I've read that Indian American couples divorce at about the same rate as Indian American/White couples. I'm not 100% on the statistic (it was not clearly cited in the text I read it in), but my fiance's parents agreed with it when he told them (which was all we really needed!). Another thing that helped with them was to emphasize that I'm not just a random White American woman, I'm the woman HE chose, and he chose me based largely on the values his parents raised him with (which I think we got from one of the GG blog posts!). 

Of course, you know your situation best and only you can say which advice applies. Perhaps the most helpful thing you can do is look your mother in the eye and tell her that you will not end the romantic relationship at her request but that you will also not end your mother-son relationship and you hope she will not end it either. I know my fiance felt torn apart by the two women he cared about most in the world, and I hope for all the best in your journey.

Understand that you are now under a AFM (atomic force microscope) when it comes to the surveillance of your behavior in front of your possible future mother-in-law.  She is looking for every possible flaw and defect in your character, personal paradigms, and   She, herself, needs to overcome her own biases and foolishly ill-founded prejudices and come to realize the truth.  It seems like she is struggling so giving her some time might not be such a bad idea.  I would agree with the commenter, alioop, when it comes to not acting out of your own accord without the go-ahead from your bf.  What exactly is Lavanya doing regarding trying different approaches in speaking with his mother.  Is his mother the one with the full set of controls, or is his father also unianimously contemptful regarding his decision to see you?  What I mean is, is his father just going with the flow of the family's decision and also agreeing with them without really providing his input?  That happens quite a bit in Indian family dynamics.  I'm pretty sure that there was nothing wrong with the card that you sent Lavanya's mom, but you have to understand that most Indian women are not raised to be candid and forthcoming and to keep a lot of the emotional stuff inside and be more subservient and subdued in their behavior and thinking.

One thing that you can do is to show how well you can take care of your potential husband by taking up some cooking classes or lessons and cooking some Indian dishes.  One of the other primary concerns that Indian mother-in-laws have is that they are concerned that the potential wife will not be able to feed her husband properly with the appropriate Indian vegetarian diet, if your bf and his family are vegeterians.  That could help ease some of the tension and begin addressing the other concerns that you can deal with.  The primary conundrum with the divorce issue is something that will only be dealt with after there is a modicum of trust that is developed between you and your potential in-laws.  Unfortunately, trust is a two-way street so it is something that you have only half the control over.  I truly wish you the best and I advise that you not back down.  If they are truly concerned over their child's welfare and happiness, they will rid themselves of their poisonous biases and ill-founded bigotries due to their pride and bull-headedness in their plebian culture.

I wish you the very best.  Keep us posted.

Kratos

sjtp,

I am very interested in your journey on becoming vegetarian. That is the only issue his family seems to have with me. I am lucky enough because they like me and have realised I am just like any other modern indian girl my love could have found. But they are only worried on me eating meat. I have never considered becoming vegetarian. I have given up on red meat in the past but went back precisely in India (felt deprived :P). I have a younger brother who has been veg for circa 8 years in Mexico and he seems to cope. Please help.

For Yours Truly, I do feel for you but have no real advice. As I said, my in-laws have accepted me but much had to do with the fact that my now hubby left India to look for a job in the UK and became independent. I guess they had to realise that it was either accept me or lose him since they couldn't control him anymore.

Best of luck.

I wrote an extraordinarily long post, so I'm going to start a new thread for the veg/diet convo. Don't want to hijack this thread. :o)