My Disastrous”Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” Moment, Plus Strategies On How Couples Can Cope

This is so important, and I'm glad it comes up it Swirling, because even in this day and age, parents and parental opinions can totally change the dynamic of a relationship. 

When I was a freshman in college I had an extremely short lived relationship with a man who was literally blind. We met while I was taking sign language classes at a center for deaf and blind college students (I wanted to work there but you couldn't work their without being fluent in ASL), and we clicked immediately. He knew I was black, not because I told him, but because, at the time, it was situationally apparent (a black sorority was stalking me despite my willingness to sign an affidavit expressing my unwillingness to join, nsbe was inviting me to stuff, my mother was making me join a black mentoring group, and a bunch of other things that get thrown at black female freshmen in their first months of school that I was venting about at the time). But, in his words, his blindness made appearance "irrelevant".   I could have been blue and he would not have cared, so long as we got along.

His mother, on the other hand, immediately made a stink and told me that I was taking advantage of his inability to see me, because to her,  if he still had his sight, he wouldn't look twice at a black girl.  But that was the least of it.  I can't go into details without writing 9 paragraphs, but the lunatic did something that put her blind son in danger, and then blamed it on me in a bid to get him to lose interest. He knew what was up, and knew what she did, and did not lose interest, but I absolutely did. I was only 17, and I was not going to deal with crazy pants mothers for someone who I hadn't even gotten a chance to get past the "like" stage with. To be honest, I would not have even met her so soon if it weren't for her overprotective "DEAR GOD MY SON IS HANDICAPPED AND NOW HE CAN'T DO AAAANNNNNYYYTTTHHHINNNGGG WITHOUT ME" act.  I don't even really consider him to have been a boyfriend because we hardly got anywhere before his mother went crazy.

And besides, a year later I met the first love of my life, and his parents were fricking phenomenal. His parents were probably 1/4 of the reason why our relationship was so awesome.

And although they weren't swirling, my middle sister TOTALLY divorced her ex-husband's parents more than she divorced him. Parents can eff some ish up.

I'm certain I've mentioned this before, but to recap:  It was 1974.  Grad school first year, I meet Evie, my black girlfriend, fall in love and gave her an engagement ring.  Her parents invited me for the weekend.  They were warm and gracious, no sidelong glances, no nasty double entendres.  An hour or so before I left to go back to school, we had the dreaded family meeting.  During the weekend they noticed how close Evia and I were.  They said they believed I was sincere and wanted to marry her, but they said my parent would never agree.  I argued that my parents had brought me up to be color blind.  I was totally certain they would accept her with open arms and told them I was going to take her home to meet my family.  I used the next weekend to prep them that she was black before bringing her home.  My dad laughed because he thought I was kidding.  When I told them I was serious, they became angry.  I said "when you meet her you'll see how beautiful, intelligent she was and how her personality sparkles."  My dad said, "we aren't going to meet her Jay.  We don't want a black daughter-in-law and we don't want brown grandchildren.  I was devastated, angry,  and asked why they had brought me up to treat everyone as equal?  They said they never expected me to fall in love with a black girl.  Although it was a Saturday night I headed back to school.  I didn't have to tell Evia.  She knew by the look on my face.  She was very perceptive.  We thought of waiting for each other, but decided it couldn't go anywhere from here.  My parents and I were never on friendly terms again.  I had a year to go in grad school and was completely dependent on my parents for support.   We both knew it. After my last year in school, I got a teaching position and moved away.  Things were very different 40 years ago.   That's why I'm so interested in this IR movement and have so much hope for the future.

When I mat my late husband's parents, I invited them to my home for dinner.  They'd never laid eyes on me before.  I suspect husband prepped them in advance.  It went smoothly and they were very polite.  Of course they knew by that time that we were planning to announce our engagement soon.  If they were surprised, they kept it to themselves.  In any event, we were both of an age where family consent was not a necessity but certainly was a niceity.  My family simply accepted my choice and went about their business.

Beloved Spouse introduced me to his children first (they are well into adulthood.)  His parents had long since passed away.  They were delightful and fun to be around. They came to Vegas for their father's birthday and a couple of times after that before the wedding.  They ended up thanking me for marrying their father so he wouldn't grow old alone. My daughter, on the other hand, was wary--I think she still missed her father and wasn't sure how she should feel about my new husband.  Others of my family were gracious to him and not at all surprised, since my first husband was white as well.

Didn't meet his two sisters until after we were married, but they were warm and welcoming.  They made me feel like one of them right away.  So, I guess I have been very lucky.  Nothing awkward or untoward about any of it.

I would say just be straight upfront the beginning. I think the point of conflict occurs when we play up the personality and not mention the person's ethnicity.

Is there a "WAY" to introduce your significant other? Well, I don't know. I just know for my mom any woman would have been wrong. :P

disastrous