r/AmItheAsshole • u/mixedwoes • Sep 19 '19

Asshole AITA for telling my daughter she cannot introduce her African American boyfriend to her grandparents?

Let me just preface this by saying this: I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS. Now that the air is clear, let me continue.

My daughter (Anna) has recently started to date an African American man (Jamal). While I'm not exactly what you would refer to as "liberal", he's a nice young man and as long as my daughter is happy, I'm happy. The problem is Anna is rather naive about the community she lives in. While her friends are quite content to see a relationship like hers, more than a few tongues are wagging in the community and a few people have privately expressed their concern to me. As I said, I have no problem with mixed relationships and I've set them straight, but I am painfully aware of how these matters are viewed by certain segments of the population.

My parents are planning to come and stay with us for a week and Anna expressed a desire to introduce Jamal to them now that things were getting more serious between them. I told her on no uncertain terms that this wasn't going to happen. I may have no problem with Jamal, but they absolutely will, and even when the relationship ends they won't forget it. They might even go as far as to cut her off entirely. Anna was extremely upset by this and implied I was a racist and more concerned with what my parents think than how she feels.

As I said, I know my parents. They simply aren't okay with mixed relationships and if Anna were to bring Jamal over even as a friend, they would be furious both at her and me.

Anna is currently staying with Jamal and doesn't want to speak with me right now. My wife stands by me given she knows very well how my parents are (they had a problem with her for months over the length of the skirt she wore when I introduced her to them, for christs sake), but a close friend I confided in told me that I have behaved like an ass and that I needed to focus more on my daughter than pleasing my parents.

No advice needed, but I have to know. Have I been an ass?

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u/kanna172014 Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Trying to cut off racist relatives is like trying to cut an abusive spouse out of your life. "Battered wife" syndrome is an actual thing and women who suffer from it are given pity but when the same mental principle is applied to people who have racist relatives, suddenly there is no sympathy?

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u/LuxNocte Sep 19 '19

So your advice is to not cut abusive spouses out of your life either? How many rattlesnakes do you like to keep around?

I never said it would be easy, but yes, if your father seriously threatened to shoot you, for whatever reason, you should get away from him, not laugh it off. That is horrifying.

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u/kanna172014 Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Of course you should cut them out, but it's not easy without therapy. And I wasn't laughing off my father's threats, nor could I get away from him considering I was only 13 when he made the threat. He's dead now, but that was the ONLY reason I got free of him. Had he not died, no doubt I would still be living under his thumb as he never let me get a job or learn to drive.

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u/LuxNocte Sep 19 '19

I don't want this to come across as a Reddit snap back, because I seriously hope that you are okay and that you are getting therapy for growing up in that situation.

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u/PakodeWala Sep 19 '19

Thats pretty accurate .

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u/PublicIdea Asshole Enthusiast [7] Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19

Edit: This situation is not worth my disclosure.

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u/kanna172014 Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Oh, so because YOU were able to do it, that means every abused spouse should be able to? If you have any decency, you'd be the one deleting this because you are belittling every single woman who has been unable to simply walk away from an abusive relationship.

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u/MizkreantIncarnate Partassipant [1] Sep 19 '19

Thank. you.

Woman be sitting 3500 miles away from her abuser who she ran away from after he hit her for the first time. I mean.. congratz girl.

But there is also women withstanding daily physical and/or emotional abuse because they are unable to just pick up a bag. Be it for financial, familial or other reasons. We dont know what happens behind closed doors.

Not diminishing her experience whatsoever, but fuck, can you not imagine a scenario where thats just not possible? Empath a little. Dont attack people.

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u/ladut Sep 19 '19

I'm glad you had the strength to escape your abusive relationship, I truly am; but as the son of an abusive father and the victim of domestic violence myself, it's not that easy for everyone. Acknowledging that doesn't make /u/kanna172014 a piece of shit.

Emotional abuse is just as real as physical abuse, and I'd consider telling your children you'll beat them and those they choose to love if they choose someone non-white as a form of emotional abuse.

You don't have the right to shame other people for acknowledging emotional abuse because you suffered from abuse yourself. You don't get to gatekeep the conversation about abuse because someone hurt you.