This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
I am not OP.
Posted by u/throwramotherwdid on r/relationship_advice
Original - October 20, 2021
TLDR; I’m married to my former boss. Parents did not take the marriage as well as I’d hoped and ignored me for 5 years, only to reach out when they saw a 5th anniversary facebook post that mentioned our kids. Do I let them back in, or do I ignore them?
My husband (30m) used to be my boss. About 9 years ago I started working as his assistant. We spent about 2.5 years ignoring our mutual attraction until we gave in. We then went to HR, who reassigned me, and the whole thing was strictly above board from the time we began dating. I got pregnant about a year later, and my husband and I decided to just get married. While we’d only really been dating for about 1.5 years, we knew each other completely, loved each other, lived together, and there was a baby on the way. We knew how it would look, but I had to leave the company anyway due to problems with my new boss, so we didn’t anticipate this causing any issues, except with my parents.
They (62m/57f) have always been overprotective, so I knew they wouldn’t like me dating my boss, and hadn’t told them, but I had to tell them if I wanted them at my wedding. We decided to be mostly honest with them, about how it was strictly professional until it wasn’t, how the second it got unprofessional we went to HR, how he had never taken advantage of me, but now we wanted to get married and we wanted them there. We did not mention the baby, because I felt that giving them that information in addition to the rest all at once would just break them. I was only about 4 months along when the wedding happened, so the bump was easily hidden by a flowy dress.
The wedding itself went off without a hitch, and apart from my mother pulling me into the bathroom shortly before the ceremony to ask if I was sure about this, which I said I was, my parents seemed to take it well. The ceremony and reception were at 2 different venues, and we had to travel from one to the other, and my parents never arrived at the reception. I called them and got ignored, and then my brother called them and they told him that they were going home. I don’t remember the exact reason they gave but it amounted to them being tired and uncomfortable. I tried contacting them after the wedding, but found that I was blocked on everything except email, which I used to send them a long letter essentially saying that I’m an adult who made an adult choice and I hope they can respect that.
5 years later, I have not heard from my parents since my wedding. My husband and I are not big on social media in general but I recently posted something for our 5th anniversary in which I mentioned our 2 kids and third on the way. Within a month of making this post, my parents left a voicemail saying they saw the post, and, having had no idea that they had grandchildren previously, now want to meet them. I haven’t responded and there have been a few follow ups since then asking why I haven’t.
I don’t know what to do, but my gut instinct is that 5 years is too long, and it’s about the kids, not about them respecting my choices or relationship. However, I can’t help but feel that I’m being unfair, and my brother agrees, because I told them in my email that if they could learn to respect my choice and my marriage eventually, then we could talk, and now I’m retroactively applying a time limit.
Edit: can’t find a way to work this in organically but my husband is not white. I am, as are my parents. I don’t think this is a race thing or that my parents are racist, and neither does my husband, and we don’t understand why they would want to meet our mixed race children if they were racist, but this element is still gnawing at me.
Should I reach out to them? If I did, how would we go about rebuilding the relationship?
Update - October 22, 2021
TLDR; They’re racists.
I asked to talk yesterday. We were on zoom within an hour. It was my parents and me and my husband. They asked to see the kids, and I said they could see them eventually, dependant on them earning our trust and convincing us they were going to be positive additions to the kids’ lives.
They asked to start by reading me a letter that they claimed to have written on my wedding day. It said that they were uncomfortable with me marrying my former boss as they thought he took advantage of me, so they left between the wedding and reception to avoid a scene, but they wanted me to know they were here for me despite their issues with him. They added that they would have sent this to me the morning after my wedding, but then I sent my email about them needing to respect my choices, and they were so ashamed they couldn’t bring themselves to send theirs. Seeing my anniversary post made them realise how much they’ve missed in 5 years and they really don’t want to miss any more.
I had some questions, like what the big deal was with me marrying my former boss, and they said that it just wasn’t what they had in mind for my wedding day and my future spouse. I asked why they even came to the wedding at all if they didn’t support the marriage, and my dad responded that he wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle as it was the only chance he’d get. The way it was phrased implied that they had intentionally only come to the wedding so he could give me away, and always planned to leave halfway, and because he said “my daughter”, and didn’t talk to me directly, it was pretty clear he was thinking about my older sister, who passed away. My husband caught that, too, and said that if they were talking about me, they should address me directly, then added that if they had planned to leave they should have told us as we wouldn’t have invited them, and the fact they waited 5 years to reach out was going to take more reasons than shame as, as a father, he didn’t understand how they could ignore their daughter for years, or only get back in touch when we had kids.
My dad snapped that he wasn’t going to take this from a “cushi”, a slur meaning dark skinned. My mother immediately tried to run damage control but I ended the call. They have since messaged me several times trying to explain that calling my husband a racial slur wasn’t indicative of a racist attitude, and he wouldn’t have said that in front of the kids, so they should still get to meet them.
I’ve spent 5 years wondering how they were so offended by me marrying my boss that it earned no contact for half a decade. Turns out they’re just racist. It’s almost nice to find out. If it was just the boss thing I would have sympathy for them and we might even be able to reconcile, but with this, it’s now just a question of if I’m going to knowingly expose my mixed race children to a couple of racists, which I am obviously not going to do.
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
This may go against the general tenor here, but parents are people too and make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Your life is finite, and so is theirs. When they are gone, you’ll never have the chance to see them again. I would let them back in, maybe at least hear what they have to say. Could be just me though.
My parents are dead too and I still think my father being an abusive and racist piece of shit made him an abusive and racist piece of shit that I don’t really miss.
OP heard what they had to say: a slur and insult. You don’t double down on mistakes when you’re supposed to be asking for forgiveness.
queer people often learn that family are just people in your life… many of us have chosen family who love and respect us for who we are, because our family have let us down beyond measure. don’t ever feel obligated to stick around for anyone just because they’re family: surround yourself with people who love you, regardless of if you share blood relations or not
Yeah, I know. And I knew this would be the reaction here. And for many people what you suggest is the right answer. I am only saying, it might not be for everyone. There is a lot of nuance that tends to be left out of these descriptions, and a world of information we’re not getting.
They did hear what they had to say. What they had to say turned out to be a racist slur. I don’t know what else you need.
Finish that last thought. “I don’t know what else you need… to never talk to your parents again, ever.” People can change, and the grave is cold and final. (Although I just realized, I only read the TL;DR version. There might be stuff here I’m not getting. Did the initial post change after I wrote my first comment? Anyway, I may be wrong here depending on the full story.)
I was just responding to your last sentence, “maybe at least hear what they have to say”, and pointed out that they already did that and the results are already in the original post. By saying “I don’t know what else you need” I was implying that this is probably enough to judge their character and make a decision on how to move forward with one’s relationship with them. To never talk to your parents again, ever, is a legitimate decision to make after considering these variables, and it’s not our place to force the author to constantly second-guess that decision.