My (21F) Boyfriend (24M) Overheard My Grandmother and Mother Make Racially Disparaging Remarks About Him at Family Gathering, He was Deeply Hurt, How can I help him?

Some background: I a biracial (black mom/white dad) (21F) have been seeing my white (24M) boyfriend for a year. I knew my grandmother (65F) had issues with white people and my mother (39F). My grandmother's issues started when my grandfather was killed during a robbery gone wrong, the man who killed my grandfather was white but the murder was motivated by greed not hate. My mother, in an act of rebellion against my grandmother's hatred of white people dated an 18 year old white soldier when she was 17. She got pregnant with me, he got sent to Korea then spent years in the Middle East in one war zone after another. I'll keep this part short, his time overseas seriously screwed him up, and while he's always been financially supportive, and kept in touch with letters/emails, he's stayed distant because he was afraid of hurting me. As I've gotten older I've seen him more often but almost always someplace public. I did go to his tiny apartment once and the only thing he had was a table with two chairs, a mattress, and a recliner in front of an old tv. So no, he's not living some secret other life, I'd argue he's just surviving and it breaks my heart thinking about it.

Onto meeting my boyfriend, he started as a neighbor when I (then 19) was living with my now POS abusive ex "Frank" (then 21M) in an apartment complex. My neighbor was kind of a busy guy so I'd only ever see him in passing but one day I made the mistake of waving to him and saying 'hi' to him in front of Frank. This led to an argument. I apologized. He yelled. I begged him to forgive me. He called me a wh*re (I'd never cheated on anyone in my entire life) and other things. I apologized again and swore I'd never speak to "James" again. Then he started yelling and asking how I knew his name. I told him he'd introduced himself once when we moved in. Then the hitting started. Except this time, I wasn't sure it was going to stop. I screamed, I knew it would only make him angrier but I was so scared and it hurt so much.

That's when there was a loud slam and then another and the door flew off its hinges. I don't know exactly what happened because I was curled up in a ball bleeding on the floor but Frank ended up in a similar position and James carried me out of the apartment to his and called the police, including his BiL. I should point out now that James is 6'4" 220lbs of solid muscle. He played football and basketball in high school and was/is a volunteer firefighter. So yeah, Frank had a bad day.

Six months later Frank was in prison on a plea deal and I was on my own. James was also arrested but the prosecutor got Frank to drop charges in exchange for the plea deal. The entire time James was a rock. He encouraged me to get therapy, go back to school, and even introduced me to his family and friends as "his friend." Frank had isolated me from friends and family pretty badly so it was nice to have a solid foundation to start rebuilding old bridges that Frank made me burn. Some people were understanding, some weren't, I did what I could.

I also started to reconnect with my grandmother and mother. I was a bit disturbed by some of the things they said about white people but at that point it was all kinda lowkey racist and I thought I could help them see the error of their ways, after all I was half white.

About a year ago, James asked me out. It was cold that day and as we were driving to the restaurant he suddenly pulled over, said "one sec," and got out of the truck. He then walked up to a woman and kid, they were obviously in a bad way (the woman's coat was thin and not suited to the weather). James took off his jacket and gave it to the woman, just like that. He then walked back to the truck on my side and asked me if we could made a quick detour to a shelter. I was a bit shocked but of course I didn't mind. So on our first date, he interrupted our date to take a homeless mother and child to one of the shelters he regularly volunteered at. Yes, my heart melted and yes, he really does volunteer at homeless shelters on a regular basis, he's even gotten me into it. It's nice doing for others.

So the rest of the date is amazing and there's a second, and on and on. I could talk all day about our relationship but this post is going to be long enough as it is. He is the most loving, considerate, generous, honorable, respectable, and loveable man I know. We've had three arguments but he's shown me an argument doesn't have to involve shouting or yelling and once we'd resolved the issues he'd always hold me and tell, but more importantly show, me he loved me. I feel truly blessed to have this man in my life.

We've been discussing marriage and children more often and he mentioned that it might be a good idea for him to meet my family. I absolutely agree but my grandmother's and mother's attitudes towards white people makes me extremely nervous. As I mentioned, I'd already met his family and even and "his friend" they accepted me with open arms and love into their family. Once we became official the love only increased. His mom is super excited, but not pushy, to have more grandbabies to spoil. I was pretty sure that wasn't going to be my mother's/grandmother's reaction. But I was hoping for the best.

That brings us to Christmas Eve day. My family was planning a get together to celebrate the end of the year and Christmas. Covid isn't bad here and none of us have been sick or around sick people so yeah, party. The party would consist of grandmother, mother, uncle 1 and uncle 2, their wives (my aunties), and 4-6 cousins. Two of my cousins are adults my age so we weren't sure if they'd make it (getting off work). James ended up buying a gift for each person that would be there. I told him he was sweet but I was hoping he wouldn't feel like he'd wasted his money. I'll admit right now that I had omitted that James was white whenever discussing him my grandmother or mother.

The party... The first few minutes grandmother and mother were too shocked to say anything. After that it was one word or short answers to his compliments/questions. My uncles and aunties were completely unfazed by the whiteness. My uncles had also been in the Army so many of their closest friends (read: brothers) were white. All my cousins showed and they were all very accepting. He won my little cousins over pretty easily with the gift of Legos and a stuffed lion for my littlest cousin. The oldest he gave xbox and starbucks gift cards. He gave my uncles each a pocket knife and gift certificates to Bass Pro Shop (they both love fishing). He gave my aunties, mom, and grandmother gift certificates for a really nice spa day. But he also gave my grandmother a Maya Angelou book of poetry, I'd mentioned my grandmother loved Maya Angelou, like once, and he remembered. So he seriously pulled out all the stops with thoughtful gifts. He also said the gifts were from both of us.

Everyone loved their gifts and thanked us, except my grandmother and mother who pointedly thanked me. James isn't stupid, he detected the drop in temperature and so did everyone else. So my uncle suggested we eat. Dinner went without incident except my mother and grandmother ignored his compliments on the food. My grandmother and mother can cook really well and they taught me. He said something like "This is really some of the best food I've had, I can see where myname gets her talent." This was answered with a 'hmm'.

My uncles then took James outside to play some dominos. After thirty minutes of talking about plans and such my mother asked me if I could come into the kitchen to speak with her privately. My grandmother was there as well. I won't repeat the whole conversation here just the "highlights." "How dare you bring one of them into my house?" "Don't you know what they're like?" "How could you lower yourself like this?" "Don't you respect the things your family has been through because of them?" "Did you see how he tried to buy us? That's all they know how to do!" I'm getting just as sick to my stomach thinking about it again as I felt when they were saying it. I tried speaking up for the man I love, tried defending him, but the vitriol was just so rapid fire, and I was so disgusted, that I just shut down, it felt like an argument with Frank all over again. I eventually said "I'm done listening to this crap, he's a good man and I love him, so you better get used to it."

What I didn't know, was that my dear, loving, thoughtful, boyfriend had heard it all. He'd come inside to use the bathroom then bring everyone some more drinks outside. Ten minutes later my uncle came in and asked me what happened. I asked what he meant and he said "James was in such a good mood then he comes back outside with drinks and he's putting on a brave face but it looks like someone shot his dog." Then it clicked, he'd heard everything.

I immediately went outside and talked to James. He was playing with my little cousin and the stuffed lion he got her making little roaring sounds and "attacking" her belly with the lion causing her to giggle uncontrollably. But that look on his face, my uncle was right. I asked him if he wanted to go and he said "only if you want to." I told him I did, so we said our goodbyes and he even said to my grandmother and mother "Thank you for having me in your beautiful home for this special event, I was honored by the privilege of being included in myname's family holiday." This was met with stone cold looks from my grandmother and my mother looked down.

We got into his truck, he took a deep breath and sighed "Your comment of 'they might not warm up to you' was kind of an understatement, honey." Then he drove us home. I apologized for their behavior repeatedly and for my horribly insufficient warning. He forgave me, because he's an amazing loving man.

He's understandably saddened by this turn of events. I'm furious with my grandmother and mother. I'm also angry with myself for putting us in that situation. How can I help him? Seeing him with this sadness in his heart is breaking mine.

My grandmother and mother have been blowing up my phone with calls and texts telling me to do the right thing and dump him. He accidentally saw the first text when I asked him to pass me my phone that night as we were cuddling on the couch to decompress from the day because I thought it was from my friend. He said he needed to go for a walk and was gone for two hours in the cold and dark. Is there anyway I can get them to see how hateful they're being? So far I've been ignoring their calls and texts.

Please any suggestions on how to fix this. If you've been in a similar situation how did you handle it? Thank you for taking the time, I'm just not sure what to do or what the best way to handle things are.

TL;DR Boyfriend overheard my racist grandmother and mother make some nasty remarks about him and his people. How can I fix this? What should I do?

Submitted December 27, 2020 at 11:27PM by ThrowRABaW20 https://ift.tt/37SqiOU