I haven't been here for a few evenings but it doesn't mean I haven't thought about what to talk about or forgotten about my blog. I'm only here for a short time tonight but thought to mention something that may or may not have significance. After one of M's and my bigger disagreements, one of his reconciliation tactics or so it appeared to me, at least, was to elect me to volunteer myself to be a witness of a wedding. It was at a Sikh temple. M first told me about it as though it was a traditional marriage and it was an "option" for me to go see it. He said I didn't have to go if I didn't want to but he wouldn't go, it had to be just me. He had already spoken to his friend about it and they had agreed if I wanted to go, I was with his friend. Not "with" his friend, just to be clear, just with his friend.
I actually wanted to go. I thought it would be interesting to see even though I had seen things in Bollywood movies and I had enough understanding of Sikh culture to understand the differences and similarities. Please note that what I do know, the differences are very stark and I am not daring to compare the two. Most Bollywood marriages are Hindu based in origin.
My reason for bringing this up was that he WANTED me to go. He wanted me to see it, participate it in even though I was just a lookie-loo. I wasn't able to go because that night I was actually caring for him and I think that he wanted that in retrospect. I didn't get nearly enough rest and he ... well... he needed me that next day to care for him. The point that I thought was doubly interesting was that the marriage itself was an indian (Sikh) girl to a gora (white) man. This marriage was anything but traditional. He wanted me to see it and participate. Why??
It is not that we have not discussed marriage before. In truth, we have spoken of it a few times, maybe more than a few. He tells me that he is giving his life to me and I know that is a very big thing for him because he speaks as though he has full intention to stay with me, above everything else. Perhaps it is my own doubt in his words that makes me ask why? Perhaps it is my own belief in my culture, which is over 50% prone to abandonment of a relationship.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Fast forward to now and a few bits in between.
As you know, I'm 2 weeks away from giving birth. I've been balancing my pregnancy, the hormones that come with it, accepting and trying to nurture what is basically a new relationship, my children's acceptance (what there is of it) of the relationship, their excitement of finally having a little baby brother/sister, a full-time job (up until a couple weeks ago, thank goodness for maternity leave) and anything else I've managed to leave out. No wonder my doctor thinks I'm stressed.
My main focus on this blog is on my relationship with M and I will try to stick to that as much as possible. I will definitely bring focus on my children and their relationship with him, as well. I think that is extremely important in this entire dynamic and it cannot be forgotten. Particularly so, given the ages of my children and their understanding/knowledge of the history with A. It has been hard for them to not see M as different from A and I know my oldest is extremely worried that the same thing will happen. He has a right to be concerned and I hope that I don't completely invalidate his feelings when I try to reassure him otherwise. They both witnessed far too much in their lives for me to be comfortable with and I am extremely sorry they had to see what they did.
I believe that this post in intended to explain where I am at, relationship-wise, with M. He is a first generation immigrant to Canada from an old-fashioned smaller village in Punjab so his thinking has been trained to be a certain way from birth. I try my very best to understand and accommodate this while at the same time, giving way for his open-mindedness and sometimes very refreshing modern ways of thinking. He throws me off on a regular basis with what he wants of me and what he doesn't. Of great importance to me is his thinking on religion, which very much coincides with mine and he is quite open-minded. He also doesn't have problems with me working nor being the higher paid one. I believe that if he was able to provide easily for all of us and I could stay home to be a SAHM, he would prefer it. I also would prefer it though, so the point is moot. I only do what I have to do. He eats basically whatever I cook without complaint and I have learned to try to provide him with meals that are easily seasoned with salt and have hot peppers on the side. The nice thing being that I am a good cook (as told to me by others) and what I make does satisfy the picky mouths I have to feed!
He does not approve of some ways that I dress, which I find surprising. I am a very modest individual and give great care not to expose my body in any undue fashion. Yet he will comment on clothing being too tight and perhaps too low in the chest area, even if it is modest by our standards. He does not like me to talk to any men if there is any slight possibility of a misunderstanding on my availability. I am permitted to speak with men at work, as this is part of my job function but outside of that, he would most clearly prefer it that I do not have any male friends and if I do, that I have him present beside me during conversations. He does, however, trust me and does not believe I will do anything against him. I feel this is an oxymoron, at best. I live in a culture where male friends are accepted and it is not a problem unless it is made into a problem. I do respect him and I do not maintain personal friendships with men except for the 3 close ones I have had for many years and whom I deem quite safe and trustworthy. They are all online, as well, which I hope does not pose any threat to M in his mind.
I don't want to elaborate too much more, as I think this will get too lengthy. I do want to mention his relationship with my children. It is tentative at best, though I think this is growing over time. It is difficult because M is very shy about his English skills and the boys tend to ask him to repeat himself, as his accent can be very thick. This causes M to retreat quite quickly and bonding does not happen. My youngest son is a very physical child and always has been so they communicate with playful behaviour and interactions, which I love to see. My oldest is not this way and is a very introverted, private person... much like myself, I suppose. He doesn't trust easily and hence, M and he do not share much of a bond. I hope this changes but it will take a lot of time.
I think that is all I have for tonight. There is so much more but I want to try to stay within a certain subject boundary so I don't overwhelm myself or anyone else too much at one time. Until next time...
My main focus on this blog is on my relationship with M and I will try to stick to that as much as possible. I will definitely bring focus on my children and their relationship with him, as well. I think that is extremely important in this entire dynamic and it cannot be forgotten. Particularly so, given the ages of my children and their understanding/knowledge of the history with A. It has been hard for them to not see M as different from A and I know my oldest is extremely worried that the same thing will happen. He has a right to be concerned and I hope that I don't completely invalidate his feelings when I try to reassure him otherwise. They both witnessed far too much in their lives for me to be comfortable with and I am extremely sorry they had to see what they did.
I believe that this post in intended to explain where I am at, relationship-wise, with M. He is a first generation immigrant to Canada from an old-fashioned smaller village in Punjab so his thinking has been trained to be a certain way from birth. I try my very best to understand and accommodate this while at the same time, giving way for his open-mindedness and sometimes very refreshing modern ways of thinking. He throws me off on a regular basis with what he wants of me and what he doesn't. Of great importance to me is his thinking on religion, which very much coincides with mine and he is quite open-minded. He also doesn't have problems with me working nor being the higher paid one. I believe that if he was able to provide easily for all of us and I could stay home to be a SAHM, he would prefer it. I also would prefer it though, so the point is moot. I only do what I have to do. He eats basically whatever I cook without complaint and I have learned to try to provide him with meals that are easily seasoned with salt and have hot peppers on the side. The nice thing being that I am a good cook (as told to me by others) and what I make does satisfy the picky mouths I have to feed!
He does not approve of some ways that I dress, which I find surprising. I am a very modest individual and give great care not to expose my body in any undue fashion. Yet he will comment on clothing being too tight and perhaps too low in the chest area, even if it is modest by our standards. He does not like me to talk to any men if there is any slight possibility of a misunderstanding on my availability. I am permitted to speak with men at work, as this is part of my job function but outside of that, he would most clearly prefer it that I do not have any male friends and if I do, that I have him present beside me during conversations. He does, however, trust me and does not believe I will do anything against him. I feel this is an oxymoron, at best. I live in a culture where male friends are accepted and it is not a problem unless it is made into a problem. I do respect him and I do not maintain personal friendships with men except for the 3 close ones I have had for many years and whom I deem quite safe and trustworthy. They are all online, as well, which I hope does not pose any threat to M in his mind.
I don't want to elaborate too much more, as I think this will get too lengthy. I do want to mention his relationship with my children. It is tentative at best, though I think this is growing over time. It is difficult because M is very shy about his English skills and the boys tend to ask him to repeat himself, as his accent can be very thick. This causes M to retreat quite quickly and bonding does not happen. My youngest son is a very physical child and always has been so they communicate with playful behaviour and interactions, which I love to see. My oldest is not this way and is a very introverted, private person... much like myself, I suppose. He doesn't trust easily and hence, M and he do not share much of a bond. I hope this changes but it will take a lot of time.
I think that is all I have for tonight. There is so much more but I want to try to stay within a certain subject boundary so I don't overwhelm myself or anyone else too much at one time. Until next time...
Internal Family Systems and Multicultural Couple Relationships
http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/internal-family-systems-and-multicultural-couple-relationships/
Another good read. Not propagating any service. Just hits some key points and thoughts.
Another good read. Not propagating any service. Just hits some key points and thoughts.
DESTINYCONNECT - Interracial and multicultural relationship challenges
DESTINYCONNECT - Interracial and multicultural relationship challenges
An interesting tidbit I picked up in searching for like material and wanted to share.
An interesting tidbit I picked up in searching for like material and wanted to share.
Monday, October 18, 2010
To get up to speed.
I need a place to talk about my relationship, even if nobody reads it. I'm hoping that perhaps I can gain some perspective even from rereading what I write or who knows, maybe get a few followers in the process to provide me with advice (or negative comments, I don't even know).
First things first. I don't like to segregate people by their race but unfortunately my choice as my partner and our differences in our cultures has made this impossible. Particularly given the situation we are in. I believe that in any culture, the relationship we have created would be taboo as it is, but the culture/race spin on everything makes it that much more difficult.
Currently, I am 2 weeks away from giving birth to a baby and together with the father, so far. I shall call him M. He is mera mahi aa. He is from Punjab, India and has only been here in Canada for 4 years. The taboo part is that I dated his older brother, whom I shall call A. We dated for almost a year a couple years ago and things had become fairly serious between us. All the way up until he violently attacked me in a drunken rage and gave me a concussion, amongst other things. Even more taboo, if you know anything about Indian culture, is the fact that A had gone to his family (without my knowledge) and had asked to have permission to marry me. The family had actually considered it and was considering accepting me but was unaware of the... *ahem* violent situation which had come to pass.
I was married once before going on 10 years ago and I have 2 children from this marriage. This was a like to like marriage if you want to look at things that way as we are both basically caucasian. I am half First-Nations but you can't tell to look at me. My father's genes are very strong. The reason I mention this is not so much the racial reasoning but more to mention the marriage and the children. These children are my life and I could have lost them due to what A did to me. Sadly, the government felt that perhaps my choice in partners meant I was possibly not fit to be in custody of my children. I had to fight to keep my children and had successfully kept everything well under my control for quite some time until A decided he wanted to try to come back into my life without my consent.
A little over a year ago, A started calling me again and trying to patch things up. I didn't want to fix our relationship but was forgiving enough to see if it was possible for us to be friends again. This was not possible but it was mistake enough letting him back in. When it became apparent that he was still drinking, I tried to end all contact but he refused. He threatened me with the possibility of losing my kids if I contacted the police and I took the bait. Instead, I called his brother, M.
M became my defender, my knight, my saviour. I was able to call him to come collect his brother, to come help me. This happened more than once, more than twice. We started to develop a relationship, particularly when M started to open up about the things that A had done to him in the past. A's abusive nature had not just started with me. M told me of stories of when they were younger where A would wake him up beating him with a broom or start fighting with him violently for no reason. The worst one I remember was when M woke up with his bed on fire and A had clearly started it and was just watching it burn.
Our shared abuse became a common bond between us and we started to talk more and spend time together whenever possible. It seemed like this happy yet terribly taboo time that we could share. We knew if A found out, it was so incredibly dangerous to both of us but we couldn't stop ourselves. The attraction was fierce, intense and unbreakable. It was also unstoppable. It was like we were caught into this net that we couldn't get out of now that we had started.
M and I had these intense, secret meetings that went on for 4 months. Then I found out I was pregnant only because my body was behaving as though I was losing it. I'd actually believed I was unable to get pregnant due to a previous car accident and had been slightly lax with protection because of that. We had still used protection but I was not as adamant about it as I could have been. As they say, "oops!"
This was in mid-March. We are now mid-October. I will try to fill in the blanks up until then in further posts. Fast and to the point is that M is with me and made the choice to be with me and has actually moved in with us. I expected otherwise and was fully prepared to handle this on my own. I have been very grateful and happy with M's choice and I love him far more than I thought I did initially. I love him far more than I thought I COULD. I never expected us to be a permanent relationship and I never let myself open up that much with him, given the entire history. I have had to change myself in many ways up to this point, just to accommodate his choice to stay with us. I also never expected him to love ME this much. I don't believe that he is just doing what is "right", I believe that he is doing it because he really and truly loves ME and us, baby and my kids.
The point of this blog is to try to capture the essence of the dilemma of our relationship and our choices and also capture the key issues that occur between mixed race/dual heritage relationships. I have done a fair bit of searching online and there are not many sites out there. I would love to be able to help others with my experience and also garner advice wherever possible.
First things first. I don't like to segregate people by their race but unfortunately my choice as my partner and our differences in our cultures has made this impossible. Particularly given the situation we are in. I believe that in any culture, the relationship we have created would be taboo as it is, but the culture/race spin on everything makes it that much more difficult.
Currently, I am 2 weeks away from giving birth to a baby and together with the father, so far. I shall call him M. He is mera mahi aa. He is from Punjab, India and has only been here in Canada for 4 years. The taboo part is that I dated his older brother, whom I shall call A. We dated for almost a year a couple years ago and things had become fairly serious between us. All the way up until he violently attacked me in a drunken rage and gave me a concussion, amongst other things. Even more taboo, if you know anything about Indian culture, is the fact that A had gone to his family (without my knowledge) and had asked to have permission to marry me. The family had actually considered it and was considering accepting me but was unaware of the... *ahem* violent situation which had come to pass.
I was married once before going on 10 years ago and I have 2 children from this marriage. This was a like to like marriage if you want to look at things that way as we are both basically caucasian. I am half First-Nations but you can't tell to look at me. My father's genes are very strong. The reason I mention this is not so much the racial reasoning but more to mention the marriage and the children. These children are my life and I could have lost them due to what A did to me. Sadly, the government felt that perhaps my choice in partners meant I was possibly not fit to be in custody of my children. I had to fight to keep my children and had successfully kept everything well under my control for quite some time until A decided he wanted to try to come back into my life without my consent.
A little over a year ago, A started calling me again and trying to patch things up. I didn't want to fix our relationship but was forgiving enough to see if it was possible for us to be friends again. This was not possible but it was mistake enough letting him back in. When it became apparent that he was still drinking, I tried to end all contact but he refused. He threatened me with the possibility of losing my kids if I contacted the police and I took the bait. Instead, I called his brother, M.
M became my defender, my knight, my saviour. I was able to call him to come collect his brother, to come help me. This happened more than once, more than twice. We started to develop a relationship, particularly when M started to open up about the things that A had done to him in the past. A's abusive nature had not just started with me. M told me of stories of when they were younger where A would wake him up beating him with a broom or start fighting with him violently for no reason. The worst one I remember was when M woke up with his bed on fire and A had clearly started it and was just watching it burn.
Our shared abuse became a common bond between us and we started to talk more and spend time together whenever possible. It seemed like this happy yet terribly taboo time that we could share. We knew if A found out, it was so incredibly dangerous to both of us but we couldn't stop ourselves. The attraction was fierce, intense and unbreakable. It was also unstoppable. It was like we were caught into this net that we couldn't get out of now that we had started.
M and I had these intense, secret meetings that went on for 4 months. Then I found out I was pregnant only because my body was behaving as though I was losing it. I'd actually believed I was unable to get pregnant due to a previous car accident and had been slightly lax with protection because of that. We had still used protection but I was not as adamant about it as I could have been. As they say, "oops!"
This was in mid-March. We are now mid-October. I will try to fill in the blanks up until then in further posts. Fast and to the point is that M is with me and made the choice to be with me and has actually moved in with us. I expected otherwise and was fully prepared to handle this on my own. I have been very grateful and happy with M's choice and I love him far more than I thought I did initially. I love him far more than I thought I COULD. I never expected us to be a permanent relationship and I never let myself open up that much with him, given the entire history. I have had to change myself in many ways up to this point, just to accommodate his choice to stay with us. I also never expected him to love ME this much. I don't believe that he is just doing what is "right", I believe that he is doing it because he really and truly loves ME and us, baby and my kids.
The point of this blog is to try to capture the essence of the dilemma of our relationship and our choices and also capture the key issues that occur between mixed race/dual heritage relationships. I have done a fair bit of searching online and there are not many sites out there. I would love to be able to help others with my experience and also garner advice wherever possible.
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