Savage Love Oct 1, 2018 at 3:52 pm

Savage Love Letter of the Day

Comments

1

Is Carolyn Hax on vacation this week?

2

Immigrant parents often have some issues with their new place. Sadly, in many cultures and not only Arab, daughters get a far harsher judgment when it comes to dating and relationships.
It is my experience and observation that parental criticism often involves some fear of how they, the parents, will be viewed by their families and friends here and in the home country in case it is known that their child is doing X, dating Y and, god forbid, may even be a Z.

Tell dad that while you appreciate his culture and background you live your own life in a different place. Tell him you’re doing what many of your friends do, that this is actually the norm, and it’s not meant to insult him nor anyone else in the family.
See if you can negotiate some deal, maybe he will give you his silent approval if you promise not to tell grandma or whatever the situation may entail.

That said, you live your life and should be free to move in with bf regardless. Try and keep in touch even if he declares he has nothing to do with you anymore. Quite a few parents turn around eventually.
Remember dad’s attitude if and when you become a parent yourself and give your own kid/s the space they deserve.

3

@2 Bravo, CMD: Bravo! So well said, and I second it to ARARB.

4

"They'll either come around (Yahtzee!) or they'll be out of your life for good. Either way, you win."

The second scenario isn't exactly a win. Dad's difficulty shedding this particular cultural albatross from around his neck shouldn't condemn him. Give him time.

5

@2: "Tell dad that while you appreciate his culture and background you live your own life in a different place. Tell him you’re doing what many of your friends do, that this is actually the norm, and it’s not meant to insult him nor anyone else in the family." Yes, and hopefully he'll be receptive to this gentle line of reasoning.

If not, though, she can help him recognize his role in it: "You chose to emigrate here to raise a family where you knew that, even back then, this was was an aspect of the culture."

This assumes, of course, that ARARB is only a second-generation Arab-American. She says she's from the Midwest. It's possible she grew up in, say, Dearborn, where her father might have had little need to assimilate and an expectation that his children wouldn't either.

6

ARARB, I know a woman who in college dated a man of different racial and religious background who attended the same university. She she told her parents, and they gave her an ultimatum to stop seeing this man or they wouldn’t support her through college. She told them she would comply, but just hid the relationship. At graduation, she told them the truth, and the fact that she would be move in with him in a distant city. Her parents and family cut ties with her, didn’t attend her eventual wedding, and haven’t met her children.

The facts of that story are a bit more extreme, ARARB, because your father doesn’t seem to reject your boyfriend, just your living together. (Although is it possible he doesn’t realize you’re already fucking?). But I relate this story because Dan seems to have a rather blasé attitude to losing parental connections, and the woman in my story found the situation very hard, even though she loves her husband.

7

LW, if the rationale your father gave you is his real truth, would it help if your bf spoke with him, alone, and assured him of his love for you?

8

Yeah, thirded that telling unreasonable parents to stuff it is not as satisfying as it may sound. ARARB will be in the right if she does this, but getting along with our parents seems to be a desire that's hardwired in most of us. I also admit that I'm so steeped in secular values that I was confused by ARARB's father's prediction of "he'll lose interest, cheat or leave if you move in together." Why would taking an additional step of commitment push him away? Oh -- she meant if they move in together -but not get married-. I guess the thought that anyone might push someone who's only 23 to get married didn't even occur to me. ARARB might try telling her father that if marriage is something he does foresee for her, this is how most folks do it in the US -- by moving in together first. And that staying married is more likely if the couple know in advance what it's like to live together, and choose to exchange rings anyway!

9

What is ARARB's father's concern? Is it that she will have sex with her bf / fiance, or that she will bring shame on her family by publicly living with a guy?

ARARB says nothing about believing in 'no sex before marriage', so it's presumably the second.

I supposed she was biracial, with a non-Arab mother. Her father is an embattled cultural minority--especially so in America, where suspicion of Arabs on account of Islamist terrorism can be extreme and personally oppressive. For fairly thoroughly assimilated minorities, especially, insisting on cultural mores, or moral codes, can be a way of asserting themselves, affirming the worth of a culture from which they're partially cut off (e.g. in not having available as public a profession as usual of their religion). I would be sympathetic to ARARB's father in these general terms--but clearly he's being unreasonable in throwing up obstacles to her choice of living arrangement.... She should talk with him--find out what's at the root of his problems. It could be religion; it could be culture; it could be a personal hurt, getting thrown over as a young man.... At some level, though, he will surely think his daughter better off in the Midwest, even such a fleshpot as it is, than in Syria / Palestine / Lebanon etc....

10

I like all the advice so far--especially @2CMD, @5Fred Casely & @6 Sublime's slightly more extended takes. ARARB cannot just plow on and blow up her relationship with her father. Not without talking more, trying to get where he's coming from.

11

ARARB you moving in with your boyfriend announces to the world that you are fucking your bf. Even if you aren't, the world and your father will assume that you are. Your conservative (traditionalist) father with all the cultural baggage and biases of the society he grew up in is having a hard accepting you fucking your bf much less you doing it so publicly. You are an American, he is not culturally and never will be. Do not under estimate the value he places on virginity. He may well feel extremely humiliated by you announcing this to the world. I assume that most of his male friends are also conservative members of the Arab community. While it is rare in this country, be glad that he never subjected you to a clitectomy or worse. So give your father some slack, I'm not sure you really understand the humiliation he must be feeling. DS while your advice is valid (in general), it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the society/culture that he is a product of. The type of personal and family honor he has, has not been common (in most parts) of this country for decades. He is never going to, never can, internalize American cultural values.

12

Not having had a father after the age of fifteen, I have no experience re how to navigate such a dynamic as this.
. Dad, culturally and personally, can’t let his daughter be her own person. By marriage, he would formally hand his daughter over to her husband. The gesture helping him let go of his little girl at the same time upholding the symbolic transfer from patriarch to husband of the LW. This way, it’s messy and lets his cultural expectations which are thwarted mingle with his father jealousy and bang, a childish response. Not going to acknowledge you daughter anymore.
Obviously he’s moved past this position as the LW’s question is about family get togethers.

13

Another thought that can help ARARB think this through. Father has threatened that if ARARB moves in with her boyfriend he'll disown her. Consider that if ARARB does NOT move in with her boyfriend, Father could still disown her some time down the line for a different reason or for no reason at all. For all we know Father could have had a plan to disown his daughter when she reached age 25 no matter what. The plan could have included searching for exactly the right "reason" to disown her from the time she was 20-25.

That said, my advice to ARARB is to make sure she still doesn't base her decisions on what her father wants or says he wants. It's easy at this juncture to think "Father doesn't want me to move in with Boyfriend, but I'm doing it anyway." And then later to think "Father doesn't want me to eschew all medical treatment and to stop bathing, so I'll do that too." You really have to consider each decision on its own merits as an adult. It's possible that you'll move in with Boyfriend and something about the arrangement won't work out. Many relationships started in our early 20s don't work out. Don't be blind to the possibility of breaking it off with Boyfriend just because you'd lose face with Father. Sometimes I think it takes more courage to do what we want despite our parents' approval than despite their disapproval.

14

ARARB, I come from a conservative Catholic background. When I moved across the country to get away from home, I sat my dad down the night before leaving and made it clear that I wasn't moving alone -- my boyfriend and I were moving in together. Before that, I think my dad knew, but he had a veil of plausible deniability and he could pretend it wasn't happening.

I sat him down because what if he phoned the apartment and my boyfriend picked up? I felt like telling my dad instead of hiding was the adult thing to do. It was very hard for me. He has raised me with an extreme focus on me staying a virgin until marriage. (Of course, he hasn't done that himself, but my mom had.)

My dad said he was bitterly disappointed in me and asked me what my dear departed mother would think of me. There's a whole lot of judgment from the older generations of a traditional culture when young people decide to live together before marriage.

When she was alive, my mom told me it was a class thing -- rich people didn't live together before marriage and poor people did. (Even at the time, I thought, "That might have something to do with rich people being able to afford two places...") It's true she would have been against me doing it. She would have seen it as declasse.

I moved in with my boyfriend anyway because it was right for me. My dad wasn't pleased. I think he never really accepted my boyfriend until after we got married a few years later, and especially after we had kids.

I decided what I wanted, then took steps to make it happen. I survived my dad's disapproval and made my own life. I recommend deciding for yourself instead of buckling to outside demands. If you give in on this, your dad will still think he runs your life. You need to be running your own life. Best of luck!

15

ARARB, your dad has told us a LOT about himself...

"He told me that after moving in with each other he was just going to lose interest in me, cheat on me, and/or find someone else—which hurt the most."

so this was a huge understatement: "my dad is being a little immature about this"

I'm sorry about your dad being an asshole to you, ATARB. Hopefully he'll get the fuck over it; as other commenters have deftly and admirably explored, much of it probably oozes downhill from the way his culture fucked with HIS head.

If on some level (consciously or subconsciously) he (quoting@5 Fred Casely) "chose to emigrate here" to free you of the cultural head-fucks which infect him and his culture, your dad even deserves some credit.

It's true, it isn't easy to (quoting @8 BiDanFan) tell "unreasonable parents to stuff it", and (as others said) one wants to do what one can to avoid it, but when it needs to come to that, it is very healthy to draw strength from embracing the ways in which the parent did force it to mean that by making the unacceptable behavior stop (quoting Dan) "you win", to keep that in mind when drawing the line prohibiting future unacceptable behavior towards you.

16

@ #11 a skeptic and a cynic: You said her moving in with her b/f announces to the world that she is fucking her b/f. "Do not under estimate the value he places on virginity. He may well feel extremely humiliated by you announcing this to the world. I'm not sure you really understand the humiliation he must be feeling."

That may be how he's perceiving this, but it's also a big case of "Not your life, not your hymen". Her father does not own her virginity, nor is it any of his concern if she's giving up her V card for this guy or already had a dozen partners. If he feels humiliation over his daughter having an active sex life, it's on him to deal with it. His daughter doesn't owe him any 'slack'. I do understand your description of where he may be coming from, but It's an unbelievably creepy idea to me that she should spend any time thinking, "Gosh, I am responsible for humiliating him and offending all his male friends by having autonomy over my own body!" That responsibility lies solely on those men.

17

Humans regularly throw psycho tantrums when they are unable to control other people's behaviors. Jeebus types, not just a-rabs, are equally guilty.

People, people, people you only may control yourselves.

18

Psycho tantrums like shunning, guilting, "starving out", slut-shaming, or wing-nutting.

19

Before you plow ahead and risk alienating your father forever (don’t be fooled commenters, this is a real possibilty given ARARB’s father’s culture) see if dad would be willing to talk to a counselor with you. Find a Clinical Professional therapist who specializes in providing cultural sensitive work for the Muslim community. As a Muslim, he/she will understand that the presence of Islamic religion and cultural heritage needs to be embedded in the therapeutic process. He/she will cooperatively work with you to understand your struggles, solve your problems, as you are adjusting with the new culture challenges and lead you at the end towards growth and improvement. If dad refuses, then at least you can say you genuinely tried to work it out.

20

Back in the day,Your boyfriend would come around and charm your dads pants off and make your mother fantasize about what your dad used to do to her when he was a younger man.

Bring the boyfriend around. Put him on his best behavior. Have him play with your sister's kids. Help mom with gardening. Learn how to play cricket.

A few months of that and your dad will be offering to pay twice as much for the wedding.

21

"He told me that after moving in with each other he was just going to lose interest in me, cheat on me, and/or find someone else"

Sounds like Dad long ago lost all interest in Mom.

22

Fred @ 5
“Yes, and hopefully he'll be receptive to this gentle line of reasoning.”
It may take some time, yet some do.

SA @ 6
“At graduation, she told them the truth, and the fact that she would be move in with him in a distant city. Her parents and family cut ties with her, didn’t attend her eventual wedding, and haven’t met her children.”

This is a very sad story for all involved. I still think the college daughter should have handled it differently, as
giving the finger to the family, telling them she was dishonest all along, resulted in a similar reaction.

Thanking the parents for their part, explaining her commitment to lover, telling them she will have to drop out of college and work her way through it if they stop paying tuition, would have been the honorable way to go.
I know, easy to say.

23

So, yes, LW, this decision is ultimately yours and your boyfriend's to make.

But can I make an observation and a suggestion? You've been dating for two years now. You want to take this next step. You're talking about marriage eventually. Presumably the two of you know each other pretty well at this point. You've met each other's families. It's serious.

Why are you taking marriage off the table for now?

It seems to me that this is the solution that makes everyone happy. So why the delay?

The reason people hold off generally comes down to one of three reasons:

1) You want to be more economically secure (or finish your degree or whatever). This one is kinda BS. Unless you win the lottery or stand to inherit, you'll never be in a perfect position to start a family. No-one ever is. And you can absolutely work towards educational and career goals regardless of whether you're single or married. Lots and lots of college students are married. It's arguably easier for married people to go to school, especially if you're delaying kids a bit, because of the added support of a spouse and the additional help that many universities provide to young families.

2) You're afraid of the commitment. Join the club! Everyone is. If you've taken the time to really get to know your boyfriend (which includes all the humdrum things like finances and debt levels and incomes as well as his personality) and you like what you see, then pull the trigger.

There's a variation on this one where you're happy with him, but you're not sure if someone better might not come along. This is where the old saying "don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good" comes in to play.

3) There's something nagging at the back of your mind that's throwing up a red flag. Potential examples might include alcohol or substance abuse problems, or a history with his exes, or something like that. If that's the case, then you need to put the brakes on things right now. Moving in will not fix whatever the problem is. Having kids (in or out of wedlock) definitely won't either. Couples counseling or therapy might help, but might not. If you've got concerns, deal with them now.

You've been together for two years now. I'd say that it's time to make a decision.

May also want to check this out: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201407/should-you-move-in-together-or-not

24

Sporty @ 20 has a point, though my guess is the game is football, the round one,soccer in the US, rather than cricket.

As for Corydon @ 23 advice, don't rush into marriage at the age of 23, especially if your main motivation is pleasing dad and the rest of the family.

Also, where does mom stand in all this? Guessing from the letter I assume only dad is an immigrant.

25

@23 Corydon
I say don't be influenced in the slightest to get married now because of your dad's bullshit.

26

This is sort of in response to @David 21 but also just generally...

The cultural difference here is about what marriage means. Westerners think of marriage as two individuals who will be good partners to one another- friendship, sex, etc. This is not a traditional conception in much of the world. Marriage is more about uniting families, stability of homes for children, and other definitive social roles in the larger community and extended family- your whole world is a series of interactive relationships in family and larger community and marriage is definitive to that. It's not really about the two individuals.

So if you come from this point of view, when two people say they are going to live together but not get married, it doesn't make sense. What could the woman possibly be getting out of this? Obviously the man is getting a piece of ass without having to make any of the commitments or responsibility to community that he'd have to take if he were married. But he's eventually going to move on to that role- he will eventually settle down and have a family and take on that role. He might still have ass on the side or he might outgrow that. But the woman? She is choosing to take the role of the mistress before the man settles down. This makes no sense to the father who sees his daughter as throwing her future options away in order to be someone's ass on the side.

There's a lot of misogyny here baked into the traditions (just like there are in our Western traditions), but that's not really the main issue- even very forward thinking and progressive parents, the sorts that send their daughters to school and support women's rights to buy property and do not uphold gender segregations in the household, etc, will feel this way about people living together. The cause of the confusion is around what marriage means and what individualism is.

In the West (and increasingingly everywhere in the world as they become more and more globally capitalist) we have a narrative that you grow up, get a job, probably move away from your family and your home town to seek your fortune- either with a job or with college or just because you want the adventure or to move with a relationship, etc. So you enter into relationships with people just as two individuals negotiating their own terms. There is no greater community for most of us, there are no social roles- you really can't understand how much of life is about these social roles unless you've been a part of a less individualistic culture. Parents who grew up in these more traditional socieites just can't understand the Western individualistic way either, even though they want the best for their kids and sent them off to college to prepare for the modern world and modern jobs, knowing that these kids will not come back home. Lots of times, the parents even think, one day my kid will come back and live in the extended family or the extended community and traditions will continue- it's heart breaking to see the massive rifts and disruption of modernization, but here we are.

My advice to the LW is similar to what Dan's was to the couple that includes one person who likes porn and one who is offended by it. Just lie to your parents. They know better and you know better, but you don't have to throw it in their face. Let them maintain the illusion that you are not living with someone else. This will only be a big deal for a short while. Once you are a little older, they will get over it. Let the awareness of it slowly come over them. Either you'll be single well into adulthood and your parents will learn to accept that you are unmarried, or you will marry this man and then your parents will have to accept him as your husband. If you continue to live together, they will eventually get used to you having a long term "friend" that they don't really approve of. And talk to other peers who are in a similar situation- this is so common that it only feels special when it happens to you (not to discount it! Just that there is loads of good advice out there). Also I agree with what people said above about them being able to save face in their community and among their elders.

It's not the same thing as Western bigoted parents being unsupportive of their gay children, and I wish Dan wouldn't use that analogy. Bigots are bigots even within their own culture. They are choosing to be bigots in a wider society that includes the possibility of acceptance. What's happening with immigrant families and with traditional families in developing countries is that entire cultures of loving and thoughtful families have been disrupted by the huge pace of change brought on by global capitalism- there is good and bad to these changes, and the younger generations (who are right to try to live their lives as they see fit) live in a way that is incomprehensible to their elders- everything that the elders hold to be true is crumbling around them. That doesn't make them bigots. It's a generational shift- not something that a minority is going through. It's something that most people under a certain age is dealing with in traditional families. It's even more complicated when the children grew up in the US and the parents are stuck in the old country ways- usually immigrant parents are even more conservative than their peers would be back home- they get sort of frozen and lost. And their kids have less understanding of why they would be this way because the home culture is not real to them.

It would be like if your son or daughter came home from college and told you that she/he has chosen to be a junkie for the rest of their lives. They could give you all the facts in the world about safe injection sites and how they are going to be careful not to overdose or how they will avoid infections, but you would never be able to wrap your head around why- out of all the options available in the world- your child who has had all the privilege and love and education that you could give them- would choose a life like this. Even if you can understand with compassion why others might be in this situation, you won't be able to understand why your child would. Then they come to you and say they are not just going to keep their drug habit to themselves, but they want to shoot up at family holidays, in front of all the old aunties and little cousins. No, no - you will not be accepted in my home if you do that.

So LW, be discreet, ease them into it, be gentle about what they are going through, live your own life without burning their bridge, and they will likely come around. I'd also be curious about cousins and siblings- if you are the first person in your family going through this, it will be harder for you. If others have taken a non traditional path and turned out fine, it will be easier for your parents- reach out to them (the older sibling or cousin who has been down this road) and get advice from them. And if you are your family/community's trailblazer, try to think that how you handle it will make it easier for your younger siblings and cousins, etc. Also look to the elders in your family who can be your allies (an auntie or even mom?) and reveal, little by little, to them and let them handle your dad. Then when your dad finally comes around to facing it, he'll have a bunch of his peers in the family who are already on your side.

27

Also note that the LW is approaching the living together as a step towards marriage which is probably confusing the dad even more. He will get distracted by this- if you want to marry this man, why not just marry him then? Etc. Approach it more as "I want to move out on my own" (if you still live with your parents) or if you are already living separate from your parents, just don't tell them the boyfriend lives there too- even though they probably suspect it. And let them get used to this for a year or so, then you can reveal more little by little as time goes on. Be honest also- you are young, and by then the situation might change. You might be single, you might be getting married, you might be with a different man, etc.

28

This man has been in the country long enough EmmaLiz, to understand his old culture is not the same as his new one. And who says western fathers, some of them, don’t hold similar views. They don’t want to see their daughter’s ‘place in society’ soiled by not being married to the man she lives with.
I don’t think the LW should lie EmmaLiz or comparing a big negative like drug addiction to a big positive like love and living together makes no sense to me. This young woman wants to celebrate her love not feel shame about it.
I had to stand up to my mother over the years and take the risk of losing all, it’s just how it is sometimes growing up. Time heals and patience rewards.
Keep loving your dad LW, and talking with him. And talk with your bf, what’s his take on this situation? How does he think the two of you should handle this? Would it help if bf talked to your dad?
You’ve got to forge your own life LW. Make your own mistakes, learn your own lessons. Don’t let your father or any other man dictate terms. Doesn’t mean you have to fight or argue, that resolve is inside you and others pick up on it.

29

Can they just tell dad they're engaged and just kick the wedding can down the road indefinitely? Some people stay engaged for five years or more. My dad didn't like my boyfriend until he knew he wanted to marry me. There's some weird thing traditional dads do where they don't like the idea of some guy shacking up with their daughter but they do like a guy pledging to take care of her for the rest of her life.

30

What I liked about this letter is that the LW seems to know exactly what she wants, has no doubt that she knows better than dad what is best for her, while at the same time she is really kind and understanding towards her parent. I love how she calls him "a bit immature", and I found it really sweet her concern at the end of the letter, that the dad will be left at home when she is with her family (if I understood the letter correctly).

Furthermore, it sounded to me that there is plenty of margin for progress for their relationship: issues in the past that they were able to overcome; and even after the dad said he wanted nothing to do with her + bf if they moved in together, she and dad were able to sit down and talk about it.

So I think the LW is doing great and she should keep doing exactly what she is doing: keep the bridges of communication open, keep explaining her views to dad, keep being patient but firm.

As next steps, I would recommend the LW acknowledges that dad's comment that "the bf will lose interest, start cheating etc" comes from a place of concern for her, while standing her ground that she is better placed than the dad for deciding if it's a good idea to move in together or not. Kindly but firmly. Not burning bridges but not submitting to the dad's world view. Patiently, knowing that it may well take time for dad to adjust, but confident that he will. Lovingly, so that her decisions don't sound like she is rejecting her family.

I reckon this will have a happy ending :-)

31

I think EmmaLiz @26 and @27 has it right. Unless you've grown up with traditional Arab/Muslim immigrant parents, you really can't understand what it's like to go against hundreds of years of cultural tradition. There is some parallel to the traditional American mores that disappeared largely by the 1950s, but immigrants from Arab and/or Muslim areas have the added pressure of wider community disapproval. Not only does the father disapprove on a personal level of his daughter shacking up with a guy who she doesn't have a commitment with, but she will also expose him to intense community disapproval. I'm not saying I agree with this, but he will be possibly looked down on and/or ridiculed by his extended family, the people he socializes with, his employers (if they are also Arab/Muslim), etc. My best friend in college was born to Pakistani parents, and she had boyfriends all throughout college that she had to hide from them. She lived with a guy in her late 20s through mid 30s, and she hid the fact that she lived with this guy for years! They knew she had a "boyfriend," but didn't know that she lived with him, and just didn't ask if she was sleeping with him or not. (I assume they didn't want to know.) When any family members would visit her apartment, she literally had to erase all evidence of him. And he never was allowed to answer the phone. In many ways she had to live a double life, but she decided that this was just the price she had to pay for living between two cultures: the modern American culture she had grown up in, and the traditional Muslim culture of her parents. She was not willing to expose her parents to community scorn through her actions. And this is a real thing-- imagine the combined disapproval of an extended family of hundreds of aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins, friends, social acquaintances and more. This could have made their lives VERY difficult for years.

When she and the boyfriend finally decided to get married, when she was in her late 30s, the parents had gotten used to the idea of him at least, but she still never told them that they had lived together. That she was in her late 30s was relevant, because I think they had decided that she was a lost cause in the marriage department -- and were pleased that she had finally found someone who would marry her at her "advanced age". He wasn't Muslim, which was always a complicating factor, but the parents pretty much stopped caring when she hit about age 35.

I'm not sure exactly what advice I'm giving to the letter writer here, but I think it is that you might have to walk the line between obeying your father and dumping your boyfriend, or staying with your boyfriend and possibly being shunned by your father. There is a lot of gray area in between, and you will have to find your own way and tread your own path.

32

Cultural dissertations aside, this whole situation boils down to men/women conceptions/misconceptions and double standards.

33

@26 EmmaLiz
Certainly dealing with culture can be even more formidable than dealing with a religion within a culture, but I don't think either culture or religion deserve too much respect.

In other words, (like religion), cultural norms can deserve to be regarded as bullshit. Even though cultural norms can I think (particularly in their home country) be harder/impossible to fight (or survive without being stoned-to-death).

"It's not the same thing as Western bigoted parents being unsupportive of their gay children, and I wish Dan wouldn't use that analogy."

It seems to me that gay children also face(d) not just religious, but cultural bullshit in the US quite recently.

On a tangent, any comments on a recent film (The Big Sick 2017) that tread this very ground?

@31 Wanderlusting
I'm not saying it won't be VERY difficult, but since I like Dan's analogy, I also like it's argument (which goes something like) that lying to parents to not lose one's relationship with them CHOOSES to lose the part of that relationship that includes sharing who one is in love with.

34

Curious, Westerners tend to think they have no cultural norms- do you think everything you do is bullshit? It's all informed by your culture. You did not spontaneously arise into the person you are with the habits you have. Whether or not any of it deserves respect is irrelevant.

The gay analogy doesn't work for the fact that gay people didn't just pop up in recent generations to centuries of exclusively straight people, and gay people are a minority in any family, not the de facto lifestyle of everyone born after a certain age. The recent specific hostility and prejudice towards gay people is very cultural, yes, and surely informed by religion as well. Homophobia and racism are always cultural, historic, etc. These are forms of bigotry, as is misogyny, and as I said, there's a lot of that baked into this situation. The generational shift of a traditional culture (based around extended family and community relationships) towards a capitalist individual culture in the historical framework of globalized capitalism and immigration is not the result of cultural bigotry. It's a generational shift in response to changing circumstances. Even if this daughter wanted to be traditional, she would not be able to do so and be competitive- that world does not exist anymore to anyone who has any sort of modern job, it's impossible. Her parents no doubt know this too. This is very different from learning to accept/tolerate/understand a group of people within a culture that are normally subjected to bigotry.

35

No, I haven't seen the Big Sick. I tend to avoid rom coms, and anyway I hate stories that revolve around emotionally immature men learning, through an experience of falling in love with a woman, that they are not the only humans in the universe. But my husband had several arranged marriage suggestions in the US- luckily his parents were not here but they and their friends suggested plenty of young women that he should meet to marry. The women themselves were not interested either, and he met up with several of them - I went along with a few of them. One was a lesbian, completely hiding it from her parents, ha ha. It was an interesting experience. On the other hand, I've seen arranged marriage (in its modern form) work out just as well or better than love matches among my own peers and cousins. For my own self, my mother was very non traditional and managed to break all the rules and so by the time I was an adult, her extended family was over all the pearl clutching and instead just accepted that we are all unredeemable heathens and it's not really our fault, ha ha ha!

36

@34 EmmaLiz
"Curious, Westerners tend to think they have no cultural norms"

If that's true, then the're ignorant.

"do you think everything you do is bullshit?"

(I know you don't know me, so you can't know that) I think most of my (US) culture is bullshit too! (Don't get me started, though I can think of a thing or two that would be highly relevant and interesting to address here sometime I'm not too busy.) But there are some bits that are less (and others that are more) bullshit than those of other cultures.

"It's all informed by your culture. You did not spontaneously arise into the person you are with the habits you have."

Perhaps most do (er, otherwise they wouldn't be cultural norms, would they?). But a small percentage of people (a prominent researcher once told me something like 3% to 5%, including me) wholly reject societal pressures/indoctrination and choose their own way, regardless of which culture they find themselves in. Maybe that's a reason why I use a question mark as my avatar; I question things most don't.

37

Corydon @20: What? What? Whaaaat? NO! She is ONLY 23 and they have ONLY been together for two years. Instead of asking why she isn't getting married, you should be asking why she is considering it at this early stage! People's brains are not fully formed until they are 25. IMO, no one should be getting married before this age, nor before they've been safely out of the NRE period for a couple of years (at two years in, they are still in it), nor without living together to see if they can do so without driving each other mad. Also, the ONLY reason to get married should be that you are 100% certain* that this person is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with. Not because your family would prefer it; not because you'll get tax breaks or can put your spouse on your health insurance. Are you a divorce lawyer? Getting married before one is ready is almost certain to result in the need for one.

Even those of us who were 100% certain can find out that life changes things along the way. The younger you wed, the likelier it is that one or both of you will be a completely different person within the decade.

Honeybunny @29: Good suggestion.

CMD @32: Good point. I wonder if Dad would be going ballistic if his son were about to move in with a woman.

38

Damn missing asterisks.

39

Also, good point about the mother. If she's still alive/in the picture/with Dad, getting her on side would be a great strategy.

40

@32. CMD. I think women participate in Arab honor cultures too. Enforce virginity and chastity norms, for example. They're not necessarily Islamic (Christian Arabs have similar codes) and it's hard to disentangle what's cultural and what's religious in all events.

@20 corydon has the younger GLBTQetc. take on marriage, which I understand and am sympathetic to (while finding inconceivable at a personal level).

I like EmmaLiz's distinction between the 'bigotry' of espousing a moralistic view, in the context of other views being available, and simply having views typical of a more conservative culture. ARARB's father isn't necessarily a bigot in this sense. (Emma's whole exposition of marriage is very helpful). I'd also want to ask what the LW's mother is saying or doing in all of this.

41

And wouldn't anyone want to know before the papers are signed, before it costs extra time and money to separate and divorce, if their partner is an abuser? It's far harder to divorce an abuser than it is to get them off your lease.

42

Curious, my point is that what you think is your individualism and choice is mostly a result of your culture- you make choices within that context. This isn't really something unique to you- if you'd grown up elsewhere, you might also be a part of whatever percentage it is that strays from the norms, but you'd do this in a way distinct to that culture. Just like how right now you are doing it in such a distinctively Western way that it's basically a trope- the skeptic, the individual, rejecting norms, going against the grain, etc. It's like trying to explain to a fish that it's in water.

I can't even think of an analogy that would be a good flip side to this. Like if an American couple got married, had kids, sent them to school, typical nuclear family with modern consumer products, etc. Then one of the kids is like, you know what, I'm going to stay home forever. I'm going to live with you two forever in my room. I'm going to manage what you eat, go out with you when you shop, hang out with you every single evening, visit your friends with you, invite neighbors over, put us on a dinner routine so that we have meals at the same time every day, and I'm going to do this every single day for the rest of your lives. I'm not going to get a job or contribute financially but I am going to put a lot of labor into the house and put us all on a tight budget. And if I ever get married, I'm going to move my spouse in here as well as my children, and any vacations any of us take, we will all take together. While there are variations everywhere, the American couple would likely be ready for their adult child to move out and stop smothering them and micromanaging their lives.

43

@42 EmmaLiz
Unlike me you are truly the product of more than one country's culture, so I do respect your perspective. And perhaps if I knew you IRL I'd be more fully convinced than I can be in writing.

I think there is something to what you say.

But not nearly as much as you think, (and most relevantly) nothing that needs to constrain the LW (particularly since she's in our country now), nothing that merits elevating culture above individuals or above me personally, and nothing that makes me comfortable with being called "a trope" (I know you don't mean to be, but most of your post is pretty insulting; I'm not complaining, my post was begging for that since you only know me in writing).

The culture one grows up in will always be the water in which one swam, will always be a part of one, but one can grow beyond that, even beyond constraint by that. One can leave the water. At least to the degree that I continue to hold that culture like religion can and at least sometimes does deserve to have "bullshit" called on it.

Of course it isn't easy to leave the water. To see one's parents still in the water and risk losing one's family if they won't accept one walking on land in love with someone in a way that isn't done under water. But if one remains in the water, where is the growth which is our purpose? The growth that all may breathe in a new way.

I think you're correct in that no one can be a blank slate. (Someone raised in isolation would be in irredeemably terrible shape.) I respect the understanding which your experience surely gives you. But perhaps there's another side to that coin; has your experience also bitten you and made you shy?

In closing, something I've wanted to say for weeks (that I think has no relevance to this column). I really admire EmmaLiz's posts, which typically demonstrate extremely valid and nuanced psychological understanding. I do my best to always make time to read them. I can't say I make time to write the same; in part because I'm pretty busy, in part because I often wonder if the LW can be capable of benefiting.

THAT came to mind even as in this post
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/09/28/33044592/swinging-couple-stood-up-by-potential-third-wants-revenge/comments/29
I recommended Dan quoting you saying
"You are a massive asshole, LW, and I recommend you work on putting your own feelings and sense of being wronged into proper perspective and developing some empathy for other people before you continue to engage with others."

In other words, (as dead-on accurate and thus worthy of Reader-Roundup as it was,) I question whether a massive asshole can actually benefit from advice like this (short of MUCH work).

Wait, maybe there is relevance to this column. Could your "nuanced psychological understanding" actually be getting in the way of recommending the LW stop understanding and get out of the water?

44

Well I certainly didn't mean to be insulting. Based on our previous conversation, I figured you'd understand what I meant by "trope" in a Western cultural sense- the hero's tale for example, going out to seek one's fortune, the more modern version of the rebel or on the road or wanderlust to take to the sea, the skeptic who must experience things for himself, etc. I see nothing negative about these things, they are the things I love about Western culture, and I did not mean it in an insulting way, just that these are culturally specific ways of going against the grain- it involves extreme individualism.

I'm actually not recommending much to the LW other than easing her parents into it and finding allies in her extended family and allowing them to have their illusions when it is helpful. Mostly I think the LW is too young to be thinking about marriage and so it seems rather silly to rub it in her father's face that she's going to live with this man in the short term with marriage as her long term goal (which is what she's claiming) as it will likely end up that they do not get married (or shouldn't) and then her father's words become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't see why it isn't wiser to keep it slightly on the down low- live her own life and let her father live his and slowly ease them into it rather than draw a line in the sand and force them on one or the other side of it. If this relationship goes on for a while, then yes, draw that line, but then by then she'll have more to back it up (we've been living together for such and such amount of time now and as you can see it is a successful partnership, etc) rather than now when making the point could push her towards doing something foolish and young like forcing the relationship to last longer than it should becase she would want to avoid admitting that her father was right, etc. One of the advantages of not rubbing it in his face that they are living together is that she can easily exit the relationship without the opposite happening as well- already she is framing it as a goal towards getting married and already others are suggesting that's what she should do just to keep the peace.

As for the massive asshole or most anyone who writes in reading my advice (as well as other commenters) obviously most of us aren't motivated by a genuine concern for the other individuals- it's the diversion of the discussion though I do try to be fair and I do enjoy engaging. Honestly, in my heart of hearts, I don't give a shit what any of the LWs do other than a general wish for their good will as you would for any strangers. As for more regular commenters, sure things start to feel more personal as we get a grip on one another's personalities and backgrounds (insofar as you can online). And obviously I project as much as anyone- it would be silly to pretend otherwise. If I had some ability to offer entirely objective and selfless wisdom, I'd find myself a mountain top to sit upon. Instead, I just find it to be an amusing way to procrastinate.:)

45

@44 EmmaLiz "I certainly didn't mean to be insulting"
As I said, I know; you were just making your point well.

And I take your point about "extreme individualism", even if one of my expressions of that is to, as a lefty, have major issues with the selfishness of my culture's INDIVIDUALISM. Which, yes, is a cliche too.

"I don't see why it isn't wiser to keep it slightly on the down low- live her own life and let her father live his and slowly ease them into it rather than draw a line in the sand and force them on one or the other side of it."

When I read this I recalled that, until I got out of school (my parents were helping me pay for), I didn't tell them I started living with my GF. But then unlike the LW, I didn't at the time have much interaction with my parents, so I didn't have to (quoting the LW) "feel awful that spending time with family means leaving [her] at home".

(That wasn't the only thing I felt fine not telling them because I knew they'd have negative judgements about it. So I'm sympathetic to your point about "allowing them to have their illusions when it is helpful".)

But the LW does want to have that interaction. You would know better than I: am I wrong, isn't that need important for her given her cultural background?

"If this relationship goes on for a while, then yes, draw that line"

They've been together "two years"; while not enough for marriage, that is enough for me to feel for her desire to have her family embrace her BF.

And anyway, the ship has sailed, the LW already told her dad; it's a lot tougher to hide a secret once one reveals it. If she'd asked Dan BEFORE telling dad, I think my advice would look a lot more like yours.

"obviously most of us aren't motivated by a genuine concern for the other individuals"

Ack. I admit this is often true of me. Sometimes I just go off on them.

(One time I drew BDF's fire when I was being unhelpfully cranky at a LW; paradoxically, I'VE gone off on unhelpful comments myself!)(The only times Dan has quoted me were when I went off on someone and managed to do so with a little bit of flair)(One of those times I'd gone off on him; I think it's admirably professional that Dan doesn't have a thin skin about what his commentariat are saying.)(I respect that Dan isn't JUST writing to give people advice, he's also writing a column to interest the public.)

But also not infrequently I care genuinely and say things for just for their benefit no matter how they sound to everyone else.

I figure letter writers understand that comments are a mix of us talking to them and talking to each other. Sometimes they comment too, and it's nice they don't have thin skins about it.

46

ARARB, I come from a traditional Asian culture, have immigrant parents, and have an ultra-conservative father, so I empathize with your position. I faced the exact same thing you are when I moved in with my then-boyfriend and now-husband.

When I told my family we were moving in together, my father actually disowned me. He told me I wasn't his daughter any more, and cut off communications. He also lamented to my brother about the situation - how no decent Korean guy would ever want to marry me now that I was "tainted" by being with a white guy, and that my boyfriend would leave me as soon as he got me pregnant. It took him a little over a year to come around and finally visit us, after his dire predictions failed to come true. Eight years later, he now denies ever disowning me (he says it was a misunderstanding), and, while still not comfortable with my husband, is at least grudgingly accepting of him.

What you need to decide is: how much is this worth to you? Is it worth taking a stand, and risk getting cut off from your father? In my case, the answer was fairly easy: I was financially independent, and physically and emotionally far removed from my parents, so getting cut off didn't make a huge difference in my life (in fact, it kind of improved it). Sure, there was a lot of unpleasantness - such as the shouting argument I got into with my father at the end of his visit, when he presented me with a report card of all the ways my boyfriend had failed to please him or adhere to Korean standards - but it was worth it to me because my everyday life was happy and of my own choice.

I know that it's hard to take this step - even with the emotional distance, it was really hard to go against a lifetime of trying to please my parents and measure up to the cultural values they raised me with. But in the end, it was more important to me that I live the way I wanted to and not the way they wanted me to.

One thing that does make it easier is if you have any family that supportive of your relationship. In my case, I have a brother who, by virtue of being male, has much more influence on my parents than I do. He thought it was perfectly normal that I was moving in with my boyfriend and made my parents feel better about the whole thing by telling my father he was overreacting. My brother had also met my boyfriend several times and could honestly tell my father that he wasn't a bad guy.

The big thing to remember is that your father isn't doing this or saying these things to punish you or because he's angry at you. He's doing this because he loves you and wants you to be happy. He simply doesn't realize that, especially here in the US, there is more than one route to happiness. From his perspective, there is only one way to do things right: meet the right guy, marry, have a family together. By moving in before getting married, you are deviating from this road, and he is worried that that will lead you down a path that there is no turning back from and will end in misery. For myself, once my dad realized that my boyfriend and I moving together didn't lead me to ruin or become shunned like a leper, he stopped worrying and accepted it. We still fight about a lot of cultural issues, but my decision to co-habitate or choice of mate aren't one of those things any more.

Anyways, I wish you the best and hope everything works out for you. :)

47

Hbtb @40
From what I gather, admittedly never read the whole thing, EL's paper was more about the home country rather than an assimilating community in a new one.
“ARARB's father isn't necessarily a bigot in this sense” holds some truth, yet my guess is he would have been slightly more at ease if LW was a son.

Speaking of EL and other prolific writers- it may be only me, but I would very much prefer lunch break-friendly posts. Rest assured you all have valid point, but sadly I’m often forced/inclined to skip the very elaborate ones.

48

@curious2 - just want to address this in your comment at #43: "But not nearly as much as you think, (and most relevantly) nothing that needs to constrain the LW (particularly since she's in our country now), nothing that merits elevating culture above individuals or above me personally"

I find that people who have not lived in another culture tend to think this, but that's not how it works. :) It's easy to say "you're in the US, do what you want!" but it's not so easy when it's you and your family at stake. For example, just because you can, would you run naked through your parents' house, screaming obscenities at them and flipping them off? That's basically what you're telling ARARB to do.

Children of immigrants tend to be raised in a way that is at odds with itself, being half-shaped by the culture our parents brought with them, and half-shaped by society in general. For most of our formative years, our parents' influence is stronger than society's, so we tend to adopt those values and find it very difficult to go against them even as adults. It's even harder because you know your parents won't understand why you do the things you do, they simply see it as childish defiance (I'm considered the bad rebel kid in my family for a reason; most Americans who know me find this extremely puzzling because I was a model child by their standards). I recommend a recent article on Buzzfeed, written by a Korean woman who was adopted by Caucasian parents: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolechung/being-korean-and-adopted-by-white-parents-nicole-chung Her experience is not quite the same thing as what ARARB is going through, but it's a great insight into what it's like to live that kind of dual culture, i.e. the one you were raised with and the one you have to live in, and trying to reconcile both in a way you can live with while maintaining loving relationships.

Plural @30 - "I found it really sweet her concern at the end of the letter, that the dad will be left at home when she is with her family (if I understood the letter correctly)"
I think she meant she didn't want to leave the boyfriend at home when she went to family gatherings, not that the father would be left out. :)

49

@48 Jina
"I find that people who have not lived in another culture tend to think this, but that's not how it works. :)"

I concede. You and EmmaLiz have experience I lack, so I now defer to you both on this. You both I think understand culture in a way that I cannot.

"it's not so easy when it's you and your family at stake"

You're right, but I didn't say it was easy. OTOH, I also admitted to not telling my own parents things because I thought the shit they'd give me over them cost them the right to know those things...so I chose easy and family (and financial support) myself. So I totally relate to it being hard. (Can't unbearably difficult things also be bullshit, though?)

Thankfully with this LW we might as well support the LW for telling her dad the thing she already told him.

And I'm not qualified to ask "what if I were her"; because mono-cultural "I" can't put myself in her shoes; I lied when I had my choice, but I also didn't care as much as dual-cultural she does to be fully part of her family's life.

"For most of our formative years, our parents' influence is stronger than society's, so we tend to adopt those values and find it very difficult to go against them even as adults"

Very interesting. I totally acknowledge that I don't have to deal with that inner voice of another culture's judgement that contradicts my adult decisions in this culture. That is a luxury, I know (though I can only to it extrapolate from my practice in rising above the inner voices of my own culture's crap; it can't be fun to have to play that chess in another dimension too).

50

@many

Lots of people have successful marriages at 23 or even earlier. Might be a little early in this day and age, but not absurdly so.

I hear a lot of "but she's not old enough to make a decision to marry" and then I hear a lot of "I'm glad she knows her own mind and she ought to do what she wants." Well, which is it?

She's old enough to vote. She's old enough to enlist. She's old enough to drink or smoke. She's old enough that her parents no longer are able to make decisions on her behalf legally. She's an adult. Marriage is an adult decision. She's old enough for it.

Two years is also more than enough of a courtship. If they'd only been together a few months, I'd say it was definitely too soon. One year is borderline. After two years, you should have made up your mind.

A lot of people seem extremely comfortable with her taking a take-it-or-leave-it stand with her family. That's not a good attitude to take when it comes to family decisions. There's very little in this world that you can rely upon. Family is, for most of us, one thing you can. Those relationships, like any other, take work and maintenance over the years. They are not to be thrown away lightly. Especially not when there are other perfectly valid options on the table.

In cases of abuse, yes, absolutely, kick dad to the curb. Short of that, adults negotiate. Selfish children demand.

51

@40 Actually, I'll be 47 next month, but I'll ALWAYS take being mistaken for younger LGBTQ!

Actually, if this were a same-sex relationship, I'd be more inclined to say moving in together is OK, if and only if Dad is traditionalist enough not to "believe" in same-sex marriage, on the grounds that he might come around to the relationship and/or the marriage with time.

It's also the case that some LGBTQ people themselves may not necessarily be on board with same-sex marriage, either due to their own religious views or because they don't care for heteronormativity.

52

@47. CMD. The issue turns on how culturally homogeneous, or not-integrated, the LW's father's community or friendship- or family-group is. I'd say, too, that when a Lebanese / Palestinian Arab / Syrian community isn't assimilated in the States, it isn't just because of that group's standoffishness.

People should distinguish, imv, between redundantly long and copiously long posts. I've told EmmaLiz she writes too diffusely in the past (and, in fact, have clashed with her, far more than you have, partly on account of this). Ironically, recently, about 'marriage and individualism' and 'marital sex', I think she's made some exemplary long posts.

53

@51. Corydon. I'm your last half-line (not caring for heteronormativity). I've been in one marital-style relationship that faltered early, in which my partner sought to impose pseudo-gendered, convention-imitating norms on me (wanting to rush me down the aisle, insisting I presented en femme indoors etc.). This was for reasons (no doubt!) of his own, and I was always dragging my feet at best....

It’s true, I think, in a crude way, that a woman's stock does not depreciate in America after she publicly has sex before marriage; and that it's a sexist feature of other societies that it does. If ARARB says this, then at some level her father might agree. After all, it would seem (?) he married a non-Arab.

54

Hbtb- Wonder why you made that "Palestinian Arab" distinction and found no need to state "Arab" while mentioning Lebanese or Syrian.

Yes, some immigrant communities are more isolated/enclosed/hanging on than others. This is what I meant in my initial post re parents worried how other family/community members will view them as a result of their children’s actions.
I still think that LW being a man would have been easier on the father and all others involved.

I never clashed with EL and don’t see the recent exchange as such. I appreciate her views as well as the writing; though still think her posts could be more concise and she is likely to lose readers who dread to scroll down and find a 10-page response.

It could be my personal writing style and background, journalism and poetry as opposed to fiction/non-fiction and academic papers, while aiming to keep my response in a format I deem suitable for an online public discussion.

55

CMD - I think and type very fast. This means both my thoughts and my writing are sloppy. When I'm writing for work, I then go back over and spend the hours figuring out exactly what it was I meant to say, organizing it in a way that's comprehensible and effective, editing it for clarity and grammar- none of these things come naturally and require loads of work. It would take me ten times longer to write something concise than it does to write something long. It takes me no time at all to just type up what's on my mind, seconds or minutes depending. I'm not going to go back and edit- this isn't work and as much as I enjoy the conversations and sometimes learn from them, I don't care enough. If brevity were a requirement, I'd move on to some other forum. As it is, I don't think it hurts anyone to skip my posts, and it doesn't hurt me if anyone skips them. I'm not so egotistical to think that I'm saying anything interesting enough that it really makes a difference to anyone if people read it or not. I enjoy reading your posts and engaging with you when we do, and it's sort of a shame if my limitations prevent us from communicating more often, but this is a very minor trouble in the larger scheme of things and there isn't really anything I'm willing to do about it. When others have long posts, sometimes I read them and sometimes I don't and sometimes I just scan them. It depends on my mood and interest in the topic. I figure most readers respond that way, and yes no doubt the length causes most people to skip over a lot of my posts. Shrug.

56

I actually think you write very well, even more so now knowing these are often first drafts.
Yet size may matter to some...

57

@54. CMD. I don't know whether 'Arab' would typically be taken to mean 'Muslim'. (ARARB, to me, is writing as if her father is Muslim, but it's not 100%). Most Palestinians in the US are Christian. I also don't know the proportion of people of Lebanese background in the US who are, respectively, Arab and Memnonite. Too many things I don't know, both generally and wrt to this individual case.

58

Historically, most Arab Americans in the US are from the three countries you named and Egypt. I assume that’s why you picked them. In recent years, there’s been a demographic shift with an increase in Arabs from other countries but since the LW’s dad has been here for a long time, we are probably correct that he came from one of those four. All these places have quite a bit of ethnic diversity, but we know already that the LW- regardless of where he’s from- is Arab so there’s no reason to qualify that. The confusion is why you give an ethnic qualifier to Palestine and not the others, you answer it’s because so many Palestinian Christians have come to the US. If you meant to refer to his religion, then do that- Muslim and Arab are not the same thing, one being a religion and the other an ethnicity. So you can be Arab and Christian just like you can be Kurdish and Muslim, etc. I don't know anything about how demographics are distributed among immigrant communities, but most Palestinian Christians historically have been Arab, and also nearly half of Lebanese Arabs have been Christian.

Zooming back down to the LW, she described her father as Arab, not as Muslim. We don’t know what his religion is, but it’s not what the LW chose to emphasize. It could be that she knows we’ll assume he’s Muslim since most Arabs are. Alternately, it could mean that he is in fact not Muslim which is why she didn’t describe him as such. In any case, the important factor she chose to emphasize is the ethnicity and not the religion (he could be secular, he could be non practicing, etc). Arab is an ethnicity, and they live in a couple dozen countries in North Africa and the Middle East, and they can be of any number of religions, so we just don't know for sure about any of it.


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