A 29-year-old South Asian woman has asked Reddit users for advice after saying racist and sexist jokes shared by her white American husband created growing tension in their marriage. Her post in the r/interracialdating community had received 82 comments at the time of publication.
The woman said her husband had initially shown interest in learning about her culture and had willingly taken part in activities with her family. She also described him as anti-Trump. However, she said she later began noticing what she viewed as internalized racism, particularly in jokes and memes he shared with her or made around friends.
She recalled that one of her first interactions with his friends involved a joke about Indians being smelly, which she said her husband had also repeated. She also said he frequently sent videos depicting women doing household work and joked that he wished his life were like that, despite her making clear that she expected shared responsibilities in their relationship.
The couple married a few months before she wrote the post, after dating for slightly more than two years. She said her husband grew up in an upstate New York neighborhood where most residents were white, while they now live in New York City. According to her, he does not make similar remarks around his more diverse group of friends there.
The woman said she loved her husband but was finding his behavior increasingly difficult to accept. She also described feeling exhausted by the possibility of having to teach him to change or tolerate the behavior throughout their marriage.
She said a recent argument, after both had been drinking, involved her husband calling her racist and sexist toward him after she said she hated men. She added that the marriage had brought up complicated feelings about interracial relationships and that she had been struggling to understand them.
Despite the conflict, she said neither partner questioned their love or commitment. She ended her post by saying the situation had damaged the relationship and that both could feel the resulting discomfort. The couple was already considering couples therapy and she asked for advice on how to address the issue and become better partners.
Some commenters advised her to focus on her husband’s behavior and decide how she wanted to respond. Others suggested that his conduct reflected a gap between his stated political views and his private attitudes.
The claims in the Reddit post could not be independently verified. The details reflect accounts shared by users in r/interracialdating, and the identities of the commenters were not confirmed.
Sources: The Daily Dot.