My boyfriend and I have been in a relationship for 2 years and 7 months now. I asked him how come he doesn’t have one picture of us on any one of his socials, and he said that it’s because he has a lot of relatives as friends on his socials and that needs to “ease” them into the idea of interracial dating first before posting a picture of us on any one of his socials. My boyfriend is Asian (Vietnamese) and I am not. He also added that he wants to have had a plan in place for how he is going to save up enough money for our engagement before posting a picture of us because in Vietnamese culture a lot of people don’t show of their spouses until they are about to get married. I was like ??? Because I feel that if he knows in his heart that he will carry out our engagement as soon as he finishes studying for his masters (which will be by next year September/November), then why is he hesitant to expose me to the rest of family? It’s been almost 3 years now. He has made me feel like he is not proud to be with me or is not 100% sure of our relationship. I don’t care for always being posted on his socials (I’m actually a pretty private person), but if he posted at least one picture of me to show my existence in his life, that would make me feel really happy. It’s the little things for me.
Tldr: My boyfriend (22m) said that he hasn’t posted a picture of us on any one of his socials because we are an interracial couple and because in Vietnamese culture, it’s common to only show off your spouse once ya’ll are about to get married.
11 comments
Forget about the socials for now. Does anyone actually know you’re in this relationship?
How exactly does one ‘ease into’ the idea of telling friends and family about his mixed race dating? (have you asked him this question?)
Any bf who keeps you a secret obviously does not think this relationship will last.
Time to ease him out of your relationship. Start deleting all traces of him from your social media and change your status to single and looking.
Ummm I think you have the right to be upset. Your feelings are totally valid. I will say though that I’m currently dating an Asian man as well (he’s Korean and I’m white), and I can definitely see this being a thing. We live in a large city in the US and his parents have been here since the 80s, so that’s definitely helpful in them having a more open mind about these things. But even at that it took them about a year to warm up to me (they love me now).
His ex wife was also white and I know they had some really bad experiences with her. It took me being there for him and them during a really tough time for them to feel like they could trust me. Their specific words to him were “white people don’t usually stick around for things like this so be sure to be good to her”. Also, his sister has only dated Korean and black men, but has only brought home one Korean man to meet them and she’s 31. I think for them it’s less about race and more about culture. Or would be much easier for his parents if they both dated other Korean people because they would already know the language and understand the cultural things that are important to them, which I will say is quite a lot of things.
As I said, your feelings are totally valid here, but I think you’re boyfriend probably has a lot of cultural pressure to do things a very specific way.
My love is Filipino. They’re very against interracial dating (asian cultures) especially the older generations. His grandmother won’t ever like me because I’m white, (she’s never met me lol) but she loves my kids (she’s never met them either)
It is normal, and it does suck.
Common in Asian culture, unfortunately. In my country, Singapore, I’ve even heard of some parents saying that they *don’t* want to meet their child’s partner until they’re very close to engagement. And many parents here would not be comfortable with their child dating a non-Asian.
Which is to say, your feelings are valid, but I think the situation is less your boyfriend is ashamed of the relationship and more he’s under a lot of cultural and social pressure. If you want to be with him long-term, you have to be prepared to feel like an outsider in his family for a long time, perhaps even permanently in the worst case scenario. They may not necessarily accept you even after marriage.
I’m mixed Chinese and Indian, and when I was younger, I dated another Chinese Singaporean for a while. Unfortunately, his mother absolutely detested Indian people and would have had a complete meltdown if she had known about me. Obviously, it was not feasible for the relationship to continue long-term. So even someone who is Asian and from the same country is not exempt from this sort of family pressure.
The problem with situations like this is sure, you might engaged when he says and then he might tell them. And that might go well, or it might go very poorly, because they had no idea about you.
But you should also be aware that there’s a version of this where he puts off being engaged and telling them and he just never does that, because he knows they’ll never accept you. I’m not saying he will, but plenty of people date people they know their parents will never accept for racial or cultural reasons and that they know they’ll never marry for that reason and they lead them on for years. They get married eventually to someone their family approves of.
If he is someone who in every other way is loyal to Vietnamese cultural norms, I say overlook it and wait until the time is right for him. I don’t think he’s doing this because he doesn’t love you, and it doesn’t sound like an excuse for not being proud/happy about your relationship. Definitely sounds like cultural nervousness. And it’s totally WARRANTED. A lot of older people in many cultures don’t approve of interracial relationships and don’t know how to hold their tongue about it. In a way I find it hard to expect people who were raised a “certain way” to change their beliefs about how the world should function on a whim. Do I think it’s ridiculous? Yes! Do I think I’m going to change people? No!
You’re allowed to feel offended, but at the end of the day, who cares what he does and doesn’t post on social media? Social media didn’t exist 30 years ago. My advice? Take some polaroids together. Frame them. Put them on your wall. A tangible reminder of your relationship that no one can hide or delete or report or judge. Just your love for each other in the real world, visible where it matters. To you.
Show each other your love in person.
I was born and live in Vietnam. Just kinda let you know that we can post any pics even they havent married yet. We do not have any culture in Vietnam about posting dating pics. Most of people in my country post a lot pics about their gf/bf. I THINK HE IS HIDING U ABOUT SOMETHING OR HE DOESNT WANT TO SHOW UR TO ANYONE IN SOCIALS IG. Idk why he didnt even post ur in his socials. I mean maybe he is private person?????. Pls answer my reply if u read it!!!
The ONLY excuse to not do this (share pics of your partner) is if you do not use social media!
My cousin is married to a cool chick from Singapore. Before she even THOUGHT about introducing him, she had a spiel committed to memory that was basically his resume, family history, and goals board.
Once things got serious (ring is bought, basically) it was time for the presention.