Created a throwaway for this as it’s pretty embarrassing for me to admit.
I’m Latina, and my husband is white. We have two children. Our daughter (8f) looks just like my husband. She has white skin, straight hair, and Nordic facial feature. Our son (6m) has brown skin, wavier hair, and features more similar to mine.
My husband is in love with our daughter. She’s the eldest, and from the moment she was born, he’s doted on her. Our son’s experience is entirely different. As our son grew and developed more color, my husband seemed impressed by how much darker our son was compared to our daughter. I remember him mentioning several times how different they were, with a touch of disappointment in his voice. It bothered me, but I just thought he wanted our son to resemble him.
Anything our daughter asks for, he gets for her. He goes all out for our daughter, while our son is left in her shadow. He tends to be cold towards our son while being incredibly affectionate and sweet with our daughter. If we ever have to split up and take each child, even something as simple as holding their hand, he always, without fail, chooses our daughter. People in my family have also noticed this. I’ve tried to rationalize this to myself that maybe it’s because she’s his little girl, maybe because she’s his first born, etc.
I took the kids swimming last weekend. My daughter tans very easily. By the end of the day, she had a lovely tan, and when we got home, my husband was upset! He said, ‘Why didn’t you put sunscreen on her?’ in an annoyed voice. And I replied, ‘I did, nevertheless, you can still tan with sunscreen.’ Then he said to take her to an indoor pool next time and used some absurd excuse about the dangers of sun exposure. The thing is, he didn’t say anything about my son’s tan. He only showed concern about my daughter’s tan.
I confronted him about it later that night, and he acted as if I were crazy and simply brushed it off. At this point, I feel uncomfortable around my own husband, and I’m beginning to think I married a prejudiced man. I don’t know what to do. My son is still young now, but eventually, he’ll notice this. What should I do? How do I deal with this and make sure it won’t ruin our marriage?
34 comments
You’re worried you married a prejudice man bc you did marry a prejudice man. He likes his daughter is completely white passing. He dislikes his son bc his son is darker complected. Which means he also somewhere has issues with your ethnicity in itself. A large convo needs to be had and probably with a counselor.
Omg I hope this is fake
Therapy. Get some therapy for yourself so you have some support and validation for what you’re seeing.
Then ask him to join you. It’s essential he faces this, however difficult it will be, otherwise the long term impact on both you, and more importantly your son will be very evident.
He’s a product of his environment, and he may be unaware of the deeply rooted prejudice he is clearly acting out.
As a biracial child, reading this made me angry and broke my heart for your children. It is such a disservice to these babies that they have a father who assigns value to them based on proximity to whiteness, and a mother who has been complicit in this behavior. I refuse to believe your childrens skin tone were the first displays of your husbands ignorance. And I would be inclined to believe you carry your own biases as well in order for this to go unchecked this long. I promise you, your son already recognizes what’s going on as well as your daughter. I became aware of racial prejudice long before I had the terminology for it. I think you need to first look inwards. You wouldn’t be conflicted on how this should be addressed if you fully understood the gravity of what is happening to your children.
Unless he gets help there won’t be anything to save this marriage
Couple’s counseling ASAP. He is going to fuck up your son beyond repair
Sounds like you married a racist, OP, and not even a subtle one at that. If his favoritism is blatant enough that other family members have already picked up on it, imagine what sort of messages your children are internalizing. And your son feeling like a second-class citizen in his own family is only half of the problem: Do you really want your daughter to grow up believing that the color of her skin means she’s automatically superior to other people?
Therapy. Therapy. Therapy.
That’s for you and the kids. It’s not likely to help your racist husband or his conscious or unconscious bias
Tell your husband that you have noticed and the family has noticed as well. Ask him to go to counseling with you and let him know that it’s upsetting you to the point that you aren’t sure about the marriage anymore. He needs to understand how serious this is.
The fact that he’s favoring a child is a problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s a racial problem, a gender problem or some other problem. I hope for your sake it’s not the first. Couples counseling is the only suggestion I have.
You should really address this and put your foot down. As a Latina, you want your kids to be proud of their heritage as well and not resent it. Your husband has racist tendencies and their showing.
As a multi-racial child to two biracial parents (mom is Half-German Half-Cuban, dad is half-Black half-Scottish) this breaks my heart but doesn’t surprise me at all. On my mother’s side, her brothers married white women while my mom married a Black man and that whole side of the family has treated me literally like a black sheep. I’m much darker, have thick curly afro hair and I grew up in the Black community and around my dad’s side more than my mom’s side for that very reason (my mom didn’t want me being a part of their bs). I learned the hard way that just because racist/prejudice/discriminatory people marry someone outside of their race doesn’t suddenly make them not racist or prejudice. Neither my mom nor dad have this issue but it’s how my Uncles have referred to me behind closed doors (the n-word with hard R was used) that I understood very early on that being blood related doesn’t change a racist/prejudice person’s mind.
I honestly think you need to think of your children and get away from your husband because that kind of race favoring he’s blatantly doing will really fuck them up. Your son especially will internalize that and might come to hate that about him or worse your daughter will look down on her brother or others of color because your husband treats your son with neglect and disdain.
Correction. You married a racist man.
” I’m beginning to think I married a prejudiced man. ”
Because you did.
I am a white woman with a child that is biracial and this post makes me sick. My son’s father passed away but I can’t just deny his racial identity. The idea of loving and liking my son based on how he looks is WILD. You have had children with a man that is actually racist. You cannot raise children with him.
You married a racist. I feel so so sorry for your children.
> How do I deal with this and make sure it won’t ruin our marriage?
You need to be worrying about your kids instead of yourself.
Your husband is racist with a Latina fetish. He likes your looks because he thinks it sexy. Objectifying you. The thought of his own children having any ethnic traits though, disgusts him and is causing his mask to slip.
Ya you absolutely married a racist. I’m so sorry
I am so sorry but you married a man who is racist. I’m somewhat surprised he married a woman who was darker skin. He must have loved you enough to marry you. But his treatment of his children is awful. Your poor son is going to be traumatized by this and possible resent his sister and despise his dad.
You have some tough decisions to make. Your husband won’t admit he’s in the wrong but he is. I wish you the best of luck. You and your son don’t deserve this at all.
Uh I’m confused… how did you not know he was like this prior to marrying him lmao?
Prejudiced is a nice way of putting it – he’s racist!
Your husband sounds like my monster in law. I’m half where half Filipino. My husband is white. My son is the oldest and takes after me and my moms side. Dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin etc. my daughter was born almost 4 years after. Bright blonde hair. She had blue eyes for almost a year and now they are hazel. She is pretty pale and during the summer if she spends time out in the sun her hair is almost a platinum color.
One year before I went no contact with MIL she told me to take a photo down of my son because he looked “too Mexican”. He had been at the pool and he tans very easily. She also clearly favors my daughter who looks white. I had to lay down the law because my son did notice when he got older. He also has autism and a language disorder so at first he thought she didnt love
Him because there was something wrong with him. I was so mad she ever made one of my babies feel that way. There is nothing wrong with him and after that she didn’t get to see either kid for years.
It does sound like your husband is discriminating his own kid because of the color of his skin. If he hasn’t noticed by now, it won’t be much longer until he does.
You want your son to grow up liking himself. You don’t want either child to suffer from internalized racism. You have to protect your children, and I believe you have married a racist. This may be off-base, but I would also be concerned about incest/pedophilia, if he is that obsessed with your daughter. Just watch him.
I think you may have to see a lawyer and look into a full custody arrangement. Your children need to be protected from this emotional abuse. Racism is absolutely abusive.
Girl – I have been in your place. Latina married to a white dude that I realized over time was extremely racist. I was ok because I was American (4th gen USA). I realized that my daughter would look for a man like her father and my son would turn out to be like him as well. I kicked him out when my son was 2 and my daughter was 6 – and thank gosh I did. He turned into a MAGAt and they don’t talk to him at all.
Your son is 5, I guarantee you he’s already noticing the difference in affection. Give it a couple more years and your going to hear your son start to say “daddy doesn’t love me” 100%
I hope you do your job as a mother by protecting your children from this man, don’t leave it until its to late
Your son already notices for God’s sake. You may think he doesn’t but he does. Your daughter also knows he treats her brother different. Wake up!
Even if it’s not because of racism, the blatant favoritism will damage your son. You need to protect him.
But it probably is racism.
The typical ( not ideal) family dynamic is the oldest girl is daddy’s princess and the youngest is mommy’s little prince. This seems to be true here. I got family with this exact dynamic. Question, does he doubt the kids are his?
Is he Norwegian? My Norwegian ex gave vibes like this when we talked to another Norwegian that had kids just with an american. Im part arab so tanner and short and i felt like there was a weird racial thing there too. We broke up. Sorry dude, i know that unpleasant feeling, i felt it with him.
Hmm, so as an interracial couple does he take any interest in your heritage or culture at all? Or are you, for the lack of better term, white-washed, and not really connected to that.
I kinda think about this with like, white guy, asian female couples, where the white guy can look down on the things that make her “asian,” though she might also kind of be embarrassed about it too depending on how proud or “white-washed” she is of her culture.
Like the white guys, and white woman my cousins married are totally down with our Filipino background, love the food, learn the words, and are teaching their children Tagalog too.
I read a disappointing post this morning about of an interracial couple where the white guy and his family were completely condescending towards his wife’s Korean grandma, and really bummed out, like how could you marry someone of another culture and treat them like that. It’s like he just views her as a trophy he conquered of an exotic land or some bs.
I grew up with a single mother with a similar sort of race bias. My mother is a black woman, and while I am mixed I am pretty much white passing. My mother absolutely hates white people, white men especially. She abused me horribly as a kid because of it, while she treats my brother like a king because he has a different father and is black.
All I know is you need to get your son out of that situation. Watching your parent treat your sibling like gold while they treat you like shit for reasons you can’t begin to understand really fucks with your brain. I’ve got a whole host of mental health issues as a result, and I haven’t spoken to my mother in many years now.
It could be just that she looks like him, but specifically about race. My mom favors the kids that look like her too.