Intro to My Marriage: Interracial, Intercultural and Blended Families
When I met my husband 10 years ago, I was a much different person than I am today. Never in all my years of growing up, did I imagine that I would marry, or even date someone like him. I’m sure glad I learned better! 
I am Caucasian, born and bred in the U.S. of A. My husband is Latino, born and raised in Bolivia (It’s in South America… for all of you who aren’t so good at geography. Don’t worry, I had no idea where Bolivia was 10 years ago either).
When I met Jorge, I was attending a predominan
tly white , american university, with a very conservative population. I was dating and associating with others like myself who had grown up like me and I expected that my life would follow on that path.
I had just started volunteering at a local school (this was a requirement of my social work program). The very first day there I met Jorge. I was sitting in the lobby, and he walked toward me. I observed a short, brown, well dressed, man. He stopped to talk to me, and I immediately noticed that he had a very thick accent. I was taken by surprise when, after a little small talk, he asked me on a date. I said no. Actually I am not sure I was that direct, but somehow I did decline. Dating him was just nowhere in my plans or paradigm.
Well, for the next few times I showed up at my volunteer job, I wouldI would happen to run into Jorge (later I found out this was not purely coincidence, but carefully planned)
Each time I would run into him, he would ask me out again.
After a few times of this happening and me declining his invitations, I finally gave in and said I would go out with him. On the condition that we each brought some friends. He agreed, and we set a date and time.
When Jorge came to pick me up, my friends and I were ready. We went out to the car and I was surprised to see that he was not driving a low rider with the base pumped up (yeah, I had a few stereotypes to overcome). He was driving an SUV. To illustrate just how young and naive I was, when I saw the SUV, I assumed it belonged to his parents (I had never even had my own car at that point). Nope, it was his, and I was pretty impressed. Still not thinking that this would go anywhere, but impressed.
So we went to a restaurant and while we waited to be seated, we sat on a crowded bench together. While we talked, I noticed that his breath smelled really good and his teeth were really white. I liked the things he was saying too. But I kept saying in my head “its too bad I can’t date this guy” because I realized that there were a lot of things I was liking about him.
Well, the rest is really history. By the end of that date, I had thrown my caution to the wind and decided to go out with him again. Within a few weeks, I knew I really really liked Jorge. After four years of dating, we were finally married (you will be able to read more about those four years later). At the time of this writing, we have been married for a little over 6 years ( you will undoubtedly also have access to lots of stuff that involves our years of marriage so far. Lucky you! ).
When Jorge and I started dating seriously, I was met with some resistance. My parents were really supportive, and liked him from the beginning (I am lucky to have really awesome parents). Most others in my family were also supportive, but my grandpa was not happy about us being together at all. He told me “you need to find a white man to date”, and I told him that Jorge treated me better than any white man I knew (by the way, I have absolutely nothing against the “white man”. I was just using that as a comeback at my grandpa)*. I also had some friends that said similar things to me (usually in a more politically correct way though).
In addition to the “inter-relationship”** issues that were coming up, after a few months of dating, Jorge finally mustered the courage to tell me that he was divorced and had 3 children. Well, he is lucky he waited to tell me, because by that time I already loved him, and therefore I was willing to love whatever came with him.
Although I loved Jorge and wanted to be with him, I had to go through a lot of growing up before I was able to be confident in our relationship. Going through this process was not easy. I struggled for a long time with insecurities about what others thought and how life would be for us as an interracial and intercultural couple. I had to go through a lot of shifts in my thinking to get to the point I am at today.
As a social work student, I had many opportunities to use my school required research papers to my advantage. For most of them, I chose topics that had something or another to do with my relationship. I looked everywhere I could to find out about others experiences with “inter- marriage”**. I looked for research, help, tips advice. I was usually disappointed at the lack of useful materials out there on the subject.
One of my goals with this website is to provide some informative and practical information and insight regarding inter-marriage. I also have a thing or two to say about blended families, step parenting, etc, however those topics tend to be more widely addressed already.
I predict that interracial and intercultural relationships are going to continue to become more common as the world becomes a smaller place through technological advances. I feel it is important that insight, advice and experiences be disseminated to help those marriages be more successful. I am assuming that there is more information out there today than there was 6-10 years ago, when I was really looking for it. Even so, I think I have some valuable things to add.
So there you go…. a little bit more about me and why I am here. Keep your eyes open for some follow up articles on this topic, as they are coming soon.
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*FYI… I have no hard feelings toward my grandpa. He ended up coming around and really loving Jorge once he got to know him.
**I use this term to refer to interracial and/or intercultural. In my relationship, we have both issues, but I don’t want to write the full thing out each time I refer to it.
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June 29th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
[…] If you are like me, you did not go out and plan to get involved with someone of a different racial and/or cultural background. I didn’t even consider dating my husband at first, because I didn’t envision having a long term relationship with somebody who seemed so different from myself. Finally, because of his persistence, I decided to go on a date with him just so he would stop bugging me. During that date, I started to like him, and the rest is history. […]