Salaam to everyone,
I’m new to this forum in writing but I’ve been browsing this site for quite some time and really like a lot of what I’ve been reading. I’m a gori who grew up in France but now lives in the US and I am in a relationship with an American-born Pakistani man for about 2 years now. It’s been quite an experience to say the least but we really love each other and have been working really hard to make it through the rough patches that come along the way. I’ve grown up Catholic and since meeting him have read the Quran, given up eating pork, fast with him during Ramadan, wake him up for Fajr, have learned to cook a lot of Desi food, have taken Urdu classes, and just came back from a trip to India that my institution provided that I chose in order to get a deeper understanding of Desi culture (I realize it’s not Pakistan, but that wasn’t an option unfortunately). He has also started taking French classes and has gotten pretty good at it, he’s really kind-hearted and well brought up.
He was abroad for about a year, half of which he spent in Europe and the other half which he spent in Asia, and I spent a semester in Europe while he was there as well and we traveled all around and he met a lot of my family in France and other countries. I also went to visit him in Asia the following semester. The one big obstacle that has presented itself is that in between his two semesters, he decided to tell his family about our relationship and how he wanted me to be the girl he marries, which didn’t go over so well. I met his family in their home around that time and they were very kind to me, his mom seemed skeptical but warmed up to me pretty fast and we got along well. While he was away in Asia last Spring, his mother and I spoke through email a decent amount and she invited me to come stay with her and his family for a few days to learn more about their culture, so I did and I got to know her a little better. I met her a few more times since then but she and the rest of his immediate family have been very difficult to deal with sometimes.
I’m always very conservative in how I dress around them and very polite, asking questions about how they do things, etc… They seem very upset with his choice and I always hear about how he’s been arguing with them about us when he goes home and how he says they’re being judgmental and should be more open minded. His family has even come up to his house (a 3 hour drive away) unexpectedly to try and entice him to come home and leave the relationship, yet when she’s around me she’s very nice and she’s told him that she likes me a lot but that she’s just concerned about the cultural differences. I’ve sent her hand written thank you notes every time I go over there, and asked her if I could bring anything back that she might need from India. I brought her back a beautiful prayer scroll from India. I really like his family a lot, and coming from a close knit European family, we have a lot more in common than meets the eye, but they only see my skin color and base their decisions off of that. My family has been hard to deal with as well but they like him a lot, they’re just concerned about cultural differences.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what I or we should to do in order to ease the situation? How can I show his mother that I’m not trying to take her son away from his culture or religion but only solidify these things in him already and just be a part of them? We’ve considered both talking to them in their home directly in person about our relationship and answering any of their questions directly. It’s just been difficult to carry on in a relationship when there are so many bumps that I wish I could smooth out for everyone.
Also, one of their family members just passed away very recently (Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un), and I was wondering if it would be appropriate for me to send a brief sympathy card to his mom/family letting them know they are in my prayers?
Thanks for your imput and thoughts on this, any advice would be very much appreciate!!
