Inter-Racial Marriages

Lifestyle Relationships
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this is for guppies who married a pakistani/ and for those who have a spouse who is not from pakistani origin (or know somebody..)

what concerns did you have while you were getting married and are you content with your lives now. any regrets.

i am in a similar situation and realize that at the end of the day it is what ‘i’ want and but would like to hear from people who have been through this.
there is always something which you cannot compromise on in a relationship and for me its religion and to some extent culture. she knows the basics of islam but is learning it further and will learn urdu.

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Have you really thought it out in detail...concerning all parts of a married life. Have you talked about religion for the kids. Is she a muslim yet, if yes then did she embrace the religion on her own rather then for the relationship sake? I hope u r willing to change yourself a lot too to carry a relationship like that as marriage requires a long term commitment and also constant management. Ofcourse, it shows that she is willing to change quite a bit for your sake...I hope it works out for you kids...and Good Luck!!

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I have been married to my Pakistani for over 15 years. Like any marriage, it takes a lot of love and a little compromise from time to time. I converted to Islam before I met my husband, so religion was not an issue, but this girl should not feel any pressure to convert. You've accepted her "as is" while dating her, so it's not really fair to start throwing in conditions now. Most women I know who have sincerely converted after marriage did so because of the examples of their husbands and husband's family. You should go into this with clear understandings about certain things, though. That said, things do change with time, so be flexible and adaptive. You must also be willing to accept her culture, and not just expect to impose your own in the house.

The things I was most unprepared for are:

  1. Family dynamics. Nothing prepares an American girl for the crazy family politics that goes on in desi families, but do try to explain it to her. We particularly dont' understand the emotional blackmail or fake illnesses. Additionally, we don't live with our parents when they are perfectly healthy, unless there is something wrong with us, and we don't consult them every time we sneeze. Also, typically, a woman takes care of her parents when they are elderly, and your wife may expect to take in her parents or parent for a time between early illness and serious (nursing home) illness. There is no preference for the husband's parents over the wife's.

  2. Bringing guests at the last minute, without letting me know. This sounds benign, but nothing is more terrifying that hearing at 5:00 p.m. that guests are coming at 6:30! We don't do "dropping by".

  3. The cattiness of desi aunties and uncles. People were generally and blatantly rude to my face when we were first married, and some still are. We would never tell someone that they are fat/weak/dark/etc. to their face, so that was a shock. And of course there were the stereotypes.

  4. The pace of life in Pakistan. If you are planning to move back to Pakistan, take her for a visit first. I found the pace of life and general headache involved with doing things to be maddening. Fortunately, my husband did too, and we didn't stay long.

This list is by no means comprehensive, just a few things that I was unprepared for. I hope this helps!

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Hm oddd..most desis are very friendly and polite and warm and very welcoming. To your face :)

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Not if you're a gori stealing their darling future son-in-law (or so they thought) .... ;)

Perfect Date
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I gotta say amana, i LOVE reading your posts. Always full of pearls of wisdom and some humor. Anyway heart beat, I'm sort of in amana's situation but from the other end of the spectrum. I'm the Pakistani guy and my wife is the American gori.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't at all religious to begin with. I saw too much hypocrisy in the way most desis practiced Islam. When I met my wife, I wasn't interested in religion and neither was she. We got married, much to the chagrin of my parents and her parents too. Remember, Americans also have biases and they didn't want her girl marrying a 'savage from Arabia'.

Neither of us spoke to our parents for about a year. After that we all started talking a little. Eventually, it was my wife who started researching true Islam and I claim to this day that it was she who converted ME to Islam and not the other way around. My parents were not so much hung up on religion but the fact that we come from money and that all she wanted was money. But that was a baseless fear, I haven't taken a penny from my parents since I was 17 and when she started medical school, they realized that she is an intelligent, ambitious girl.

Now, years later, my parents just LOVE my wife, they ADORE her. They have even formally apologized for their behavior in the beginning of our relationship. So I know that they really accept her now.

As far as how she has fit in with desi politics? I've told her that she shouldn't worry about being on egg shells, if someone is rude to her, call them out on it. Thankfully, most of our family is educated and don't indulge in the typical nastiness that's prevalent in a lot of families. Earlier this year, my wife went to her first desi wedding, my brother's wedding. She had a blast, and almost EVERY guest commented to my parents about how my wife had perfectly taken on the roll of the older bahu. There were some aunties there who went to my mother and said that they just wanted to hug my wife because of how accepting and comfortable she is with everything desi. She danced, she went around to every guest and asked if they were comfortable and needed anything, she was brilliant.

In the end, just remember, God is the best planner. In hindsight, I can see how we were brought together as part of a grand plan and inshallah, if you take your precautions and do your job and then leave everything up to The Almighty, things WILL work out for the best. Good luck and God Speed.

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^ beautiful story...thanks for sharing it and good luck to u also!

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racially diverse marriages aint good in ma books esp not when ppl convert for the sake of marrying a muslim/muslimah and not becuz they r attrachted to islam ....i do beat crap out of ma lil bros if they ever think bout getting married to goris*barbie*...so simple is it lol...

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^ whatever...

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This annoys desis too.

[quote]

  1. The cattiness of desi aunties and uncles. People were generally and blatantly rude to my face when we were first married, and some still are. We would never tell someone that they are fat/weak/dark/etc. to their face, so that was a shock. And of course there were the stereotypes. [/quote]

Again, this is also an annoyance for desis too. What I have noticed is that people are careful around those from whom they'd fear a nice head-spinning/stinging response.

Your post is spot on, just wanted to highlight somethings that even desis sometimes find themselves unprepared for. :)

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this tells more about wat kinda guy u were ... not religious..muslim in name lol.. good for u but i wanna my bros to be religious ...and not some paki junkis dying to marry goris :) ....

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^ whatever, recall that some of the most prominent muslims came from nonmuslim backgrounds. But that's Ok, we know how your type roll yo'... you conveniently forget things like "only God can judge" and other issues of historical significance. Lage raho, you keep telling yourself how good a 'muslim' you are. i'm not going to judge, because unlike you, I believe that only God can judge. peace brother.

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15 yrs sounds like a long time. good for you. the first time we met, she was interested in islam and wanted to learn more about it with the intention of converting. our commitment to each other continued with the understanding that islam would be the religion for us and the children since we both believe that religion is important in our lives and islam is the right one for us. so no conditions are being set now per say. however, we still think she should study it in more detail before making the decision of converting.

1)3)
i come from an educated family so i don’t think if there would be any politics but you never know when it comes to distant relatives. however, in situations like these i think all she needs is my support. :smiley:

i can’t imagine doing that but i guess time will tell..

that is not decided yet but she is willing to move back but certainly we will see if it
works for both of us.

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i am not here to promote inter-racial marriages or otherwise since marriage on its own is hard work. only time can tell if ‘any’ marriage will be successful. i have never been in a commitment before (and neither has she) both here and when i was back in pak. the time i have been outside pak, i have had opportunities to meet ppl from both amreka and europe (i lived there as well) and everytime, i knew in the long run it would never work out so there is no point in wasting my and her time (and believe me i have had plenty of opportunities)

i was not planning on marrying somebody who is not from pak origin but things happen and they happen for a reason.

however, there is nothing wrong in discovering/converting to islam after meeting a muslim. but to convert (even though you do not agree with a religion) for the sake of getting married is completely wrong.

i see that you are in netherlands. i have seen that comparatively ppl in usa have more eastern values than in europe.

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aahmed - it was nice reading your post and good to know that it worked out really well for you. how long have you been married ? does it worry you that your pak roots are going to diminish with time ? your children might end up marrying somebody who is not from pak origin.

i realize that there are a lot of things which worry me right now (this could be just the fear of getting married) but hopefully when the time comes we will know what would be the right thing to do.

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**amna's **post was a bit insulting.
Not all pakistani families are same.

There are quite a few things very annoying about " british gora's(later call them self american canadian)" .

Stop using word "US" so much other then stealing wealth from less advance country that "US" race hasn't left very many beautiful mark on humanity.

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Dude, first of all, chill. If you’ve read any of amana’s posts carefully, you’d know that she is never insulting, she expresses her views as hers and when she talks about things in general, she makes it known that she is generalizing.

Secondly, what was the point of your second and third paragraphs? I don’t know what you’re trying to say and don’t know what your point is.

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heart beat, we’ve been married for 7 years. As far as my diminishing Pakistani roots, I’m of the opinion that culture, language, traditions, these are dynamic, evolving things. When anything, be it language, culture, or traditions become stagnant or static, they tend to die out. With that said, my wife is very much adopting some of the finer things from my culture and I’m doing the same. We believe that we have the unique opportunity to learn from each other and each others’ backgrounds, the best of both worlds so to say. In fact, my wife wants to take 6-12 weeks and go to Pakistan and do an OB/GYN elective (my wife is an OB/GYN resident currently) in a hospital there. She believes that not only will she learn a lot about the culture and medicine in that part of the world but with full immersion for 3 months, she might learn a lot of the language.

Our plan is to raise the children with both Pakistani and western values. Everyone, please, I’m not going to debate what western values are, just know that there are quite a few. I plan to teach my children Urdu, Arabic, English, and Farsi. All the languages that I speak. They will spend a lot of time with their grandparents, my parents, who live only 2-3 hours away by car. My brother and his wife are also the same distance away. My wife and I are very close to my entire family and spend a lot of time with them, so I’m not at all worried about my children losing eastern values.

Finally, we are both of the opinion that God and His commandments are more important than national identity, culture, or language. If our children want to marry a good, decent believer, we don’t care what background he/she might have, remember, God is the best planner, to object to His will is blasphemy.

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if u have read my previous post Like you read amna's , you would know what I meant.

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i'm married to a gori and its going perfectly fine for the past 5 yearz.....and hopefull it will in coming years...
it was my choice and i'm happy about it that at very young age i made a good choice..
**aahmed---> u dont have u waste ur energy to answer ppl like **hussain87......
look at his age he's probably 19......
answering to any of his post pointless and waste of time......
*let him worry about his brothers....:D *

As for u hussain87------i can only say grapes r sour
if u know wat i mean....

Pak v NZ - 3rd Test - 11-15 Dec. 09 @ Napier