God Almighty, it is back. Take two.
Personal story of my life, made as short as possible:
I am an only child of an overprotective and codependent mother who “lives for me” (and, I think, vicariously through me). She is a lawyer not by choice – after the fall of Communism in Bulgaria she was forced to become one to survive (financially), so she is professionally damaged from defending criminals (law back then over there was not divided by field as it is here), who have also threatened her with my safety/life to get what they need in defense terms. I was mostly raised by my maternal grandparents from age 8 months to 16 years, when I moved in with my parents. I still saw my parents most evenings and spent most weekends and parts of the summer holidays with them. My maternal grandparents never truly liked nor accepted my dad and now that my grandfather is gone, and my grandma being disabled, my mom has to balance between work and the two households, when living together is not a healthy option (either my dad will kill my grandma or vice versa, lol. Hopefully figuratively).
I have been raised with a lot (for my country and culture) of American influence – Cartoon Network since age 6, MTV, Vh1 (not American, I know, oh well), American Girl Magazine, National Geographic, American penpals and chat pals, American movies, TV shows, Disney, music, and my mom’s American (Bulgarian Jews who escaped in WWII and came to live in the US) clients (for some real estate stuff in Bulgaria, not criminal clients), all of which happened since age 8 to age 18. I have always been groomed to come here to get my higher education, which I am doing, but I feel that my upbringing prepared me well and made it easy for me to adapt to the US and feel like I fit in well.
Now… In my country we don’t really have people of different races. I have only briefly met in person one black person before I came to the US. We have had and still have Roma (gypsies), who are of darker skin and generally discriminated against. Nowadays we have about 10 black and mixed people in my hometown. Maybe some more in other cities, plus some Syrian refugees. Anyway. I never knew I would, but I met and I fell in love with a black man here (of Caribbean descent). My mom let it pass as ok in the beginning, then about 8 months or so later she told me I need to break it off because neither my family (WHOLE family), neither anyone else, anywhere (not even in the US) would accept this, nor our children, we will both be discriminated against and suffer (and our children too). This happened in late May, 2010. Since then, not only did I not break up with the man, but I introduced him (virtually) to most of my friends and family in Bulgaria, who seem to like him and really want to meet him. I have met his family who seems to like/love me, and whom I love. My Mom has met him twice for about 5 minutes each time, and my Dad met him too and we three (without my mom) went to a sports bar. Dad and Brian had a good ole time. 🙂 Also, my Mom has said this about him: “I am sure that he is a wonderful person because I did not raise you to be with someone who isn’t.” I have also heard ALL kinds of other words from my mother’s mouth including how she would pity our kids if God forbid we have them; how I will LOSE my WHOLE family if I choose to be with him (to which I always respond that that would be their choice and it doesn’t have to happen like this, but to deaf ears it falls), how our relationship is imminently doomed as she reads statistics on that and sees what happens to two examples she has (both of bad relationships between Bulgarian women and men of another race and/or culture) and, the best one – how she has thought about even hurting herself at the thought of my imminent doom if I were to ever connect my life with a man of another race and/or culture, and how I will know she was right but she would be long gone by the time I realize it. In the meantime, I have begun living with this man (in 2012, but I only told her in January 2014, and her reaction was expected yet scary), I got engaged and married to this man.
Now… I want to try my chance at building a better, healthier relationship with my Mom (parents) and Grandma while they’re still alive, so I want to tell them the truth – that I got married, they did not know, nor were they invited, and I just hope that in time they will all learn to accept my decision and us as a family. And I hope to overall build a better, adult-like, honest and trusting relationship (but with boundaries) with my mom and wean her off of her codependency, if possible… But all of this will take time.
So, this is the gist of it. I plan to do it on Friday night – the end of my birth month. Just feels like it’s time.
Thank you all, again!
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