Don’t be mislead by the title of this post. We’re actually not talking about people thinking about leaving a non-interracial relationship to pursue an interracial one. Instead, we’re talking about the opposite. Some people in interracial relationships are worried that their mates are secretly checking out members of their own race. This type of fear can drive a serious wedge into a relationship and cause significant problems that end up in Splitsville. We’ve seen it firsthand with a couple that’s now going through a divorce. In order to spark some much-needed discussion on the matter we’ll talk about it here but will change the names to protect the innocent. Let’s call them Mark (BM) and Diane (WF).
Now, as with most relationships that are interracial or non-interracial, issues tend to crop up between a couple because of stuff that’s going on with them personally and not the environmental factors around them. However, the environmental factors are just so easy to blame because they don’t talk back! (Well, sort of.) So people will sometimes cling to something that has nothing to do with them as a couple at all because they need a crutch to lean on. Or they need something to shift blame away from themselves. Or they need a convenient excuse to ignore the real issue at hand. In the case of Mark and Diane it was unfounded jealousy that almost bordered on paranoia. You see … Diane was absolutely convinced that Mark was either already cheating on her or wanted to cheat on her with a black woman.
Now, Mark had dated black women up until college so, technically, Diane’s concern wasn’t completely unfounded, but his preference for white was well established by the time Diane came along in his life. And his love for her was rock solid too. They had two kids and, on the surface, a great life that their friends envied. They lived in a great community that didn’t bat an eyelash at their interracial marriage and life was, for all intents and purposes, grand! Until Diane started to develop an almost neurotic fear that Mark was looking at black women and wanted to have one again. No matter what Mark did or said, Diane was utterly convinced that he wanted to cheat or already had. At first, she would “catch” him ogling a black woman while they were out. Then, the fear progressed into her imagining him flirting overtly with black women in her presence. For example, they had it out in a restaurant one evening because Diane swore Mark was getting fresh with their waitress – who just so happened to be brown-skinned with a body to die for.
Now, what makes this story so interesting was that Diane wasn’t just concerned about Mark cheating on her with another woman in general. She was out of her mind about him cheating on her with a black woman. Somehow, she’d convinced herself that his attraction to her was just a short-lived fetish and that, secretly, he longed to be with “one of his own.” The truth was that Mark was a devoted husband to Diane and couldn’t understand why she thought otherwise. But everything he did to try to demonstrate that to Diane only seemed to drive them further apart. It got to the point where Mark was changing everything he could. The way he interacted with people, his mannerisms … even the way he smiled. All to try to show Diane that he had no intentions of cheating on her. But it was all for naught because they ended up divorcing after 10 years of marriage, much to the dismay of Mark and his family.
It took awhile but Mark finally got over it and started to date again two years later. And, you guessed it … she was a white woman. Diane’s crazy thoughts of Mark leaving her for a black woman were the farthest thing from reality and when she finally realized that it was too late to reconcile. She’d pushed him too far away and lost him for good.
Now, the pink elephant in the room was obviously Diane’s lack of self-confidence that she masked in the form of jealousy about black women. She’d gained a little weight after their second child and didn’t feel as confident as she used to around Mark. That’s what it was really all about. But she couldn’t tell him that and, instead, she conjured up the false impression that someone was going to take him from her. And, by default, she assumed it would be someone who looked like him because black women always found Mark to be attractive. And many had a problem with their relationship to begin with. So she designed an antagonist for herself and even wrote the script of Mark’s departure, only to find that she’d been worried for no reason and had dismantled their marriage because of her inability to acknowledge her own issues. Mark never had wandering eyes. In fact, he only had eyes for her but she wouldn’t allow him to continue being attracted to her because she no longer felt attractive. And whether you believe in the Law of Attraction or not … you attract into your life (or repel in this case) what you think about.
You have to come to grips with your own idiosyncrasies and be real about them rather than to push them onto your mate, which is exactly what Diane did to Mark. Deep down, she wasn’t worried about him stepping out on her with a black woman – she was worried that she wasn’t attractive enough for him anymore but simply couldn’t admit it. Now, here’s the REAL kicker. A few years after their divorce, she lost the weight and got remarried. To a white guy! Interesting, huh? There’s a lot we could do with that one but we’ll just end it right there.
Don’t project your issues onto your mate. Deal with them head on and work through them with your partner instead. That’s the whole point of being in a relationship … so you don’t have to go it alone
