According to Pew Research, a record number of newlyweds are marrying outside of their race. Nine in ten Americans viewed interracial marriage as neutral or a change for the better in society.
My husband I are one of those couples. We’ve been married for almost 8 years and there are a few things we’ve found that interracial couples have in common:
Your Love For Your Spouse Transcends Race
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “So what’s it like to be with a white man?” or “So, you like white men huh?”
My love for my husband has nothing to do with the color of his skin.
My love for him is because we share a love of music. We love to travel and experience new cuisine on our travels. We love children and love being parents even more.
He likes my curls and I like his dimples.
He happens to be white and I just happen to be black.
You Smile at Other Interracial Couples
You’ve heard me talk about how important representation is. When you see another interracial couple, you don’t feel so alone. You have another couple that you instantly identify with, even if your backgrounds are completely different.
You Cringe When People Call You a Biracial Couple
Is it just me? I cringe when people interchange biracial and interracial. My biracial kids are a result of an interracial marriage. We are not in a biracial marriage.
You Notice The Lack of Diversity Around You
If you and your spouse bring the most diversity in the room, then you become spectacle. Your kids and their “beautiful hair & skin” become the focus of the room.
If you didn’t notice the lack of diversity before, you will definitely notice it after you have children. There’s something special about seeing yourself as a couple represented, and you have that desire even more for your children.
You begin to seek out places where you can just be, and not feel like the main attraction.
You Appreciate People Who Realize You Are a Couple
I have to chuckle at this. When my husband and I were in our 20s, we always got asked if it was one check or two. We just assusmed it was because we lived in a college town and people thought we were a broke set of college students out to dinner. We never assumed it was because we were an interracial couple.
Shortly after we got married, my husband would either proudly point to his wedding ring or say something like yes, my wife and I are together.
Now we just shrug it off. We’re happy to have a date night out, so if people actually assume we are a couple, we want to give them a high five. And sometimes, we actually do.
YES! To all of these!! Especially the noticing other interracial couples, and to being really sensitive to the diversity in the room. I’m super lucky that my brother has married interracially also, and it means we have a safe space inside the family. Those safe spaces are so precious, otherwise I just find myself constantly on guard of who’s going to say the next insensitive thing that I need to steer out of… not relaxing at all!
It is such a relief right?!
You’re a beautiful couple and family. 🙂 I’m from the UK and used to get a bit confused about the terms “biracial” and “multiracial” because we tend to use “mixed race”. But as I understand it biracial is specifically two races, whereas multiracial is more. I’m mixed race myself and since my mum is white English and my dad was black African that means I’m biracial and I think also multiracial. People also occasionally use the term “dual heritage” here but it’s not very common.
I love that there are so many blogs about interacial couples and mixed race families these days. Like you say, represensation is important. I enjoy reading your blog. 🙂
Thank you for your kind words! I appreciate you stopping by. It’s very interesting to me to hear different terms around the world.