Hi Cary,
I hope you’ll remember what this is about. I wrote last year about falling in love with the wrong person at college, an atheist Jew, the polar opposite of what my conservative Muslim family has always wanted for me. I wrote about worrying about telling my parents, and how’d they react and whether my relationship with my partner would succeed.
I told my parents last year and they reacted surprisingly well. No anger, no yelling, certainly none of the violence some commenters thought I’d see. They were surprised, and asked for some time to consider it. Eventually, they refused ‘permission’ for me to marry him, or at least said that they couldn’t give me their blessings because even though he has converted to Islam, he only did so for me and would probably not be a real Muslim. More than that, I think my dad worries about what people are going to say, and that they’re going to gossip about us and my family. I spent 6 or 7 months trying to get my parents on board at least agree to come to my wedding, and my dad took some strides towards coming around in that he talked to some people who have been in similar situations, but seemed reluctant to go further than that. His response when I asked him seemed to be ‘I’ll deal with it soon’. One day, after a few months of this, I kind of snapped and sent an emotional message about how I felt stuck, and I wanted to move on with his blessings, and would he please consider that this is what is right for me. He responded by calling my mom and relented: I could marry him, but it would have to be after my older sister got married so it wouldn’t affect her prospects. There will be a small ceremony in the U.S. at some Islamic center, but only my mother and one of my siblings will come, and my father won’t participate.
My sister sent me some texts about this, saying that I couldn’t have both my family’s support and this marriage, and I’m heart broken because that’s what I came home from college to get. I wanted to spend my time here to show them that I am still committed to my heritage and beliefs, and that I wanted to include them in the process as much as possible, that this isn’t an attack on them but a decision for myself that I am sure is right for me. I can’t imagine a wedding without my family, but I don’t know how to get them on board beyond keeping the dialogue going for the next six months or so that will inevitably pass before I can begin to plan for my wedding (my sister is about to get engaged to be married). I’m heartbroken because my parents are mad at me, and I feel a little guilty because I feel like a terrible daughter.
Thanks for listening.
Love’s Got me Looking So Crazy Right Now
Dear Love’s Got me Looking So Crazy,
I’m sorry to hear that your father is being intransigent. I answered your original letter on Sept. 13, 2013, a few weeks before I left Salon.
As this commenter says (there were 135 comments to the original), I really didn’t give you an answer, in the sense of concrete instructions on how to proceed.
I didn’t know what you should do. I still don’t. That’s not unusual. It’s just honest.
In your 2013 letter it sounded as though he was going to pretend to convert. It now appears that he has indeed converted to your faith. You are going to go ahead with the wedding. You are going to live in the United States.
Well, congratulations. I hope you will keep us informed. What interested me in 2013 still interests me: How we Americans perceive your situation, and the story we tell ourselves about what you say. I still think I said some interesting meta-things:
This is the kind of story that Americans love. But underneath the happy American myth of blending cultures is the dark fact of sacrifice and loss. … Yours would be an unusual marriage but such marriages fit the American mythos. Consequently, you would have many people on your side — people who believe in the virtue of blending cultures. We are charmed by the idea of Muslims at bar mitzvahs and so forth. We think it’s cute. In other words, we don’t get the dark side of our own mythology.
The dark side of our mythology of self-reinvention is the charge of unseriousness. I mean, all the real cultural and psychic differences we overlook. Our silly millennial hope. Our political and economic evangelism. Our brittle, anxious faith. All that stuff. All that stuff that if you know what I’m talking about you know what I’m talking about.
I can say this, though: Here in America you can be married and forge your own life. Psychologically, you can’t escape your past or your families. You can’t escape who you are. But you can arrange the material conditions of your life together. You can choose what religious services to attend, and what to tell your children about what you believe. You can choose the schools your children go to. You can choose what to wear on your head.
Good luck. Please keep us informed!–Cary T.
I love when people write back Cary. I wish all those people whose letters you answered through the years would write back and let you know how things unfolded. What a book that would be!
Cary, once again, I am moved to tears by your honesty, and by your gracious willingness to welcome our hardest questions. In answering so humanly, “I don’t know . . .” and so compassionately, and in terms everyday and down to earth, ” . . . you can choose what to wear on your head . . .” you move us all to a greater humility and a deeper compassion. Thank you.
Cary,
the aspect that bothers me the most about this woman’s family is that they cannot imagine, it seems, that someone can have a change of heart and “believe” in something if at one point he or she has declared that he or she does not “believe.”
And history has also declared that it appears impossible to believe people who “convert.” In fact, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of Jews who converted during the Inquisition were tortured and/or killed because their conversions were not believed. (Of course it was probably almost impossible to believe their conversions by force!)
Yet, this man has made this commitment and had an apparent change of heart. Why is that so impossible for the family to accept? Is it that they themselves cannot envision ever changing and therefore no one else can either?
This is the crux of what I see is the family problem. And it’s sad that they are willing to reject their daughter in that process and might reject the daughter’s progeny, as well, most likely, as not being “real” Muslims. Even though the daughter might create the most “Muslim” of homes and traditions.
They do not seem like people who accept that the world around them might make progress toward a vision of peaceful co-existence. Because that progress must come with change of heart.