What no-one tells you about mixed-race Marriages

What no-one tells you about mixed-race marriages – and how to have a successful one! As I was thinking about this, I knew I could write so much because it’s a topic that has added an insane amount of value to my life! But I also know that there are only a few points that are necessary to touch on. It doesn’t have to be a massive 2,000 word post because at the end of the day YOU choose how you want your relationship to be. It really is that simple, but I do have some encouragement, tips and hope if you need it. And a bonus is that if you’re interested you will learn about my happy, happy mixed-race marriage with my best friend and love.

It’s not like I am a guru on this subject, but I have been very happily married to the man of my dreams for almost 9 years. We met 10 years ago in the USA. I am an Australian Country bumpkin who married an Assyrian (middle eastern) German babe, named Aldrin. We lived for 1 year together in Australia and 8 in California before we decided to settle in his homeland of Germany. When I hear about mixed-race marriages, it’s usually based around the challenges they face. I will mention how we have navigated those, but I really wanted to focus on how to have a successful one!

Positive attributes that mixed-race marriages bring:

Cultural Enrichment

What I discovered early on in our relationship is that Aldrin’s family culture added so much value to my life. The Assyrian (not to be confused with ‘Syrian’) people are an ancient middle eastern people group who have a rich culture based on faith, hospitality and food. Their love for keeping their culture alive is inspiring and they are very welcoming and warm people. I instantly felt accepted and loved by his family and community.
Whatever family culture your spouse brings can have positive or negative attributes. I suggest focussing on the positive ones, the ones that you would like to incorporate into your new family unit (your marriage). Mixed-race marriages really do encourage you to see the world from different cultural viewpoints, this has created greater empathy and understanding for us both in our outlook on the world.
Language. When I met Aldrin he had foundational English at best. He had a very strong mixed accent (he knows a few languages) and grammatically it was sometimes in the wrong order. But he is 100% fluent in English now and I am learning german (pray for me, it’s hard!) His parents speak mostly the Assyrian language at home, which I don’t understand. However, being exposed to different languages has enhanced my communication skills, and cognitive flexibility. I can communicate without words to people in his family that don’t speak english, which has taught me that language doesn’t have to be as big of a barrier as we think.

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Personal Growth

Navigating a relationship with someone from a different racial or ethnic background can significantly broaden your perspective on life and societal issues. For example, my grandparents immigrated from the Netherlands after World War 2 to Australia. While Aldrin’s parents were refugees who fled for safety to Germany because of the war in Iran. We both have a lot of insight and yet different family experiences that we have been able to learn about from each other. This has definitely broadened our world view.
Increased Tolerance: Being in a mixed-race marriage often promotes higher levels of tolerance and acceptance of diversity, not just within the family but also in wider social interactions. This one was interesting to me. Racism, or prejudice was something that hardly had any impact on me growing up. However, for Aldrin, he grew up obviously not looking like a typical German boy. He had to navigate the way that people treated him. Thankfully, most of the time he was treated well as Germany is very accepting of refugees and foreigners, but at the same time to grow up in a Country where your family culture is very different from the Country you live in, and looking different to most people has opened my awareness of how we perceive people of different nationalities and races.
I believe that due to our mixed-race marriage we have developed strong problem-solving skills. We had to learn early on in our relationship to learn to address and reconcile differences in traditions and expectations.

If you are both from different Countries you will have to choose where you will live, and I’m sorry to state the obvious, but you can’t live close to both families. We lived for a year in Australia near my family, which was beautiful, but then we felt called to go back to the US to continue the Bible School that we met at. 2 years before we met, Aldrin’s immediate family had migrated to the US from Germany, so we were able to live 4 hours from them when we lived in the US. But obviously it was very far from my family. Now we live in Germany where neither of our immediate family live and this has many challenges (and costs when we want to visit haha). My advice would be to go where God is leading you, and not based on where your family are. I know this can be difficult but your spouse is now your family, and your immediate family come second. You will have peace and fulfillment when you go where you feel the Lord leading you (which is hopefully near family) but if it’s not, you will be OK.
The legal side of actually marrying your spouse can come with many hardships. For me it took 2 years for me to get my permanent residency so that I could live with Aldrin in the USA after we were married. While he waited he came to live in Australia with me for a year, but that actually wasn’t part of our original plan. We really didn’t know it would take 2 years! And we had hardly any communication from the US embassy during those 2 years so it was rough…and the paperwork, don’t even get me started! The grace of God is the only answer I have of how we got through all of that successfully without a lawyer. Then I had to get my permanent residency to live in Germany, which thankfully was a piece of cake compared to the process for the US. However, Aldrin had to do all the paperwork since it was in German and it took quite a lot of time.
Language differences can be challenging to navigate at first (this will get way easier!) Since Aldrin was middle eastern AND German he was quite abrupt and to the point early in our marriage and honestly it hurt my feelings (it’s funny now looking back!) Navigating that just took a lot of communication and we made sure we prioritised this as miscommunication was very easy to get stuck in and we would just misunderstand where each other was coming from.
There will be differences that you may not know how to navigate at first. One example from our marriage is that my family goes all out and really celebrates our birthdays. They are very special days and we put alot of effort into the gifts, festivities and food for the day. However, Aldrins family didn’t make a big deal out of birthdays so we had very different expectations in this area. We had to decide how we were going to approach birthdays together, and not just based on what our families did.
Feeling misunderstood. Sometimes in mixed-race marriages the priorities that you gre up with could be totally different from the priorities that your spouse grew up with. This often leads to misunderstanding and confusion as to why their priorities (that are obvious to you) are not the same as theirs.

How you can have a successful mixed-race marriage

Come to an agreement in values that are important to you both. I would propose that the areas of Spirituality, Family Values and Communication should be areas that you find a common ground before you get married. Finances, how to bring up your kids, family traditions can all be worked out together as you go along, especially as these things can change as you mature and experience more in life. However, it will be very difficult if you do not initially have similar values in Faith, Family values and communication before you marry.
Have God at the center. For us, having God at the center of our lives individually, but also in the center of our marriage has been the foundation and the back bone to our entire relationship. We have gotten through everything because our faith has pulled us through and reminded us of what’s important. God brings everyone together as one family, and if you have him at the center, I believe any differences can be worked out.
Embrace the challenges and celebrate the differences. I have loved the differences that Aldrins culture has brought into our life. However, if I only focussed on the challenges that it brought then I would have been blind to most of the differences that have actually enhanced our life for the better! Focusing on the positive and not the negative is a key that we have both found very beneficial in our marriage.
Choose each other everyday no matter what. We chose each other one time, but that doesn’t mean that choice lasts forever. We have to on purpose choose our spouse everyday. Choose to love, respect and honour eachother everyday.
Create your own family traditions together. Incorporate the traditions that are important to each other but also create brand new ones. This will enable you to create your own unique family culture that you can both own and contribute too. We have done this in many different ways and it has helped our family unit to be different from our families and to create something that we can both take ownership of.
Have people that you can talk to who are in successful mixed-race marriages. I guarantee that most of the challenges or differences you will face have been faced by others as well. It can be refreshing and encouraging to realise that you’re not the only ones that have had to work out how to be successful at bringing 2 different worlds together.
Have fun!! Celebrate each other every day!I know that Aldrin and I have had so much fun working out our differences and making them work for us. Mixed-race relationships add a unique and fresh combination if you embrace it!

In conclusion, marrying someone from a different culture, let alone a different Country can be challenging, but it is totally possible to make it a success and have a marriage that thrives and flourishes no matter what comes your way.

I would love to hear advice or tips from others who are in a successful mixed-race relationship.

If you have any questions about this topic, let me know below!!

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