Pre-Marital Counseling for Interracial Couples

Love has never kept a marriage together. Whenever two individuals or entities come together to form a common bond, passion about the other is hardly the essential ingredient to keeping the marriage on solid footing. Couples that lean on love often find themselves surprised that love alone is insufficient concrete for a couple to walk life's journey together. That is especially true when it comes to couples of different races who have joined together in holy matrimony and find the road dicey after the honeymoon is over. Part of it is because most couples fail to adequately prepare for marriage. The other fact is that there are some things interracial couples will face that are completely unique to them that no other couple will ever have to face.

So what does an interracial couple need to equip themselves with in order to build a lifetime together? Obviously love is important. It is pointless to spend the balance of your life with someone you do not have a deep love for. Marriage was never intended to be a business arrangement and certainly interracial couples face enough already to not need to question their love for each other. Having said that, it is important for interracial couples to know that there is little practical difference between being married and dating someone of the opposite race. The fundamental struggles will be the same. However, an interesting quagmire does erupt when talk of marriage comes up in some families who are quietly hoping that interracial dating is a fad their family member is going through. But when talk of getting married is opined there views sometimes go south.

There is no question that some people across all races will never agree with interracial couples in any way. When Joy Denny was a senior in high school her father offered to buy her a new car and get her an apartment if she, an eighteen year old white girl, would agree to stop seeing a seventeen year old black guy. It did not matter that the guy was a good student and well respected throughout the school. It was irrelevant that the shared some of the same likes and dislikes. All that mattered to Joy's father was that no upstanding white girl should be seen dating a black guy (though he used the illustrious N-word to make his point).

Joy's father is not an isolated opinion. But it is interesting how often people do not say anything to their friends and family while their dating as long as they are just dating. It would be safe to assume that some look at the consequences that typically follow getting married, which include living together, having children, and becoming part of their family. This comfort level is an important piece of the puzzle that never rears its ugly head when a couple is dating. In the South, where racial tensions still exist, some aging black people struggle to forget and forgive their experiences of the 50s and 60s and find accepting a white person into their family as difficult as anything they have ever had to do.

A second thing that interracial couples need to consider as they begin talking about marriage is the obvious implications of having children. Contrary to even my own desires, we do not live in a society that is colorblind. Having said that regardless of how mixed a child is, parents need to accept that a mixed child will always (as a standard) be viewed as black. Even if a parent raises them as mixed and they know of their mixed heritage, culturally they will be seen as black, treated as black and judged as black. That is an inescapable reality that needs to be understood ahead of time. When it is not parents are blown away at the lack of mistreatment their children endure. It is a lot easier if an interracial couple thinks ahead of time about raising their children. Also, something as insignificant as the kind of toys a child plays with should be considered. Raising a mixed child should be driven by the need to balance the two cultures that child was born from. Parents cannot buy a white Barbie doll and never balance that out with a cute black doll who has the same appeal, style and value. That can be difficult if a black man and white woman come together. Most white women never owned a black doll. And most black men are oblivious to the kind of dolls girls play with. Given that, something as simple as reinforcing the beauty of both races can be overlooked and the child become prejudiced or predisposed to one culture over the other.

The third key or thing for interracial couples to contemplate before they walk down the aisle has little to do with how people will treat them when they are out in public. No couple that is interracial has been stare free when out in the world. They have been looked at by black women who wonder why that white woman has her black man. They have been stared at by white men who do not believe there is a black man good enough to date, let alone marry, a white woman. All of those are givens and just part of the experience of dating. When it comes to marriage a couple needs to understand just as much about themselves as the world around them.

We may not like to admit it, but we all have a list of prejudices inside our mind. Whether it is that nothing good can happen when you see a crowd of black people together or a white man with overalls on is a member of the KKK in drag; we all have established thoughts in our mind's about people of different races. When a couple is considering marriage it is always beneficial for them to not only identify the prejudices but also look to address them. Has the white woman used the n-word before? Trust me, it matters. Has the black man called a woman, white trailer park trash? It says something. Part of the exercise is about admitting where we are. The other part is giving the partner the choice to accept our prejudices and love us in the face of them.

Couples that are ardent about practicing cultural diversity think they will have the easiest time living life as a married couple. That is until something happens in the world that divorces their union along racial lines. And it is then that being able to lean on these three keys will be most important. It is easy to love someone of another race when the sun is shining. It is much more difficult when a hate crime has been committed and feelings of isolation creep in.

We want couples of all shades coming together and staying together. It is important for the life and ultimate health of our country that this occurs. It is equally important that they not only come together but stay together and that will only happen if some hard work is done ahead of the commitment ceremony.