Carolyn Hax: Husband wants to erase wife’s Indian roots after marriage

Q: When I married my white husband, I thought I could have the best of both worlds. He helped out with cooking and chores in a way I never saw growing up from my Indian dad, but he also participated in Indian festivals and agreed to an Indian wedding ceremony, performing an Indian dance on his own. I’m not proficient in the language myself, but he also tried to learn Hindi with me for a little while.

Since we’ve been married, though, it feels as if he was just placating me so I would marry him. He wants me to change my last name (refuses to hyphenate), go to church (which we never did) and raise our children Christian (which I am not). He doesn’t want to give future kids a name that sounds too Indian and has been complaining more about going to Indian festivals. He says I need to let go of my past life and create a new life with him, one based not on my Indian American upbringing but on what I would interpret as White America.

This sounds racist to me, but he tells me I’m being racist and trying to colonize him by wanting to keep certain Indian things in my life.

As first generation in this country, I am more American than Indian, and that will never change. But I don’t want to let even this small part of my culture die with me and not teach these traditions to my kids.

Am I being a bad wife by wanting to keep my identity and not say goodbye to my past life? Am I being selfish in wanting to raise my children with the Indian American culture I grew up with? In my heart, this feels like a problem, and I think I should seriously consider divorce.

— Indian American

A: Husband-wife, White-Indian-Indian American-American-White America, his last name-yours-hyphenating, Christian-non, future kids’ names, racist, colonizer, first-generation, culture, tradition, bad wife, identity, past life, selfish. That is one hot-button control panel.

These names and labels all matter in different ways. But right now, they’re the most useful to you in an imagined bin, mentally wheeled to an imagined curb.

Because their emotional charge is distracting.

This is, logically, all you’re dealing with right now: You thought your marriage would solidify things. He (apparently) thought it would change them. The “things” could be anything.

Maybe he pulled a placate-and-switch on you, or maybe you two needed to talk more pre-vows. Maybe he’s freshly radicalized. Regardless, your choice now is simple: Head in the sand, or deal with it.

The latter means a hard think on whether you want to stay married under these unexpected new terms.

It’s really one big yes-or-no question. (You can treat it as a bunch of smaller yes-or-no questions if you want — names, religion, festivals — but that’s moot if he isn’t budging.) And there is no “should” or “have to”; you are not being ___ if you ___. This is your life, and you’re the last word on your terms.

The reason for the inventory of your principles and limits is to shore you up against caving and regrets. Duly inoculated, you’re ready to insist on answers — what’s behind this, what changed, whether he’s open to hearing you out, whether he sees you as equals.

Marriage counseling is a natural recommendation here. But if he won’t concede the basic point — that you’re being your same self while he’s changing the terms — then listen to your heart. Because denying that point says, baseline, he’s not coming from a place of good faith.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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