We’ve been together over 7 years. Married for 6 months. We own a home. We have two dogs. We’ve built a life together. But to her parents? I don’t exist.
They don’t know we’re married. They don’t know we bought a house. They have no clue about the life we’ve created together. Why? Because they’re openly racist—Russian Jewish, and adamantly against her being with me because I’m Asian.
Their words, not mine:
“Don’t spit in the face of your ancestors.”
“Be with your own kind.”
“Leave him.”
And yet… she keeps trying. Not with me—with them. She won’t let go. She clings to this fragile, surface-level relationship with them: a weekly grocery run, “How’s your week been?” phone calls, holiday obligations. And she hides me. Hides our marriage. Hides our life.
I didn’t get a wedding.
I didn’t get to celebrate our home.
We can’t even plan kids—because how do you raise a family when you’re still being treated like a secret?
My side of the family? All in. Supportive. Loving. Open. Hers? Only the extended family knows anything. Her parents live in total denial, and she enables it. Every time I bring it up—every time I say, “This hurts me”—the answer is, “I’ll talk to them.” And then? Nothing.
I’ve tried everything. Calm talks. Honest conversations. Emotional pleas. Even yelling matches when I just couldn’t take it anymore. But nothing changes. She keeps them happy by pretending I don’t exist, and I’m the one who pays the price.
I can’t plan vacations. I can’t suggest a date without checking her parents’ birthday calendar. I spend holidays alone or playing second fiddle to people who would rather she be with literally anyone else but me.
So tell me, Reddit:
AITAH for wanting to leave?
Because right now, it feels like I’m not her partner—I’m the compromise. I’m the thing she hides to keep the peace. And no matter how much she says “I choose you,” her actions say something else.
And frankly? I’m tired of being invisible.
Comments
Lmfao cool fake story bro 🤣
She does not love you. Leave and don’t look back.
NTA. You should have never married this person she’s a walking bag of red flags.
YTA for not jumping ship as soon as she refused to introduce you 🤷🏻♀️
First off you have to tell her parents and see how it goes from there. If your wife won’t tell them then I’d think about a divorce
Dude, that’s cultural. Those people respect their parents like nothing else.
Don’t take it personally.
I remember my grandmother telling me, years ago. ‘Look at how much X respects her mother. Be like that too’.
Btw, X talks to her mother every night, for like 30-40 minutes. Has done for 20 years. Goes to visit them for a month every summer.
That’s just how it is. Again, don’t take it personally.
If true, why don’t YOU call them, introduce yourself & everything else
NTA. In marriage, both of you deserve fulfilling lives and in laws are prohibiting from having a normal life you deserve. Being Asian and having been treated poorly by racists – I don’t know how you tolerate it.
NTA. Run, quickly. If anything, you are the asshole to yourself for every day you belittle yourself by staying.
I know you think she isn’t racist, and I am not going to say “well she tolerates her parents racism, so she’s racist” but.
Ultimately, she thinks that it is okay to hide you in a closet. She thinks it is okay to deny you a wedding. She thinks if is okay to make you bend your life around her and make concessions that she knows she will will never have to make. And at least, in part, she believes that this is okay because you are Asian.
Do you believe if this were something like “her parents don’t like your job” she would go to this extent to hide your relationship? It doesn’t even sound like she’s hiding that she’s with you at all – the discomfort around dating you is allowed, your race just ensures you will never be worth the title “husband.” Regardless of her “beliefs,” materially? She is racist, and she treats you poorly in a way she would not if you were not a different race. And something about you being a different race makes her think she is allowed to treat you like that.
She openly doesn’t care about you or your wants. This isn’t a relationship it’s her getting her way.
NTA. I didn’t know Russians were racist against Asians (since part of Russia is Asian). Why didn’t y’all discuss this before you got married? I don’t see how this is a sustainable situation even if you didn’t mind being hidden.
NTA, please leave this woman and find someone who will appreciate you and their family too.
You’re nta, this is toxic please find someone who screams their love for you from the mountain tops
Run.
Yes leave, why did you even get involved to begin with. You know you can’t truly love until you love yourself.
Her parents are her issue to work through, not your burden to bear.
YTA for not doing better for yourself so far, not for leaving.
You’ve only been married 6 months, and this wasn’t a problem before that? Why agree to it then? You’ve made vows that you didn’t mean?
Why did you marry knowing the situation?
NTA. She wouldn’t want to be treated this way. It’s unfair of her to keep you her dirty little secret. Either she tells them and to hell either the fallout or you need to leave because you don’t treat the person you love like this.
Lots of commenters calling this fake. That would be great as opposed to real. Hope they are very much right on.
In case not, if not leaving her, an immediate requirement for couples counseling or else you will end it. Only two options, again if this is not fake.
Is she waiting for them to die? They are terrible people
Consider how her parents would treat your children if your wife accidentally got pregnant.
I can relate to both of you. I am married to a Ukrainian, my Serbian part of my family are heavily ruscists (supporters of putin, and russian fascist ideology), and from the first month of my relationship 6 years ago when I realized my mother was so racist, I vowed that she would only find out about him through a wedding invitation. I hid him from the racist part of my family for as long as I could, so that I could protect my happiness. Eventually they found out about him existing (I was already married, but no wedding because of the effing war) and they went nuclear. I went no contact. They can eff off. He is my family, my future, and toxic racist people have no place in my life.
Ideally, I would rather those disgusting people never found out about him, just because I hate hearing about all the disgusting lies they make up about him. There’s absolutely nothing I could ever do to change their minds. And now that I cut contact with them, I feel so much better than when I was in contact and receiving their passive aggression and hatred towards Ukraine without them even knowing about him.
With that being said, it sounds like your wife is still trying to please them and can’t see their toxicity and how harmful it is. This is an issue much bigger than your relationship. I hope she’s in therapy and working on her trauma, just like I did. Many children of toxic/abusive families grow into wounded adults that constantly seek validation from people who will never be satisfied. I really don’t think it’s personal to you. But your feelings are absolutely valid, and she absolutely needs to set firm boundaries with them and take some difficult decisions. I really hope you work out! ❤️
ETA: btw my husband never cared about ever meeting those people or having a relationship with them, and they never affected our relationship exactly because one way or another, I kept them far away from us.
How the fk u get married and they not know ur married??
Like they bf an hate unit whatever. But ur wife should still tell them. Otherwise she’s ashamed of you.
I honestly dont think you should rush into leaving her. It seems that she really loves you since she is going against her parents wishes, who of which she keeps trying to please and have a relationship with. Do you still love her? If the answer is yes, I think you are capable of thinking of a viable solution that allows you to stay with her without being a secret.
I know it’s too late but WTF? People cohabitate before marriage, some don’t… but the POINT, of marriage, is that is a public declaration.
So if this one is some justice of the piece kind of thing, what was the point that you want legal stability?
Help us understand your thought process behind a secret marriage .
NTA – Leave bro. Racists do not deserve to have you in their lives and she is enabling that BS. Go find happiness.
“They don’t know we’re married. They don’t know we bought a house. They have no clue about the life we’ve created together. Why? Because they’re openly racist—Russian Jewish, and adamantly against her being with me because I’m Asian.
Their words, not mine:
“Don’t spit in the face of your ancestors.”
“Be with your own kind.”
“Leave him.”
This alone should have been a major reason to reconsider marrying her in the first place. Racists rarely change. They’re often proud to stay stuck in their ways, and it’s not your job to fix that, and you definitely don’t deserve it. If she hasn’t stood up for you or taken any real action, then she’s not just a bystander unsure of what to do, she’s actually part of the problem.
Your wife should be proud of you, eager to stand by your side, defend you, support you, and build a future together. But she’s not doing any of that.
Actions speak louder than words, and apologies without changed behavior are meaningless. If you’ve had this conversation multiple times and nothing has changed, it’s worth asking how much longer you’re willing to stay in a situation that keeps hurting you.
You’ve already described this relationship as one where you sacrificed a lot of what you wanted just to make it work. What has she done other than hurt you? What sacrifices has she made to make it work? Why did she agree to marry you if she wasn’t going to be proud to call you her husband—if the plan was to keep you hidden and pushed to the sidelines? And if this is how she treats you now, do you really see a future together, especially if you’re considering having children?
Here’s the thing: you’re still young. If you walked away now, you’d still have time to rebuild and go after the life, and the love that you deserve.
You deserve peace. You deserve respect. And you absolutely deserve happiness.
If only a human wrote this
Oh hell no. I was confused at first here cause my parents may or may not know I’m married with kids bc I DONT SPEAK TO THEM. She is also racist by supporting and being around racists. Daz it. NTA but you will be if you don’t respect yourself enough to leave.
Ask her if her parents would be happier with a secret marriage or a secret marriage PLUS divorce?
Nta. This applies for anyone imo regardless of situation. You marry a person and their family unless that person is willing to cut off her family. She may not be able to do that and that’s her choice but you also have the choice to not accept that. As painful as it is you should probably leave or force an ultimatum since this will only get worse tbh.
If it makes you feel any better, there’s a couple of billion people that they don’t want her to be with just as much as you.
Wow, lots of responses advising you to run. You may have to, but if you haven’t already done so, you should warn her that you can’t continue living like you’re her dirty little secret and that if she doesn’t tell her parents about you AND stop hiding you like you’re contraband, you’ll file for divorce. And give her a rough deadline of, say, a week (longer if she needs to go to therapy first). She apparently thought she could thread the needle by marrying you and not telling her parents, but she didn’t factor in how hard this would be on you or on the marriage .
IF she isn’t willing to tell her parents, she’ll have a divorce she’ll be keeping secret, too. Not only that, but she’ll never be able to be with someone who isn’t of her family’s same ethnicity and faith.
NTA. How can you live a life like this? You’re invisible
I think you should divorce her as fast as you can. Make it as loud as possible, in a metaphoric sense. Make sure her parents know that you are divorcing their daughter for being a shitty wife.
I feel so sad for you. You deserve to be showed off. NTA.
NTA but neither is she. That’s a horrible position for the two of you to be in. But you do have a choice. Face it together and support each other, or not. Understand she obviously loves you and loves her family (despite their toxic views). Ultimately I’m afraid she may need to choose who she maintains her relationship with, you or them. But if you want her to choose you, you need to be there for her 100%. You need to give her what her parents can’t; unconditional love and support.
Neither of you asked for this situation but you do have a choice whether to face it together or allow it to tear you apart. Wishing you the best of luck in what sounds like a very difficult situation.
Why did you marry this bag of red flags is the real question…
I think you need to tell your in-laws that you are married and to respect your boundaries. They will either deal with it or they won’t. Once that’s done, you can make a decision on whether or not to end the marriage.
NTA sounds like she buys into some of it to me
chatgpt
Leave, she is very obviously racist herself.
She has no spine and clearly, she doesn’t care about your feelings.
It’s a hard decision. Can you live or see a future without her? I’d recommend going to see a therapist.
I was you in my long term relationship and while it was really difficult and at times, it broke me. There was good times too.
You don’t have to let people in your relationship. You dictate your own.
I don’t let my family or others dictate who I can or cannot love. It’s up to me and the individual. I stack their values and my own and see it through.
I would say yes, if you agreed to marry her without her parents being on board, with this dynamic going on, then change the rules by divorcing her later. It’s bad enough to waste someone’s time dating them when you know the situation wont’ work out. Now you want to turn her into a divorcee. Didn’t you agree to marry her knowing what you were going into?
NTA
You are allowed to move on if your love feels like too much of acompromise.
I would recommend however, that you get some couples therapy and some individual therapy too before taking the jump. If she rejects that, you move on knowing you did everything you could.
My friend (Asian) married a Russian jew so this sounds familiar. Russian side no problem but the because jewish is matrilineal, she had to deal with that because she converted they wouldn’t let her kids in the more orthodox temples.
NTA it is for her to let them know and not keep you a secret but if she doesn’t say anything I would
You should have made all these decisions before committing to a lifetime partner.
It’s very obvious you shouldn’t have married her, so the bigger question is, why did you?
This post was edited/written with AI, but let’s assume its an AI summary of a real situation: she hates herself for being with you. The parents feed that aspect of her soul and so she continues indulging in the dynamic, because she thinks she deserves it, because she hates herself.
Leave.
YTA…to yourself. I have seen this scenario play out a few times in my life in friends and acquaintances. It never ends well. She can’t have her cake and eat it too and I have the lowest level of respect for her type of behaviour. I know you love her, but what is your self-esteem up to that you would tolerate this? Early on when my husband and I were dating my parents knew about him but I wasn’t ready to tell my extended family. I was invited on a surprise birthday trip for my cousin in Spain. My husband and I decided to go as a combined holiday together but I didn’t want my aunt and cousins to know I was with someone. Stupid I know. The dejected look on his face when I came back from celebrations and outings while he’d been alone all afternoon as a ‘secret’ broke my heart. It breaks my heart remembering it now as I type this and that was only a 5 day trip 6 years ago! I vowed to never do that to him again, to just grow up and be open about us whatever the outcome of our relationship. I can’t imagine building an entire life with someone to the extent she has with you and doing that over and over and over again to the person I supposedly love. You need to leave. Simple. If not to re-discover your worth and know what it is to be loved openly and proudly. No one should be denied that.
You need to tell her that if she doesn’t tell her folks that you are together and married that you are going to call them yourself, introduce yourself and let them know that you are married and she’s been hiding that you have been together for years. If it blows up your marriage, you won’t really be losing much, but it might turn out that they accept you. You’ve really got nothing to lose letting the cat out of the bag other than what will be a doomed relationship if you don’t.
You are only the AH to yourself for staying. Go find a real partner. You deserve it.
Easy solution, she goes NC with them.
INFO: Is their attitude about your race, or about your not being Jewish?
If it’s the first, then there isn’t really a way out of this. You obviously are being torn apart mentally by being in this situation, and so you need to communicate that clearly to your wife. You need to tell her that you need her to commit to protecting and supporting you, and that means either coming clean to the parents and having a plan for how to manage them that respects you and your needs, or going low contact.
If it’s the second, though, then this isn’t exactly about race, as there are Asian Jews (I’ve met two or three). It may be about wanting to preserve culture and traditions, and a fear that grandchildren won’t have a Jewish identity. All of these things can be addressed: you can commit to raising the children with Jewish ritual and practice. The issue then would be that your wife isn’t allowing the effective communication that might solve the problem.
Sell the house first then look in divorce or else you will lose a lot. Before all this try to find out why she latches to parents so much, is it a trauma or abuse. If nothing else tell her you are looking for separation as this is not working her actions are complete opposite to what she is saying.
YTA. From the perspective of a gay man, I was married for 5 years to an ex-Jehovah’s witness. Despite being excommunicated, he still had a good relationship with his mom (dad was out of the picture). I never met her. If he talked about me, I was his “roommate”. I wouldn’t dream of jeopordizing his relationship with his mom by forcing him to admit to her that we were married. That’s an asshole move.
You married your wife. You didn’t marry your wife’s bio-family. If she needs to “stay in the closet”, don’t drag her out before she’s ready.
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Bro she’s racist against you at this point. At a certain level, complicity is synonymous with identity.
Honestly, you have to issue an ultimatum. Either she deals with her parents, tells them the truth, or you’re out. This is absolutely unfair to you on a thousand levels.
Married a white girl? Tough break bro
This is your wife’s problem (and yours) I had the opposite. I’m Jewish, wife is Asian. It was unacceptable to marry me. I would ruin the bloodline. She told her parents to F off. We built a life with my family. After the grandkids came along, the grandparents changed. I haven’t forgiven them, but, I let them hang with their grandkids and daughter.
NTA. Time to protect your peace, and get out of this loop of insanity of expecting her and them to change.
NTA- not being enough of an AH with the wife. If you are leaving, tell her why. And then go.
I think you give her one more chance in the following way…
You tell her that next Friday you are going to tell her parents everything. You will tell everything about the relationship, the marriage, the house, the plan for kids, etc. You tell her that you will tell her parents that you want a positive relationship with them so you need them to know the truth. Then you tell your wife that you would like to do this together with her, but, if she won’t join you, you will do it yourself. Explain that you can’t continue this way so this needs to be done if she wants to save the marriage and truly chooses you first.
Uhm, yeah.
You either leave now or tell her parents yourself. Don’t blind side her, tell her she needs to tell them or you will by X date. Then stick to it.
It’s leave now or leave later, but first give her a chance.
just straight up tell them your married
NTA.
OP, you’re getting the short end of the stick. In the priorities of life, you rank lower than her parents and that’s a choice she makes. She may love you but you’re still low man on the totem pole.
It’s not how it should be in a marriage.
NTA. Why would you marry this woman in the first place? Posts like this, and I’ve seen a few, seem like self-inflicted pain so I have to assume you are either delusional or too optimistic. You’ve literally married someone who is willing to hide you to make her family more comfortable. Why, tho? What kind of dignity and self-respect do you have? And even now, you’re still on the fence…wow. Seek therapy.
I’m sorry. When I was in my early 20s I was your wife. I was hiding my non-Jewish fiancée from my parents. The relationship crashed and burned and the lesson I learned for my future relationship was that marriage was “us against the world” and when my mother turned against my future wife I stood firm by my wife. We’ve been married over 30 years.
Definitely NTA.
It’s time to set a limit. Tell your wife that you cannot remain in a marriage where you are hidden, where you cannot build a complete life, and that it is up to her to decide what she truly values. And that she needs to let you know if you are her priority or her parents are. And that you will act based on her actions in response to that question.
Let her know you are serious about this and that you will be speaking with a divorce attorney if your marriage remains in this limbo state.
NTA, she’s not choosing you. She’s hiding you. You deserve better.
NTA. You have to draw a line in the sand. That isn’t fair to anyone in the situation and cannot imagine how you must feel. Have a final talk and say tell them or I’m filing for divorce and give a set amount of time. No change? File. I hate it for both of you but this just isn’t okay!