Taila is African-American; Thomas is Danish.
Thanks Taila, for this pic of you and Thomas. You found your ONE! I’m SO happy for you!
And thanks a bunch for your note! I’ll share a portion of it.
Thank you very much for your website.
My mom bucked the trend when she dated a white guy 6 months after I was born, and married him in 1978. They’re still together, while her 5 older brothers (who married Black women) are divorced. Two of them divorced TWICE.
My husband Thomas is Scandinavian (Danish), and we met by the Internet. We’ve gone through some rough times in the start, but the funny part was our problems had NOTHING to do with race. It was more like the continuing fallout from the hubby’s messy and ugly divorce from his (white) ex-wife back in 2002. . . .
BTW: I got married when I was 36 and Thomas was 45. So I fall under the small statistic of finding love before I turned 40. My child bearing days ended two years ago with an emergency hysterectomy, but even back when I got married I knew that I didn’t want any children. So as far as the babies go: the younger, the better!
Thanks again, and please keep up the good work with spreading the good words!
Sincerely,
Taila
Taila, my husband, Darren and I also had peaks and valleys in the early days of our marriage. In other words, we ARGUED. LOL! Then, we’d make up and ARGUE some more–during that period of
adjusting to each other and finding that satisfactory intersection where we would both be the most comfortable. I tell ya, I can’t even remember now when we last had an argument or what it was about. I just find myself loving the person he is, the man he is, loving and appreciating him more every day. I’m happy that I chose to be with him, and he with me.
Just like with you and Thomas, our squabbles had nothing to do with race. Many people think that bw like us who are married to white men are lying when we say that. This is because so many black and white people in the United States have lives that are unfortunately overwhelmed by racial issues, overtones, undertones, innuendos, subtexts, etc. They can’t believe that a black woman and a white man never argue about “race” since THEY are stuck on race. Darren and I have rarely ever even talked about “race.” We sometimes talk about people who may be white or black who are involved in “racial” situations. We both see race as a construct, a form of POLITICS that was created to get and keep wealth, privilege, and “power.”
However, there’re all kinds of ways to acquire power. This is why I’m always advising bw how to get and keep more power: Vet well, marry a CQLL man, spend money wisely, raise children well, support ONLY those who support you (reciprocity), invest in being your best self, mingle or join only with uplifting others and if possible with organized uplifting groups (don’t fly solo), live comfortably but below your means, live the healthiest lifestyle (since being sickly can be expensive), engage in ongoing learning, etc. These behaviors, among other similar ones, lead to acquiring power and being powerful.
But back to this race thing: I’ve had people flat-out tell me that they believe I’m lying when I tell them that Darren has never called me the N-word, but he definitely has NOT. LOL! But that tells me a lot about people like that. They’re used to being around low-lifes.
There would be no Evia & Darren if I’d ever even thought he called me that. Darren has never called me the B-word either or any of the other usual “pet” names that some men reserve for women. There would be no Evia & Darren if I’d ever even thought he called me those either. That’s not his wiring nor mine. We don’t live that type of life.
I can’t even imagine there being ANY relationship between me and any man OR woman of any group who called me the B-word, let alone the N-word. That would be THE END of any interaction between me and that person if I had any choice in the matter and we usually have a choice unless I’m in a coma when the person calls me such epithets. Aside from that type of situation, that’s a boundary I have around myself and there is no interaction or relationship with me after that boundary is breached.
I’ll take this opportunity to explain this a bit better to some readers because some people don’t understand what I’m talking about when I talk about having boundaries and enforcing them. What I mean is that I can’t control what others do but I don’t have to allow them any access to me after they’ve tried to degrade or devalue me or breach my boundaries. In other words, I won’t cooperate with them and in order for them to succeed in devaluing or degrading me, they need my cooperation. That means I have the power and control to demand good treatment from others. If I don’t get that from them, they don’t get any part or piece of me.
Cooperate with them = bad treatment from them; Don’t cooperate with them = good treatment from them or they leave you alone.
Naturally, a woman like me can NEVER, EVER understand how a woman could remain with a man who would hit her in the head like a hog he wants to slaughter–just because he could–as was the case with poor Janay Rice. SMH When I saw that video, I cried uncontrollably for a couple of minutes. Hot tears burst from my eyes and ran down my face. And the way she was lying on her belly lifeless and being dragged like a dead body reminded me of hog-killing day in Alabama when the hog would flop to the ground, lifeless, after the biggest man in our rural Alabama community had hit it in the head with an ax. Sometimes, the hog would make a little sound and then fall; other times, it would fall silently. It was BRUTAL!
My mother told me to NEVER allow a man or anyone else to “explain” to me why he had to hit me because she said the bottom line is that he did it because he knew he was stronger than me and knew he could do it without me hitting him back with the same force since I’m physically weaker. She pointed out that men primarily hit women because they know that women are physically weaker. People rarely attack or lose control and hit people who they KNOW are as physically strong or stronger than they are because they know they can end up dead. Even smaller animals know better than to attack larger animals. Have you ever seen a mouse attack a cat? It’s almost always larger animals that attack smaller animals; it’s the same with men and women. Unless a woman is deranged or suicidal, she isn’t going to hit a man who she thinks is going to unleash all his male’s strength against her or a man who she thinks hates her enough to hit her like he’d hit a man.
And SOME women would also batter men IF they were physically stronger than men. So, after we cut through all of the emotional drivel and yadda, yadda surrounding “intimate partner” violence, the bottom line is primarily that the person who has the most physical strength is almost always the beater and the person who gets hit the most and the hardest is the beatee.
And I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that her husband has called her the B-word, and probably more than once. Ya think? LOL! Yeah, I KNOW because name-calling is usually the precursor to the punches.
If a man with whom I’m in an intimate relationship called me out of my name, I would consider that VERY, VERY serious. And I’m not even talking about the N-word. That would just instantly be THE END.
I’m talking about those other choice terms too that some men love to use for women. If that were to occur to me, the world would have to stop spinning on its axis at that point–no business as usual: no going to work, no eating, no sleeping, etc. so that we could deal with that at THAT POINT. He would have to eagerly rush into therapy in order for me to even consider remaining in the relationship. And even while he’s in therapy, I’d be packing up my parachute. The point is that I would instantly put distance between myself and any man who called me out of my name. I know what’s coming if I stay. The name-calling is the warning that the punch is coming.
Oh yeah, I know my reaction to this junk called “intimate partner violence” sounds way extreme and over the top to some of y’all. LOL! Or some of you will say: “But what if you just LOVE him?” Please, that’s just your indoctrination talking to you. That’s because many of you are accustomed to mistreatment or seeing it around you and seeing it accepted. I’m not used to that. I know this thing called “intimate partner” violence crosses all lines but it’s because women everywhere have been indoctrinated to believe that it’s kinda, sorta *wink wink* okay to be hit by a man. Some women have been sold the “Okey Doke” to believe that “intimate partner” violence is “love.”
It must have felt like being hit by a baseball bat to be hit the way Janay Rice was hit. But have you ever heard where any man believes that a woman hitting him in the head with say, a baseball bat, or a cast iron frying pan considers that to be “love?” I don’t think so. You won’t find many–anywhere. Trust me, in a patriarchal world, if it were men who were being beaten most of the time by women or as savagely as some men beat women, it would have totally and completely been outlawed a LONG, LONG time ago. It’s simply one of the privileges and perks of being a man to be able to beat a woman when he feels like it and just because he can, and have it “understood” and accepted.
It’s times like this that I’m thrilled I had sons instead of daughters! The world is so much kinder to males in various kinds of direct and indirect ways.
I’m thankful to have lived a different life, in a different world with people who behave with decorum in all aspects of their life.The fact is that there are many bw with views, values, standards, and a lifestyle with boundaries that we enforce–just like me–but we don’t get reality shows, so people cannot believe we exist.