When two people share a child but aren't in a relationship together, one or both might have a more difficult time when the other parent is in a successful relationship. The reasons vary by person, and there's really no predicting why.
One woman recently shared on Reddit that she's dealing with an ex who is not a fan of her fiancé … at all. It seems like the two don't interact that often, but when it comes to the woman's 8-year-old son, both men have a huge role in raising him.
Her ex is pretty upset that the woman's fiancé is sharing his Vietnamese culture and identity with her son, but she doesn't fully understand why he's so mad.
The mom shares that she, her ex, and her fiancé all live in the Southern United States.
"I live in the south, as does my ex and our almost 8 year old son. I am engaged to a man who is from Vietnam, and his family is a huge part of our lives. (My ex and I have joint custody, we are both very white) My son has picked up on certain words in Vietnamese, like how to address certain people and started using those."
Her ex doesn't like that her fiancé is Vietnamese.
"My fiance and I think its great and have been encouraging and praising my son when he uses them correctly as it shows respect to my fiance's family and culture. My ex is upset because he feels we are taking away little guy's southern heritage and trying to replace it."
The mom thinks it benefits her son to learn about other cultures.
"My ex is the south will rise again, good ol' boys type and wants our son to be and through and through southern boy like he was. I'm of the mindset that the more our son is exposed to and learns the better he will be for it. It's causing conflicts between my ex and me, obviously but I don't want to discourage our son from learning anything that could be beneficial to him."
To make things harder, her ex doesn't feel like her fiancé is her son's family.
"My ex feels my fiance and his family are not our son's family and never will be and that it's not appropriate for our son to learn that sort of stuff when it's not his heritage or culture."
She's worried about how this will impact her son.
"I am definitely concerned that the conflict with my ex will end up putting our son in the middle. My ex has already said he doesn't want our son using those words as we speak English and from what my son says, his dad gets upset and yells at him not to speak that language because it's not his heritage and my fiance and his family are nothing to my son."
So she's asking: Is it wrong to share her fiancé's Vietnamese culture with her son?
The verdict is in: Her ex is racist.
As one commenter said: "So your ex is racist. I’d be very careful about what he teaches about 'southern culture.'"
People want to know how far this really goes.
"Does he also embrace the confederate flag too? If that’s his perspective then I’m sorry but he doesn’t get a vote on what happens in [the original poster's] house as long as it’s not illegal, immoral or unhealthy which learning a foreign language is none of those things."
The woman adds that her fiancé's family has embraced her son completely.
The mom adds that her fiancé and his family are wonderful with her son, so her ex probably just needs to get with the program.
"My fiancé is amazing to my son and is very involved. They have a great bond and it's wonderful to see that. Neither I or my fiance ever speak negatively of my son's dad or his family."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
