Man shares wedding saga; 'My ex-fiancé and I broke up over our wedding dress code.' UPDATED

"Me [32 M] with my ex [33F], broke up over a wedding dress code."

I dated my ex for about 4 years. My family is from Nigeria and I'm very proud of my culture. My ex is white. I grew up in Australia but I have close ties to my roots.

Originally race was not an issue when we first started dating but as we got more and more serious, I felt like she wasn't willing or didn't really understand how important my family and culture are to me.

My SIL was always close with my mother despite the cultural barrier and always seemed happy to come to family events and spend time with us and treats my like her own brother.

She's even been learning how to cook some of our foods from my mother which made my mum really happy and my brother has been learning to cook North Indian style curries and stuff as well. My SIL isn't conservative or anything but culture is important to her and my brother and as I get older, it feels important to me too.

The final straw was at my brother's wedding that spurred me into action. My SIL is Indian and she's also very fiercely proud of her culture as well and they've always talked about how mixed race kids grow up culture neutral whereas they wanted their kids to have the best of both worlds.

I've noticed that my ex was never that into my culture, never really spent time with my family and didn't really enjoy coming to family functions and that sort of thing and used to always question some of our cultural practices in a really quizzical kind of way and I could tell that she found it a bit dumb.

She also made comments about immigrants not taking the effort to "assimilate". Her words.

Anyway my brother and SIL had an amazing Indian/Nigerian fusion type of wedding. Because in her culture white is the colour of widows and black is the colour for funerals, they specifically, under dress code stated to wear your colours, no black or white.

My ex mostly only wears black. It didn't really bother me but on the day of the wedding she wore a black dress. I asked her not to wear a black dress because it specifically stated on the invite not to but she was adamant that my SIL was being a bridezilla and she didn't have to accommodate.

Anyway, at the wedding my ex was the ONLY one in black, my SIL took one look at her and asked her if she was going to a funeral after the wedding. My ex got very embarrassed and said that she didn't have any other dresses when my cousin piped up with "Oh why didn't you tell us, you could have borrowed one of mine, we're the same size".

My SIL didn't say anything after that, they were too busy with other stuff but my ex was fuming the entire time at the wedding. To make matters worse, she says a few other people asked her why she was wearing black. I didn't see anyone but they might have.

After the wedding, she was mad at me for not backing her up. I told her not to wear a black dress and that if she needed to buy one then she had plenty of time.

She said she didn't need to buy one since she has a right to wear what she wanted and that it was unreasonable to dictate something like this for a dress code since she wasn't from their culture.

Anyway the fight escalated and finally in the heat of the moment I broke up with her. It's been a few days now and she's blowing up my phone alternatively begging me for another chance and but also mad at me for not backing her up.

I feel like, given how well my SIL interacts with my family even though she's from another culture, how respectful she is, I want someone like that. For me, a wedding is about families not just individuals and I don't want to lose my relationship with my family over my girlfriend/wife.

I need some perspective here, did I do the right thing or should I have backed up my ex?

TLDR: broke up with my ex over cultural differences, wondering if I did the right thing. I mean, it's a silly fight alright, the bride herself wasn't even mad about it, I'm sure they can figure something out.

Before we give you OP's update, let's take a look at some top comments:

gracwe writes:

If the dresscode would have requested "Black Tie", a very common request and a courtesy the host extends to their guests, and everyone would dress the part but your partner, who decides to show up in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, I don't feel like it's your duty to back your partner up.

Being a partner doesn't mean to support the other unconditionally on every whim, but to keep each other in check as well. That's the part that makes a couple stronger than the individuals that form it. And the reason why respect is such an important ingredient.

Your ex still doesn't admit being in the wrong. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn't take her back, as long as she still acts immaturely, switching from emotional pleading to defending her stance and back.

flather writes:

Your ex considers your culture and your SIL's culture beneath her, not worthy of her respect. They point blank asked all guests to not wear TWO colors. She felt that not worthy of obeying.

Do you think she would wear white to a Western/white American wedding (I think white isn't such a faux pas in other countries) if she wasn't the bride? Or would she respect that because it's from the same culture and skintone as her?

She pretty much says she would obey a dress code if it was from her own culture when she says another culture is 'unreasonable' to dictate her dress.

Your ex is pretty clearly intolerant. She deserved every 'what are you doing in black' comment she got for being intentionally difficult.

And it's totally understandable, reasonable, and fine for you to be more invested in your culture and having a SO who will respect it and hope to find a blending of your two heritages. You should be proud of where you came from and find someone who you can share that with, and share in where they came from.

Update:

I spoke to my brother and SIL about it because they'd noticed I seemed down and didn't talk about my ex at all.

They convinced me to talk to her because they thought it was very disrespectful what she did but "her kind of white" didn't understand family or culture and I did invest 4 years of my life with her.

My brother and SIL also told me that I owed it to myself to get some closure and I agreed. I spoke to her a few days ago because how abrupt the relationship ended.

It did not go well. We met and had coffee in a park. I told her how hurt I was that she would disrespect my brother and SIL on their wedding day by wearing a dress in one of the two colours they asked us not to wear.

She told me that she'd forgotten about wedding and had to rush to get something to wear. I told her I wasn't convinced, the wedding had been on everyone's mind and we'd been asked to help set up the hall which she didn't want to help with but I went.

She told me this was a stupid fight over a stupid dress. I didn't feel that way, I felt it was her not respecting our culture. That's when she got annoyed at told me that culture is a man made thing and that we were in Australia now.

I told her that my heritage was always going to be important to me and my future children and that I couldn't be with someone who didn't feel that way.

She mentioned things like FGM and stuff (none of the women in my family have gone through that!) and stuff and I told her that culture is a dynamic thing and that my family didn't even believe in that stuff and weren't that backwards.

I was offended she'd even think so. Surely you see from meeting them that they're not like that! It was wrong of me but I pointed out that all my mother, my female cousins etc were all more educated and successful than her.

That was when the conversation started rapidly going downhill. She told me she'd chosen a less strenuous career for me because we wanted to have kids and she wanted to be there to raised them unlike my double income family members, including my mother because I'd mentioned that my mother had worked weekends sometimes.

My mother got an education against all odds and my parents have always been after me to educate myself which I have.

That pissed me off. I told her quite angrily that I always respected what my mother and father had done for us, that she was 28 when she met me so she didn't choose a less strenuous career for me, she couldn't blame me for that.

She then got upset and said she didn't have much time to have kids, how could I do that to her, she should have listened to her family that I was untrustworthy and she'd wasted the best years of her life on me.

I told her if that's the way she felt, then it's better that we stay broken up and got up and walked off.

Yesterday I got a nasty FB messages from various family members calling everything from a [n word] to how my ex was lucky she didn't get AIDS from me.

I've blocked all of them. I told my family about it and they were furious. I'm better off without her. It's a good thing we didn't live together even though we've got stuff at both our houses. Her family was a bit conservative like that.

She's texted me a few times since apologizing and wanted to talk again but I only responded to say that I wanted to pick up my stuff and I'd boxed her stuff up so we should probably meet at the park to exchange it.

An hour later at midnight the day before she kept texting and calling me to come pick give her stuff immediately so I went with my brother, SIL and cousin and we exchanged stuff.\

Her dad was there and he started getting riled up, calling me names, a piece of shit etc but my SIL got right up in his face and just started yelling right back up at him and told him that we'd got to police and show him the 15 odd messages of his...

daughter saying that if I didn't come get my stuff she'd destroy it and she was happy to post all the nasty messages his family had sent me to their workplaces. My ex then begged her dad to calm down and so he walked off.

I refused to go inside the house and told my ex to get just my stuff. Turns out she hadn't packed up my stuff so my SIL suggested we drop her stuff off at a mutual friend's house and ex had a week so she could do the same. I called around to find a friend and she agreed to it at the time as well.

My ex then messaged me today apologizing because she wasn't expecting my family members to turn up and that she'd wanted to talk and she reacted badly. (With her father there? Yeah right).

I told her the same thing. She had a week get my stuff packed up and dropped off to friend's house. She texted me back saying it didn't have to be like this etc but I told her it did and I didn't want to discuss anything further.

In the future I'll notice warning signs about her family's behavior and stuff well ahead and not always feel like I have to prove myself over and over again because I'm black or put up with Nigerian scam jokes or being "affectionately" called blackie because I don't want to make a fuss or because I didn't want to be seen as over sensitive.

It wasn't till I spoke to my brother and to a lesser extent my SIL after this conversation that I realized how not normal this was. Anyway, I have dropped her stuff off and I'm just hoping I get my stuff back from her place. The most expensive thing is a tablet but I won't be too out of sorts if I don't get it back, it'll just be an expensive lesson.

Let's take a look at some more top comments and responses from OP:

fir3seong6 writes:

I'm Australian. Obviously not all Australians are like this, but a great deal of them are. They don't consider themselves "racist" but they'll push you with jokes, etc. that just underscore how they really feel.

OP shouldn't have to put up with it. I love Australia but I hate that part of our society. I live elsewhere now.

OP replies:

EDIT: I'm genuinely surprised at the number of people agreeing with me, so I'll elaborate a bit. Growing up, I argued with my own family many times about this. It was a huge source of conflict.

For years I thought that I was over-sensitive and wrong. Nowadays I just laugh politely and remove myself from the conversation. I'm a younger generation and many people my age feel the same way I do. We just have to wait until we call the shots.

Yeah, I just thought it was part of the culture you know, because I grew up with it but I'm finding people who "get it" and aren't that way.

cream7 writes:

OP, I'm also Aussie married to someone from a very-rag-on-able-if-one-were-so-inclined country. We have our occasional lighthearted jokes - between him and I only, and only when he himself finds it funny/perpetuates that joke.

If anyone in my family talked to him like her family talked to you, I would JUMP DOWN THEIR THROAT and cut them off until they apologized most sincerely - because I love him. If you EVER encounter a girl who is not willing to do the same for you, GTFO son. You deserve to be respected.

OP replies:

Yeah, I kept telling myself that I was going to marry her, not her family but the older I get and the more weddings I go to, the more I realize that this is not the case.

vasftg writes:

Toxic in laws are never great but I think it's manageable if your ex stands up for you - I think you should at least give such a person a chance. Getting away with that sort of behaviour though?

Any person worth pursuing would put their foot down straight away. A decent person would do it for someone getting spoken to like that on public transport, yet alone his/her life partner.

crackel writes:

You and your family sound like wonderful people. They even gave her the benefit of the doubt and encouraged you to talk out your issues. That's kind of cool.

I think you will find success in any relationship (that is worth success) because your family has given you a great foundation and example.

OP replies:

My bro has been nothing short of amazing, my SIL too. They are about to leave on their honeymoon but still insist on cheering me up and helping me out.