Dear Lost In Love,

Yeah, I have some advice and so does my editor, HQ, who I consulted on your question because I consider him an expert on this subject. Half-Asian himself (and married to an Asian woman), he came back with this learned advice:

• The man has to be prepared to endure a lot, over the long haul. If he is a good man, the mother will almost certainly come around. It may take 10-20 years though… not everyone is prepared to endure that. On a practical level, he needs to be prepared for the family to completely reject him at first. If he sees it as just the first step in a long journey, than it’s much less painful.
• It’s true that the mother will never be able to fully connect to someone who isn’t Vietnamese. But there are other ways to create commonality.. he will have to work hard to find these. For example, maybe she loves Music… or Education. These are things that he can connect over.
• Finally, it seems like the parents hold all the cards… but that’s not true. If the parents love their daughter, they are going to want her to be happy. So that’s one thing in his favor. The other huuuuuuuge advantage that he has is babies. If he can hold out until they have a baby together, her parents will almost certainly accept him. After all, who can reject their own flesh and blood? Once they have a baby, then he is part of the family by definition.
• So basically, he has to be prepared for a waiting game… but time is on his side.

~~
So that’s that, and here’s my bit:

I would also expect problems. Your mother has made it very clear how she feels about this and like HQ, I have personal experience with these issues from the other angle.

I am an Italian who married a man whose family of WASPs who were dead set against this, in spite of the fact his sister had also married Italian and been enormously happy for fourteen years, with two children.

So when I traveled to meet my future in laws, I met this sister and her Italian husband first, who were obviously very supportive of our relationship. And when we pulled up in front of their house, the husband ran out to meet up on the sidewalk, fell to his knees in dramatic Italian style, kissed my hand, stood up and hugged me, swung me around and nearly threw me up in the air he was so gleeful.

“Finally!” he said. “Finally one of my people! Please tell my wife I’m not yelling,” he said in his loud Italian voice.

I laughed. He was Aquarian.

“Tell her this is talking, not yelling! I have been trying to explain this to her for 14 years!”

I looked over at his wife, who was grinning ear to ear. These two were in love, see. “He’s not yelling,” I said in my loud Italian voice that matched his. “THIS IS YELLING!” I bellowed. The Italian guy roared and covered in kisses.

“See? What I tell you?” he said. He was an immigrant, see. She’d met him in Italy and imported him.

But anyway, later over dinner the conversation became more serious when he explained that even after fourteen years of making his wife the happiest woman in the world… “I am still an outsider in this family,” he said. And it pained him. “Look at these beautiful children,” he said. And they were. Those kids were gorgeous and he could not understand the lack of heart in this family. So considering this, I think you and your man are going to have a real challenge. But here’s the thing:

I looked at your chart and you have an Aquarius Moon. You very much want to be liberated from your family. There is a part of you who wants to shock them as well. And you also have some serious Sagittarius so you are going to favor “foreigners” and fare well with them. So it’s my opinion that a marriage like this is part of your destiny. I just don’t think you’ll be happy with a traditional situation. You crave expansion which is not what you get when you marry someone who looks like your brother… and your other brother… and your other brother too!

So I say, go forward. But it’s very important you stand with your partner when and if your family move to trash him. Because they very well might. And if you are willing to do this… well go back and see HQ’s advice. Because I think he’s on track.

What do the rest of you think? Anyone else have experience with this? Tell us.