Bunmi is looking for a partner, but talking with her Nigerian mom about her love life is complicated. And Sherrae Lachhu, a relationship coach for BIPOC couples and individuals, speaks with Juleyka about differentiating our relationship values from our parents'.
Featured Expert:
Sherrae Lachhu is a licensed marriage and family therapist who empowers individuals to be the best versions of themselves in life, love, and business through her speaking, coaching, consulting, and therapy services. With over two decades of experience in community-based mental health, Sherrae has worked with a diverse range of clients from all walks of life. She has provided therapy to individuals, couples and families, provided supervision and mentorship to numerous coaches and clinicians, and served as a clinical director at a local mental health agency. In 2021, Sherrae made the decision to leave community-based mental health to solely focus on launching her virtual practice to support individuals, couples and businesses. As a highly regarded professional, Sherrae specializes in working with Black, interracial, and multicultural individuals and couples, and has helped many individuals, couples, and organizations to maximize their strengths and overcome their challenges. Learn more about her work here.
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If you liked this show listen to Dating, But Not to Get Married the first episode on a special series on dating and relationships.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Our guest today is Bunmi. Bunmi is Nigerian American, and she struggles to connect with her mom around the concept of love and romantic relationships. Her mom just doesn't think romantic love is practical or that it's even real. But for Bunmi, romantic love is something she aspires to and really wants in her life. Let's get into it.
Bunmi: My name is Bunmi Akinnusotu, I live in Northeast Washington, DC. My family is Nigerian. I was born and raised in the small but mighty state of Rhode Island, Providence, South Side. What I called my mom and dad growing up was mommy and daddy. My idea about love growing up was that it was automatic. It just happens, everybody's going to have it, everyone's going to experience it. You do all the right things, you follow all the rules, and bam you're in love, or bam you have kids and a marriage and a house and a job. I just thought those things would just happen. I got that in part, I think, from where a lot of kids get it from, which is the movies and the books. Because certainly, in my household, the idea of love really wasn't healthy.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that I did grow up in a violent household as well. My father was violent, physically, and we spent times in shelters often when I was growing up. I would not volunteer to go through that ever, I'm not saying that. But a lot of folks in my family in particular will say, "Oh, she's not married because of what she saw her mom and her dad go through," and that's not actually it. In fact, it made me more in tuned with what is a healthy relationship. And those negative experiences, if anything, pushed me more toward wanting love than away from it.
My parents were not affectionate toward one another, and so the idea of love was secondary. Marriage was about bringing in more income, about having someone to help you ideally raise the kids, marriage was status in the community. My mother's perspective on love... Again, a Nigerian immigrant woman. And I'm still trying to figure out if this is her or if this is culture. My guess is it's a little bit of both. "Romantic love neither exists or really means much", she's said that to me throughout my entire life. On the one hand, she'll say that, and then she'll say, "My prayer for you is to find a husband who loves you, to find your best friend."
Bunmi: I have been in love, romantic love. I had someone in my life who I knew loved me. And the one thing that I wish I had understood and that I wish my mother understood was that it's messy. But just because it's messy doesn't mean that it's not valid, that it doesn't exist. Also, that it has a lot to do with you, like your own ability to be vulnerable, your own comfort with yourself, your own openness to other people.
I many a times tried to talk with her about it and... I would not turn to my mother for advice on love, and it hurts my gut to say that. My mom's comments about love and men are mostly negative and unhelpful. I don't think she means to be that way. Her lens is unfortunately tainted by the traumatic experience she had with my father, and also I think some other experiences she had here in the United States.
I would really love to have somebody who can explain or just talk to me about how to talk to men, like navigate difficult conversations, how to set boundaries, just explain or share what they do to maintain healthy relationships with their significant other. If she were listening to this, my mother, she would default to human beings are bad, men are bad, which doesn't necessarily help me.
What I would like to say to my mommy is, I tried. I tried all the things to be enough for someone. I tried things that probably she would disapprove of. I tried things she would approve of. And I just haven't found anybody, nor has anybody found me worthy of that love that I know she wishes I had. I'll keep trying, but where I'm at is not for lack of trying.
Lantigua: Okay, so confession time. I am a hopeless romantic, I really am. I like the cheesy movies. I like the flowers and the chocolates, the corny messages, I like it all. And so, listening to Bunmi, I really thought about why are first gen's ideas and notions and expectations of romantic love sometimes so divergent from our parents. I mean, in some instances, they're basically on opposite sides of the spectrum. Of course, her story also made me think about the tension that that can create in our relationships with our parents because they have one idea of what we should be looking for, while we have a completely different one. So what can first gens do to bridge that gap between what their parents think of love and romantic relationships and how they're choosing to live out their own notions of love and romantic relationships. To help us figure this all out, I called in an expert.
Lachhu: My name is Sherrae Lachhu, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm also a relationship and life coach, and I currently provide therapy services in and around Florida, as well as North Carolina. And I provide coaching services all over the US as well as internationally.
Lantigua: This one broke my heart. So tell me what you heard as you listened to Bunmi's story.
Lachhu: When I heard Bunmi's story, to be honest, it was very similar to a lot of the clients I work with. And I will say that most minority communities or ethnic minority communities, it's very similar. I want to please my parents, and I want to hold true to the traditions that made me who I am. And at the same time, I want to also please them by assimilating and acculturating in a way that they've asked me to do and then trying to ride that fine balance. And at the end, what broke my heart really was, you could hear almost tears in her voice when she said, "Me not being with someone is not for my lack of trying." And she said that multiple times, which lets me know there was some level of permission that she needed to be granted from those who she is seeking approval from. Likely, her mom that would say, "Listen, I know it's not on you." And so that's the part that really kind of got me, this whole thing of, I tried, tried, tried, and yet in parentheses, I failed.
Lantigua: The absence of seeing the marital love growing up, that means something.
Lachhu: Absolutely. The problem with when we don't have someone to show us the way, a healthy version of what love looks like, we make it up. And Bunmi made a good point, some of the stuff she got from stories, some of the stuff she got from mom's ideals. But what parts of it were true to who she is at her core, her values, and her own principles, what was guiding her in that regard.
Lantigua: So let's pull back a little bit and talk about more broadly what some of the influences are of a child like Bunmi, who grows up looking at domestic violence. What does that do to them developmentally? What does that do to their psyche? What does that do to their sense of self and their expectations of others?
Lachhu: When you grow up feeling unsafe and insecure, right? There's a lack of safety, which means there's a lack of trust. And if I find myself in that point, I don't even know if I can trust myself, that's the hardest part. So then how do I find someone? So what it causes often is a hypervigilance. When you grow up like that, you often are taught, I have to be aware of what's needed. So I either have to learn how to please people very well so that I'm not hurt or punished, or I have to put up so many walls and fight people first so that I'm in the offense and don't have to feel like I'm on the defense.
Lantigua: That all sounds exhausting. I mean, emotionally, mentally, physically exhausting.
Lachhu: Yes.
Lantigua: I want to pick up on... Ooh, this one hit home for me because I found myself saying... And full disclosure, I was married to a Nigerian man for 15 years. We just ended that relationship. And so listening to this was very personal for me. And one of the things that Bunmi touched on was the fact that culturally for her parents, and I know from experience for many Nigerians, marriage is about status. It is about solidifying your status among your family, among your peers, among your society. It is not just Nigerians, it is so for Indians, it is so for many Southeast Asians, all kinds of people. And throughout Africa, it is the case.
Lachhu: Absolutely.
Lantigua: And so as first-generation hyphenated American like Bunmi, has to deal with those expectations and those standards at the same time that she's trying to find this romantic love, which is what is idealized in American societies, and in most western societies. That just seems like a fault line.
Lachhu: It's really a setup for failure. It's a tight rope to walk. It's not just status for Bunmi, it's status for her family, status for her mom. Mom can say my daughter married well, she has this, she has that. And you're right, in Nigerian culture status is huge. Even status like what your status is within your community, am I part of this group, am I a part of that group, where's my education, where's that ranking? The challenge is, there's this thing where when women from cultures similar to that achieve a level of status in terms of education, influence, and power, and money, right? So it's desirable for their parents sometimes. Sometimes it's not always desirable for the younger men that are trying to court them.
And so it's that thing where I'm trying to get somebody that is high enough on the status where they're not going to be intimidated by me. Then I'm in DC, she's in Chocolate City for goodness' sake. Right? But then at the same time... I did some research on this way back in grad school on professional black women and marriage. And it wasn't limited to any ethnic group or anything, it was just people identify racially as black. And the higher the education, the less likely they were to be married. More likely they were to be divorced. Less likely they were to be remarried. And less likely they were to be higher on the desirability scale.
Lantigua: Wow, that is so sobering. So actually, let me follow up with a question about if Bunmi were sitting with you talking to you, what would you want her to understand about this situation on this predicament?
Lachhu: Well, the first thing that I would remind her is there have been messages that have been programmed into her since birth. Messages of what is safe, what is unsafe. Messages of what love is and what love isn't. Messages of what she should desire and what she shouldn't desire. So what I would remind her is, one, same way you were programmed, you can be deprogrammed. And so let's pull back all of the thoughts and feelings of responsibility over having to have this outcome that might not have even been your desire to begin with. Let's go back to your core values. Let's go back to who you are and what you desire. Because if you're not able to differentiate who you are from who you were raised to be, then you can't really find the suitable mate anyway, because you're going to find your counterpart to someone else's ideal, not your own.
Lachhu: And I suggest this for all the listeners out there, that you have your things, your principles, and your values that you're guided by. And mine were accountability and reciprocity. I won't be in relationship with anyone that doesn't have that shared or mutual respect and understanding for me. And I also won't be in relationship with anyone who is not accountable for their own thoughts, actions, feelings, or words. If Bunmi was here, what I would tell Bunmi is, unpack all your things. Sometimes when you're getting and I'm in a new space down, I'm getting things reorganized, sometimes you have to take everything out. You have to do a deep purge, and then you have to think about, let me envision this space differently. Now, let me pack it in the way I need it with the things that support me in what my goal is.
Lantigua: I love that actually, unpack all your things. I mean, that requires a level of honesty with yourself, that for some people it's just unprecedented. But I have two more questions. One is, despite the fact that she doesn't believe that her mom accepts that love is messy, she still seems to yearn for a connection with her and for the ability to share this part of her own discovery with her mom. What advice do you have for her in terms of trying to establish that closeness or some level of conversation just about dating and romance and trying to find her a meaningful relationship?
Lachhu: What I would tell her is your mom is your mom, but she's also a woman that has had her own journey and experiences. And so I think sometimes we feel like when something isn't being given to us, that our parent is keeping it from us. But one thing I learned many, many years ago with my own parents, and we've went through our own healing journey together is, "people usually do the best they know how with what they have." Dr. Maya Angelou said that, so I'm paraphrasing, right? And the other part is that in order for us to have the relationship that we desire, in terms of the love that we desire to have, and this is when you can do it in a healthy way, sometimes you have to have a level of acceptance and forgiveness for your parents. You can't expect unhealed people to help in your healing process.
Lachhu: Sometimes it's capacity versus willingness. And I don't know that Bunmi's mom doesn't have the willingness, it may be capacity. If this is all I know, I only know what I know until I know differently. The way that I had to move forward with my parents and I encourage many other clients to is, what are the things that are true to you. I can't talk to my mom about certain things that she's just not in agreement with, or she doesn't get, right? So I love her from the space of where she's in. And then I have boundaries around what I bring her into and what I keep her out of because those are sacred spaces. I own a company called Love and Acceptance. I named it that because that was the journey I had to go through, radical self-acceptance and then radical acceptance that I can't change who other people are.
Lantigua: Okay. So let's make self-love very practical. For the people who are listening like me, who are feeling like, she's talking to me personally right now, how do we actualize this radical love of self?
Lachhu: Going back to the unpacking, unpack what your concept currently is of yourself. I told a client once, "It sounds like to me, you're giving yourself a performance evaluation based on someone else's work and someone else's standards." Right? So are we evaluating our self-evaluation when we're our harshest critic? Is it based on what we truly value in our core principles? And especially, any time you're an ethnic minority or racial minority, oftentimes we code-switch without realizing. There are differences in us that we've learned to tamper. We've learned to make ourselves more presentable in tone and presence, but also in the way that we handle people. So we're often very filtered and we're masking throughout, which goes back to your point about being so draining.
Lachhu: So to make it practical, what I remind people is, start with step one, self-discovery. If you are trying to improve your relationships, if you are trying to prove your self-love, you can't do that without truly discovering yourself without all the masking and the filtering around. So self-discovery is one part, accountability is another part. Find someone else, and yes, I think therapy and coaching is great too, but find a support group, find friends. There's usually always one other person in your friend group that is also trying to go through the journey. Find that person and say, these are the things that I want to do, hold me accountable to that.
Lantigua: I love that. I really love that. Sherrae, you're just a gift. Please come back.
Lachhu: Anytime. Anytime you guys need me, I will be here.
Lantigua: Thank you so, so much. Okay. Here's what we learned from Sherrae today. Unpack your principles. Take a close look at the values and ideas that have been guiding you in your relationships, and in how you judge yourself. Decide which ones are important for you, keep those and purge the rest. Forgive your parents, they may have the willingness to help, but may not have the tools to support you in your romantic life. Don't hold that against them. And remember, embrace self-discovery. To improve your relationships with others and to increase your self-love, it's important to know who you are at your core when you are not masking and when you're not code-switching.
Lantigua: Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How To Talk To [Mamí and Papí] about Anything, is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “When Mom Doesn't Believe in Romantic Love”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., May 30, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.