Woman tells fiancé to drop friend for being racist, fiancé says 'but we play FIFA.' UPDATED x3

AITA for telling my boyfriend to drop his friend because he's racist?

throwaway202304 writes:

My fiancé (Mexican, 24) and I (black, 21) have been together for almost 2 years now. We've known each other since I was a freshman in high school and reconnected back in 2020. He has this best friend we'll call 'B' (23, Mexican) since he was a freshman in high school. My fiancé considers B family because of how much they've been through together.

Fast forward to when my fiancé and I first started dating. He told his friends not to use the n-word around me, as it's disrespectful, right? Well, my fiancé introduced me to all his friends (B included), and B used the n-word profusely in front of me, knowing that I don't tolerate that.

My fiancé (at the time) laughed and said, 'I already warned him.' So, that being my first impression of him, I already didn't like him.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, my fiancé was showing me something in his group chat with all of his friends. I see a text from B that says, 'go hang out with your cotton-picking wife while you eat rocks.' I confronted my fiancé about this, and he got pretty defensive.

He said he was sorry B said that about me but tried to basically back up B, saying things like 'he always says stupid stuff, he doesn't mean it,' 'it's how we joke around,' 'he doesn't know that's wrong to say.' Mind you, B is a grown-a#% man. Then my fiancé tried to defend it again by saying, "he's been my brother since high school when no one else wanted to be my friend"... stuff like that.

I explained to him that if my family or friends ever said something racist towards him, I'm dropping them without hesitation. He said he understood but that he's known B longer than he's known me. My fiancé said he'd drop B as a friend; the only problem is they all play together on a game called FIFA.

If my fiancé were to stop talking to B, then all his other friends might drop him. Basically, my fiancé won't drop him because he's scared of losing friends. I genuinely don't know what to do in this situation.

OP responded to some comments before she sent updates:

mrspeeples says:

Oh Honey, I’m so sorry. Please don’t marry a person who is not “in your corner”. While you may not need to be defended, you do need to be respected and if your fiancé doesn’t care enough to defend you and end this racist crap - he doesn’t deserve you. NTA (Not the A#*hole).

OP responded:

You worded this beautifully, thank you so much. This whole situation has been weighing on my mind and heart heavily.

Introvertedgreg says:

NTA. I am black myself and girl you need to leave your partner. He excuses that behaviour too much.

OP provided some updates:

Update 1:

I'm just trying to think about how I can even bring up my boundaries and why this is sticking point for me. The last couple of times I tried, he got pretty defensive and exploded (started ranting about who am I to tell him who he can be friends with, how everybody around him hasn't supported him, how he's done everything for himself even though I, his family, and friends have done so much) (He did apologize for blowing up on me, though).

Update 2:

Man, oh man, I'm recalling things he's said to me when he blew up, and it's hitting me like a train. I wish I could put it all here, but it would be a completely separate post at this point. I'll leave this here, though -> when meeting his dad's side of the family for the first time, it started off fine, but then his uncle started getting pretty racist, as well as the rest of his family.

He cussed them out, corrected them, and then had us leave. I was in shock at how quickly it all progressed. His uncle is very against the n-word and racism (allegedly) but became racist all of a sudden? In my fiancé's rant, he said 'why didn't you let me know I was doing the right thing? Most men would just let it happen and not stick up for their girl.'

I feel like I shouldn't have to let him know he did the right thing; standing up to a racist and shutting them down seems like common sense to me. It almost seemed like he wanted a pat on the back for it.

Update 3:

We finally did it as of last night, guys; my fiancé is now my ex It's been a wild two years with him; we would've gotten married next month.

Here are the top comments from the post:

knittedjedi says:

Massive kudos to OOP for not buying into the sunk cost fallacy.

futuresdawn says:

I feel like if someone has to warn people to not use the N-word, you know everything about them right there.

eekspiders says:

I could write a laundry list of everything my dad did wrong in his marriage but the one thing he did right was standing up for my mom when his family (South Asian) was being racist toward her (East Asian). Your priorities shift once you have a serious partner and you can't be constantly looking for family/friends' approval the same way you would when you're single.

What are your thoughts on the situation?