How will our separate communities accept our relationship?

Transcripts

Host: How will our separate communities accept our relationship?

Gloria MacDonald: We have talked about your family and your partner accepting one another and we have talked about your friends and your partner accepting one another and well, this might seem like it's really not important. It's part of your life so you really have to ask yourself will your partner fit into your larger community and that might be just actually, where you live in the world. If you are living in an area that is involved in a political hotbed in some way, shape or form and you are bringing your partner into that and your partner is part of the ethnicity or race of the "Opposite side.

" So again, if we were to take the example today of someone from the Middle East coming into a completely Christian community that had strong, strong feelings about different religions, people from different cultures and there is a fair amount of prejudice, you really want to be aware of that. Now let's say we are not dealing with that type of an issue at all. It's just normal, everyday life, no huge prejudices, no big tension or political issues; still, will your partner feel comfortable in your world?

So, if you are in a situation where you are going to black-tie dinners all the time because of what you do for a living, will your partner feel comfortable on that type of a social environment? Will they be at ease or will they feel totally out of place and uncomfortable? It's important for your work colleagues to people who you socialize with and people who are a part of your lives, it's important for them at some level to accept who you are and accept who your partner is and it's important for your partner to be able to accept you and your entire circle of colleagues and community. So don't underestimate the wider circle of colleagues and community in terms of the impact that they will have on your relationship because again, we talked about those subconscious things that go on where someone says, "They don't look like me, they don't sound like me, they don't think like me, they don't act like me," and those all at a subconscious level are going to be red alert, red alert, red alert and you don't want that constant pressure on you and your partner and the two of you as a team, as a partnership, you want to take as much pressure as possible off that relationship. So ideally, you will be coming together in an environment that's accepting.