My (32F) husband (35M) thinks I was being r**ist to him, how do I navigate this?

A 32-year-old woman is seeking advice after an in-flight argument with her 35-year-old husband, who accused her of being racist toward him. The disagreement stemmed from her comment about how his planned complaint to airline staff might make him appear as an “entitled Frenchman.”

As a first-generation American with an Indigenous Mixtec background, she feels conflicted about being labeled racist, especially given her own family’s experiences with discrimination. Now, she’s struggling to navigate the emotional fallout from the fight, which escalated to discussions of divorce.

‘ My (32F) husband (35M) thinks I was being r**ist to him, how do I navigate this ?’

Hi Reddit, my husband (35M) and I (32F) were flying back to California from a week in Central America yesterday, where we ended up having an argument mid-flight and my husband thinks I was being r**ist towards him.

To give background, I am a first generation US American whose family is Mixtec from Oaxaca, and my family came to the USA for a better life and began working in the produce fields. We lived in poverty and I finally was able to break this cycle and had the chance to travel worldwide.

I’ve been traveling for most of my adult life (at 50 countries and counting), and it’s an important part of my life that I want to continue. My husband is French, born in southern France to an upper middle class family. He came to the US in his early 20s and stayed ever since.

I love him dearly, but he can be very picky and likes to critique. He was complaining for most of our 7hr flight from Central America to California, about the airline, how incompetent and rude the staff were, and how crappy the service was.

I told him I understood, but I wasn’t going to complain because we could have paid premium and flown with another airline and that the staff was just trying to do their job (that they don’t make the rules). He said he was going to tell the staff once we landed that,

“Your airline sucks and I hope you guys go out of business”. I advised him not to and that I thought the staff would think of him as being an “entitled Frenchman” who is looking down on them. He immediately told me that was rude and hurtful of me, and R**IST.

I didn’t mean it in a r**ist way, and now I am confused, was I being r**ist? I never want to bring anyone down for their background or for who they are, and this made me sad. Especially as an indigenous person whose family experienced racism in both the US and in Mexico.

Then the can of worms opened and we began arguing and ended up saying hurtful things to each other (mentioning divorce). I cried in the flight and apologized, but unsure how to acknowledge his feelings and what was said?

These are the responses from Reddit users:

RVAMeg −  I mean, it’s not because he’s French. It’s because he’s kind of an a**hole.

normalizingfat −  he sounds french

chosbully −  Marrying someone who is so rude to service staff is wild. Especially considering flight attendants are much more than just your waiters. They’re literally trained to try to save your life in case of emergency.

Fantastic_Brilliant8 −  your husband sounds like a very negative person. Obviously, you are not being r**ist. Does he have this habit of victimizing himself when you critique him?

[Reddit User] −  You certainly weren’t being r**ist because French isn’t a race. At worst you were being nationalist.

Affectionate_Low_486 −  French isn’t a race, lmao tell him you’re sorry and you meant “entitled a**hole”

RadioSupply −  “Frenchman” is not a race. At worst, you stereotyped his nationality, which isn’t nice, but let’s be real – your husband sounds like a privileged s**b.

Ampsdrew −  Once “Divorce” starts being used as a threat, you have essentially thrown your marriage into the trash. You two need a therapist to help you decide whether to continue or not.

Sufficient-Dinner-27 −  French isn’t a race. He just sounds stupid.

Backwoodsnight −  A French person who is simultaneously awesome and also picky and overly critical? NO EFFING WAY. 🙄. French people gonna French.
For context, my mom is French. I’m American.