I had a bad fight with my husband just now and he stormed off to a friends house, that he was supposed to go over to a couple hours ago before the fight, so i've kind of fucked up his night :(

Anyways, im white, & not really interested in my ancestry much. My husband is half native american, half some sort of white he isn't interested in, which is fine. He only identifies with the native side, and only recently seemed to really get into it, spending time with his elders, reading native books, watching native movies. He is definitely changing as he gets older, Its totally fine and I know our interests will both change as the years go by. Im happy he is interested and proud of his ancestry. He spent a year taking care of his elderly uncle and learning a lot from him that I was not there for. I try to learn about it too and be a part of it with him, we train our dogs in the native language, attend his church sometimes etc. though he has never before been religious and even openly anti-religion in the past but was suddenly really serious about this church (totally fine too and I even like it because I am very interested in religion)

Recently he was showing me a video of native dancing with clothing made from a bear hide, I asked if he was interested in getting a bear hide as people hunt bears in our area when the population is high. He suddenly got really angry and told me bears are my teachers, I need to watch them and learn from them. And that he has told me that before and he isn't going to "kill a bear for me" but that isn't what I was suggesting at all. I just wanted to know if he was interested in it because he certainly loves hunting other animals. I felt he was belittling me like I was an idiot for not knowing "bears are my teachers". And I do remember us having a conversation about it like half a year ago, but I forget our conversations sometimes. And he never seems particularly kind to bears, when they are on our property he scares them away hitting them with a broom or shooting them in the butt with a BB. So the whole thing made me feel he was being hypocritical.

Sometimes he shows me native movies and last week one we watched really rubbed me the wrong way. The main white character was obviously looked down upon for not knowing the culture, accidentally offending people and not being able to 'rough it' etc. There was a joke in the movie that white people can't stand awkward silences, and have to fill the silence with small talk. Which is kind of funny and can be true. I just held it inside that I didn't like the movie, I didn't want to offend my husband sharing it with me. It was really not a huge deal at the time.

Twice the following week my husband made the joke to me about white people not being able to stand awkward silences, he was going on about being silent on purpose today around his white boss to 'make him uncomfortable' like I would find this very funny, and I said well he is just an awkward guy, I don't think its solely because he is white. My husband then went on about how white people just ramble and how they should only speak when they have something wise and important to say like natives do. But I know he talks just to chat all the time, we love yapping to each other and are often late to events because we were talking so much! Its like he suddenly turns into a different person when he says something about being native or white people, it always seems out of character at least different from when he used to never say things like that. And again it seems hypocritical.

Anyways I got very upset that, he sounds really pretentious about these things sometimes, he is just as white as he is native but he talks badly about white people a lot now, and I told him those things and how I felt about the movie and about the bear conversation and it went really poorly. I know I shouldn't have brought up so much at once and I overwhelmed him. He basically said that he isn't trying to offend me, that im just reading into it and that I don't understand things (like the bears and the movie) but he wouldn't explain them to me, because I would "read into it and get offended if he did" He just just threw me a book to read about native beliefs, which also felt condescending. I was trying to get him to tell me what he liked about the movie, I asked why a bear is our teacher but not a deer, I was pushing it too much, and it turned into him yelling and so on. I wish I could go back and find a way to handle the conversation better.

Im honestly starting to dislike when he talks about native things although I used to be so interested and curious about it, but a lot of it makes me feel less-than and like I don't understand him. Which is sad because I want to also be a part of his interests. And I feel like there is this weird rift between us now that I never felt before he got really into native culture. I know this is such a sensitive subject and I feel really sick to my stomach about it, I don't want there to be a rift between us. I appreciate any advice although I know this is very specific