My (29F) husband (31M) got me a racist gift for Christmas. How can we move past this?

It was a weird Christmas. We had plans to go see my family, but we ended up staying home instead. <br><br>So, it was just us the past week, hanging out at home. My husband is usually a dead-to-the-world sleeper, but one night I woke up to him scurrying around. I thought he was getting a midnight snack or something, but the scurfling continued for a bit. It was kind of weird, but nothing too unusual. <br><br>On Christmas Eve, once we went to bed, he started getting all fidgety. I asked him if he was okay, and he just smiled weirdly and said that he was excited for Christmas. <br><br>Then, on Christmas Day, he gave me a small, nicely wrapped gift. He was grinning from ear to ear. I opened it, and thought it was a joke. <br><br>It was a framed anime-style painting of two people fucking- one with extremely Asian features, and the other with darker skin. The painting didn’t explicitly state that it was based off of us, but the resemblance was obvious. <br><br>The painting depicted the dark-skinned woman (me) being rode by the Asian man (him), both of them with huge grins on their face. It was...a lot. <br><br>I didn’t know what to say, so I just said thanks and put the painting under the Christmas tree. After Christmas had ended and the tree was in the trash, I moved the painting in the back of our closet and “forgot” about it. I didn’t want to rock the marriage boat. <br><br>After that day came and went, my husband made no mention of the painting. I thought he had forgotten about it as well. <br><br>Until a few days ago. He came to me, holding the painting, tears in his eyes. He asked me why I didn’t treasure the painting, why I had discarded it like it was nothing. <br><br>I was flustered. I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled out an apology. <br><br>I was an idiot. <br><br>He started going off about how he thought the painting was a beautiful depiction of our love, of our intimacy, of our relationship. That he thought I would have loved it and displayed it proudly, as a reminder of our special bond. <br><br>I was horrified. I don’t want to display a painting of us fucking proudly. <br><br>But that wasn’t the biggest problem. <br><br>The bigger problem was that the painting depicted an incredibly racist caricature of me. A serious, long-standing problem in our relationship is his fetishization of me. <br><br>I am black, he is Asian. His parents are wealthy, we live in a wealthy area, and our social circle is wealthy. Not one of our friends or family members are black. <br><br>He grew up in a predominantly white, wealthy, racist environment. And when he met me, he was immediately attracted to me because of my skin color. <br><br>Not my intelligence, not my personality, not my hobbies, not my appearance- my skin color. <br><br>My skin color is dark. Very dark, especially in the winter months. <br><br>He can’t stop staring at my skin color. He can’t stop talking about my skin color. He can’t stop being attracted to my skin color. <br><br>And it’s a problem, a problem we have been working through in therapy. <br><br>And then the painting happened. <br><br>I was stunned that he could think this was an appropriate gift, especially considering his history with fetishizing my race. <br><br>So, I told him the truth. <br><br>I told him that the painting made me sick, because it depicted his fetishization of me in a racist way. That I was disappointed he couldn’t see that. <br><br>He looked crestfallen. <br><br>But instead of being angry, he broke down and cried. He said that he had been trying to show me that he loves me for who I am, because he was afraid that he had hurt me in the past with his fetishization. He had thought that if he showed me that our intimate moments together were the most beautiful thing in the world to him, I would see that he loved and cherished me. <br><br>Then he said that he knew he had missed the mark, because the painting depicted a fetishized, dehumanized version of me. <br><br>I was touched by his words, and a little confused (but mostly touched). <br><br>The problem is, I don’t know how to move past this. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me with the painting, but I’m still hurt. <br><br>How can we move past this? <br><br>TL;DR: my husband’s racist fetishization of me has been a long-standing issue. He tried to show me he was past it with a Christmas gift, but only made things worse. How can we move past this?