How to deal with a Japanese wife 101 FAQ

INTRODUCTION

This is a working draft version of the FAQ and has been concocted from 
various postings on fj.life.in-japan.

Read this FAQ before you go and get romantically/sexually/maritally 
involved with the female of the species Japanicus Autocentricus, thereby 
morphing yourself into Husbandus Superfluous.

* * *

I'm going to give you some advice that I wish I had gotten 11 years ago
when I married a demure pretty Japanese wife who turned into a genderless 
piece of a dictative authority figure soon after marriage.

1.1 IS SHE FOR REAL?

Now you asked if she's for real. Yeah, she's certainly for real. A
marriage for many Japanese isn't about love. That's just an Orwellian word 
that sounds better than the reality. One reality is that she expected to 
marry a guy just like her pussy-whipped father.  The other reality, and 
the one that finds her living with you in the states, is that she got 
married to you because of her school girl fantasies of living as a spoiled 
housewife in a big house in an American suburb with some faceless foreign 
husband who alternated between Tom Cruise for cute and Harrison Ford for 
masculinity are not part of the reality she finds herself in.

1.2 LOGIC?

The first rule when dealing with a stereotypical Japanese woman is to
throw logic out of the window.  The use of Reason alone will get you 
nowhere my friend!  But reason is not the same as communication, so go 
ahead and talk, rant, tell her how you feel.  Just don't expect any 
changes right  away, because you're dealing with emotions here and you're 
just planting seeds.

Tell her you'll accomodate and support her in a Japanese way, but that
since she decided to marry an American, she has to come halfway to your 
side, too.

Every marriage comes with a 20 year marital torture guarantee. Don't think
you're getting out of it.  Your ancestors did it for you, now it's your
turn.

1.3 HAVING IT BOTH WAYS

> Problem was this... her personality seemed to be very different on her
> home turf, with her own language. She became testy, sometimes
> abrasive,  and dare  I say it, cold and distant.

You might not realize it, but she's trying to have it both ways:  the
freedom and individuality of living in America, while simultaneously being
treated as a traditional Japanese woman.  You need to expose this double
standard to her.

2.0 PREGNANCY

Pregnancy has a profound effect on most women's personality, and things
don't automatically revert to the way they were after birth.  You can not
fight mother nature, but you can finesse her.  The popular myth of course
is that cheating men cause marriages to fail, but I think we know this is 
a load of bull (hint: 2.6 times per week, ladies, and your man will not
stray!).  So don't get all guilty.

3.0 WHY PEOPLE DO IT

> b) stick it out and try to right the marriage ship. Sounds good on
> paper, but my hunch is that I'm in for 20 years-plus of absolute
> marital torture. (I'm not even 30 yet).

     I think that a lot of women get married so that they can take you off
the market and then get what they really want, which is a baby. Once they 
have the sprog, the husband then becomes a cash machine and little more. A 
lot of men, due to what they may feel are chivalrous (or religious) 
obligations, will try to make this nonsense work and that is what the 
wife counts on. 

Sucker! She already has what she wants, a baby. Then she denies you what 
you want, which is emotional support, affection and sex. "Oh, you're 
always thinking of sex" is something they will throw at you to try to 
make you feel ashamed.
 
"There's more to marriage then just sex." Horseshit. If there is no sexual 
attraction, affection or emotional connection, what you are living with is 
a friend.

Men don't want to marry "just friends." And now that she has just become 
your friend, she is treating you like crap. If a friend to whom you didn't 
have a legal contract (marriage certificate) treated you like crap, you 
would say, "on your bike, mate." So why put up with it from your wife? And 
you  wouldn't pay your friend's bills, right? She is already saying, by 
being a  slob, that she doesn't care if you walked off a bridge tomorrow. 
You're going to accept that? Are you that pussywhipped?

You also didn't want a kid. Look, I know you like your daughter. That
is only natural.

But you have to leave your wife and if you hold on to the child, it will
always be a point of contention between you guys and it will give her an 
excuse to play games with you. And the child will feel perpetually guilty 
if she sees you two quarreling over her all the time. Moreover, this is 
complicated by the fact that you guys are straddling two nationalities. 

4.0 BOYS BE AMBITIOUS

Be selfish, son. It's your life. Life is short, so make the best of
it. Jettison the bullshit (your wife) and find someone who will appreciate 
you (given the Draconian divorce laws in California, though, I would 
recommend that you avoid getting married again. There is nothing in it for 
men at  all). And with your next mate, tell her what it is you expect and 
if she  doesn't like it then walk.

5.0 READ THE FAQ

I *hope* the guy isn't really going through that hell...but this is a
horrible case of "not reading the FAQ" before he went and got
romantically/sexually/maritally involved with the female of the
species Japanicus Autocentricus, thereby morphing himself into
Husbandus Superfluous.

Fellas, this is why our daddies try (in vain) to tell us to keep it in
our pants. Remember: If you can't keep it there yourself, you run the
danger of ending up married to somebody who will keep it there for
you.

6.0 PARENTS

No, I am quite certain that there really are such men with such problems,
because I have met such men, even just in Fukuyama. One was a Brit with
one daughter. One was an American, with one girl and one boy, IIRC, and 
the other was a Canadian who was married recently and followed his wife to 
Japan, who got past the honeymoon stage in a hurry.

In every case, the women were living either with their parents (wife of
Brit), or in the same town (other two). Guess who the parents sided with, 
no matter who seemed to be at fault?

7.0 MONEY

The Brit's wife held down a good steady full time job despite being
married with child, and made no secret she did not need her husband for 
support. The American's former wife (who also revealed her belief woman 
should stay at home and watch TV while husband worked and also earned an 
MBA, after they were married) relied on her parents. The Canadian's wife, 
a government worker, simply went back home one day and cut off 
communication with her husband, who seems to be totally in the dark about 
what the whole thing is about, and was threatened with police and legal 
action if he tried to go to the house again or refused divorce.

8.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I don't know many Western men married to Japanese women around here, but
the batting average does not seem to be good.

9.0 WHO ME WORRY?

> Let's expose this situation for what it is... a total F****ing SHAM!

It's not a sham. Your wife walked into marriage with expectations that you
would head off to work in the morning, come back late in the evening with
your paycheck in hand and be too tired to do anything except go to sleep
in your own futon without making a whole lotta racket.

That is marriage, son. It's marriage in the US, it's marriage in the UK,
it's marriage in Japan. It's probably even marriage in Bumfucked Peking.
Women have expectations that go something like "We'll have a romantic
honeymoon in Hawaii, and then I'll have lots of time to spend at home
watching Leave it to Beaver re-runs or maybe Hollywood squares if she's
already seen the episode where the Beaver gets a paper route to pay for
the bicycle in the window.

Marriage is not a romantic stroll on the beach. It's a non-stop boring
routine that isn't helped by the addition of a kid or three. You've got
responsibilities. So does she. Her responsibilities revolve around your
child/children. You no longer count as anything more than a paycheck and
an extra plate of food on the table. If you want to have wild and sweaty 
sex, get a girlfriend. You're married and that kinda stuff went out the 
window when the kid showed up.

10.0 I THINK I'M TURNING JAPANESE

It's not just you, me, Japanese men, American men, Chinese, Russian or
Nigerian men. All of us guys, no matter where we find ourselves, jumped
into the sack of marriage with a lusty little demure girl and woke up with
duplicates of our mother-in-laws.

Our wives didn't get a much better deal. They married a well educated(i.e.
paycheck) and a romantic guy that didn't fart at the dinner table. They
ended up with duplicates of their disgusting father-in-laws who fart at
the table, fart in bed, aren't interested in romance anymore, and never
wash their feet.

I told you before that if you have expectations, then sit her down and
explain to her how things are going to be. She should have done the same
thing to you, so I guess both are at fault. It's kinda late now that you
have a child, but I don't really believe she's asking so much from you.
Your traditional role in a marriage is to provide the money and security.
Hers is to make sure that the children's diapers are clean and the beans
aren't burned. Didn't you ever watch the Brady Bunch?

THIS FAQ IS (C) BY VARIOUS PEOPLE FOR DETAILS SEE
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=asi44o%24prd%241%40cobalt01.janis.or.jp&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DJapanese%2BWife%2B101%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dasi44o%2524prd%25241%2540cobalt01.janis.or.jp%26rnum%3D1