Won't Miss #511 - denial of cross-cultural relationship issues

All relationships have problems, and each type has specific problems based on the people involved and the circumstances. Cross-cultural relationships have specific ones based on a variety of issues including language differences and differences in expectations. Seriously, they do. There are even a few books written about them to help people anticipate and cope with them. I'm not making this up. When people of widely disparate cultures marry, there really are some problems when cultures clash, and Japan and Western countries have pretty different cultures.

Why am I speaking as if people would doubt me? Well, that's because I have encountered Western women  who turn into Japanized Stepford Wives to try and convince themselves that what they hate as a part of Japanese culture and relationships is utterly lovable. It's as if putting it out there makes the problems too real so everyone takes part in not talking about the elephant in the room until it tramples the family. Not every foreign woman married to a Japanese man is, by a long shot, is like this, but I've encountered enough to make me wonder is Freud was really onto something when he talked about reaction formation. Of course, there were also foreign men who spoke of their Japanese wives as if they were nothing short of miraculous mommies/nurses/servants/sex dolls/model-like-beauties and fulfilled every need in a manner that no man could have ever expected a woman in his native culture to manage.

It's no shame for cross-cultural marriages to have unique problems. Believe it or not, even Japanese people married to Japanese people and Americans married to Americans have marriage problems, so I figured that there must have been a bigger insecurity about the whole process for some people. Perhaps the feasibility of their situation had been questioned by family or friends. I'm guessing that those who had the bestest best most perfect of the perfect lives and marriages in the world despite coming from two different cultures felt this was the only way to shut people up, or they were repressing regret of epic proportions, or some such psychobabble which I personally don't care to imagine.

While it's fine if people don't want to talk about their issues with me, the whole manner in which cross-cultural issues were sometimes denied and cross-cultural marriage was sometimes treated as a precious and perfect entity struck me as painfully dysfunctional.  When everything, including things that would be seen as pretty hard to bear in either party's culture, were spoken about as if it were sunshine and lollipops all of the time, it made me uncomfortable and I don't miss it.

Will Miss #501 - marriage is a good thing

Throughout my life, marriage has been portrayed in Western culture (especially America) as a burden on men. There are jokes about the "old ball and chain" and the idea that men are giving up their precious freedom if they subject themselves to restrictions of this lifelong commitment. The message is crystal clear, marriage is bad news, particularly for men.

In Japan, the message is greatly different. The culture largely views it as a rite of passage and a means by which people make the transition from prolonged dependence and their status as a child in the family to adulthood. Men and women alike want to marry for the most part and see it as a desirable thing. They look not at the things they are losing, but what they are gaining. And, yes, men actually get more benefits from marriage than women so this is hardly a lie. Do a search and you'll find a variety of perspectives from which this is so including economic gains.

I miss the way in which marriage was portrayed as a positive thing by the people and the society in Japan.

Won't Miss #284 - spouse denigrating

The Japanese are generally a modest lot, sometimes, far too modest. When speaking of their spouses, they feel almost obliged to never "boast" about his or her positive attributes and to talk up negative qualities. You're far more likely to hear a woman talk about her lazy, selfish, childish husband and a man talk about his fat, incompetent, messy wife than hear even the slightest complimentary word. In fact, it's seen as poor manners to say things like your wife is a fabulous piano player or that your husband is a crackerjack repairer of computer systems.

I realize that this is a cultural difference, but it makes me uncomfortable both to hear such unkind things (even when they are almost certainly not sincere) and to consider the fact that it means people aren't giving their spouse their due out of societal obligation, and I won't miss it.