I started dating my now-wife about 20 years ago, and we have been married for 3 years. I know it is normal for a married couple to get traits from each other, but culturally my wife has been making a huge shift since before we got married, and it has lead to a lot of family conflicts.
When we first met she was a typical salarywoman and did all the things Japan expects a salarywoman to do: Be quiet, smile and ganbatte. Whenever she expressed her negative thoughts towards her work, people around her would brush it off or in her family's case: downright scold her for having such thoughts, so of course she would speak to me about them. I didn't wanna lie. I do not like Japanese work culture, and I am not going to pretend otherwise, so of course I encouraged her to become more independent, seek out international companies etc. after getting enough experience. After 10 years in the company she got fed up and did just that, which made her family furious.
Since then it has been little things in daily life, like her shower routine now being in the morning, eating a whole apple instead of cutting it into pieces, complaining about bad insulation in apartments, pursuing remote work, taking long holidays etc. It all create little annoyances that build up, especially in her mother and sister.
Just yesterday they had another argument because they were visiting us, and they saw that we had decorated our apartment in full European style with plenty of lights, gnomes, big Christmas trees etc. and they kept finding every excuse they could to criticize it:
"Are you not thinking about how these lights annoy your neighbors?" (in the tower block 2 km away)
"Why does your apartment need to stand out so much?"
"Japanese are never this careless about electricity"
"Have you asked permission from the landlord to put a pin there?"
At some point my wife talked about how she loved the North European Christmas food I made, and again it was just a flow of negative comments about health, lifespan etc.
We are gonna have a baby in a few months, and since my wife got pregnant she has talked more and more about us moving back to Europe because she wants to raise her child in a more individual way, allow it to play in nature, climb trees etc. This of course has created even more drama with the family.
I am in the middle of it all, and while I DO agree with my wife about how she feels, I also feel like I am tearing the family apart for having planted these ideas into her head. I HAVE done all I could to live in more Japanese way, but truth to be told my wife absolutely hates when I do it. As she said the first year I lived here "If I wanted a husband whose biggest worries in life is sorting garbage, I would have married a guy from my hometown"
Has anyone else here ever had this dilemma with your husband/wife and your in-laws? If so, did you ever find a way to reach a mutual understanding?
by Cph265