Thanks for the comments. Yes, you are probably right about the passive part, that's part of why I'm here - we've lost each other, I'm loosing myself...
I don’t want to keep ’hiding’ behind cultural differences, but there are some aspects of my sitch which are cultural. For example, the cards and work.
I teach flute in a music school, in a way, part of the public school system, but seperate afternoon programs. I work afternoon-evening, and have school holidays and summer off. I’m a SAHM for three months every summer.
My kids have never been in any daycare outside the home, right now my in-laws help out (willingly) a great deal. Now as the kids get older, this ’ideal’ job isn’t so much any more, since I don’t buy into the typical Finnish idea that once kids start school they’re ok on their home. The norm here is to be a ’latch-key’ kid from 7 up!
I have talked to H about me staying home, financially it’s not really possible. We bought a large single-family home a few years ago, and while we are not at all living outside our means, we do need both incomes. Without mine, we could do alright in a smaller place, or apartment, and I do not want to give up our yard on the edge of the town forest with 4 small kids. So it’s not ideal, perhaps, our sitch, but it’s pretty good.
Re: credit cards. I’m not a Finnish citizen, another story that I don’t think this is the place to bring up, but that means I’m not eligable to get a card in my name here. This may have changed recently, since I did just recently get a car loan, but we haven’t checked it out. In spite of the fact that I’ve lived here for more than 15 yrs, have 4 kids, own half a house (bank loans aren’t a problem) I can not get a credit card, and there are a few mail order companies which wouldn’t sell to me, because I’m not a citizen.
I did’t really mean to make such a big deal about the books, just wanted to point out that I couldn’t run out this afternoon to the library or bookstore to pick them up, and that my H *might* get defensive (think I think it’s ’his’ fault that I feel the need to read such books) and I didn’t think it would help matters any. Since he would find out that I ordered something, it is just common courtesy in our sitch for me to tell him I’m ordering ’something’ and does he want to order something too, we do this all the time. It may be then that he does find out what I’m ordering, but there’s not too much I can do, in the end, it’s probably not a big deal.
I don’t want to go into a big discription of how Finnish culture differs from the American, in part because it would come off sounding like stereotypes, and I don’t want to do that. I also don’t want to always use it as an excuse, because, in the end, not all of our problems by far are culturally related, people are people, and I do believe that this way of looking at things will work. But I’ll explain a little.
The talkative, assertive, ’American’ me comes off as very overpowering here. I had lots of problems with FIL pre-kids ( he loves the kids, and has come to respect me through them) because I would stand up to him, and wasn’t afraid of stating my mind, or showing strong emotions. While Finns are proud of their ’equality’, that works outside the home. In the traditional Finnish family, the wife takes care of the home and children, and the husband makes the big decisions. Children are seen and not heard. Creativity, individualism is not encouraged, the squeaky wheel is banged back into place rather than getting the oil it wants (sorry for all the cliches)This is changing...but my H did grow up in a very traditional home. Now that my girls are at school, they are ’learning’ how to ’be Finnish’, but they are also able to switch - and as a group, my kids do stand out when they’re with Finnish kids. I remember reading somewhere that something like 50% of Finnish women did not know their husband’s annual salary. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. By American standards, Finns do not talk, and especially, they do not analyze their problems the way we tend to do. Marriage counselors and marriage camps are a very new phenomana here, and the younger generations are starting to realise their worth. This country has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Usually about once a year you hear of a case of a family where Dad has lost his job or got into debt, and goes home and shoots the wife and kids and himself.
