I hope things work out for you, and I hope you're soon able to find yourself in your own bed with a warm and willing W. (hey, the Red Sox are in the World Series, anything can happen, right )
May I ask a question? How often do you visit Japan? Are your R dynamics different when you are there?
I know that it sounds like I use the cultural issue a lot, and I don't mean it to be a defense, but it is an added dimension. Yes, I know there are a lot of people who live in two different cultures, and do it well. I would actually consider myself one of them. But my H never has. He doesn't understand that I am not, nor will I ever want to be wholly Finnish. It has nothing to do with one country being somehow 'better' than the other, it's just that I can't completely change who I am.
I've learned which parts of me are due to my cultural upbringing, and which are the parts that aren't. I know I have changed in outlook since I've moved here, of course I would have grown had I stayed in the states, but in a different way.
But I also know that there's a core of me that will not change, that was shaped by the communtity that I grew up in. It's more than FOO, because it's the whole world that surrounds you (there have been studies done that show that children develop their cultural identity somewhere between the ages of 8-13, and will internalize whatever culture they are living in at that time), Your schooling, friends, TV (or none), music, food...
When we apply our cultural values to another culture, we get into trouble. There are basic human rights and needs, but they can be gotten in innumerous different ways.
Asking M&K's W, or my H to 'become' American is denying their own core. That doesn't at all mean that I agree with what either of these Ss is doing. My H is being disrespectful in just about any culture. But handling him is different that handling an American spouse would be. Think if HP's H had married the daughter of a rabbi (this is hypothetical :-) ) and you might understand - but still, both of them would still have grown up in the same cultural setting.
Yeah, it's a small world, but not as small as we would like to think.
OK, so all that was for 'naught, as I don't really have any solutions, just some food for thought...
)
