I know Blind is not always the best place for advice, but I want to ask anyways as I’m curious to hear from others who are in successful or unsuccessful marriages.
Wife and I have been married for 3 years. We weren’t the best choice for each other in hindsight, but past is past. Currently we do not quarrel/fight much have been indiffirent about relationship/marriage. We are both Asian, so there is also the element of “staying together for family sake” - I really like her family and get along well with them. It would pain me a lot to put them through a difficult situation like a divorce.
From reading a lot of these cases, one thing that seems to be coming up is “grass is not greener on the other side. work on your marriage vs looking for a divorce”
Pain points for her:
- Feels we are too similar personalities. Wants a “wild” guy. I’m a calm dude and not that emotional or expressive. Not sure I can change this.
- Doesn’t feel I pay much attention to her
- No sex in relationship at this point. She blames me for it but does not initiate or try to meet me half way to make this area work better for both of us
- Hates that I snore and wants me to “cure” it. This has caused us to sleep in separate bedrooms.
- Thinks I’m a messy person
- Says I fall short of her attractiveness expectations. Weirdly per her, her family is superior to me in this area.
- Hates that I picked SF to live (mainly job commute reasons). Wants to live in south bay and blames me for lack of same-ethnicity socializing options. On the flip side, I enjoy company of friends of all ethnicities and this is part of what I like about living in the US
- Opines that being in the US and away from family is making things worse and problems can be solved if we move back to home country
Pain points for me:
- No spark between us. I’m admittedly not that atrracted to her, so it takes work for me to drum up intimate moments. She does not initiate or make it easy to meet half way and solely blaming me has made me even less interested.
- She does not work and has been at home for 3+ years, spending most of it on netflix/youtube. I envy friends spouses who have a career and are doing something with their lives beyond home. I spend most of the day at work and have most meals there. There is not much at home she does for me besides laundry and random household chores. It is hard to be single income in US and also embarassing from a social standing standpoint - I stopped showing up for get togethers etc and lost touch with many friends/acquaintances after getting tired of answering same question for years
- she says minor/trivial dumb things a lot and this infuriates me (my bad i guess, but can’t seem to help it) in a “can’t she think for 2 secs before asking/saying this” type of thing. She thinks I’m arrogant because I snap at her from time to time due to this.
- I think we are both not “messy” but she is at equal level with me (basically a hipocrite, which is the actual problem for me... not the messy part)
- Travel is one of my passions and I loathe traveling with my wife as we seem to ruin trips due to out differences. I miss traveling with friends, which I did a lot when I was younger
- Despite differences, I feel other couples have a basic “zone” of trust and privacy for themselves that no 3rd person ventures into. I don’t feel this with her.
- I like my career in the US and this is basically what keeps me going at this point. I enjoy diversity and privacy of US vs home country. I had a difficult childhood and started enjoying live mostly after moving here and earning by myself, traveling etc. Moving back is not an easy proposition for me.
I’m guessing this relationship is not normal, but curious to hear if anyone else out there identifies with such a situation or can throw general advice/motivation.
PS: exploring couples therapy options (wife doesn’t seem interested/skeptical about this option though)
comments
There is nothing to argue, it's just how most of these countries refer to them culturally.
Uber you are right geographically but I'm surprised you can't see the point the other Google dude is explaining.
I'll be surprised if uber's business ever thrive in Asia with that cultural awareness 😏
I agree that Indian and Chinese have very little in common, but once again, that wasn't the question, and I'm surprised that ppl at Google failed to see that... That my explain why Google is not thriving in Asia 😂
I guarantee that’s the reason she’s always frustrated.
Can you enroll her in university or something? Honestly give her a career and she will respect you for the rest of your life. But yeah if compatibility is the root cause then that’s not going to change.
Also, are you overweight? That’s one major cause for snoring
Had OP’s wife been my friend I would have confronted her on this. But when OP is clearly saying he doesn’t even have 2 meals at home on weekdays And they don’t have kids I think she should do something with her life.
God forbid if OP does decide to divorce her what’s she gonna do?
But yeah this is completely my opinion and you are free to think otherwise
This is observation of a 54 year old man
Pinkfloyd is a 20 something unmarried woman 😃😇
It seems like you two don't have a physical or emotional connection, and she doesn't even (according to you) want to work on it.
Dump her and don't look back, the short term pain will be an easy price for the longer term gains.
Fix the damn snoring too.
Not using it, I feel lethargic and shitty. I wish I had done this earlier in life.
First the heart. The heart is a HUGE liar. You know that whole follow your heart thing? It’s a load of crap. You’re Asian, you should know this and your wife should know this. So reiterate this with her. This the whole “ oh I just got to find the right thing to be made whole” crap. Frankly, that’s never going to happen, the sooner you give up on that the happier you will be
The mind. This one is tougher. The mind is where logic resides and We think we’ve got that down. We think we know everything but we know so little about life. We know little about anything. We think we know what we want but really you don’t, it’s just society telling you what to think. It’s not actually you. Need a better income, need to live somewhere, need certain friends. All those things will come if you keep your mind open to the possibilities. My wife is Chinese, I know the pain of finding people to socialize. But guess what, once we moved and actually met people, we have great friends of all ethnicities. Really, ethnic is just a small piece, socioeconomic status is way more important. Can you imagine how hard it would be to find someone who is both white and Chinese couple? Impossible and when it does happen, it’s weird.
Lastly God. You need someone better than you in your life, find a church, any church, could be a gay church, doesn’t matter, but get God in your lives. Someone that loves you for who you are unconditionally and will bless your marriage. When we got God in our lives, that’s when we truly felt free, that we have someone even better in this relationship with us. He will fight for you if you ask him To. Get involved in a young couples group going through the same crap. Sing some songs in fellowship.
God bless you. You can do it! Marriage is worth fighting and you can use all the weapons you can get!
And once you let her know it's over don't, under any circumstances, get her pregnant.
You are clearly not compatible, so why waste time? There are good marriages, if you already know 3 years in and before kids that you are not in one, try again. Not every relationship can be fixed. Why settle for being miserable?
Before you give up get counseling from a marriage counselor. If you are both serious in taking responsibility and not sit there and blame the other you will learn what each of you need to make the relationship work. I am now much older and my wife and I are now married for over 26 years. We went through some rough times. But one day my wife got very ill where I thought she was going to die. Fortunately the Emergency Doctor was a complete Moran and did not diagnose her condition correctly. I took her out of the hospital and had her transferred to a better facility. I realized then that I loved her and was by her side for the 3 weeks she was there. Since then things have been so much better, not always perfect but perfect enough that I am sure we will be together for a long time. We also in the early years went to a marriage counselor and worked very hard. So the bottom line. Never give up. Life is worth working hard to make it better. Good luck. I am sure you both will do what is best whether you resolve your issues or not. At least try or you recent each other for the rest of your lives.
Too hard to do it? Then leave for the sake of you and her! Thank me later...
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"When faced with divorce, people naturally wonder how their lives took this unexpected turn. Here are some inconvenient truths. The #1 Cause of Divorce is…Selfishness. Nobody wins (except for divorce attorneys). It can almost always be prevented. There is hope even when everything feels hopeless."
But more likely is you will find other people who you are more compatible with.