Aunt Agony II 090807

Originally posted by reyes:
just wana share my personal sorrows.

my work require me to do regional to support customers and looking for business opportunity.
everytime i received requirement to do overseas, i felt worried and scare that i had to broke the news to her and get nags, complain from her. imagine i had to do it 2-3times mth.

i had good relationship with my daughter. somehow i feel she is not doing enough as a mother. my daughter enjoy my companion more than with her. it is not that she is a disciplianiam but she simply bochap and chap the wrong things. whenever i am in singapore i will play with my daughter and bring her to outing, watch elmo show, barnie show, cartoons and chat with her about anything.
i handle all bills at home. i need to remember when to pay utilities bills, conservation charges, pay her credit card bills ( she pay me when she received her pay which is normally after due date). but most of myfriends is handle by their wife.

she doesnt save, spent every cents of her pay. i try to save around 20-30k a year for my old age and also plan for my children education fees.

my mom bought breakfast every weekend for her. she never bother to wake up to buy any breakfast for me or my mom.

she brought her dog but seldom walk it. now the dog become another of my good pals, which is the only one that bother to wait for me to come home after late work in office.

she only cook less than 10 times for the family in 5 yrs. And seldom offer to pay for dinning out although her pay is quite OK.

that is my version of the story i try to ask myself think on her side.
i told myself, no matter what for the sake of children i will hold this family together.
do any bros have any similar less than happy marriage.
please share if you can.


It appears to me that this difference in expectation hasn't been communicated to her like how it should have been between husband and wife. You married her for 5 years, but now you begin to lament about how dissatisfied you are with her attitude towards everything else outside you. Perhaps you might already felt this coming many years back, but you probably opt for the easier option to avoid open talks.

Now such behaviour has been rooted - tearing them out of place will promise much strife.

This is interesting because you covered a wide spectrum of issues, even some that might appear to be mundane, but certainly, these are clashes of definition of what you reckon she should or should not 'do' as three separate roles - a wife, mother and daughter-in-law. You reckon that your marriage is not as happy as you would like it to be, but if you don't work on your marriage through proper channels and instead taking the easier option to avoid, I don't see how changes can take place by configuring your relationship on auto-pilot.

You might fear that bringing those issues openly for discussion might escalate implications, but surely if you don't - you will escalate your frustration instead and will burst when you hit boiling point.

Nobody is perfect, but hope lies in crafting a seeming-perfect marriage and like dough, love is not constant - it has to be remade and remoulded all the time.

You got to work on your communication for many years to come.

Take baby steps in achieving the big picture. Albeit that might not result in your ideal goal, but you have to look forward and strive to improve your relationship.

You don't have to resign to a 'less-than-happy-marriage' - you certainly have a choice.

Cheers