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Posted on 01/15/2006 4:55:00 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
She mops up spilled juice with your favorite T-shirt, and then she makes you go shopping in the pouring rain. Let's face it, she's the wife from hell--but you still love her.
Sound familiar?
It should. This "mean wife, happy marriage" scenario has become a fad. When one man in a similar relationship began writing a blog about his experiences with his nasty wife, his account struck such a chord with readers that it's now been turned into a book and a TV drama series. He and his wife, it seems, are far from the only ones whose relationship thrives on the wife's selfishness--as 34-year-old Mina would no doubt agree.
Mina (not her real name) does Internet-related work at home and has been married to her 42-year-old husband for 12 years. "Why don't you ever wave goodbye to me anymore? Why don't we ever talk anymore?" she asked him one day.
"Actually, I'm the one who stopped waving goodbye," she admits with a laugh. And the reason they've stopped talking is because Mina's become deeply involved with her daughter's extracurricular activities.
But Mina was the one who began feeling angry. To let out her frustrations she began to use her hubby as a metaphorical punching bag. "When I take it out on my husband, I feel much better and forget what I got so wound up about," she says.
As Mina became busier, the house got messy and she cut down on the time she spent cooking. But her husband never complains. "He knows I would just tell him off if he did," she says.
After patiently letting Mina get things off her chest, the husband once said: "Pretend you've been tricked into cleaning the house. You'll calm down a bit." She did. When she cleaned the house and saw how nice it looked, her frustrations went away.
"He actually analyzes me very objectively," Mina says.
For all her flaws, the two behave like a couple in love. On weekends, they shop together or watch their son's baseball games. On birthdays, they buy each other presents.
Masanori (not his real name) is another man happy with his wife, even though he says his friends think she's mean. The 34-year-old Tokyo-based designer has been married for three years. When he told his 32-year-old wife, who works with him, that he wanted to buy a new computer for work, she insisted they buy a refrigerator at a later date and they ended up saving money for that instead.
His wife has a mug that cost 3,000 yen. Masanori's cost 1,000 yen. "Mine is more expensive," she brags. But her husband has no problem with her attitude. "I get really angry when it comes to work matters, but at home, things don't really bother me," he says.
In fact, the wife is very protective of her slim, quiet husband. "If someone picks a fight with you, just keep your distance," she often says. "If something happens to you, I'll go fight your battles."
Masanori is more than willing to do as she says. "My wife is a very determined woman," he says. "I have no complaints."
The blog that triggered the phenomenon is titled "Oni-yome Nikki" (The true story of my devil wife) and was started four years ago by a 33-year-old company employee from Fukuoka who calls himself "Kazuma."
Readers don't need to look far to find examples of the kind of behavior that inspired him. "When I had a cold, she made me sleep under the kotatsu (heated table) because she didn't want to catch my cold," he writes of his 33-year-old wife. "When I came home soaking wet, she made me strip naked by the front door because she didn't want me to get the floor wet."
These online entries received so many hits and attracted so much attention that the contents were published in a book last July. The blog was also made into a TV sitcom with the same title last fall.
"Times have really changed, I think, for this kind of relationship to be featured in a drama series," says Kazuma. "If men in similar situations feel better thinking that at least they're better off than me, I'm happy with that."
People often wonder why he doesn't just break up with this "devil" woman. "I would much rather see my wife happy than make her angry and create a hostile environment," he says.
While the drama series was aired from October to December, its official Web site often received e-mail from people in similar situations.
"I'm a devil wife myself," writes a woman in her 20s. "I say whatever I want to my kind husband and live a happy life. Of course, we are totally in love."
"I do all the cooking, cleaning and laundry," runs a message from a man in his 30s. "(My wife) was kind to me before we got married, but now she is quite the devil."
"My mother acts like the female lead," writes a teenage girl. "She forces my father to exchange her favorite ramen ingredients with his, and takes his money and blows 80,000 yen in one shopping spree."
Nonfiction writer Yuki Ishikawa expects the number of tyrannical women to increase. "There are more and more wives who brag about giving their husbands instant food instead of home-cooked meals, justifying their actions as giving their husbands what the husbands want," she says. "I feel like devil wives are innocent in a way, but immature. In the past, there were more women who wanted their husbands to give them attention. But now, many women look for husbands who let them get away with doing little around the house, getting together with friends or going for beauty treatments. I think this change in mindset will increase in the future."
Freelance writer Chihiro Fujiwara, 38, interviewed almost 100 self-described selfish wives and their husbands, and published a book on her findings in early November through Ameba Books Ltd.
When a friend of hers who was making an effort to be a good wife was suddenly served with divorce papers, Fujiwara wondered why that happened at a time when selfish wives were doing whatever they wanted and yet were loved and happy.
As she began interviewing people, she noticed a pattern. "There are no hard feelings because the women immediately tell their husbands whatever is bothering them," she says. "And when their wives demand money from their husbands, the men seem to feel glad that they're needed and are making their wives happy."
Fujiwara herself has been married for seven years. She used to keep her frustrations to herself. But she began telling her husband how she felt. "My husband was surprised at first because he had no idea what I was thinking, but he became kind. When I hinted that I wanted a pair of boots, he bought me a pair and was very happy about it."
"Society as a whole is still dominated by men, so if men ruled at home as well, it would be nasty," says comic book writer Mayumi Kurata. "I think it brings balance to society when women have control in the home.
"Devil wives who can spontaneously be selfish and ask for whatever they want are talented, in a way. Some husbands are happy being ordered around because it's easier to be told what to do. They also love getting all that attention from their wives. But this relationship style is different from the so-called weekend-only marriages and separated couples. I think married couples just need to find a relationship style that suits them."(IHT/Asahi: January 14,2006)
There is a clear Freudian pathology here.
Yuk! I hate P***y whippped men. They are useless. If anyman let me walk all over him, it'd be as I walk out the door.
After living here in Japan for over 25 years I can honesty say there is something wrong with this generation in their 30's. They are weird, rude and live at the malls both husbands and wives.
43 years with the greatest woman in the world.
If you cant get along---get along.
Fighting and arguing is no way to go through life.
OMG animal cruelty!
Try living with a Appalachian mountain woman. They kill their husbands.
I've seen that kind of thing before. I've also seen marriages where it's the father-in-law with money who treats the husband like total crap for not making his first million yet. What a BS situation that is. Husband and wife should be stepping up to daddy and saying, "If you don't like our house or our stuff and can't shut up about it, you don't need to be coming over here anymore."
I knew the big city folk seemed to be turning a bit weird, but rude too? What's going on with Japanese society?
I really agree with you. If you're in a relationship where all you can do is scream at each other, it's time to show some integrity, admit to what your relationship has come to, and move on.
In the Japanese model, the man rules as a Lord in outside of the home venues. Momma walks a half pace behind, and more than likely is a work at home Mom. Japan Momma rules supreme at home and usually is in complete charge of the budget. The home is immaculate and organized.ad is more like an absentee landlord as he must work long hours and schmooze with co-workers in a form of induced solidarity.
In either system it is not particularly healthy to have a man who is "whussypipped." The reason is that sooner or later , the man will have a lover on the side in order to connect with some feminine warmth, and/or to express a secret need for revenge. This makes the marriage a mere shell, and very unhealthy for children who grow up in a world of emotional falsehood and surreptitious insecurity. Thus the patter repeats itself.
Remember that freedom, a value which should be lived by Americans, is likely to devolve if marriage itself is a prison, whether practised by the male and/or female spouse. Freedom isn't free, just as our troops defend our country, so also must we walk the walk in marriage if we talk the talk. That is why the teamwork approach in American marriage, having evolved from the days of the frontier,is such an integral part of our nations freedom. It is now under attack by same sex unions, Broken Back Mouontain proapaganda, and the feeling that foreign authoritarian marriage models have something to offer to the institution of American mariage. Foreign marriage models offer little , except as a reminder that the teamwork approach to marriage is our American legacy. President Bush's relationship with Laura is an excellent example of such an American marriage, while Bill Clinton and Hillary's is and example of the "whussypipped syndrom"
WHUSSYPIPPED AGAIN!!!
Dom/sub. An old, perverted story.
Nice. I've always wanted to be a metrosexual (kill me now).
I don't think you have what it takes. :)
She once explained to my (and her) father-in-law, a Pearl Harbor vet from the USS Arizona, how the US started the war. >>
She's actually right (although she shouldn't have said it to a Pearl vet). We checkmated the Japanese into the war, and a good thing, too.
Haha. That white urban jumpsuit and the dog in a pink blanket just isn't for me. Praise the lord I married a great lady who doesn't want me to be like that.
This is actually an American phenomenon, where women postphone having children but want hubby to exercise his hand at rearing a pet, to see if he has the skills to be a dad.
From the look on wife's face, Dad is not doing so well, the dazed look on Dad's face tells it all. He should get a reverse vasectomy without telling her!(LOL)
So? Run through the lawn sprinkler, with a box of Godiva dark chocolates and well...use your imagination!
Best world
German mechanics
French cooks
Italian lovers
Swiss government
British police
Worst world
Italian mechanics
British cooks
Swiss lovers
French government
German police
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