Originally posted by kirei_na_me
My husband and I had a pretty bad argument about all of this last night.

It first started when I was asking him about the other thread about carseats. He went on to say that the reason carseats were not used as much in Japan was because they were indeed expensive, but I then asked him "well, how much value do you put on your child's life?" He just kept on saying that in Japan, those seats are maybe 400 dollars and here they are 60. I tried to explain to him that they had money for other things, but not something that could save their children, but he got so extremely defensive, he couldn't agree with me that it was worth 400 dollars to have your child safe in the car. I was SO infuriated.

Anyway, then we got into the marriage issue. I asked him this: "Do you think arranged marriages better than love marriages?" His answer, yes. He thinks arranged marriages have the capability of lasting much longer than love marriages. He went on to tell me that with arranged marriages, the good is seen in a person after marriage, whereas in a love marriage, you only tend to see the bad in the person after marriage.

He also went on to tell me that maybe a lot of westerners are thinking the Japanese married couples don't like each other because it is common for the husband or wife to say they don't like one another or they don't like what one another does, but that under the surface, it's the exact opposite. He told me that people(Japanese) consider you a fool if you go around saying how much you like your spouse. Which, I guess, I can understand, since they don't get into the whole "I love you" thing, etc. like we do.

Also, he did tell me about one divorce case in which he knew the couple personally, and the father got custody of the children. I asked him why, but he didn't know. He says that happens more than one thinks over there, but I don't know. I do remember my friend was contemplating divorce with her husband(who came from a wealthy family) and she was scared that he would take her daughter away from her. So, maybe there are some instances when the father gets the children in case of divorce. Maybe the mother just hands them over to him because she doesn't want the responsibility? Maybe they prove she's unfit somehow? I don't know.

Anyway, our conversation was cut short last night, because he takes things so extremely personal and gets so defensive, that I can't really discuss things in depth with him anymore. I still have someone else I can talk to about all of it, though...
To each their own.
My better half dislikes the way things are done in Japan, although she also finds stupidity abounds in the US as well. Since she was brought up under the J-way, and has lived in the US and in other countries, her view is that no country has a monopoly on foolishness....which is my view as well.

People will take offense or not depending upon their sensitivity level...for those that have less experience, I've noticed, of how others live outside their immediate sphere of influence, the greater their lack of understanding and willingness to compromise in their viewpoints (the exceptions are those with mental disorders or actual stubbornness that kind of borders on obsessional behavior, if it isn't actually the latter).

I know my views do tend to offend some, since I've pissed off a number of folks, either through ignorance or out of spite (yes, I'm no saint, nor do I pretend to be one)...however, if a person cannot talk about a topic without getting all weirded out and bent out of shape, then I'm afraid the person has other issues that are in the background, perhaps in denial, that they need to deal with at some point in the future, or it will continue to be one of the main reasons they continue to get bent out of shape, unabated, whenever the subject is brought up....

feel sorry for your situation..know a lot of people who can't talk with their spouses because one or the other or both are real blockheads trying to fit in a round hole...