| Wife Manual Version 1.0 |
May 5, 2008 11:53 pm
Mood: Beyond Knackered & Totally, 604 Views | This has been a week beyond exhausting. Dramas abound and I find myself mired in things I have no wish to be touched by. It has been very disturbing and I can feel my reclusive tendencies threatening to take over.
First was a disturbing rumour about a close friend's marriage which made me reprimand someone for the first time in a very long time in the most cutting way.
Then yesterday night, we spent almost 8 hours counselling the wife of a friend despite all our attempts to avoid involvement.
Our friend, T, had been a regular at one of our restaurants for many years and has become a friend despite all our busy and often disparate traveling schedules. In fact, we were even privileged enough to be invited to his wedding, which turned out to be one of the most unhappy, strained and blatantly angst-filled wedding we had the misfortune to attend.
After the wedding, which was many years ago, we never saw his wife again. We were given the impression that she was doing her doctorate back in UK while he had business in Asia.
Last night, I managed to catch up with my erstwhile uncle who was making a brief detour in the same country. It was supposed to be a quiet supper and early (for us anyway) night.
Then he receives a call from T's wife. We were flabbergasted. We did not even know how she found out he was in town. We were surprised she was in town for that matter.
She was in some distress and asked that she come to the restaurant to speak with my uncle as she had left T and he was apparently dogging her tail. She needed some place to escape to and needed to speak with my uncle, whom she claims T respects beyond anyone else in this world.
I started making signs to vacate post haste and it was with much desperate cajoling that my uncle managed to persuade me to back him up. Sigh.
Our natures are such that we do not like getting involved in other people's personal issues and dislike being privy to things that would disturb the equilibrium and peace of our sanctuaries. But our inborn sense of hospitality and graciousness forbade us from asking her not to come.
So we waited. We prepared our shishas and coffees for a painful night ahead.
She came. She complained. She exposed her husband's lies which we always suspected but never questioned or insinuated since it was just water off a duck's back. She accused. She pleaded battery and abuse.
We nodded, murmured in the right pauses and basically kept our opinions to ourselves.
We messaged the husband that she was in our territory and since they had brought their dirty linen to our doorsteps, we would be impartial and objective mediators.
He apologised and curtly said the ball was in her court. He sent her a messaged bitterly thanking her for destroying his reputation and image with his friends. He did not come to collect his runaway wife.
The ball was in her court and we were cautiously sympathetic without committing ourselves, with typical diplomacy.
We were also desperate to get rid of her as we both have flights to catch the next day and we were very tired.
She refused to budge and kept rehashing the same questions and complaints. 4 hours later, while we were talking about shishas and T's adoration of his time spent with us in the quiet haven of our restaurant and our company (something she was virulently jealous of), we had a breakthrough.
She did not have Wife Manual Version 1.0.
For an Indian woman, she had absolutely no idea how to be an Asian wife to a typically Asian man.
With much slapping of our foreheads with our palms, my uncle and I gave her brief synopsis of the chapters in Wife Manual Version 1.0. We kindly refrained from bringing up more advanced pointers from Wife Manual Version 3.25, republished as of March 2008.
She talked back to him. He is a man who can never be wrong and dislikes and refuses to accept anyone's naysaying in any form. We usually dealt with this by laughing at him. She dealt with it by shouting at him. Which apparently gets her beaten up.
We simply said we would have left him, while laughing at him while we sued his pants off.
She just complained and went back for more.
She made nasty comments about his beloved mother. Never, ever insult the other's parents no matter what happens. It is rude and shows superbly bad upbringing and manners.
My uncle and I were appalled and could only exchange wide-eyed looks of shock and horror at her bad behaviour.
She harped at him about the hours he went out, came home, or kept at work. We told her he was an extremely independent man who did not like being questioned and monitored. She should just lay out his night clothes, towels and slippers for when he returned from his extremely gruelling hours at work, and if awake, run his bath and just make him tea or coffee without questioning his movements.
She said it was unfair and feudal. We nodded sagely and agreed but that was the culture he was from. You married him knowing this. You either live with it or you walk.
At this point, we were just hoping she walked to the nearest hotel so we could go back to ours. We were knackered just listening to her.
I am a woman but I could see how and why T would rail at her. Despite my wild streak of independence, I was raised to be the perfect wife by a very old-fashioned grandmother. I know all the rules, the dictates and subtleties of winning the marital game. Logically. Rationally.
I just choose not to accept it. I reject it wholeheartedly with every atom in my being. And I refuse to play the game.
T's wife is spoilt, unreasonable, whiny, ungrateful, nagging, selfish, inconsiderate, boastful and remarkably silly for a highly-educated woman and professional. She has also never been taught how to be a wife.
The fact that my uncle, a man incidentally *roll eyes*, had to read her song and verse from Wife Manual Version 1.0 is something I think is highly embarrassing for her.
She also did not listen despite our reiteration of our recommendation of her next plan of action. She kept nagging us and yet when we voiced them reluctantly, she would nod and then ask us again.
We were incredibly tired of her by the time the darkened skies broke to allow the first pale blue rays of careful enlightenment. She called him. He ignored her calls. My uncle called and he did not answer. I refused to call.
In the end, we had no choice but to take her out for breakfast and after some nervous haggling, my uncle lost the toss and had to bring her to his hotel for her to check into. I refused point-blank to have her at mine.
He is stuck with her now and I gratefully escaped. We both depart today, leaving her to stew in a misery and dilemma of her own device.
While we are in full sympathy, if indeed T does physically and verbally abuse her, we think she puts herself in the position of a recurring victim.
Wife Manual is something most women in Asia or with an Asian heritage (even a half-arsed Eurasian one like mine) were brought up with. Even the wealthiest and most sheltered daughters of the finest houses are taught rudiments of this.
Or at least that was how it was during my time.
She is only a couple of years younger than me but I find it unbelievable that Wife Manual Version 1.0 should have become a limited edition.
It is not so much that we should study it so we can subjugate ourselves to a lifetime of servitude to our spouses but so we can understand the expectations and emotional upbringing many men in Asia possess.
Like my grandfather used to tell me, know thy enemy as thyself and a hundred battles fought will be won.
I am going to go into much needed seclusion soon as I dislike the negative shrouds of emotional turmoil brushing against me.
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