From a Heterosexual Husband of Asian Heritage
I made a mistake in my marriage that I have been struggling to clean up. I have also been trying to be there for my wife, who’s been struggling with her own feelings about my mistake.
GROUPS FOR ASIAN-HERITAGE HUSBANDS
I’ve been convening topic groups at workshops for Asian-heritage (or Global Majority) husbands. I start off the groups with, “I am struggling in my marriage, made a big mistake, and don’t know what to do.”
The following questions have built safety and helped us to think about each other: Why did you decide to get married? Why did you choose your partner? What’s going well in your marriage? What’s hard in your marriage?
When there is time and safety has been established, some more advanced questions have also been useful: Where does your and your wife’s early material [distress] get hooked and make it hard for both of you to think? What are your class, race, and religious backgrounds, and how do they affect your marriage? How often do you have sex? Who initiates sex, and what gets in the way of talking about what you want?
Here’s what I have noticed as I’ve done this work:
- Asian husbands are so good! I am falling in love with us. With each story I hear, it only becomes clearer how good and wonderful we are.
- Many of us who were born outside the United States, or are first-generation to the United States, were subjected as young boys to violence at the hands of our parents, more often our fathers. Some of us witnessed violence or other overt harshness between our parents.
- In some of the families I knew in Asia or that immigrated to the United States, there was little or no pretense about sexism. In my family, my father often called my mother “stupid” and “small-minded.” He got mad at her for making mistakes and humiliated her in front of us and others. As a boy I hated him for that.
- Being a “model minority” and “doing as expected” (from Asian internalized oppression) can keep me trying to be a “good husband”—especially trying to avoid doing what I witnessed between my parents. Without discharge, this means that I try to not let my material show, which keeps me separate from my wife and from other husbands.
RE-EVALUATIONS
Here are some of my re-evaluations:
The Closeness Laboratory
The expectations for and safety in a committed relationship open up many opportunities for my wife and me to get close and undo our hurts. Whether we’re aware of it or not, our minds are constantly trying to find ways to get closer and receive attention for where in the past we didn’t get enough or we gave up after being defeated. Even when we are “going away” in our minds, we are trying to figure out something that will bring us closer and hoping that someone will finally come after us [lovingly pursue us] no matter what [whatever happens].
As I discharge, I am gaining more slack and experimenting with ways to shift our relationship and get closer. It’s like a laboratory in which I keep trying things, inside and outside of Co-Counseling sessions. The expectation that my wife won’t give up on me easily if I make a mistake, and the recognition that she is who I have chosen to spend the most hours of my life with, encourages me to invest my mind and time in trying to get closer.
The Contradiction of Marriage
The many oppressive and constraining parts of marriage—sexism, men’s oppression, isolation (including heterosexual couples being left alone), parents’ oppression, expectations related to sex, and so on—are hard on our relationship. And as a heterosexual man I have the early isolation that tells me that my only true connection can be with a female who is or will become my lifelong partner—a set-up for disappointment and even blame.
I have found it useful in a Co-Counseling session to go back with my wife to my young self and tell the little one, “I am sorry it is so hard and lonely. One day she will come and love you so much that she will commit to spending the rest of her life with you, even though it is hard for her at times.” I find it useful to discharge on the contradiction [to distress] that my wife provides, as it has been easy not to notice, even after twenty-two years of marriage, that I actually have someone!
Being My Wife’s Counselor
We men want nothing less than for our wives to get out from under all the sexism, early and current, that they have experienced. Yet because I feel close to and safe with my wife, I make my biggest mistakes in her direction. This hurts her in the present, and it also restimulates her earlier hurts from sexism. While I need to clean up, reduce, and eliminate my mistakes, I can also work to be my wife’s best counselor on sexism.
It’s taken me a long time to stop trying to be “good” so as not to upset her. I have tried to be good partly in an effort to make up for [compensate for] my father’s treatment of my mother, but mainly because my mother would leave, or threaten to leave, whenever she felt hurt by my father’s sexism. My wife has wanted to have huge raging sessions about what happened to her as a young female and hasn’t been able to do that with me as long as I have been so scared of losing her. To help her move forward in her re-emergence, I have had to work on how I feared losing my mother when my mother was upset.
Also, it’s been hard for me to be my wife’s counselor when she is talking about my sexism. My twin sister died in the womb, and my mother almost died when I was born. These things happened long before I ever heard of sexism, but later feelings about sexism got attached to them. “You killed your twin sister and almost killed your mom” is what I’ve felt when my wife or other women have talked about my sexism. No wonder I haven’t been able to listen! It has taken a lot of deep discharge to untangle my feeling that it was my sexism that caused the females around me to get hurt—that I was to blame because I was male.
It has been hopeful to develop more attention in this area and to watch my wife use it. A few weeks ago she lightly punched me in the stomach because I had stood very near to her when she’d been upset about something having to do with me. It was the first time I had been able to do that, and the first time I had seen her land a punch [hit someone] in the twenty-five years I had known her. We’ve gone on to have more physical sessions in which I hold firm when she’s angry and she uses my attention and strength to rage more.
Vulnerability versus Domination
Given my early conditioning as a boy, it’s scary for me to feel or show vulnerability. I act this out in my marriage by not noticing or calling attention to where I feel hurt. The distress recording is “I am fine.” But every so often I suddenly act mean to my wife. I start feeling resentful of and victimized by her, and to avoid feeling vulnerable or wronged, I act out my domination patterns and try to “squash” her—again following my training as a male.
I have found it useful to discharge on how I was targeted early in my life for showing my hurts. And when I feel hurt, I am learning to notice it and clumsily say to my wife, “That hurts my feelings.” It’s a lot easier for her to hear and understand than my trying to squash her! And in response, she has been able to show kindness and understanding.
Complete Adoration
A useful policy for me has been to decide that—no matter what my wife is doing, even if it is based in distress—if I am not completely adoring her, it is because of my own distresses. This policy has given me many opportunities to reach for mini-sessions, discharge, and re-evaluate! It has also made my time with my wife much more enjoyable. And it’s a strong foundation from which I can take firm positions against her distresses in a way in which she knows I am on her side. It seems to give her a good base from which to work.
Sex
We all receive many messages and have many expectations about sex and marriage. How much or how little sex are married couples supposed to have at different stages? How much should sex matter? What’s exciting, and what’s not? And so on. As a male I’ve found it interesting to think and discharge about how to balance who initiates sex, what is going on [happening] with my wife when she doesn’t show any interest in it for long periods, and how to be more present during sex. Doing this has led to a big change in our sex life. I am also more able to resist the pull to masturbate, look at pornography, or think about other women in sexual ways.
USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion
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