I got all dressed up and smelling nice (easier now that I quit smoking). I finally met with my wife around mid-afternoon and unloaded all of her crap from my car. I got to see my daughter a little and after a half hour or so of me telling her I am fine, and her mother insisting I finally went inside the house.

From there it was almost as if nothing had ever happened at my house. Her mother as friendly as always and her father quiet and secluded as always. Shortly after I got there he locked himself in my wife’s room and closed the door. I was assured that this wasn’t rude by my wife repeatedly, but I don’t see how someone that continues to exclude themselves from everything around them day after day is not being rude. I think that my wife is just familiar with her father acting like this she doesn’t believe that his actions are rude. In my family, or culture, which ever you want to call it, a closed door is because you want privacy. When quests are in your house you do not close doors as it shows them you want peace and privacy from them, so this is very easy for me to naturally assume that her father simply hates me and always has. He has expressed his racism towards Japanese to me before; I don’t doubt it is broader than that.

Given the red carpet treatment from everyone else I quickly felt at home. I repeated told everyone no, and thanked them for their hospitality then tired of my wife telling me it’s ok I explained that she needs to stop asking me questions like this. If she asks me a question regarding an action I will from now on respond with what I should do in my culture. If it is rude for me to accept an offer of food, money, etc…, I will tell her exactly that, then she can deliberately tell me what I am going to do. This basically gives her quite a bit of control over me, but also eliminates any further confusion about cultural differences.

This later backfired on me. Towards the end of the night I was ready to leave and her mother insisted that I stay. My wife, in translation, asked me if I would stay. I went back to my previous statement and told her after all the problems that we have had with each other I didn’t think it would be appropriate if I stayed and I think it would make everyone feel uncomfortable if I didn’t stay. She immediately told her mother that I would stay the night.

A little shocked and confused I tried to retract what I had previously said and my wife responded with telling me that she had already told her mother that I agreed.

That wasn’t the end of it. They put me up in my wife’s bed and she slept on the floor. I’m a guest yet feel like royalty. My wife did make one very good point though. With the amount of hospitality that I saw she noted “you can see why they were so offended when you kicked them out”. I guess in Korea it doesn’t matter if you have the devil over for dinner, you treat him with more respect that he deserves.

The worse part about everything is I have no clue where this leaves me and my wife. I would love for them to beg me into staying forever so that I don’t have to spend another night in my car, but then what would that approve and how long would it take before I fell back into my old habits? I need the whole homeless scenario. It gives me a new sense of purpose and some much needed drive and ambition.

I go back and forth with my wife.  Have a couple good days to the point where I feel comfortable telling her my opinions.  Then say the wrong things, half of the time I don’t even know what it was, and she goes off on a rage like I am about to kill her.

The biggest thing I hear is kicking her parents out.  Yes I agree I was wrong.  But I won’t take 100% of the blame.  I still don’t feel its appropriate to disrespect me like they did in my own house.  The biggest thing that still pisses me off is telling me “the U.S. has no culture” implied by it only being a couple hundred years old.

Bottom line I say anything that might rub her as slightly being negative and she can switch from loving to vindictive in half a heart beat.  The part that confuses me is I tried to demand respect from the guests in my house as long as they are guests, and her brother goes and looses $4,000 of his college tuition in a single night at the casino during the same week and he is forgiven in an instant (can’t even bring it up as conversation, I am reminded “we forgave him so we don’t talk about it anymore”) and I am still in the dog house nearly 4 months later.

After a short fight with the lawyer’s yesterday trying to find out what had happened with my daughter I finally managed to get through to her.

I think that I am now finally beginning to understand on how to handle my wifes emotions.  I would have to saw she is like a lion.  A simple poke with a stick or even accidentally stepping on her tail and prepare for her to bite your head off.  A straight shot for the jugular and she doesn’t care about anything else at the moment except for the kill.  Which possibly explains why she filed for divorce with the complaint of dirty clothes on the floor.

However if you coddle her and woo her into a relaxing trance she will purr for you.  My biggest problem with this is my patience and temper is almost as bad.  I still have a laptop with a cracked screen.  So my biggest challenge if I want to resolve any issues with my wife is not in trying to romance her back or convince her divorce is bad, it will be learning some patience.

I think if someone were to walk up to my wife with a 2×4 and knock her across the face, she would continue to ignore their existence.  I am half convinced now that its not even voluntary, that she is seriously that ignorant.

My daughter fell and hurt her arm, and went to the hospital last night.  I have no clue how she is doing cause my wife won’t tell me.  I have left about 10 messages on her voice mail, about 20 e-mails, some that I made the font as large as possible and only say “How is Hanna?”, and she still won’t tell me.  I know she has gotten them, cause she replied to tell me I am an ass for bothering her.

I still have no clue what is wrong.

I have now called her divorce lawyer and they have told me “she is obligated by law”.  Which is great, except now the law needs to enforce that.

I realize that I may not be the best husband in the world, and lost all eligibility for that title the very second I told my wife to ask her parents to leave our house.  Of all dumb mistakes in my life, that one ranks pretty high on my top ten list.  In a matter of seconds, a muttered phrased shouted in anger, may of changed my life forever.

I thought I patched things up with my wife, before she went to San Francisco.  I guess I was wrong.  The day after Father’s day the postman knocked on my door to serve me divorce papers.

The in-laws are finally gone.  My wife is talking to me once again.  However I don’t know exactly what is going on.  She is still angry with me, but the death threats have stopped.  She keeps asking me what I am planning on doing with her parents.  Truth is, I don’t know what there is that I can do.  Send them a fruit basket?  A greeting card that says “I’m Sorry”?  What are my options?

The bottom line is I got too angry with the way I was treated and laid all my cards on the table invoking everything I was within my power to do, in hopes that everyone would at least understand that they don’t have any right to yell at me in my house.  Now I am being asked how to fix it.  I really want to tell everyone to learn to control there temper and not to yell, but I am more guilty of this than anyone else.

What are my choices for fixing this?  Why do I have to take 100% of the fault and blame.  I kicked everyone out of my house to try and get some control of my house back.  This may not be the best way to of done this, but too late now, I can’t choose it.  After talking with some friends and family about the situation most people are about 50/50 on the situation.  Some saying I am wrong, others saying I am right.  The worse part is I know I am on the wrong side.  I could of done something else.  My brain wasn’t working that well at the time in order to find something else to do, but I agree, I should of done anything else.

The in-laws left this morning around 6am.  Since I didn’t go home until after midnight, I slept through them leaving.   So no goodbyes or anything they were just gone.

Not that I have a problem with this I just feel bad over the whole thing.  I didn’t want them to leave I just wanted some things to change.  Gaining respect was the main thing. I really wanted them to learn my culture so at least in a little sense they would stop telling me that I am rude.  If I was Korean I might be rude.  Except, I’m not Korean.

My wife took my car with her brother, to the hospital with my daughter so that they could do another urine test for the UTI.  Took the car seat out of his car, moved it too mine, then failed to leave me the keys to his car.  Now they are at a restaurant eating pizza, while I am stuck without a car and need to go to the post office to mail these ShamSchool CD’s. 

It seems like it has been a long day today. I have programmed the number to the local police department into my phone and have almost called them twice. I just want peace in my own home. I want people to stop screaming at me “how dare you be so rude”. I just want a couple rules enforced in my house.

1. Close your mouth when you eat, if this is a problem take smaller bites
2. Don’t talk with your mouth full at the dinner table, food falls out and you spray the rest of the food on the table with your spit.
3. No yelling, no matter how mad you are.
4. Sleep at night, stop taking naps at 3pm then complain at 3am that there is nothing to do in America.
5. Say anything negative about the Army, my country, or anything about what I stand for and am proud of, you better have someplace else to stay.
6. Treat me with respect, do not order me around, do not critizise my lifestyle, or other life decisions. Because I am 30 and haven’t gone to college yet doesn’t mean you have the right to put me down and call me stupid.

These are the main rules that I am trying to enforce. I don’t care who you are. If my own mother were to come in my house and break only one of these rules I would kick her out too.

I have been in many houses, seen many TV shows, etc… where the man of the house has one golden rule.  As long as you are in his house, you follow those rules.  If you don’t like it, then you get the hell out!  Leave on your own be forced out, whatever, you follow the rules or you are gone.  I think King Triton in “The Little Mermaid” said it best…., “…as long as you live under my ocean, you will follow my rules”.  The whole, “When in Rome” is another example.  Implying that one should follow Roman law and customs while in Rome.  So why does this simple rule not exist in Korea?

I have tried and tried to explain this concept to my wife and her brother and have gotten nowhere.   I don’t understand why this is so hard.  If I go to someone else’s house I expect the same.  I am not terribly strict, treat me with respect, understand the things here belong to me, etc. I am sick of walking into the kitchen and seeing everyone clear off the table while I scratch my head thinking, “when was dinner”?  My wife tells me it was just a snack…, 4 hours later another snack and I accidentally hear glasses cling from the other room so actually get a bite to eat this time. 

Yesterday, my daughter was a little cranky and my wife and her mother came to the conclusion that she had a UTI (Urinary Track Infection). I don’t know how they guessed it but they were right.

During the process of them freaking out and talking in Korean I decided to find a clinic and do what I could to get her seen that day. While waiting for a call back from my sister I grabbed my Army medical kit and thought I would check it to see if I had anything that might help my daughter. Since my wife was in the shower and locked the door this was the only place to look at the time. I basically knew I would come up empty, but I did find one of my pocket knives that I was about to write up as lost in the bag.

While looking in the bag my wife came out and started yelling at me, telling me I am an idiot and such. I did the best I could over her screams that I was just looking and it didn’t hurt to look. Giving up at trying to explain I packed up the back and walked away. Next thing I know my wife is telling me that they are going to the emergency room and she didn’t want me to go. I tried to explain not to go to the emergency room, and try a clinic instead, but was quickly shot down by both my wife and her brother attacking me telling me I am crazy for not wanting to take her to the emergency room. Five minutes later I get in touch with my sister, find the clinic (directly across the street), and text the address to my wife.