Hi, all readers,
My husband is a very independent person, a very very intelligent man. He :
- hates outings with my family (ie. his brother-in-laws, etc.)
- hates outings with neighbors (unless he likes them; which he determines by the first impression)
- hates any marriage ceremony
- hates almost anything which has lot of strangers around.
- does not believe the importance of extended family
- only considers me and the children his family. " MY family (i.e. my parents, siblings, etc.) NOT HIS family. He persisted that "well, I never bother you to know my family, and why should you do that!..." He did not even attend his own relatives's wedding even if he was invited.
- I asked him to take me and the children along to visit his family, but he refused to; besides, he himself hardly visited his family. I told him it is a good thing for us to know his family; but he things it is nonsense. He came from a disfunctional family... a lot of divorces, abusive father, brothers were notorious to have either bad temper and have bad behavior in the neighbor... etc.
We often had argument about this conflict. Attending my niece's wedding is like he has done ME a huge favor. Well, I did show appreciation for that. Since his attitude is that anything in that nature will mean forcing him to something he does not want.
He is a loneler. The hobbies he has are all for single only, such as reading, star-gazing. Even that, he is detered if there will be strangers around unless it is a bookstore like border book store, or library... ie. he does not need to socialize. I asked him to develop just one hobby with me, ... well none. He could not come up with anything, nor accept any of my suggestions. I gave up on that already. I decided to derive my happiness on my own. I told him this would slowly drive us apart, but he thought I was just too different from him and did not understand him.
I am puzzled! Am I wrong to expect him to develop a hobby with us? Am I wrong to expect him to understand the importance of extended families?
Perhaps it is also because of our extreme differences... He came from a disfunctional family... he is the only only who achieved a college degree and earned pretty money. I came from a very disciplinary family. Half of my sibilings attend college; and all my nephews and nieces did or are attending colleges. 7 out of my 10-15 nieces and nephews attended IVLeague colleges. To my husband, they all just a bunch of arrogant people. Well, they all think quite highly of themselves, a bit of arrogance, but not like they are bad in any way.
However, my husband is a great software consultant. We worked together before we dated. Almost all clients loved his work and trusted his honesty. I was always impressed with his work attitude and quality of work; which, with his intelligence, has made him a multi-millionaire at age 35. On the other hand, he is very tempermental. For example, once he tried to set up an alarm clock which did not operate to his satisfaction. In mere 1-2 minutes of attempting to get it to work, he was so angry that he punched the clock and now the clock hardly works. There have been several instances like this happened.
I told him that this was unnecessary, frightened us, indeed affected me especially. He would turn around and pointed out if I truly love him, I would understand it and also just leave the room whenever he throw temper-tandrun....
There are 3 children in the picture, and I do not want to affect them. Now, I just live day by day ignoring... ignoring anything from him which bothers me... in order maintain my sanity. Perhaps I just don't understand him!?
Anyone who has similar experience and how do you handle it?
builder@ggem.info
