In support of the rage of man

[Belacqua]

There is so much wrong with this, Benny...

No doubt.  But I think it's less wrong than risking a serious confrontation, or leaving the kids abandoned.

We go to work, we pay the bills, we take good care of the kids.  Sometimes, just functioning like that has to be good enough.  This idea that if you aren't feeling fully realized as a human being, you should walk away from important relationships, leave your kids, change towns or whatever-- that's just not my view of it.

Maybe in the future things will get better.  Maybe our business will take off and we can spend a little time in the Bahamas and patch things up.  Who knows?  But for now-- I will just have to turtle down for a while and keep showing up on time for work.

It's interesting to me that you're in Korea. I don't know if that's relevant to the situation or not.

Marriages here in Japan are different from US marriages. It took me a while to figure this out. 

When I first got here, ladies I knew would tell me about the vacations they were planning, and I'd say, that's cool, is your husband going with you? and they'd look puzzled and say -- no, why would he? They had their own thing going on.

I've worked with the International Women's Club in my city. It's half local people and half foreigners, mostly American, who are working in Japan temporarily. They help each other and have events together. The Japanese women often note that American wives expect their husbands to be everything. Constant best friend and companion and on-call dance partner and everything else. And then when that can't happen they just get divorced. Japanese people tend to have less romantic views of marriage, but less volatile relationships. They have friends whom they talk to, whom they aren't married to. 

There are pros and cons, of course. 30 years ago I thought I'd rather pack it in than have a less than perfect constant romance. Now I've been married 25 years things seem different, and good in a way I hadn't anticipated. 

So that's not advice for you, just my reaction to what you say. Life isn't the movies, and you should do what you sincerely think is best.