10:00 (or later!)

I probably shouldn't tell tales about my husband, but there is one situation that I've learned to live with that I have never been happy about. Since I stand sort of between two cultures I'm not really sure if I have grounds to complain or not and since we've been married 27 years obviously I've adjusted my thinking.

What time would you say is a reasonable time for a husband to come home after work? In my family, Tetsu leaves for work around 8:00 in the morning and his return time is around 10:30 at night. Doesn't this seem odd to you? When I was a child my father left before the rest of the family woke up and was home around 4:00. My brother too, leaves in the morning while it is still dark but he too can be home by 4:00. In my brother's case, this means he and his wife can go shopping together, he can do the duties of taking the kids to softball and soccer practice etc. and the family often goes out to dinner together. If nothing else, this is typically Californian.

When Tetsu and I were first married he worked in an office and he was one of the underlings. He was never able to leave the office before 9:00 at night and I found this very difficult to understand but his explanation was,

"Tanya, how could you expect a mere office person to leave from work before the office manager! No way!"

So I kept quiet. As we were transferred around the county Tetsu worked in various offices and it was always the same. Quite a few years later when he had moved up in the company, I'd question why he worked until 9:00 or 10:00 and his response was,

"Tanya, how could you expect someone who is supposed to train and be an example to the inexperienced to leave from work before his underlings! No way!"

It seems anyway you look at it Tetsu is going to work until late at night.

The most difficult years for me were when the kids were little and it was no longer what I could or could not put up with. Now the whole issue included his not being part of raising a family. He was never home! The kids and I would eat alone every night and they'd get a glimpse of dad in the morning before they went to school. I felt like a single mother without the wear and tear of making a living financially.

This situation is not limited to just my family. Of course there are Japanese families where the father is around more, but I think the majority of Japanese men work very long hours and leave the raising of the children, the keeping of the house, the budgeting and the taking care of elderly parents entirely to the wife. Husbands and wives do not go out together as a couple. Men have their business associates to do things with, women have freedom to go out to lunch with women friends or follow their own hobbies while the kids are at school. Occasionally on a Sunday the family will have time together but husbands call this "required service to the family" and with sighs and guffaws they'll explain to their co-workers that they can't go golfing or out drinking because they have to put in family time.

You can see why this can cause some stress in a marriage especially when the husband is Japanese and the wife foreign, with different expectations. Tetsu doesn't drink nor play golf so usually I decide I have little cause for complaint since he is devoting his time completely to supporting us. Still... By the way, today is Saturday but he is off at work. And most holidays Tetsu works too.

I have to count my blessings though because many of my friends' husbands work for a major company in the city and they work until the early hours of the morning! This means that except for once a week on the weekend, the wife never has to prepare a meal for her husband. The company provides all meals in the corporation's cafeteria. The husbands claim the food is pretty good too! And my friends can cook something simple that the kids like so no one really complains.

Another thing I'd have a hard time handling is the situation where the company transfers the husband to another city or another country and the family is left while the husband goes off for four or five years! Of course there are business trips back so the husband can make a pit stop at his own home every few months but I don't think I'd last long with a family life like that!

Now that Tetsu and I are in our 50s and the kids are both out of the house I'm back to my own level of accepting the situation or occasionally making noise about the lack of time we spend together as a couple. Granted, because of Tetsu's late hours this means that I can teach in the evenings until 8:30 and I don't have to worry about getting a meal ready for him the minute the students leave. And honestly speaking, some of my grumblings are determined by my own moods. There are loads of times when I am quite happy that I have all those late evening hours free because it means that much more sewing time!