Calm

I don't hate my better half, I hate the fact that she was brough up in a society that is as superficial and egotistic and materialistic as ours is! The result is the price I'm paying just to have a quiet life, and it is very high, very demanding and very emotionally stressful.

I've had some time to think about the situation I'm in, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm either an outcast or mentally unstable...

Living in a society as ours, we tend to conform to certain norms, values & habits that we are 'expected' to follow, and by not following them, we 'rock the boat' and run into lots of colorful and disgusting turns of events. Example? Just try to complete a transactions in the Traffic Dept. with a baseball cap, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans! The creatures there 'expect' a Kuwaiti to look like one, head-dress, dishdasha and all. They are treated differently from the rest of the people, because they 'look' Kuwaiti.

Take social functions: Society 'expects' one to marry into a family of the same bloodline, deviating from this path would bring shame, and those that do become semi-shunned in this society.

Moreover, society 'expects' a couple to be happily married and raise kids, even after an arranged marriage, not realising that these kids are now 'people', with minds and opinions of their own.

Furthermore, some Kuwaiti women now have a 'plan' for the first few years of marriage, and it's got absolutely NOTHING to do with the future of their marriage or their happiness with their husbands!

Let me illustrate: 1)Get married with a big bang, 2)go on an expensive honeymoon, 3)get a maid, 4)throw a reception, 5)get pregnant, 6)give birth in a 5-star private hospital, 7)throw a reception, 8)travel after you give birth for a change of scenery. And if just ONE of these tasks is not delivered, the husband is not a provider, and does not love nor respect his wife!

I thought of this plan for some time, and found it quite honestly, a waste of time. But i've come to realize that 'everybody' is doing it, and the immensity of each plan just gets larger and larger. Everyone wants to be better, more creative, more lucrative, more popular, more and more and more superficial!

Everyone's doing it, and the men, the husbands, are actually conforming to this school of thought, just to please their wives! Sure, they complain about it amongst themselves, or just keep quiet when someone else is describing the same plan, but that's about it. Benign resignation to the fact that our society has become a beacon of the superficial & material world.

I'm not saying that all these things actually happened to me, but It boggles the mind, my mind at least, to think what it would take to be 'happy' for a Kuwaiti wife these days, and what sort of expectations the wife enforces on her husband. All because 'everyone esle is doing it'!?

What's wrong with us?

What happened to the man being a 'provider' as opposed to a 'conformer'? What happened with the 'accomodating wife' as opposed to the 'self-centered' wife? What happened to having a tasty burger on the beach at night, as opposed to a very visible dinner table at a 5-star restaurant? What happened to 'wear anything that makes you feel comfortable' as opposed to 'looking good all the time"?

Is it me, or has everyone gone stir-crazy with materialism? And when you think it's finally over, and that the wife has matured past this point, a younger woman comes along and throws even more silliness into the norm. And it goes on and on, so that by the time you're a parent yourself, you'll have to contend with 20+ years of continuous refinement to the process of 'more bling'!!

The sad part of this is, i foresaw all this, and i threw myself into it with my eyes closed. Am I insane to think like this? Am I uncool because I think candy shouldn't be placed in washrooms? Am I cheap to think baby souvenirs shouldn't be as extravagant as KD10 apiece and filled with designer chocolate? Am i a cheapskate to think that a burger tastes far better than a plate of pasta at Lenotre, where I can actually count the pieces of the pasta i've been served with and get the number right ALL THE TIME? While that may be true for some, deep down inside, I believe (i'd like to believe) that people have some common sense within them, but it's surpressed ever so violently due to the lost souls who have an inferiority complex as large as the Earth they dwell upon.

I threw myself in this situation, and I'm dealing with it with every waking minute. Had I the means to turn back time....Wishful thinking....if only I did have the means!

Doubts

I'm beginning to question my logic, as opposed to the rest of my surroundings. For some time now, I've been made to think that what I did & thought was right, only to find that it was a one-sided view, so I decided to change in order to accomodate the views of the other part of my life. Since then, though, I've been compromising further than usual, in the hopes that common ground and-eventually-peace would take over. It had, for some time, all things considered, and it was quiet for a longer period than ever; for the first time, there hadn't been a serious argument over the usual trivia for more than 4 weeks...for the first time ever!

But when a lack of understanding leads to an argument, and eventually words are used that do nothing but to inflame the situation, time and time and time again, I begin to question just how far my compromise should actually go. Especially when walls of ego and self-centerism are raised above mutual understanding.

Complex as this situation may be, it is not unique. In fact, it's so common that at one time I actually asked God NOT to put me in this situation, even before the decision to end my good life-as it was back then-was made.

Sometimes I think it's punishment, sometimes I think it's a blessing in disguise, sometimes I think it's how life is. At all times I'm expected to take it in & accept it as how life is now. But I can't! I still can't get over the trivial nonsense or the ego trips and verbal abuses. It's simply ridiculous what's happening to me, almost laughable, and certainly unbearable.

I know it's useless to bicker & moan about it, but at this point, this is all I can do, and that's how ridiculous this situation is!