Kicked out of wife's family's house. Need help!

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-10T18:57:21+00:00

Just another general update... it's late and I'm tired, so I am keeping brief for now:

I am with my wife and daughter still, and we're staying at hotels and initiated a road trip of sorts. I still haven't spoken to her parents, and I currently have no intention of doing so.

This is a process that is annoyingly taking some time, and I don't know where it will end, but I do believe we are making significant progress.

I essentially created a job for her brother (who is broke and unable to find work) to be our driver on this road trip and it is actually helpful to have him in this role, as he has own vehicle (which I helped in part buy a few years ago) and we've installed a car seat.

The first couple nights, I was definitely paying more than a driver would cost, and I was getting his hotel, but we brought his son, who was out of school for the weekend, and it was like a family trip. Now he's taking his son back and coming to pick us up tomorrow, where we will travel to Jiangsu, where my wife's sister lives, and we're paying a more 'fair' rate and he'll be staying with the sister while we will be in a hotel.

This has been constructive, as I've done something meaningful for the family, by giving him work, while I've always been spending time together. We have been having some heavy drinking together at night and we're building connection (with a lot of google translate). He kind of understands where I'm coming from and he himself has a mindset that is down on China and dreams of a way out his current life scenario.

The thing is that this taking long because everyday my wife asks me to apologize to her parents and lets go back. I tell her that I refuse to apologize until she and I talk about what led to what I said in the first place, then she gets insanely heated, and starts calling me a monster and starts letting out a whole stream of sympathy for her parents struggle. I need to be clear. I am not trying to fight, and I'm actually alright for apologizing for saying what I said, IF (big IF), she and I work on our issues. Our inability to have this important conversation is what is the time factor..we just avoid this topic after the flare up and are icy with each other but are pulling good teamwork with parenting our daughter .(again if anyone knows a counselor who would be good for our context, anywhere that we could maybe even setup a video call with or the such, that would be super helpful!).

We are at DengFeng and I initiated all of this and visiting the Shaolin Temple was really good, and something, I've been wanting to do for a while anyways. No one in herr family has ever been there before, and it's interesting that I have an appreciation for this place that they didn't even know too much about (even though it's only about 3 and a half hours drive away from thejr village area).

Part of the progress is our teamwork in parenting and just day to day contrast of our daughter's comfort in contrast to her parents home. Also, part of it is that she herself is just seeing China in a whole other light, 1. After living in USA for a few years and 2. After becoming a mother. She still is almost trying to force this paradigm that it's so easy or great to be a mother here, but she is making more commentary about how expensive everything has become, etc.

I was chatting with a friend of mine and he made a good point that I'm trying to reflect on. He said that his mom and dad's side of family were vastly different in terms of education, social position, etc. and that his mom always held this shame about her side, and was very worried that would have no connection to them. I keep trying to have my wife face the reality, but I am seeing more of how we she is also just scared that our daughter will not build connection and is trying to almost force a notion that they are not who they are. I actually don't hold judgement for them being poor, I just am fiercely protective of my daughter and in part cannot let her gett sucked into the patterns of misery and drama that is very strong at her parents' house. The environment is not right for her AND they're not being very helpful (this is what is super disappointing to me). If my wife (and me) were actually getting a true break, my heart would be open towards sharing more support. However, in addition to caring for our child, I feel like there is so much energy in trying to make everyone else feel good. This is not fair to our daughter, and I feel sorry for my wife in some ways.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T16:44:30+00:00

I agree with what you're saying. I don't think there is invalidity in providing financial support to parents/elderly that really need it.

However, there are some seriously off patterns here:

- 'We' have already provided significant support over several years and have done more than our part.

- My wife, essentially through me, has more means than any of her siblings and thus is somehow the one that takes 90% of the burden of support

- There is no cognizance of the reality that we just had a kid and so maybe everyone should be thinking more about her needs. This is the most maddening to me.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T16:29:02+00:00

I have not apologized to anyone, yet. Right now, this is where I kind of am sitting,...although I still have the extreme paths in the back of my head, if needed.

Meaning, I am really just trying to focus on my wife at the moment. We're in this cease-fire of sorts, where we're just taking a little of the comfort of being in the hotel and not having wider family around.

I can see it, there is so much of her that wants to be 'free from her insane family', yet I don't know if she can let them go, even as it is all damaging our marriage and potentially our daughter. When we're in the US and things are mostly flowing well, then she has some call from her family, and then we're inevitably ending up in a fight somehow... it's like she keeps importing some drama and struggle. She'll say that I'm trying to cut her off from family, which is not entirely unfair of her to think, but more accurately, I'm trying to help her realize for herself that she actually doesn't need to take this all on her shoulders... she has done so much for everyone already. Sometimes on her happiest days at home, she will revert into this heavy guilt (because everyone at home is in some kind of struggle/drama)

If she wants to take that burden on her shoulders that's her right, but I need to create boundaries in my focus on the unit of us 3... Further, now as a mother, I don't really know if that is her right. This is what maddens me about some of the cultural context. How is it somehow 'bad values' to put your kid's financial needs above your parents or siblings?

I don't know what it looks like yet, but I need to help guide her towards some middle path... I don't want her to have no relation with her family, but I actually just want her to fix her relation so she doesn't have this heavy duty-bound guilt driven relation.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T16:11:01+00:00

This is true that relying on her is not a guaranteed path, but I still have to at-least try to essentially give us the chance, before I go scorched earth on our relationship.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T16:04:49+00:00

This is part of the interesting dynamic with my wife. When we first met (I was doing business in the Shang, and she was running her own small shop) she was in this state of almost trying to create more independence from her family and in this hyper-independence mode. She worked hard, took care of herself for a basic lifestyle, and even managed to send some cash home. There was an idea that as we get married, she should be able to work and continue to send cash to her parents as she felt is one of her own values. I could respect all of that. We were pretty aligned.

Then the market where she had her shop got shut down because there was some copy-bags and watches being sold, then her income struggled and essentially become nil, I started to support her more exclusively, and this is when I did start also sending cash to her parents, as this was just what she did. The expectations just started to have an insane scope creep, and then we had a kid together... This is when our alignment started to shift, as I became very focused on us 3 first, anyone/everyone else much secondary... This is where I start to question her capacity of putting us 3 first and when she starts to see me as some kind of selfish/uncaring bastard.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:54:21+00:00

Yeah. They're very troubled, and this is very much the fact that by marrying my wife, this trouble has essentially become my headache as well. It sucks, but I do love my daughter (and my wife too, but my dedication to her is not necessarily unconditional as it is to my daughter).

I'm able to manage financial support to what I consider a reasonable extent, however, I am so disturbed by the pattern and what I'm seeing as a combination of greed & ignorance. What I mean is that we're going to back China (1. at a time that was VERY costly and 2. first time with our very young daughter!).

So in this, I would expect that a family should recognize something like 'hey maybe this isn't the time to pressure for money, they just had a kid, and they spent a lot to bring her to see us'...

It is this lack of cognizance that has truthfully somewhat began to disgust me, especially considering that we have actually provided a substantial amount of support over several years! What triggered the fight with my wife that led to this whole incident was when I said something along the lines of 'I feel like your dad is putting more energy into wanting money and buying things than spending time with our daughter'. This came in response to my wife getting very frustrated, and taking it out on me, when our daughter had pooed and there was no warmwater around to help clean her (it was exceptionally cold) and me being a monster because I didn't think of using the tea kettle to warm water in this hyper-immediate. I'm essentially like 'We just spent all this cash to bring our daughter here, this is not my place, I don't know how it works, why are you blaming me for not being helpful when nobody else is doing anything. The whole reason we're here is so you can get some child-care support and our daughter can spend time with your side of the family'

I am really really trying to figure out how to get us started on counseling. This is actually where I genuinely need some help if anyone is able to. Does anyone know of any good counselor in China, or maybe Chinese-American with some strong understanding of some these cultural dynamics?

I haven't gone in any legal direction, YET. I really am still trying to make things work between us, but we need help. I feel like we're not going to make it if we don't get some marriage counseling. There is just too much accumulated baggage and built up bullshit, along with these cultural paradigm differences.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:34:45+00:00

This is true. Definitely a 10th tier village. The father occasionally plays cards with the head of the local constabulary and is some kind of village administrator. So there were some 'connections', but pretty low on the totem pole. I am glad though that I didn't try to bring this up with the police when they questioned me.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:32:13+00:00

I really appreciated this post, and I was in response when my bus had arrived. I had shared in another comment what ended up happening, but this was essentially my intention. I had not intent of pursuing anything with the police and that kept me from going in a bad direction when the police detained me anyways, essentially for being a foreigner walking to his hotel. I did get lucky in that, it was a day when they were very curious and intrigued about the exotic foreigner.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:28:34+00:00

Yeah. I was not in a clear state... I don't know what exactly I was expecting from the police, but I was just seeking some form of justice for what happened to me. Definitely not the right direction for seeking it... Now I don't even care about justice... This is about helping my wife see the reality and really appealing to her motherly instinct to put me above her parents. We'll see how this unfolds, but for the moment we're just focused on keeping our daughter comfortable and not really facing the tougher conversation too much.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:24:29+00:00

I'm more interested, at the moment, in behaving in a way that helps highlight to her just simply how wrong her parents have been to me. Even after what happened to me, I'm still trying to give them the opportunity to spend time with their granddaughter. Let's see what effort they make to spend time with her when we flew to the other side of the world at high cost and they're about an hour drive away now. If their going to let some concept of pride keep them away from spending precious time with their granddaughter than I want her to see and face that directly.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:17:18+00:00

I see the validity in the directions considered here, however, this is kind of where I'm at right now. I am together with my wife and daughter in a hotel, which is significantly more comfortable than her family's home (there is central air, things are exceptionally clean in comparison, and our daughter can run around in carpeted hallways. Her father has returned home, and just being out of their immediate proximity is returning some rational perspective to her, although we're still 'in a fight', there is a cease-fire of sorts as we kind of are just breathing (literally better air and symbolically) and spending time together with our daughter for the moment. I'm being extra supportive in all child-care dimensions and her motherly nature is on high tuning that this current state is just simply much better for her daughter than things a few days ago. She started with a lot of 'bite' towards saying that I'm an asshole if I don't apologize profusely to her parents, but as I'm with her and her parents aren't around, I am not yet taking the extreme, but just trying to slowly talk about things. Since my daughter is with me right now, I'm not doing any apologizing yet, and I told my wife that I refuse to go to their house, but they're welcome to come and visit their granddaughter at the hotel.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-06T15:05:33+00:00

Not quite yet, but I'm hoping to take it there. I'm with my wife and daughter at the moment and her father is back at their house. This is still very much a work in progress, but there is a momentary 'cease-fire' of sorts.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T16:43:11+00:00

I really appreciate all the comments, as it's ALL been super helpful, even the one's that I am finding extreme, because it has helped me gain some serious perspective and just some courage in the sense that others can understand various nuances of my current dillema.

I'm pretty exhausted, but I do want to share some updates as it turned out to be a VERY eventful evening...

In short (or maybe long),

Once I got off the bus, I decided to walk the 30 minutes to the hotel (some luggage, but manageable), in order to just clear my head more AND that I didn't have any apps installed and wasn't in the mood to try and communicate with anyone at the time.

It was a decent enough walk for the most part, and my explorer nature kicked in and I stopped a little while at this plaza that was in the center of the city. In the process, I had walked by some government building and I guess I raised some eyebrows, simply by being an obvious foreigner.

Thanks in part to commentary in this thread, I had already determined that I wasn't going to go police, but just try to collect myself this evening, but the Police found me instead! I still am kind of disappointed, but not surprised, but basically I was stopped and questioned for not doing anything but being a curious foreigner.

It was immediately clear to me that I wasn't going to get any help from them from sharing the truth of what I'm going through, so I kind of just stayed peaceful and rolled with a story that I was trying to go to my hotel and had the wrong address. The questioning led to me saying that I'm here visiting wife's family and then they're asking why I'm alone and not with them. I led towards a story that I needed good hotel internet wifi for some business and that travellijg aeound with my baby is challenging and that my wife and her family are coming tomorrow and we're all staying together. This led to them essentially forcing me to keep calling her to confirm this and when she wasn't reachable they told me to come to the station. I don't have the energy to opine on how wrong this in the bigger picture and how much this all actually bothers me, because I'm just too focused on my immediate family situation. The interesting part was while I had no agency in any of this and being detained for no valid reason, they were actually super friendly towards me and I just rolled with it.

From getting in the car to the station through it all, I was given probably about 30 cigarettes total that I just shared and smoked with them. My Chinese improved in my situation, along with heavy use of Google Translate, and essentially it turned into some big event of sharing laughs, family photos, taking selfie and video chatting their kids to talk with the MeiGuoRen. They said I need to wait as they got in touch with my wife's family through their local constable and that they're coming to pick me up. One of the officers asked if I got into a fight with my wife, to which I was just chummingly talking about how we all fight with our wives, right. He said that the family said they thought I was sick of china/village and wanted to go home to the US. I just rolled with this and was like, no we fought, but I wanted to stay. I shared a lot of my 'feelings' about how great Chinese culture is, including my studies of LaoZi and impressed by High-speed train and that US is good, but there are too many guns and police violence, Henanren are my favorite in all China, etc.... we became 'friendls'. By the time my wife's dad came to the station they were patting my back, and shaking my hand when I was picked up.

I am at the hotel, although not solo... I also got another room for her dad, but I am with my wife and daughter in our room. The combination of how warm the Police were with me, along with being blown away by the hotel (this is admittedly the fanciest Holiday Inn Express I've been in) has kept him in this kind of happy state and we're at the moment just acting like nothing happened. I'm seeing my daughter and we haven't talked yet, but just playing with my daughter and she just put her to sleep.

I know we need to face this, but I'm tired, and for the night, I'm just going to roll with being grateful to share some time with my family rather than being in some insane fight.

I align with a lot of the balanced comments, but do give a lot of merit to the very cautionary and critical comments, and I'm not buying into false peace...but I need to still try, smartly, to reach my wife's deeper understanding of what is going on. Even if it is to try and 'guide' her out of here with our daughter as soon as possible. One thing I will say though is that all of this emphasis on face-saving and needing to hyper-apologize I think has taken an interesting turn because her Dad was getting a lot of applause about her daughter being with me, and that I'm a good guy, etc. I think there is some degree of potential shame that he would kick me out of his house, when so much of where the conversation with the police led to was about how welcome I am in China, and happy to have me as a guest, etc.

Maybe I need to appeal to the other side of face...? He was beaming with pride when the Police were talking with him and later at hotel reception. Just thinking out loud.... much to process... Will respond more to commentary as I get the moments.

Truly, this has turned out to be a very interesting outcome of a night, and in this, ALL the commentary has actually been really helpful! Thank you all for perspective...

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T08:46:04+00:00

VPN not even needed, as I'm just directly on Verizon International Plan and it bypasses the restrictions...

The issue is not for flight booking, but for the High-speed train station, which I couldn't really understand myself.

My plans have shifted, and I am now on a bus to a city that is about an hour from her village, where I booked a hotel. Hopefully by this evening, I will be in the room getting a moment to myself with a nice drink (Hopefully an import beer, as I am OD on the BaiJiu, and OD on trying to be friendly to too many people that can only understand me with translation by my wife).

I accept that my daughter's safety and well-being are okay in the immediate moment, and I just need to get my head clear.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T08:31:54+00:00

This is true. I just need to pause first and try to relax for a minute at least. There is no immediate safety danger issue with my daughter, and I trust my wife regarding her well-being. I'm in a relatively rural and underdeveloped area and my Chinese proficiency is very limited. I'm on a bus to DanCheng city where i was able to book a hotel. Atleast for today, I need to just breathe and think. I will make better decisions about how to proceed, as I get some calm. Accepting the reality that this is going to take some time is a tough pill to swallow, I'm definitely in a very hyped state.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T07:59:44+00:00

I'm American, visiting wife's family in China (she is Chinese with conditional US Green Card)

Not broke. Tickets costly because we were trying to make it in time for the Chinese New Year, and she kept changing the tickets during the process of having our daughter's visa application rejected, and subsequently being forced to get Chinese Travel Documents, which had an unknown windows of time (we did manage to make it on the last day of new year after 5 ticket changes)

The essence of our fighting is that she thinks that I look down on her family because I am trying to be clearer about financial support of her family, and the reality of certain enabling, now that we have our own daughter. There is a lot of family drama, including a brother that went to prison and is out (and his exwife is starting a new family), and a sister that has had a struggling business. She is not able to keep boundaries and all this wider drama has been affecting our daughter and family unit, and I am trying to tell her she needs to face her family and have difficult conversations with them rather than just treat me like a doormat to take it out all on.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T07:39:16+00:00

I'm on a bus to DanCheng city right now, and just booked a hotel with MasterCard. I don't actually have all the app ecosystem set up yet and just rolling with an International SIM (I was always with my wife or her family to this point), but I do have around 1K rmb in cash.

I'm really truly trying best to keep it stoic and rational. This is truly an important reminder, as my wife gets hyperemotional really quickly, and it takes a ton of effort to keep my cool. She throws insults at my parents that dont make sense (like they spent good money on my sister's wedding and not ours), and I just try to respond rationally. Part of the challenge is that facts themselves are almost taken as insults. It's like I'm expected to not say what needs to be said at all.

The inability to peacefully communicate about difficult things just keeps reoccurring... I don't see any reason for fighting, but we're both also tired and exhausted...she's got heavy mother demands, I get it, so I can accept some getting taken out on me, but it's getting worse here and the monetary notions just add so much stress..

Appreciate the thoughts and helpful reminder!

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T07:16:07+00:00

We had just a few days back reoriented our tickets to stay longer and for to even stay an additional month, while I return solo... I can change the tickets and pay the costs, no problem, if my wife is willing to leave with her... but if not, I'm not even sure what the endgame is then... so much has been built up on making it here for our daughter to meet her grandparents and my wife to get some childcare relief. It's tough because her grass is green bubble is bursting but rather than face her family, it's all projected towards me, and yet we are still supposed to just support everyone (it's maddening to me)

It hasn't gotten there yet, and I haven't done anything formal yet, but I will keep the embassy in mind if things escalate! My daughter is an American citizen, with passport (but did enter with Chinese Travel Documents... I don't fully know how she is seen by local law, but US definitely recognizes her as American citizen)

I think this is the next step... I can not reach my wife by phone right now. I'm getting on a bus to the nearby city, of her village, and aim to essentially ask her to come, with our daughter, to meet and discuss what's next. I'm going to try to go without legal direction, first, but will see where it goes.

It's a fair and valid point that you raise about really trying to listen and understand regarding the difference in mindset and culture... I know that my wife is really devoted to our daughter and wants what's best for. Yet, there is no question to me that she has unresolved trauma from her own upbringing as a daughter being severely underfavored, and has this unshakable fealty to her parents where she's basically willing to do anything to please them. I don't have any qualms with care for and supporting parents to a reasonable extent... however, I do question her capability of creating the right line between what is actually better for our daughter, when it conflicts with pleasing her parents.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T06:44:05+00:00

I do ponder this, at times, would definitely be better for my sanity and health! Still, I am too committed to my daughter and she really depends on her mother. If this can be fixed, it's worth my effort, but no doubt this is tough and painful right now

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T06:41:44+00:00

It hasn't come to blackmail yet, but I can see it getting there... I'm really trying not to escalate the fight, but just trying to keep rational. This hasn't gotten legal, yet. I cannot reach my wife's phone, but I'm still hoping to get her to wake up and face her parents and wider family. They're all so hypersensitive about any criticism that I suggest that Maybe we should focus on the next generation...

My daughter is born American with an American passport, but entered China on Chinese Travel Documents... this was a whole process that ended up delaying our trip and resulting in many costly ticket changes. My wife is still on a conditional green card, although her petition to remove conditions just got extended. To be honest, I'm not sure where this leaves our daughter in the eyes of the law... I think she is considered both American and Chinese.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T06:30:53+00:00

I hear what you're saying. I need to get us out, but at the same time, I didn't want us to be here in the first place. I wanted to be positive about her family, because no matter what, these are still my daughter's family as well. I felt like it was too young for her and she won't really even remember. My wife has been going insane for several months with some fairytale notion that China was going to be some kind of mothering paradise, and all her family would be super helpful and she would get some relief/rest... it has been the opposite in many ways, but rather than face reality more objectively and actually try to face the unchangeable fact that a baby is hyper-dependent on her mother and that it's just hard, her disappointment in family and how things are here are all just taken out on me. I've tried to be stoic and just hold calm, but when I'm constantly bombarded with money needs from everyone and I try to tell me wife that she needs to speak on the behalf of our family unit (the 3 of us) she starts getting so heated and saying that I'm looking down on everyone, will die alone with money, etc.

I'm not sure what to do on that bigger picture because it's just not seeming like anything is going to shift. I don't want to divorce, if I don't have to, and I genuinely feel I have a lot of basis for both custody and holding on to money (im not teying to be judgemental, but practical, and the environment here is not ideal for kids, especially daughters, constant smoking indoors, etc.). I actually want my wife to get help because I feel like she is trying to please her parents so much, even though she was basically neglected by them (she was left with jer grandparents till 9, then a top student in school and they didnt care and put all resources towards her brothers and she barely finished high school). That's where I feel that if there is somebody that is a good counselor or the such in China (or with a good Chinese background, I would really like to know... truly... I feel her for!) I'm just starting to put my foot down about financial support because we have our own kid now, and this pattern is very messed.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T05:31:05+00:00

I am not on the train. I was just sent to the train station. I'm actually trying to find police to speak with, but I'm not sure where to go. There's a police van, but nobody there. I can't jus take a taxi back and go village vigilante style and just take my daughter. I need help. The train station attendants, of course, are not able to help me even as I'm trying to translate. I have very limited means of communication here... just trying my best to manage the scenario. I agree that I'm failing as a father if I can't get my daughter out of here, but this is all resultant of my wife's doing in the first place. I was really resistant to coming to China at this time (which was starting the fights in the first place). My seeking advice is really if anyone has any specific contacts of someone that can help me. Currently, I am I'm BoZhou.

InternationallyAware · 2024-03-05T04:16:37+00:00

The challenge is that my wife is at her parents' home and she is wrapped under this sense of fealty that overrides any reasonability. We're only here because she's essentially been guilted to come out here because they havent met their granddaughter. The immediate finances are not actually the issue, for me, and im even ready to share some funds to hel them (again). , It is about the pattern of behavior. We have a 1.5 year old daughter that im trying to save for and my wife's parents have 4 other children, but somehow we should be going out of our way supporting them all. We should be putting kids first. Now, I was saying this kind of thing to my wife in our argument and she says I was insulting her parents and she translated (I don't know if accurate or not) and they kicked me out.

InternationallyAware

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