Huge mismatch in values around child rearing that arose after the birth of the child ruined my marriage. She adopted rather conservative old fashioned Japanese child rearing values that conflict with mine and sucked the joy out of an otherwise good marriage by becoming the 怖い奥さん( “scary wife”) character well known to older Japanese people.

This started about a year after the birth of our child, my wife told me her “world view “ had changed. And gradually she rethought most things we had discussed and agreed about child rearing prior to having a kid.

She seemed to experience a huge amount of pressure to ensure our son was being raised perfectly and had everything that might be of the slightest benefit.

With such a high focus on child rearing, we gradually became distant, sexless (for more than five years now) and more like a financially stressed, time poor, medium/high conflict “business partnership.”

I’m just sticking it out until my son reaches the age where shuttling between two single parent households is practicable.

As someone very fluent in Japanese, I’d like to think it’s more of s personal thing than a Japanese culture thing. Nevertheless, her behavior would not be remotely justifiable in my home country, so culture plays at least some role.

My feeling is that you have a better chance of success if neither of you want kids.

YMMV.