I had found this on Russian Woman Abroad website.I was impressed with this story.
Never, NEVER say it's "childish." This is disrespectful
of your wife, who is just as much an intelligent adult as
you are.
Women do tend to be more sensitive to their feelings and
emotions, and how they react to them can vary widely.
It's a given that you will rarely see what feeling they're
reacting to, however.
I want to tell a little story here. Now, guys, please don't
accuse me of being "negative." We all know some RW's
come over here and do just fine, others don't. We all know
that there are many variables at work here. My wife Larisa
and I have been married 4 1/2 years, and we've seen just
about everything in the 20-30 R/A couples we know. 90%
of the Russian women we know here are unhappy, although
of course they don't show it.
Much of this can be traced to a simple lack of knowledge
of marriage relationships and the role of sensitivity and
communication. No, "sensitivity" doesn't mean some
sissy-boy, flip-wristed perception. It means seeing the
other as a real, whole person, who has his or her own
feelings, wants, emotions and needs, just like you do, and
just as important as yours are.
But what I'm
trying to illustrate in this story is the importance of being
aware of each other's feelings, and how incredibly EASY
it is to misunderstand somebody if you don't, and the
resulting chain reaction of events that can occur afterwards.
That being said, I hope you enjoy it.
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Olga has been in the U.S. for a couple of months. She's
been experiencing the disappointment and loss of self
esteem that frequently comes with finding yourself being
relatively helpless and incompetent in an alien environment.
While Bill's at work,
Olga tries to make a simple recipe she read on the back of
a mayonnaise jar. It's very important to her. She's TRYING
to adjust to life in this country, and she'd like to do it herself,
without Bill hovering over her like a mother hen, "teaching"
her everything from how to operate the steam iron to how to
turn on the vacuum cleaner.
But all these "cup" and ".tsp" and ".Tbsp" measures are
confusing. Like most countries, Russia is metric.
Let's see... oh, that's TABLE spoon. Bill calls
these bigger spoons "table spoons," so it must be one of these...
The recipe comes out like chunks of rubber. Tears roll
down her cheeks as she slowly cleans up the mess. She wants
SO bad to be a good wife and make Bill happy. And always,
24 - 7, there's the axe hanging over her head, that if she doesn't
make him happy, he'll "send her back." Shivers run down her
spine as she recalls these three dreaded words.
Suddenly, the phone rings. Hesitantly, she picks it up... a serious
voice says, "we have some VERY important information regarding
your bank account...." Unable to make out what the telemarketer
is talking about, she feels a sense of panic. Bill will be furious if
she messes up this call. Finally, she manages to get the telemarketer's
phone number to give to Bill, so he can call back. Bill will be grateful
for her handling this, since it's obviously "very important." But she's
still tense and stressed from the experience. After all, back in Russia,
she was an attorney who thought nothing of leading meetings of 20
professionals, negotiating business contracts, or supervising a dozen
employees. Here, reduced to the functional level of a retardate,
she can't even answer the telephone, answer the door, read a
newspaper, watch TV or even buy something in a store.
It's almost time for Bill to get home. Olga looks in the closet for
clothes to wear. She loves that blue blouse they bought at the
mall yesterday, but the sight of it makes her sigh heavily. At the
store, the clerk, seeing her eurasian physical features and hearing
her broken English, had stared at her bug-eyed as if she were physically
deformed or something. Then, of course, came the constant, constant
questions, over and over and over again: "oh, you're from Russia, how
INTERESTING!" "How did you meet your husband?" "Do you get
homesick?" "Will you be a lawyer here?" Olga is getting very, very
tired of being "interesting," and from everybody around her just
assuming that she's thrilled to death to be here and enjoying America's
"easy life." She puts on the blue blouse.
Watching the clock, she decides to heat up a can of spinach. Spinach!
They never, never had that back in Nubarovsk, Siberia. After struggling
with the electric can opener, she finally gets it into the pan and heats
it. She bites her lip. How do you know when it's done? Should you put
some salt or butter in it? What do you do with all that green juice? At
home,
she'd happily drink it, but these strange Americans just pour it down the
drain. But right now, it's just the best she can do. She pours the spinach
into a bowl, juice and all, and waits for Bill, nervously worrying
about having the spinach prepared properly.
