My wife and I married in 2003, after a four-year courtship that began when I first visited Vietnam in 1999 at the request of a mutual friend. He was an older American Vietnam Veteran who had chosen to return to Vietnam in 1994 when the country opened its doors to the West. He invited me to come to Da Nang to hang out and to meet the girlfriend he planned to marry.
My Vet friend and I stayed in the same hotel and that’s where I met my wife. The courtship between my wife and I was punctuated by my working overseas onboard a cruise ship but when that gig ended, I eventually started teaching in Saigon and saved up to get married. In 2004, our son was born and we now own an apartment in Saigon and are living a nice, quiet life, just the three of us, by ourselves.
In modern Vietnamese culture, young people regularly ride around on motorbikes, they hold hands, kiss and make it fairly obvious they are an item. |
However, that hasn’t stopped numerous comments being made about the age gap between us, plus I feel I wasn’t prepared for the differences in language, culture, and attitudes towards PDAs (public displays of affection) that I have experienced. When we married, I was 31 and she was 39—hardly young, and now, after 13 years, I’m 44 and she’s 52.
In a country where women are considered “past it” at 27, our marriage often raises eyebrows in social conversations in coffee shops, where random Vietnamese dudes will inquire about my age, income and marital status (normal in Asian culture,) then make good-natured jokes about my marrying an older woman. The same goes for weddings, parties and other social events—a series of surprised looks and animated comments follow the great revelation and, while it’s all done politely and in good humor, I still feel I need to defend my position, however lightheartedly.
More serious is the difference in behavior expected of people in Asian countries as they get older.
When I married my wife, she was more outgoing but as she has aged, she expects greater respect from others and wears more dowdy, middle-aged clothes, as befits her exalted status as a 50-something Asian female. Meanwhile, as a high school teacher, I spend my whole working life hanging out with teens, so I’m happy slumming it in jeans and T-shirts and rockin’ out to Maroon 5 and discussing the latest news on Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend. I’m into hip-hop, rap and Korean boy bands like Big Bang.
My wife was angry when I came back home with a cool, new undercut hairstyle and as a skinny guy, I regularly get other people guessing my age at about 25, which is awesome when you’re nearly 20 years older! I don’t take too kindly to my wife’s attempts to make me look older—one time, she came back from the market with about 12 cheap shirts that had really faded colours—I assumed they were secondhand. I was shocked to find they were brand-new, and that the old men over 70 who usually wore them were NOT wearing faded shirts that were about 30 years old and had been through the wash about 500 times but were, in fact, wearing brand-new shirts deliberately designed to look old. What?
A great frustration is in matters of sex and dating. In modern Vietnamese culture, young people regularly ride around on motorbikes, they hold hands, kiss and make it fairly obvious they are an item. As a Brit, I have no problem with this but trying to do this with my wife has been difficult. I feel hurt and somewhat spurned when I reach for my wife’s hand and she brusquely pushes it away; when I go for a kiss but she turns the other cheek; when I put her arms around me on our motorbike and she lets go. Apparently, if you’re married in Vietnam, you’re not allowed to kiss or hug or hold hands and just have to sit next to each other as though you were just friends—like a couple of old bookends on a park bench. So boring!
Most of all, the reason why I married an older woman is because WE LOVE EACH OTHER and for no other reason. |
In matters of sex, older women in their 60’s and withered old maids over 70 with black teeth from chewing betel nuts express concern that we still get it on when she’s 52—well, of course, NOBODY in Vietnam ever has sex, and, if they do, well they definitely don’t do it over 50 and, well, having your bones jumped at that age—have you never heard of osteoporosis? An older Asian woman needs to take care of her health—eat more watermelon seeds and drink your green tea like everybody else and forget about hot sex and G-spot orgasms—I mean, really, come on…
However, worst was my wife’s lung cancer diagnosis four years ago. I am extraordinarily grateful that she is still alive and that my marriage to her continues. However, it has meant that I am leading a strange life—taking my wife to the hospital like an old man of 65, having fat old women coming over to the house for deep, earnest discussions about health and dealing with the problems of a post-chemo patient who always seems to be tired and walks around the house like a woman older than her years, while I’m still dealing with bringing up a 12-year-old son and working on my first rap album.
Despite all these issues, though, there’s no way I would ever change what I’ve got. Knowing now that the 30-40 years of marriage I envisioned as I walked down the aisle may not, in fact, now happen, I am grateful for every single day I spend with this woman I have chosen. I no longer care for the opinions of others on this tired age gap issue. I am grateful for the happy little days we spend together, just the three of us, living an ordinary life in this place we call home. I admire her fortitude and strength in adversity and I really appreciate the wisdom of having someone older to fill me in on the cultural customs of this country I live in, even if I often don’t agree with them.
Most of all, the reason why I married an older woman is because WE LOVE EACH OTHER and for no other reason. That’s the same with every marriage and I don’t think an age gap where the woman is older should make a difference. Most of what I have described to you is the result of other people having outdated, preconceived notions of what a marriage should look like. I have never felt under any obligation to uphold these. They have never been relevant in my life. I’m Generation X – love conquers all, true love lasts forever, the good guys always win. That’s how it was in the beginning, that’s how it is now and that’s how it’ll be when it ends. I see no good reason to change it.
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Photo: GettyImages
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