Are expat wives that unhappy?

My wife sent me your article about expatriate life being tough on marriages in Singapore, "Fending for oneself in a foreign land" (The New Paper on Sunday, Oct 18).

Was the article intended as a general jab at husbands? Trailing wives? More like failing wives, I should think.

I believe that the only things most unhappy expat wives might have in common with the wives mentioned in your article is that they happened to have moved to Singapore.

Most expats here seem to have moved after several years living elsewhere and most wives who come here hardly qualify as new expat wives.

I'm sorry, but it is very difficult for this husband (and I don't think I fit the stereotype of a male chauvinist) to buy the image of most wives having been dragged to Singapore by their tyrannical husbands and forced to sacrifice a successful career in whatever field they planned to go into, before finding themselves in the arms of some local lover.

Singapore, the lonely city, with all these husbands desperately running away from their bored wives, who are unsurprisingly unable to breathe life into their failing marriages.

The sad and unhappy wife resorts to shopping on Orchard Road all day, partying on into the night. How very sad for everyone concerned.

EQUALLY TO BLAME

This is not to say that husbands, this writer included, are not equally to blame for bumps in their marriages.

However, your writer has characterised things in a simplistic manner.

FROM READER BHARAT DUBE

This article was first published on October 26, 2015.
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