You have not been willing to listen to my well-meant
advices.
My advice is for your and your families welfare.
I am not your enemy.
You have a duty and responsibility as a husband, as a man, and
as a son-in-law, and as an adult.
It is best you reconsider your stances.
First,
You have not been willing to do the first step, that is to get a
serious evaluation of what your father request mean, what it
represent and what it symbolizes.
Your act of equating it with a rape action, signifies you have
skipped this step completely.
The action of asking your wife to do josstick bowing, is
basically, to manifest respect, customs, traditions, and family
duty. As a father, he has a wish and a hope that his new child, his
new daughter-in-law, the new member of the family, can participate,
he wants to pass down and incalculate this tradition to her.
I dont think your father is particularly religious either.
Usually most ancestral worshipper/ Taoist/ Buddhist are actually
non-religious or syncretistic or casual. For him it's just some
rituals which he think is good.
This act of josstick bowing does not represent a religious
conversion, or to pull your wife out of Christianity.
First you have to get these basics correct first.
So your wife, with a proper understanding that her act of
josstick bowing does not mean religious conversion, but act of
tolerance, respect, family duty, deference, and harmony-building,
should not feel that it's such an obstacle either.
As I said, previously even the Catholic Pope entered a mosque
and kissed a Quran.
This is from religious point, I think you should understand and
get a more accurate picture.
If your wife still object after this, please ask her to come
here to this forum and read this thread.
I can talk to her too.
But apart from religious aspects, as I can see from your above
post, you are still "stubborn" and still think that you "must stand
for your principles" but let me ask you this, what actually is the
case now? Why must you stand for your principles and what are those
principles, and who are violating your principles and agressing you
anyway? Nobody.
So dont be stubborn.
You have to know this kind of attidude is an obstacle and a
stumbling block and you must be willing to be less stubborn.
But I am glad you realize it is bad that your wife is now in an
uncomfortable situation.
But actually not only her, but also your father, your mother,
and even, you yourself, have been hurt.
So now please think, many people are hurt, you are the man, what
solution can you figure out?
If you cant figure out a solution, then you fail the second
time, after you failing the first time due to allowing it to happen
in the first place.
My sincere advice for you, is to consider what I say, consider
those requests of josstick bowing and then apologize and do it.
