Dear Tech Lead,

It is so apparent in your videos that you love your wife and son deeply. In the last 3 years, you have remained committed to trying to figure out what went wrong in your marriage by consistently making videos to document your thoughts and emotions. 

Why is your spouse alienating you?

Unfortunately, these acts of love had been interpreted as avenues to garner more traffic to your YouTube videos by your spouse.

As you are shouldering the bulk of the financial burden for the family and choosing to be self-employed, you chose to include a sponsor in every video indiscriminately to increase your reach as you did not know which video would get more traffic. Unfortunately, this seemed to alienate your spouse further as she is not able to understand the stress of being a self-employed YouTuber.

Try to put yourself in your spouse’s shoes…

It seems like much of your conflicts with your spouse stemmed from different values in money and cultural differences. When your wife left for Japan, it was because she had no support in the US at all. She felt that if you could single-handedly decide to move the family to another city without consulting her opinion, she could also move back to Japan without your consent. I am puzzled why most of your viewers did not point this out to you in the comments section on YouTube. My only presumption is that most of your subscribers are men who are clueless to what a woman is thinking. 

It was really unfortunate that the COVID-19 pandemic had made it even more challenging for you to rebuild your relationship with your family in Japan over the last 3 years. However, the borders have now opened up. Please do not feel disheartened by the last trip to Japan where you could not locate your son and wife. Perhaps, you could think about North Koreans who risked their lives to escape the dictatorial regime, never to be reunited with their family members, to remind ourselves of our privileged positions. 

What you can possibly do now…

You have been touting in all your YouTube videos that you are very intelligent and diligent. However, it seems like you are only showcasing skills that you had picked up in your twenties. Instead of just making videos about coding and cryptocurrencies, why can’t you make videos of you learning Japanese as well? Perhaps your son may eventually see you speaking Japanese to him on YouTube? Your disdain and disrespect for your wife’s culture could be one of the reason why the relationship is not improving.

Every time you visit Japan, you are learning something more about your spouse’s culture which is evident in your videos. Your spouse gave up her life in Japan to move to the US with you. Perhaps, it is time for you to relocate to Japan to help you mend your relationship?

Why do I bother writing to you?

I am writing this long and heart-felt letter to you because I would like to thank you for showing me the perspective of my partner. Your videos have really helped me to understand all the frustrations that my partner had in our relationship. Like your wife, I am also a trailing spouse who has chosen to prioritise my relationship over my career in 2022. However, there were times that I almost packed my bag and flew back home after the relocation. Relationships are fragile and volatile. However, they are so essential to our well-being. I do not take it lightly and therefore, I am devoting my time to learning from others like you who are brave enough to share their stories. 

You made yourself vulnerable to the whole world through your videos because you are honestly clueless what went wrong and you have no friends whom you can confide and seek advice from. You have the hopes that you could crowd-source for ideas on how to mend your relationships but unfortunately the YouTube algorithm had not brought your videos to the attention of sufficient women.

The Tragic Irony

It’s so ironic that you can connect with millions of people in the World through the internet but you cannot even be in touch with your son and wife right now. This thought brings me to tears and you definitely do not deserve to be in this predicament. Ignorance should never be condemned as it is not within your sphere of influence to rectify an issue when you are unaware of the problem. 

I had to write this long letter to you because of your love for your son. Everyday, I remind myself of my definite chief aim to help parents make a more informed decision about their child’s education. Like many of your YouTube audience had pointed out in the comments section, your son deserves you to be beside him. 

I hope this will rekindle your burning desire to reconnect with your son…

When a child was separated from his father for 6 months, he was upset and angry when he finally reunited with his dad. I hope this video will give you a push to book your air ticket right away to narrow the geographical distance between you and your son. 

You have so much to look forward to with your son in the coming years like how this father described his experience of a father and son’s cycling adventure. Your son needs you!

Do not give up hope on reuniting with your family! We are here to support you like you are here on YouTube to support others in their journey.