I’ve read a lot of divorce questions here, generally between a gaijin and a Japanese citizen. it seems that in almost all cases, the gaijin doesn’t speak much/any Japanese. is this like, the major reason for divorces?
I’d use the following analogy. You’re 25, you meet a Japanese partner of your preferred gender, and you two hit it off. You mutually decide to live in Sydney/Los Angeles/London. You speak Japanese well after many years of practice, but they don’t speak English so Japanese is your lingua franca. Everything is well.
Now fast forward 10-15 years. You’re in your late 30’s, married with kids, and they still don’t speak any English. They work at a Japanese peaking company (possibly online). It’s a bit less peachy because you’re the only one that can do most of the adulting tasks.
Bills in the mail? You need to translate and deal with them. Partner needs to see a dentist? You need to make the appointment, and possibly go with them to fill out the paperwork and translate. Kids having trouble at school? You’re the only one who knows about it because the report card is in English, and you need to go meet the teacher to discuss anything. Socializing as a couple? You’re restricted to a very small number of similar couples who can communicate in Japanese, so they don’t stand there like a lamp post all night. Movie night? Need to wait for the DVD with subtitles to come out. Date night? Unless you’re going to McDonalds, you need to translate the menu and possibly order for them.
And on and on and on, day in and day out, in addition to all the normal stresses a marriage has.
And then one day you meet someone who, like you, can speak fluent English. You can interact with them in a wide variety of social settings without the constant burden of being the only functional adult. It’s a huge mental relief and you start to compare this feeling with the hassle of your partner back home.
I’m literally convinced this is what’s happening with the majority of these divorce posts. The Japanese spouse is sick and tired of being the only adult.
Tl;DR: Learn Japanese before your partner dumps you
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I would say, it is mostly because of guys fetishizing a race and at the same time prioritizing this fetish above anything else. Doesnt matter if you have things in common, doesnt matter about your future prospects, communication doesnt matter at all, most important feature is your partner is asian. I see this in this sub and also in other asian subs (and unfortunately in real life too) all the time which infuriates me (i am asian f btw)
People change over time regardless of nationality. Someone you meet in your twenties can be a totally different person by the time you are 50. Some marriages can survive these changes and some cannot. Not speaking Japanese could be one of many factors that leads a couple to divorce but I doubt it would be the only one. In other words you can’t generalize and say the reason why mixed marriages fail is solely because of language. There are usually many issues and this could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
Not sure sweeping generalizations like that stand up to more than cursory scrutiny. There are plenty of couples in my (very culturally-diverse) home country where only one person speaks English, and their rates of divorce are often lower than the broader populace, so I think there are more complex factors at work.
Broadly speaking though, I think there has to be a distinction made between *not* learning the *lingua franca*, for whatever reason, and outright *refusing* to. There is a particular segment of the expat population here that seem to regard any attempt to assimilate as being somehow beneath them, which doesn’t bode well for intercultural relationships on a more fundamental level.
My own Japanese acquisition is glacial at this point, but I do make an effort between my other pressing life commitments, which hopefully counts for something. There are other ways to lessen the potential burden on your partner, after all.
YES. I’ve seen a bunch of couples who are just guessing what the other person is saying.
Add to this a lot of super weird dudes come here and end up with an equally batshit insane chick and don’t realise the extent of it until she kidnaps the kids.
Now imagine moving to Japan with a less than ideal level of Japanese (N4) and being single. Japan is brutal to some of us, but we learn to adapt and overcome. I think that not learning the language/finding ways to understand/be understood are vital when moving to a new country instead of just relying on finding a personal interpreter.
Hahaha.
I’ll give you a totally different reason that is as rock solid as yours. /s
Young guy comes over to Japan as an English teacher with vast dreams. Meets the Japanese woman of his dreams. She is enamored by all of the new experiences and is swept off her feet by the differences he brings.
Fast forward a few years and she realizes he is still an English teacher, has a limited future in Japan or outside, and decides to cut bait and search for greener pastures.
I’ve definitely seen that one play out several times.
But at least he was fluent in Japanese.
Lots of couples I know are in this situation, and predictably it’s always WMAF. They have been together for a long time, but if they live in Japan, it is usually the wife handling all the “foreign policy” of the household, which does give a bit of an imbalance to the relationship, especially as they get up there in age. I have not seen it be grounds for divorce, but it certainly is – to my external observation, anyway, as someone who doesn’t understand the details of it – grounds for tension.
Probably more something to do with marrying the first Japanese women/man you met than not speaking the language.
And if after years living in the country you are not able to have minimum conversational in the country language maybe you should ask yourself what the f you are doing there. Moreover if you have kids speaking that language.
On the counterpoint I think those who refuse to learn the language are more likely to be stuck in unhappy marriages because living alone and fending for themselves is a lot scarier than being in a household with a person that can speak the language fluently.
That’s why both people need to learn each other’s languages. Why do it for them, they aren’t babies, they are adults and can figure it out themselves.
I know quite a few Americans who didn’t improve their Japanese and rely mostly on their spouses for day to day tasks and their marriages are going well. From my coworkers who’ve had failed marriages or constant arguments at home, I personally think based on what they told me that is that boundaries weren’t set. I know a Midwest American who has issues now with his marriage and he just didn’t set the boundaries at the time of hooking up/getting married. He constantly has to get permission from his wife to do simple things like hanging out with friends.
Communicate with your partner and set your boundaries and all will be well for the long term. That’s my two cents.
This is called weaponized incompetence and it is a big issue in marriages in general.
Also, even foreigners who speak Japanese fluently have troubles expressing their thoughts and feelings properly with the same nuance that they can in their native tongue. I could not even imagine marrying someone when you are not even able to communicate anything above casual conversation…
Many of them do speak Japanese though
I’d like to see proof of this claim. While yeah, any relationship with poor communication is likely to fail, I’ve never seen anyone claim the language barrier was what killed their marriage. That usually happens before marriage.
Meh. Divorce rates are relatively high in any circumstances. Some people can get over all kinds of obstacles together if there exists a mutual will and they have enough insight to do so. Others cannot. The factors behind success or failure are multitude.
It’s definitely a potential factor.
Based on what I’ve seen, the main one seems to be a person who had almost zero dating experience back home moves to Japan and then meets someone shortly who’s enamored with his foreignness. Instead of playing the field a bit he immediately marries the first one. Once all that fades, you get…well, you know.
That’s for foreign men. Foreign women face a whole bunch of different issues
Plenty of Japanese people get divorced despite both being fluent in the language….
People are so defensive here… Everyone feeling attacked?
The biggest difficulty I had was adjusting to cultural differences. I didn’t speak any Japanese at all when I first came to Japan but my husband was fluent in English so we could communicate. He provided me with a lot of Japanese language help in my first few years here and he didn’t seem to mind any of it.
I think when people have problems in a marriage or relationship it comes down to more basic issues of compatibility as people, it’s not really language or cultural issues. Those of us who enter into a relationship with a Japanese person already know that there will be language and cultural issues. What matters is how willing you are to be patient with your partner and work through the issues.
I can’t answer that definitely, but I do know a lawyer who works here in Japan. He told me that the majority of divorces between foreigners and Japanese are because of communication issues due to language (at least partly, though it seems to be a main variable with the majority of his clients).
i can’t imagine moving to a country and not learning the local language
IMO, the fact that a couple were able to get married usually means that they can communicate well enough to be married. I don’t think language barriers tend to lead to divorce. In my experience people tend to get divorced for more fundamental reasons: different plans in life (e.g. wanting to live in different countries), different sexual appetites, and in many sad cases, combinations of bullying/violence/mental problems/substance abuse.
In the West there is certainly a pattern of people getting fed up with overly dependent spouses, but I think this is less of a thing in Japan because of the traditional gender roles here. Like, most Japanese husbands are not dealing with teachers at school or taking kids to the dentist, or handling family finances, or even doing laundry or washing dishes, even though they are theoretically completely able to do all of these things. So even if you’re a very incompetent foreign guy, you are still way ahead of the local market. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why you see so many Japanese women laser-focused on Western men; it isn’t just fetishization (though that is certainly a thing as well).
Language is not a non-factor, but I’m more inclined to point out all the couples that are just bad cultural matches.
I know too many people here who think they’re going to date/marry a Japanese person and act like it’ll be no different from dating someone back home in their very liberal, men and women are (mostly) equal culture having country. Or at the very least, they seem to think that they’ll overcome it somehow, or it’ll just work itself out one way or another.
But the reality is even the Japanese people who say they like kaigai culture and feel more aligned with US/Canada/Western views etc, often end up being more conservative or traditional once a relationship gets serious, and it often only gets worse as you get deeper in. Maybe it was fine when you were dating, but now that you’re married suddenly he or she expects certain things. Maybe they expect you to do all the work, or the house work, or maybe they expect you to hand over all of your salary for them to manage. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
Then maybe you have kids, and suddenly you’re fighting over cultural differences related to child rearing, etc.
I’m not saying any of the above is guaranteed to happen, and even if it does, it is possible to work out your cultural differences and come to a decision or whatever that you can both be happy with, but not everyone is capable of solving these challenges and some people just can’t handle the stress either.
I feel like a lot of the posts that I see here are people who are running into cultural differences and are unable to come to an understanding with their partners. That’s not the case in every post, but I do feel like it’s a common theme.
And that’s not even to say that the gaijin is at fault either. A lot of the time I’ll read these posts and it’s clear that the gaijin has tried to discuss this with their partner and come to an agreement that they’re both happy with, but the partner in question absolutely refuses and puts their foot down and basically says either you do it the Japanese way or you’re out, etc. At that point, it’s clearly the Japanese partners fault for breaking down the communication and resorting to ultimatums. (Just for an example: a Japanese wife insisting that the husband hand over all of his paycheck for her to manage finances, but the foreign husband doesn’t want to do that and tries to work out a different way for them to both be involved in the finances. But the Japanese wife basically says either you follow this rule that all of my Japanese friends all do with their husbands or we can get a divorce. You decide.)
The really short version of what I’m trying to say is that, there is an extreme difference in many cases between Western and Eastern culture, and while this does not always equal incompatibility, it does mean that there can be some significant challenges and not everyone is up for that ,or they think they’re up for it but they’ve sorely underestimated how difficult it can be. This goes both ways mind you, it may be that the gaijin half of the partnership fully understood what he/she was going to experience and tried to be flexible, but in the end the J-partner was not willing to be flexible at all.
There are many factors at play and of course language can be an issue but, I don’t think language is the major deciding factor. I speak Japanese fluently and my wife doesn’t speak English at all. We live in Japan so admittedly that’s not an issue, but even with a high level of fluency there can be communication gaps or a poorly chosen word or phrase that leads to an argument, and sometimes it’s just harder to express yourself as fully as you can in your native language, so even if you do your best to close the language barrier, it’s not going to lead to perfect communication.
With my ex-husband and I, everything changed when he first strangulated me. The downfall of our marriage was his abusive nature, anger issues, and inability to communicate or express his feelings (in Japanese even!!!) in a healthy way. I had difficulty changing careers into a field that is male-dominated which also led to resentment on his part. COVID made it 100x harder.
Language was not the issue.
We spoke each other’s language. He helped me with Japanese sometimes, and I helped him with business English. I’m N2 and he speaks English well (better than he can read or write). We aren’t language experts, but we knew enough to function in the other language and enough for a marriage. We were also constantly learning more.
Of course, in an international marriage, you should always strive to learn the other person’s first language. Even if you aren’t great, you should keep trying. There are also tools like the Google translate picture function to help. If you don’t learn the language of your partner or the country you live in, you’re not pulling your weight.
You just described my friends life. His wife is not interested despite efforts by him (my friend), his family, and extended local network (friends, coworkers and the like).
If you expect your Japanese partner to speak English in order for your relationship to work, the least you can do is learn Japanese to make the relationship work
It ain’t language, man.
Marriages in Japan in general have a 40-50% fail rate. International marriages will fail at a higher rate than that due to not having common goals (because of different values), arguments concerning where to live, and the financial labyrinth of living in a country that isn’t your own (for either or both sides).
TL:DR: Think thrice before committing.
Plenty of people in my home country cite the reason for their divorce “communication issues” and they both share the same native language.
The second most common reason is money.
It’s not the actual language, it’s people growing apart and finding their values drifting to different directions.
I think communication is the root of many divorces. In Japanese-Western intercultural marriages though, communication becomes more difficult. Both spouses have different expectations related to “life milestone scripts” from their respective cultures. You’re less likely to expect the same thing as two married individuals raised in the same culture.
So, a mismatch of cultural values and a lack of *talking about and coming to agreements about those things before marriage* causes a whole host of divorce-causing issues. For example:
– Values about cheating. If your spouse cheats, does that mean you end the marriage automatically? Do you want a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy? Is cheating kind of expected and acceptable as long as it doesn’t trespass into the home?
– How important is a romantic connection between spouses? How will you both nurture it? What about after kids arrive?
– Will you sleep in the same bed always? Will kids sleep between you and if so, for how long?
– Do you both want kids? How do you plan to parent? How do you expect your spouse to “step up” for the kids?
– How will finances be managed in the home?
– What shared goals do you have for the future?
Different ideas about cheating acceptability is something that’s come up many times in this thread as a cause for divorce. As have dead bedrooms and lack of couple-connection. Communication is at the root of all of this.
I think the biggest factor in relationships breaking down is a fundamental difference in values. And this is made even harder with cultural influences. Further exacerbated by miscommunications because of the lack of language skills.
I’m not Japanese and neither is my husband but we’re from two different cultures. I speak English pretty fluently and so does he. But even then, miscommunications happen. It’s easier for us because our values are pretty much aligned but imagine if they didn’t? Even two people who are fluent in the same language can drive each other crazy because of a difference in values. No matter how well you communicate.
For example. Person A is religious while person B believes that religion is bull. They can both speak fluent English but they’re never going to see eye to eye on what role religion is going to play in their family.
Or person A is a thrift and save money for a rainy day person, while person B is a money can always be earned but you only live once type of person. They will never see eye to eye either. Both have reasons to believe they are right and they are. But their partner will never see it as right because they feel that their pov is more correct. And again, if someone compromises, there will be unhappiness.
Add cultural difference and a language barrier to the mix and everything is made even harder.
Also edited to add, my family speaks 3 languages and 3 dialects. I speak 4 and 3 including Japanese, and I’m currently learning Finnish. My husband speaks 2 languages fluently and is trying to learn my family’s 3 languages. It’s super hard because when you talk to my family we interchange between all 6 in the middle of the conversation so it can get confusing AF for an outsider. But he’s never offended my family at all even if he only ever speaks English with them. So, again, I think language is maybe just something that causes miscommunication and potentially exacerbate a problem that already exists.
My wife speak Chinese. We communicate in broken Japanese for 10 years now 😂
I speak Spanish.
I hope not lol I met my husband (Japanese) in the US. Had noooo intention of living in Japan, but that’s what ended up happening because he’s an engineering major & I’m an English major, so… who was gonna make the big bucks? Not I. I definitely did try to take classes when we got serious. I could barely manage N5 level… then Covid happened. No more classes, everything shut down (you get it, you were there).
He managed to come to the US in 2020 so we could get legally married then I came to Japan the following year. His work was CRAZY strict & still is with Covid. I wasn’t allowed to meet literally anyone. I couldn’t take classes. Sure, there’s online, but I just don’t learn that way (though I did try to take some, things just don’t stick. It was the same in college, I took almost all classes in person)
Fast forward to today, his work finally lifted (most of) the restriction in June & I can finally take classes! BUT… now we have a baby so 😅 now I need to wait until she can somewhat manage to sit through the lessons they offer nearby.
Do I feel like a burden? Absolutely. It’s caused me some major depression & anxiety. But he says he knew he would have to do these things (make the appointments, translate for me, etc) & he accepted the responsibility when he asked me to marry him. I found a really good guy.
1. People in the gaijinsphere love to reduce complex human dynamics to one simple fault.
2. People in the gaijinsphere love to link every struggle in Japan to failure to learn Japanese.
3. People in the gaijinsphere love to treat any demonstration of less-than-perfect Japanese as a demonstration the speaker has failed to learn *any* Japanese.
Probably there are some number of divorces where the foreign member’s lack of Japanese ability was a factor. Maybe even a lot. And assuming one has the time and interest, improving one’s Japanese is probably always going to benefit more than passively doing nothing with one’s time.
But to suppose that the root of every failed international marriage in Japan is a foreigner who didn’t learn any Japanese is just absurd, really. A lifelong partnership is a really complex thing. Different couples need different things to make it work.
Obviously a parasitic partner who knows no Japanese, makes no effort to learn any Japanese, and literally depends on their partner to do every single thing and offers nothing of their own to balance out is not going to be sustainable, but to just assume this is every failed international marriage makes you sound like you have an axe to grind.
If anything, I would say it sounds like most international couples I hear about having trouble on here aren’t that parasitic extreme, but rather are couples who didn’t really get to know each other properly and set realistic expectations about what their marriage would be like during the dating years. That might be because they didn’t have enough of a shared language to get to know each other deeply, but there are probably a lot of other factors at play, including culture gaps rather than language gaps.
Life’s not simple.
Been living in Japan with my Japanese wife for almost 9 years. She can only speak Japanese and I speak Japanese as well so we don’t have this problem even if I sometimes rely on her for some paperwork and phonecalls. I could do it myself but keigo is sometimes a pain in the ass…
But what you say is totally true. Whatever the country you want to live in, you’re going to hit the wall if you don’t learn the language, not only in your marriage but in everyday’s life.
Also it’s really unlikely that your kids born and raised in an English speaking country will speak only Japanese. I have 3 kids, they can only speak Japanese, but even kids who move in any country Before 10yo usually become fluent in 1 or 2 years.
In my experience, cultural differences appears with kids, not just marriage.
That’s also when you partner might be irritated if you speak weird/wrong Japanese to your kids.
People commenting on how they use apps to communicate with their spouses freaks me the fuck out.
I can see a lot of people getting upset by this post but not learning the language of the country you’re in is a HUGE hassle to the partner. I saw it a lot in Taiwan and Korea too where the foreign spouse is essentially a small child who needs their native partner to do everything for them. What’s worse is often times the foreign partner is very rude, lazy, and speaks ill of the country they’re in.
I made a huge effort to learn to speak and read Chinese whilst in Taiwan (partly because my wife couldn’t speak Chinese either so we both had to learn). As petty as it sounds, I would chide those who didn’t learn Chinese. I would even ask their partners how they cope with it and they’d say exactly what you just said “In the beginning its not a big deal but overtime it gets tiring.”
So yeah, learn the language of the country you’re in, that your partner speaks, and that their family speak. Its not hard, you’re pretty damn lazy and selfish if you don’t (not referring to you OP of course)
Maybe I’m being arrogant but how stupid do you have to be to live in a country for 10-15 years without learning the language enough to at least order food at a restaurant and watch a movie without subtitles.
100% I am so glad I put effort to learn Japanese as my fourth language. I can go to places most non Japanese speakers cannot go to and I can join events and do anything I want here without problems. The amount of people I meet who marry Japanese women to do everything for them is so annoying.
If you aren’t learning your partners native language, you should at least *learn the domestic language where you live*.
It sounds like many of these posts literally are both, and lazy complacent fuckbois who realize a decade too late that their charms don’t work anymore when you’re 30.
If I met a Japanese woman, and we lived in the West, I would expect her to learn English pretty fucking quick. It behooves the foreigner to learn the basic language to get along in daily life.
it sounds very harsh, but I have just as little tolerance for any immigrant/refugee who arrives on the doorstep of country X and expects they are going to settle in just like they did back in Bumfuckistan with no accommodation to an entirely new society. If you settled in most of Canada, get ready to learn English. If you picked Quebec, I guess you’re learning French. If you’ve somehow been allowed to settle in the United States, start learning Spanish.
You are in Japan. Learn Japanese.
If you live in a foreign country and dont make the effort to learn the language youre a bum.