The divorce rate in Japan is low, but why? While it is a social taboo, there’s still some underlying factors.
Social outings in Japan are a very important part of making connections. It’s a way to become friends with your workmates and foster a good workplace ethic. Most of these parties start with the first party at a restaurant and then proceed into the second, third or fourth party. Where alcohol and peer pressure is involved, at some point, that young or old salary man has been tempted by his co-workers to enter a strip club or even worse, a brothel. He could be married and maybe has a few kids. If this already isn’t a bad situation, it’s about to escalate.
He may be uncomfortable with the situation and wants to remain faithful to his partner. Why doesn’t he say no? To be frank, he would be the one that is ruining the fun, the mood damper, and the pressure to bond with his co-workers is high. Unfortunately, these outings are another way to climb the ladder or to advance to a higher position. In some cases, it’s expected for this kind of behavior to happen and some wives tolerate it for more social status. Do all men think this is right? No, but this does happen in the darker side of Japanese culture.
In my experience in Japan when talking about cheating, I’ve received a plethora of answers about this. In my opinion many people share the same outlook as I in regards to cheating. It’s wrong, immoral and hurts your partner. Others believe it’s not really cheating because it’s a human urge to repopulate the earth. It becomes cheating when the cheater begins to feel love for another person rather than their spouse.
I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but here’s some of the stories I’ve heard in regards to cheating.
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The Strip Club turned Brothel
I heard one story of a married ALT who went out with his married co-workers. They asked if he liked “boobs” and his response was what any typical heterosexual male would give. Calling his wife and asking for permission to the strip club, she gave her blessing and on their way, they went.
A strip club was expected and a brothel was given. This scenario happened after an enkai or drinking party. Insisting he was happily married, his co-workers went off to their extracurricular activities behind closed curtains. He sat there, in shock, listening to the clap, clap, clap while conversing awkwardly with a prostitute instead of cashing in on the blow job his co-workers paid for.
Married Japanese Friends Dating Military on Okinawa
My next example comes from something I’ve witnessed myself. My Japanese friend has been married for years and enjoys dating military men in Okinawa. Now let me tell you, she’s gorgeous. She’s 40 and she looks half her age. She can still party like it’s 1999 and she’s an awesome dancer and a hair dresser. Her husband has no idea of her whereabouts or what she does. Although I don’t know her circumstances I feel sorry for both her and her husband because both are in a marriage they probably don’t want to be in.
Japanese with a Foreigner Fetish
I really hate the guys who are like this. Actually, I hate them the most. I just don’t understand why they believe flirting and sleeping with foreigners is okay as long as they love their wife. Stay away from these guys. They’re only looking to add a new nationality to their belt and another notch to their list of broken hearts. They look at foreigners like exotic creatures and put them up on a pedestal.
Leading Someone On
What can be taken as kindness can actually cross the border into leading someone on mercilessly. A lot of my Japanese friends have told me they absolutely hate confrontation. It’s uncomfortable and they can’t stand it. I’ll recount a story a Japanese friend confided about a boy she really liked in high school. He rejected her and dated another girl that he stayed together with for 10 years. The pair reconnected at a high school reunion and spent time together. She knew he lived with his girlfriend but enjoyed spending time with him anyway.
Hoping he would leave his girlfriend, one thing led to another and he promised he would break up with her, but he still lived with his “ex”. Not wanting to leave his comfort zone, he reconciled with his girlfriend and my friend ceased contact with him immediately. Talk about a broken heart…
Why is it easy to cheat?
Part of the culture in Japan denotes not talking about your significant other to anyone. I’ve fallen prey to Japanese men doing this twice. It’s not fun and for lack of a better word, it sucks balls. In American, Italian and Mexican culture, you know who is dating who. It’s public on the couples’ social networking sites and even if it’s not, you know the guy is a cheater when his woman is tracking your social media to see his likes. Coming from this side, it seems like couples in Japan aren’t even dating. I don’t see them holding hands, I don’t see it Facebook official, and when they do go on dates, they’ll only post pictures if they’re with other friends.
Japanese Men(typically) Don’t Wear Wedding Rings
Wearing wedding bands is a very western concept. Westerners believe it’s okay for a man not to wear his wedding band if he’s in a trade requiring hard work with the use of his hands. Of course there will be sleazy men who take off their wedding ring at public gatherings to try and get with the next hottest woman.
While I was in Japan, I noticed my male co-workers usually never wore their wedding bands but my female co-workers often did. I wondered about this for awhile until I asked. I couldn’t get a clear answer but I believe it’s because many of them found it troublesome to wear their rings all the time and often forgot.
Conclusion
Mind you, I understand Japan is culturally different. Just because Japanese don’t talk about their significant others doesn’t mean they don’t like them. They may or may not. Talking about your significant other makes you boastful and not humble. The point is not to disrupt harmony by showing off. In my opinion, this makes extra-marital or extra-relational relationships easier.
In Japan, there is a specific timeline of when to go to college, when to get a salary job, and when to get married. Couples are pressured to marry young for fear of not finding anyone after the time gap closes. This pressure causes a lot of stress. I actually feel a bit stressed by writing about their societal pressures.
There’s pressure to keep up appearances. Great expectations rely solely on having the perfect wife, smart children, and a high paying salary job. These great expectations can cause a couple to fall out of love with their spouse and seek attention elsewhere. They’re stuck with their partner because divorce is taboo. At the end of the day, I guess they have their cake (boyfriend or girlfriend) and can eat it too (spouse).
What are your thoughts on cheating and cheaters in your country or you’ve experienced abroad? Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
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39 Comments on Cheating in Japan
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The whole “cheating in Japan” thing really bothered/shocked me when I first moved here. I mean, I had friends who cheated on their SO all the time – but they more or less kept it “hush hush” and didn’t broadcast it at dinner parties and stuff.
And then in Japan, the guys will be drinking in the next room and talking about their trips to the blowjob parlor, the married women they are cheating on their wives with, etc. It’s like… what? Really? All of you?
I can’t imagine going to those kinds of places with my boss/coworkers. It’s just. Yeah. Odd.
Hell you are speaking on point!
Grace,
It’s definitely unsettling to hear these kinds of things! As a hopeless romantic, I hope for a forever with the man I choose to one day marry. In Japan, I feel after a woman has a child, she takes over her title as mother and the sexy woman the husband fell in love with no longer exists!
Obviously there’s a different cheating culture here in Japan. It makes me sad to see these kinds of things. Of course, every country has its faults but I’ve heard many stories like yours.
I think it’s a product of the culture of arranged marriage (I.e., marriage is an alliance between families to maintain social status and carry on the family line). Marriage is not about love so it’s natural for men (more recently with the advent of good birth control women too!) to look for romance outside the marriage. In the US, marriage is a sign of love, so if one partner cheats and falls in love with someone else, that is like the end of the marriage. Not so in traditional Japan because the purpose of marriage is different. Nowadays arranged marriage is rare but I think the attitudes still persist…also Japan is public shame-based culture rather than private guilt-based like in the West…the primary regulator of behavior is what other people think, so if an adult is doing something behind closed doors it’s morally neutral. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
But I think a lot of Japanese young people are dissatisfied with this model of adult life, perhaps one reason why average age of marriage is going up. My Japanese husband wanted something different. He found Christianity that teaches the marriage bed is sacred, and that basis for a new kind of family life is what first attracted him to Christianity. We are both Christians and want to be best friends and faithful lovers till death do us part.
I can completely agree with this. I guess my beliefs differ the same way yours do. I was raised Catholic and for me, marriage is a sacred act. When you marry, it is supposed to be forever.
I have also checked the national standards and have seen the average age of marriage is going up. Living in Okinawa, I see very young couples, but that is because of the military.
Blessings on finding a wonderful man and husband to share with your views. I only hope for the same for myself in the future.
Thanks for the read!
And here I am, thinking all of this applies to many boys and men in South Korea, too. I think having such strong hostess/host culture and arranged marriages are what lead to cheating in these countries. You can, and you almost have to.
Oh definitely! I’ve read a lot of blogs covering this topic too. I’m starting to find Korea is very similar to Japan in those ways of cheating. I think their culture definitely shapes the way they cheat. Not to say western guys don’t cheat because they most definitely do. I just think it’s interesting how and why they cheat.
Indeed it’s normal for Japanese to never mention their significant other to almost anyone. Some of it can be attributed to cultural issues and I’m guessing also that the individual personalities you’ve encountered have exacerbated your views. Experience gained by marrying young can drive some men to try to “give a girl what she wants.” They’re not necessarily dishonest, but most definitely self-indulgent playboys exist everywhere. Without doubt some are dishonest, their individual reasons are innumerable.
Of the cultural differences, we have to understand their side and be able to turn the tables on ourselves. To question our perceptions of relationships we have to ask if they are also mere cultural artifacts. Or, have we chosen to feel this way about extra-relationship fraternizations from our experiences? Our (western) conceptions of loyalty are heavily influenced by the religious history in which we were immersed as we stumbled through our first.
The Japanese have borrowed and been forced to adopt many western perceptions, some of which are related to relationships, marriage, and fidelity. This does not mean they’ve borrowed the entire institution of an exclusive monogamous couple as the standard of love.
In your other post about relationships you mentioned that the difficulties of having friends who are in relationships. Their circumstances have determined their activities and company and it can deteriorate a social group quickly. Japanese readily elevate the social obligation to a level that easily trumps the family.
This isn’t exactly the best answer in my opinion but, it’s subjective. Cheating=violating a rule. If it’s not a rule for everyone, then not everyone is cheating. To them it may be having fun, and they may wonder why people don’t understand.
I also agree with Leah, guilt vs. shame and marriage as a social tool are wildly influential here. Just my two ¥.
I think it’s cultural not to mention it because they would like to remain humble and not stick out. Although, I don’t see anyone complaining and praising a wife who makes treats for her husband’s co-workers. Funny how these things work out. There are many self-indulgent men in the West as well, but from an outsider looking in and becoming aware of these situations for the first time, I was very shocked. I was used to a Western type of cheating and shocked when I witnessed it in a different culture, done in a different way.
My personality type is very loyal. I am a loyal friend and partner. When I see people doing things I could never do, it makes me reflect on myself and why I would never do it. I could never stand to hurt someone I care about so painfully by talking shit behind their back or cheating on my partner.
I guess my morality definitely conflicts with the Japanese because mine goes as follows: God, family, country. If some Japanese don’t have those rules and their social obligations are more important than their family, it would definitely make sense why they would overlook cheating. Not everyone is the same. In a way, it would be like a man in a company trying to get to the shacho position or boss position. He is essentially sleeping his way to the top by earning a rite of passage. I guess his wife would be happy with that because that would mean more money in the future.
Historically, relationships in japan have also been very different, at least for the upper class, which the lower class always tries to emulate. From what I have read, Japan was always relaxed about sex. In the Heian period, the nobles practiced polygamy, and everyone, male and female had lovers on the side. Sex and love was a game to be enjoyed by all. Just look at the Tale of Genji. A man wasn’t considered a true gentleman unless he knew the red light district in and out like the back of his hand, quite different from western idea of a gentleman, who is more, i don’t know, sexless in a way. Among the lower classes, at least in more rural villages, at a certain age, all the youngsters would all go live together and they would experiment with each other, until they settled down with one. (The last I’m not quite sure about. If I’m wrong, please tell me. I read it somewhere and didn’t have time to fact check.)
That’s super interesting to know about. I don’t know much about Japanese history and coming from that point, it makes sense why monogamy isn’t something for them. The Westerners definitely had their hay day with having mistresses too. I think it depends on the person, but many of my guy friends have had heated discussions when asked by their male friends or coworkers why they don’t have a side chick in addition to their main one. I guess it’s a different way of thinking. I, personally, am a hopeless romantic, and I want to believe there is a forever.
The pressure to get married young and have children is the same in Korea. Your story about the man ending up at a brothel is crazy! What a good guy for not feeling pressure to cheat on his wife. One of my friends here is dating an older Korean man and he told her that his bosses always hire naked Korean women to dance in their norebangs when they have company outings. He said most of the men are married and take the women elsewhere after their norebang session – wild how similar the cultures are in that regard. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that some people are in arranged marriages, etc. Terrible and immoral regardless.
That’s just one story out of many shocking ones, if you can believe it. Hearing about the Korean bosses doing things like that is kind of shocking to me. Although I do know that prostitution is easy to come by in Korea. I think Korean and Japanese cultures are very similar in ways that it’s easy to cheat and blame it on the pressure from their bosses. I totally agree they shouldn’t be doing things like this, but there will be scum all over the world, unfortunately.
I don’t know, this is a tough one. I agree generally with a lot of points, but I think that this is a bit unfair to the large number of faithful Japanese husbands out there who have a firm grip on their morality when it comes to marriage. And I believe their morality comes from family values instilled from within Japan/Okinawa without the additional aid of any recent import of Western modes of thinking or Western morality. I have seen both sides of this coin, believe me, so in general I agree that some Japanese men (and many Japanese women) approach cheating and prostitution in a more forgiving manner than your typical Western couple. However, I truly think that Japanese culture does in fact teach its men and women that it is wrong to cheat, that doing so is a moral failure and is not accepted by most Japanese circles that I run with. Though you are right, many Japanese women (and men) likely live with infidelity and suffer silently because they are morbidly afraid of divorce. But those women (and men) don’t shrug it off so easily like infidelity is some cultural norm – I think they simply suffer behind close doors, feeling very betrayed and angry with their partners but unwilling to divorce because of high social expectations to keep the family together no matter what the cost and to not be viewed as a failure at home.
I think a big problem is the ease and availability of prostitution throughout Japan, which although supposedly illegal, exists in the open in all large cities throughout Japan in the form of soap land or other non-covert forms of prostitution. A Japanese man can get drunk, act bad, and doesn’t feel like he is conducting an “illegal” act which can get him in real trouble with the law and later with his family. I think making prostitution truly illegal in Japan (with real legal consequences) would change things very much in this country. And although I agree with the general cultural comments of the blog, I think that Japanese inherently feel that their actions are “wrong” and do in fact aspire to monogamy, and many Japanese men succeed. Meanwhile the less morally inclined (who exist in all countries) enjoy unobstructed access to fulfill their desires with no major consequences as long as their partners do not realize what is really going on. I admit, in a Japanese group of male co-workers in their 20s-50s will have like-minded men will encourage this behavior. But don’t kid yourselves, this exists in the West very much as well. Other Japanese men with stronger morality will find various reasons to avoid this type of late night gathering with co-workers, yet in their very Japanese way, not publicly persecute (but will silently judge) those and excuse themselves quietly to leave the party early to get back home to their wife and kids. It happens everyday, I promise you.
Sorry, long post…
There are faithful Japanese, but in my experience, the ones who are were Christian. Living in Okinawa, there were many Christian churches and institutions. My experience was different from many people and I guess I was meeting and hanging out with a lot of people who were inclined to overlooking cheating which came as a complete shock to me.
And I totally agree with what you said. On the other side of the coin, there are Japanese men who feel strong obligations to their wives. I once had a co-worker who would never come to the teacher parties because he didn’t want to be guilted into going to the second and third parties where most of the shenanigans happened. What you say is very valid and I definitely appreciate a well thought out opinion.
Wow. This is just unbelievable. A Japanese guy just courted me but right when I dumped him saying that I want us to stay as friends, he got himself a new girlfriend the next week. I felt sad since he would have played with my feelings if I agreed to be his girlfriend but I felt relieved too for dumping him.
Sorry to hear something like that happened to you. The Japanese, I find, have much more complicated rules for courting and dating than we could imagine. If he was just courting you, then he wasn’t serious. Luckily, you dodged a bullet of a potentially bad relationship. Many happy wishes for you in the future! I hope you’ll find an awesome guy.
You had a lucky escape, believe me! I was strung along for a year!
Disgusting.
My Japanese boyfriend of a year dumped me 4 days ago and ignored me online (he never ignored me before) He had asked me to get engaged in Feb, but I find out now he was on Tinder and talking to other women on the phone pretty much during the entire relationship. I’m a an American who was on JET. There is definitely a sense of avoiding confrontation and what I would call loose morals…The fact that he has just disappeared and will refuse to take my calls says a lot about him. I had met parents and apparently all his friends but there was obviously people taking his interest elsewhere. When I tried to call him or txt him, he would say he was busy at work (yeah yhey work like crazy) or out with friends. I was happy but a few times I noticed it was always after work drinks and social obligations. I was fine but I can see I was just becoming second best to after the work day and fun had ended. He had said before he didn’t wanna live in Japan, wanted to live in America (lived there for 2 years studying) and we met in America. I thought he was different to other typical Japanese men who didn’t want or have a Western outlook and desire for Western life. He told me to come to stay in Japan and now is saying I don’t want to see you anymore and that his life is in Japan, he wants to make money for his company or make a business there. Yet he is always stressed lately and complaining about how hard Japan is to live (apart from the weekends and evenings lol)
My advice: Don’t get involved with Japanese men unless you tread very carefully. Obviously not everyone is the same but you gotta remember that the culture is very different and it affects everything. Either you need to become Japanese or he needs to be different in Japan, after all his wife would be Western. He will be an outsider if he leaves Japan and comes back, career would be gone, so it is very complicated… I’ve learnt a lot. In fact he told me via text: Japan comes first. After telling me for months that he would move or compromise for one he loves.
As regards to cheating, he said he would never cheat but once said soaplands weren’t really cheating and I remember I was like What!! He then assured me he had never used them except in his youth.
I am totally heartbroken and my memories of Japan have been soured…if you wanna try a taste of Japan and dating, try it…but keep yourself close and watch your back. At the end of the day, differences matter and so do values.
wtf!!! kick his butt
I thought I would go there after 2-3 years for a job just because they are respectful and peaceful people and I would have no problem
I have had a similar thing happen to me very recently. I moved to Japan to study Japanese for the purpose of doing translation, but also to live with my Japanese boyfriend (with the intention to marry within two years). I thought he was a great guy, funny, fun, relaxed, open minded (for a Japanese person), made a lot of effort to spend time with me and meet my family in Australia. We had a long distance relationship in between the times I visited him in Japan or he came to Australia. I knew he wasn’t perfect but overall he seemed like a good fit for me.
Well, then I moved to Japan and within one week saw some messages blink on his phone and all those good feelings I had flew out the window. Turns out the last month he’d been “chatting” (ie sexual chatting) with a married woman living in the next prefecture, who he’d met on an online game a few months before. Unfortunately I can’t get a refund for the first term of my schooling so I will have to stay here for a few months, but I intend to go home after that. He cried like a baby when I told him of my intentions, but I didn’t have much sympathy.
Amazingly, at first he didn’t think that it was cheating becuase they hadn’t met! I asked him, would you have kept chatting with her if I hadn’t found out? Yes, probably. Would you have met her? Maybe. Would you have been angry/upset/jealous if I had done the same thing with a guy? Yes of course. Well then why did you think you could do it? Ummm…
WTF.
I know he is the one who did the wrong, but I feel ashamed and stupid and naive. I was so excited to start a new chapter and saved money for this big change (I’m not in my twenties anymore, by the way, which makes it even more embarrassing).
Now it’s all shrivelled to nothing. My family, old coworkers and friends back home still don’t know about it…I’m too embarrassed to tell them that the guy I moved across the world for is a tool.
There is never a good reason or excuse for cheating. I don’t know how I’ll be able to trust a guy again after this experience.
Kate,
That guy who did that to you sounds like complete garbage. I don’t know where people get off doing this kind of thing. People make mistakes and people do things for love. By moving, this shows you cared about him and left your world behind for his. If he can’t appreciate it, there’s some bloke out there who will appreciate a dedicated woman. Many Japanese see emotional cheating as the worst kind of cheating and I can understand where he’s coming from. Does it make it right? Hell no and it’s better for you if you find someone with the same morals as you. Good luck and many blessings as you close your Japan chapter.
Kate,
I was in in a similar situation as you. It went as far as me meeting my girlfriend’s family. Japanese culture is different from our western culture. It happened with my other ex as well, but it did not go as far as meeting her family. I was pretty pissed that I traveled halfway around the world. And the coin that I spent, I am a student as well and the money and time wasted made me pretty mad.
Both girls I have meet while studying Japanese, the lesson I learned is.
1. Our culture is way too different.
2. Cheating is very common in Japan. My ex even told me she found condoms in her dad’s suitcase.
3. Sex and lover are not connected in a relationship, dating or marriage.
4. International relationship or long distance don’t work. I have seen too many broken hearts from friends.
5. The last thing, shit happens.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Some guys are just tools and this guy definitely sounds like one. 🙁 I completely agree when it comes to treading carefully with Japanese men. I found many Japanese think of cheating as more emotional. The physical aspect means nothing as long as there are no feelings involved. Obviously, you’re a more trust worthy person and you deserve so much better than this guy. Take it from me. I used to be depressed because I figured out the dating game in Japan was pretty sad for foreign women. I waited a long time and I met my incredible boyfriend Aaron. I truly believe there’s more happiness waiting for you than this one pathetic guy.
Lovely true people i love japness
This is really revealing as a post and my reactions are just “ewwww!” I simply cannot agree with their behavior!
Yeah. This is just the dark side of it. There’s also good sides about Japan too!
and what do you think about couples who are not married? I understand somehow that some people who didn’t marry out of love cheat though I still think it ‘s bad. But does the cheating culture includes as well dating couples? I am lately quiet afraid of things like that in my ldr, actually it scares me as hell
The cheating also happens to dating couples as well. I feel like with some people nothing is off limits. It just depends on the person and if they tolerate it.
I went to Japan to study the language and culture, but was working at a college and high school. I met a woman and we were happy until we decided to get married. Then things started to spiral out of control. One incident shocked me, because it was not compatible with the woman I thought she was. I had truster her implicitly, never really asking where she was going or what she was doing, but we were nearly always in contact by message or together, and at any rate her personality seemed genuine.
Briefly, one day she told me she was going out with a group of people after a wedding had been cancelled–going out with the people who had come to the wedding from afar, I thought. Turns out not only did she stand me up that night (she assured me we had a date at 5pm), but she did not tell me until that night that she had spent the whole day eating and drinking with the rugby team from high school–the only girl in the group–and then told me she did not know I was waiting on her (after getting home after 9). There are many things one could complain about regarding this situation, but for present purposes: I have not met a Japanese guy who would be comfortable with what she did, and most Western guys think she should have at least told me before hand that she would be spending the day with a dozen or more guys.
I began to worry, the marriage drawing closer, that I did not really know this person. I found out that she had been doing strange things while we were dating (exclusive, boyfriend-girlfriend). Three quick examples:
She told me she did not have any guy friends from the time we met (just who she is) and after the rugby incident she assured me that she had not seen any rugby friends from high school and had was not in contact with any guys that I did not know of…
But one guy she had went out with on a number of dates before she met me she was in mail contact with up until we got engaged, and indeed he asked her out (the two of them) for drinks the very day we got engaged. Not only did I not know about him, but he did not know about me; she messaged him that night that she was sorry for not writing because she had “business” to attend to that day.
Then I found out that she had been going out drinking with two male colleagues and intentionally pretending to be at home. According to my Japanese sources, one female and two males…not cool in Japanese culture, especially if that female has a boyfriend. But why lie about it? I would have said, have fun! She later admitted that if I dug deeper, I would find out other times she went out and mislead me into thinking she was at home–with no reason, according to her. Perhaps some of those times were when she did not message me from the time she got off work until the next day and said “before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.” (I later confirmed that this is a commonly used lie in Japan.)
Finally, I found out that an old rugby senpai (upper classmate) had (according to her) suddenly called her up after not seeing each other for over ten years and (I found out) taken her out to one of the most expensive restaurants in the city (the two of them alone, probably costing four hundred dollars, and he is not rich) and she had told me she was out with a friend (and remember she has no guy friends, so I naturally assumed it was a woman). She continued to message him and talk on the phone with him for a few months after that. Later, when I asked her if she had ever been out with any other guy while dating me, she insisted she would never do that, but when I confronted her about this case, she said she had merely forgotten, and it was just two old friends catching up.
There is a lot more to the story between the two of us, although I have no concrete evidence that she slept with anyone. But after talking with many Japanese people, and NJs who have lived a long time in Japan, this sort of behavior does not seem particularly unusual. For example, a Japanese friend of mine took an informal survey at work and four out of five said they would go out on a date with another guy and not tell their boyfriend. Indeed, a friend of mine has had two different Japanese girlfriends, and both did nearly identical things to him–say they are going out with a friend, when in fact they went out with other guys. I have so much anecdotal evidence concerning not only her but other Japanese people, but I will stop there.
My tentative conclusion about Japanese culture is they take very seriously the idea that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Appearance over reality, feelings over principle. If this is true, any foreigner dating or married to a Japanese person should take note of it. No culture is homogeneous, and cultural differences are a matter of degree, but I have never run into this sort of behavior and accompanying attitude in the States.
My husband hates that kind of “peer pressure” and “what you he/she doesn’t know won’t hurt him/her” culture. He is a very loyal man and calls himself a “dog” in that regard. Other posters have mentioned in Okinawa usually only Christian men there are loyal, but my husband is not religious. He never liked group culture, so he hated working in Tokyo and quit a high-paying job 6 years ago because he hated the hazing, the abuse from managers, the having to go to brothels with coworkers, etc. He drives a bus now and works pretty independently but gets to interact with some travelers at the airport and practice his English, so he likes it.
Tbh, I know his schedule and his company is an 8 minute walk from home so I never have to worry about him. If he is hung up chatting with a coworker for a while after work that is no problem; there are no businesses near the bus office for him to visit, not even a ramen shop. I never say anything and yet he is usually home within 15 minutes of his shift ending.
He always tries to spend as much time as possible with me, which for me is the biggest sign. He always puts me before coworkers and leaves the rare company party he attends early because everyone is “annoying”. Of course, if not for me he probably wouldn’t have gotten married because of his low salary and he is already in his mid-30s and he has a general attitude of disliking groupthink, but I feel like I won the lottery because if there is one thing I hate, it is a cheater.
He was telling me just yesterday that his coworker’s wife will be out of town for a few days, so the coworker is planning a trip to Thailand to “buy some cheap women” (Good luck with your AIDS, guy!) He is not only married but has two kids at home. My husband said he told the guy that he was disgusting. Hahaha. I think my bluntness is rubbing off on him. Hubby even said, “How can that guy buy women when he has a daughter and a wife? None of these guys think about their family!” He puts family over everything. I feel blessed.
I really hope everyone here can find a good partner. To be honest, I dated a lot of rubbish guys in Japan before I met my husband, including some guys who made good salaries or had high status but were cheaters/not considering marriage/just wanted to bang foreign women/threw up red flags for being abusive if we got serious. Stuff like that. I met plenty of bad apples first. So don’t let the vast majority of people turn you off from finding someone– sift through the dirt to find gold.
Oh God I feel stressed just reading about their pressure. It explains so much… that level of repression is bound to spill out somewhere else.. !
Relationships in Japan are something I had a lot of trouble understanding. Even my Japanese friends were unable to really explain haha. Host and hostess cafes still throw me for a loop.
My gf is Japanese we rarely see each other, so I exclaim my love her through messages. She continues to say she needs space. Is this a cultural thing that I don’t understand? I would just like some info. I haven’t heard from her in about a week and we have been together 6 months. Am I really that pushy? I just miss the sparkle in her eye and the way she used to look at me 😭😭
It sounds like she’s just pushing you away because she isn’t really that into you. Japanese aren’t confrontational so when they continue to ignore the person/problem, it will go away.
Hello, i am a filipino,married to a Japanese guy for 14 years. We never had trouble since last week when i saw his phone that he is chatting with some japanese women and thailander women on line, those women are his co workers.I was hurt and shocked, then eventually i saw that some of his co workers are doing the same thing with their girlfriends and wives. They even exchanged pics to each other. I was so disappointed and so angry that he betrayed me like that. I was treasuring our marriage because we have a 12 years old daughter, and I thought he is also the same. That’s why since last year, he doesn’t want to sleep by my side. I was thinking that he was maybe just tired at work. Until i saw his phone and the exchanged of pictures with his female co workers. I confronted him about it but he was denying it and said it was nothing. Even if he explains,i already lost trust on him, and still feels hurt of what he did. Until now we are not talking. And I feel so much hate on him.
As someone said before “everybody in a relationship with a japanese person should watch their back”. The culture is too different. I lost 6 years of my life. I learned a lot, so I didn’t waste my time completely but I feel very stupid now when I think about it. I went out with a japanese man and he cheated on me but I didn’t love myself enough to leave him.. Even if he cheated on me he wanted to marry me which made absolutely no sense to me.. so I told him no ( I wasn’t completely stupid after all..) but I became pregnant. I thought becoming a father would change him maybe. No way. I checked his phone one night and what I found out was too much to put up with. I had to leave for my dignity. Our daughter was just three months old. I want to write about my experience just in case I might help someone else not to waste their precious time:
1. Before starting a relationship, please talk with the other person and make sure you share the same values, specially regarding fidelity.
2. Love yourself. Don’t put up with anybody who disrespects you (cheating is seriusly disrespecful)
3. Dating someone from a different culture has an impact in a relationship and it will take extra work for a relationship to be succesful. But in many cases it will never work, specially if your values are too different or if you’re not willing to be cheated on for life