"I am now the ghost." That says it all. I'm sorry you have to go through this, and hope that you are granted strength and wisdom as you navigate this difficult chapter of your life.
Writing is certainly therapeutic and on this topic especially, it is a relief valve as I cannot share this horrible news with no on my family knows or working with in country. That leaves substackers and one other in Japan. Can’t even tell my parents out of fear of tipping of the kids, one of whom is studying for their entrance exams.
IIRC, you are a physician and was interested in the progress of my DMSO treatments on my knee. It is not perfect but it wasn’t before I injured it. It may be better now than it was before I twisted it. Plan to do a lot more walking a cycling soon to lose the weight I put on these past 5 years of lockdowns literally and the general immobility following my injury. Hopefully, I’ll a bit more too.
I have a lot of Gordon Lightfoot’s work, I do not know this one. What song?
One line of his that struck me as a young child but had greater meaning after sailing the stormy seas, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” Applies to the storms of life equally well.
The chorus of the song whose lyrics you share really hit home. If an arrow or an once of lead, the kill shot.
Oh, oh. Oh. Oh that hurts. So so close to home, that hits. But thanks, both of you.
Will not listen to it again for a while. There are a lot of songs which I love that I cannot listen to at present. Will again in the future, I believe, but not now. The wounds are not only still fresh, they are still being inflicted. Need for them to scar over first.
Sadly, that is not likely. They really do not want to see me, at least that is what they say. I took the oldest, the troubled one, to a rugby match sort Lt after the turn of the new year. My wife told me the night before that they did not want to go with me because they were afraid I would get angry. We did go and apart from their panicking that we would not get a free jersey, had a good time. They even said so on the bus back to the station. However, once home, they report a long list of my transgressions during the outing to their mother mother who coddled them like an infant. Not the first time such as occurred. Not many more in the future, it would seem.
Try not to be too sorrowful now that the soon-to-be-ended relationship is a done deal.
During the two years you're 'existing' ,in Tokyo, make concrete static-date plans for you & the kids asserting your parental authority. Quit falling for the passive aggressive bs dished out and your best will be good enough!! Less is more can work in your favor.
Have another skill to teach?
Story to tell?
Task to master?
Your kids will grow up and come visit you in the USA.
Don't let her lack of grace define your role in their lives.
Sadly, much of your excellent suggestions can not be. The oldest kid has started preparation for their first big entrance exam, the one for jr. High school. Everything now revolves around their schedule which as its base includes 3 late nights at cram school each week and testing on at least one weekend day each weekend. Hardly seem them even though we are currently living in the same house. I will ferry them to and from cram school tonight and that will be the extent of my dealings with them today.
At my wife’s request, I greatly curtailed my work availability to help with the kids which also meant massively reducing my earnings for 6 years. Once relieved of those restrictions, I land several great positions that increased my pay beyond anything I had ever earned before. This lasted less than two years, coming to an abrupt halt thanks to the panic. Still not able to recover due to several factors that include family imposed time constraints. Once free of those I will be insanely busy looking for more work and then hopefully, working many more hours to fund my return home.
They want me gone and once I leave, to them I shall be.
Brilliant. I thought this. I enjoined this. Mom was cool, getting them high at 12. I was an old fuddy duddy. And now they don’t talk to me. At all. 51 and 43. No longer children. And now, I realized it’s easy for a parent to fuck a kid up. And difficult as hell for another parent to bring them round. I’m at peace. I tried. I wish for Kitsune to avoid the travails of a hateful, vengeful, egotistical, brutal ex. Bail while you’re young enough to salvage that time you have left.
There certainly seems to be a transactional aspect to marriage in Japan. This is true for wholly Japanese unions too, but divorce is less common when the husband is the bread winner. Actually, should have written “while” the husband is the bread winner. Around 25 years ago the divorce rate sky rocketed in Japan. Who were responsible for this sudden change to Japanese society? Housewives of retired Japanese husbands. They would wait until their hubby retired then divorce and take have his savings and pensions. There were even classes at community centers for housewives whose husbands were nearing retirement to teach them how to get the most out of the divorce and retirement afterwards. The husbands were completely in the dark.
My wife left hints throughout the years that love was not a factor in her marrying me. She sees marriage as part of a social contract with me being two kinds of banks for her to withdraw from. One has been expended, she has her kids; thus that task is fulfilled. The other bank is financial. That now being expended and I can no longer fulfill that obligation, it is time to sever ties. It is frightening how cool and collected she is in our discussions of me leaving the household. Just like a business transaction.
I will post more on this later for the benefit of one subscriber in particular and all others who may be interested in the aspects of Japanese society and culture that may be in play here.
The short answer is, that while this is not limited to gaijin husbands, we are easier to toss out with the trash than a Japanese husband is.
Now you must decide, to return to the States or not.
There is a lot the States have going for them.
At least until the war. Oh yes, it is coming. I'd suggest you might best stay over there, but considering the alternative, being bombed back to the Stone Age, and even before, I would suggest the States, might as well go down with the big ship, where you can at least have your choice of firearm, or firearms.
My plan is to stay here around two more years to give me time to earn enough money and have enough time to send my stuff home and sell off my furniture. I am opposed to leaving my furniture so that the house looks mostly the same as it was when I was here. And, I do not want to without what I had before the marriage.
When the war comes, Japan and specifically, our bases here, will be among the first hit. My parents home, in a small town in the middle of the prairie is not a first tier target. But I will need to up date my assault rifle.
I rests on a wall mount in my parents’ home with the bayonet affixed and a cartridge and cap on a small shelf under it. Below these is an original 1842 pattern USN cutlass. These are my home defense weapons. Perhaps I should update them when I go home.
"I am now the ghost." That says it all. I'm sorry you have to go through this, and hope that you are granted strength and wisdom as you navigate this difficult chapter of your life.
Thanks. Not the only one who has gone through this. That does not make it easier, just shows that my experiences are not unique.
Thanks Kitsune for being so honest and I hope that writing about your pain is also cathartic for you and helping you to move forward.
Writing is certainly therapeutic and on this topic especially, it is a relief valve as I cannot share this horrible news with no on my family knows or working with in country. That leaves substackers and one other in Japan. Can’t even tell my parents out of fear of tipping of the kids, one of whom is studying for their entrance exams.
IIRC, you are a physician and was interested in the progress of my DMSO treatments on my knee. It is not perfect but it wasn’t before I injured it. It may be better now than it was before I twisted it. Plan to do a lot more walking a cycling soon to lose the weight I put on these past 5 years of lockdowns literally and the general immobility following my injury. Hopefully, I’ll a bit more too.
If you could read my mind, love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishing well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost, you can't see
If I could read your mind, love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind the drugstore sells
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take
I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three-way script
Enter number two, a movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me
But for now love, let's be real
I never thought I could act this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back
If you could read my mind, love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old-time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishing well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just trying to understand
The feelings that you lack
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feeling's gone
And I just can't get it back
-Gordon Lightfoot
I have a lot of Gordon Lightfoot’s work, I do not know this one. What song?
One line of his that struck me as a young child but had greater meaning after sailing the stormy seas, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” Applies to the storms of life equally well.
The chorus of the song whose lyrics you share really hit home. If an arrow or an once of lead, the kill shot.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jiU2lrGnT7U
Gordon Lightfoot, 'If You Could Read my Mind'
Oh, oh. Oh. Oh that hurts. So so close to home, that hits. But thanks, both of you.
Will not listen to it again for a while. There are a lot of songs which I love that I cannot listen to at present. Will again in the future, I believe, but not now. The wounds are not only still fresh, they are still being inflicted. Need for them to scar over first.
I am glad you are staying in Japan. Your children will be able to see you if they want to.
Sadly, that is not likely. They really do not want to see me, at least that is what they say. I took the oldest, the troubled one, to a rugby match sort Lt after the turn of the new year. My wife told me the night before that they did not want to go with me because they were afraid I would get angry. We did go and apart from their panicking that we would not get a free jersey, had a good time. They even said so on the bus back to the station. However, once home, they report a long list of my transgressions during the outing to their mother mother who coddled them like an infant. Not the first time such as occurred. Not many more in the future, it would seem.
That is now. You don't know how they will feel when they grow more. It is a good thing to be around.
Poignant thoughts K.
Try not to be too sorrowful now that the soon-to-be-ended relationship is a done deal.
During the two years you're 'existing' ,in Tokyo, make concrete static-date plans for you & the kids asserting your parental authority. Quit falling for the passive aggressive bs dished out and your best will be good enough!! Less is more can work in your favor.
Have another skill to teach?
Story to tell?
Task to master?
Your kids will grow up and come visit you in the USA.
Don't let her lack of grace define your role in their lives.
That's what i think, good Kitsune.
Sadly, much of your excellent suggestions can not be. The oldest kid has started preparation for their first big entrance exam, the one for jr. High school. Everything now revolves around their schedule which as its base includes 3 late nights at cram school each week and testing on at least one weekend day each weekend. Hardly seem them even though we are currently living in the same house. I will ferry them to and from cram school tonight and that will be the extent of my dealings with them today.
At my wife’s request, I greatly curtailed my work availability to help with the kids which also meant massively reducing my earnings for 6 years. Once relieved of those restrictions, I land several great positions that increased my pay beyond anything I had ever earned before. This lasted less than two years, coming to an abrupt halt thanks to the panic. Still not able to recover due to several factors that include family imposed time constraints. Once free of those I will be insanely busy looking for more work and then hopefully, working many more hours to fund my return home.
They want me gone and once I leave, to them I shall be.
I am sad for your loss. Hugs.
Brilliant. I thought this. I enjoined this. Mom was cool, getting them high at 12. I was an old fuddy duddy. And now they don’t talk to me. At all. 51 and 43. No longer children. And now, I realized it’s easy for a parent to fuck a kid up. And difficult as hell for another parent to bring them round. I’m at peace. I tried. I wish for Kitsune to avoid the travails of a hateful, vengeful, egotistical, brutal ex. Bail while you’re young enough to salvage that time you have left.
Have seen this happen a few times to gaijin husbands once the having kids part is done - not sure why
There certainly seems to be a transactional aspect to marriage in Japan. This is true for wholly Japanese unions too, but divorce is less common when the husband is the bread winner. Actually, should have written “while” the husband is the bread winner. Around 25 years ago the divorce rate sky rocketed in Japan. Who were responsible for this sudden change to Japanese society? Housewives of retired Japanese husbands. They would wait until their hubby retired then divorce and take have his savings and pensions. There were even classes at community centers for housewives whose husbands were nearing retirement to teach them how to get the most out of the divorce and retirement afterwards. The husbands were completely in the dark.
My wife left hints throughout the years that love was not a factor in her marrying me. She sees marriage as part of a social contract with me being two kinds of banks for her to withdraw from. One has been expended, she has her kids; thus that task is fulfilled. The other bank is financial. That now being expended and I can no longer fulfill that obligation, it is time to sever ties. It is frightening how cool and collected she is in our discussions of me leaving the household. Just like a business transaction.
I will post more on this later for the benefit of one subscriber in particular and all others who may be interested in the aspects of Japanese society and culture that may be in play here.
The short answer is, that while this is not limited to gaijin husbands, we are easier to toss out with the trash than a Japanese husband is.
Now you must decide, to return to the States or not.
There is a lot the States have going for them.
At least until the war. Oh yes, it is coming. I'd suggest you might best stay over there, but considering the alternative, being bombed back to the Stone Age, and even before, I would suggest the States, might as well go down with the big ship, where you can at least have your choice of firearm, or firearms.
My plan is to stay here around two more years to give me time to earn enough money and have enough time to send my stuff home and sell off my furniture. I am opposed to leaving my furniture so that the house looks mostly the same as it was when I was here. And, I do not want to without what I had before the marriage.
When the war comes, Japan and specifically, our bases here, will be among the first hit. My parents home, in a small town in the middle of the prairie is not a first tier target. But I will need to up date my assault rifle.
Get in touch when you return. I would gladly arm you. You’ve been through the mill. It’s the least I can do.
I would help.
As always, thanks.
Thanks for the offer. I will make contact.
https://i.imgur.com/6xIzOs3.jpg
Lovely. Yours?
Yes, a PDW (personal defense weapon).
Sweet!
https://i.imgur.com/b4L7PwZ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VGU63g0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RSHXPL1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/N5Sakvx.jpg
Can’t post a pic of mine but it looks like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_1853_Enfield#/media/File:British_Pattern_1853_Rifle_transparent.png
I rests on a wall mount in my parents’ home with the bayonet affixed and a cartridge and cap on a small shelf under it. Below these is an original 1842 pattern USN cutlass. These are my home defense weapons. Perhaps I should update them when I go home.
Impressive, but up-gradeable.
Think laser sights will suffice? :)
Noice!