January

A time has been set, though it makes no sense.

After returning from what is likely our last camping trip and having wine and cheese, the preexwife says that “If you are leaving the house, do so in January.” “What?” Was my response. The conversation distilled, is that she wants to limit the number of people The Kid comes into contact with during flu and covid season (Wait! What!!! She admits that covid is seasonal?) to protect The Kid from these during testing. The only reason I am staying on after her decision I must go is to not disturb The Kid as they prepare for the test. Leaving on the eve of the test is certain to be a real upset for them, preexwife says she’ll manage it, I snickered, “As well as you have thus far?”

To provide more detail of what is going on, I provide this except from an email I just sent a childhood friend who is coming to Japan again for a work related trip and who asked to meet us while here in Japan. We had a few short back and forths that prompted the following. He was in Japan on an educator exchange years ago in the preexwife’s hometown. He stayed with us in Tokyo, before we moved to the house, and has meet the in-laws. I have redacted it using “The Kid” and “preexwife” to hide the identities of these two.

“First, I was against The Kid having a “smart” phone. No matter, she got one for them anyway. Same with Minecraft.

Last Sunday is an all too typical weekend. The Kid had to take a cram school test Sunday but decided they wouldn’t go. Somehow, we finally got them out the door to get them to the testing site just in time. Luckily, it was just down the street. They and I got there just before the gate was to open and find a dozen or so parents with their kids waiting for the same thing. After ten minutes, it became apparent that the gate is not going to be opened. This means we will have to use the pay bicycle parking at the supper market at the foot of the steep hill upon which most of the university hosting the test sits. Between the unopened gate and the bicycle parking are a trail, like through the woods, that leads to stairs to the school and closer to the supermarket, a large stair case leading to another portion of the same. The woodland path has a sign indicating it is the way to the school. Big fight as they would not pass this trail because of the sign. After I asked them if they wanted to push their bike along that path and carry it up the stairs, they finally relented to continue to the bike parking but did so in a near panic. This was similar to the week before when they had a very important test elsewhere. The school was a 15 minute walk from the nearest station. They began to panic and throw a fit because along the way we saw another school. It not being the school where the test was to be, they were certain I was taking them the wrong way, despite the large number of kids their age with one or both parents walking the same way as us. They cannot grasp the possibility that more than one school may be along the same road. I do not recall when they decided that they know all and need not listen to their parents but I do recall that in frustration I asked “How is it that a 6 year old believes they know all there is to know?”, and that this came after quite some time of them acting like this.

I picked them up after the test and we went home for lunch. In a replay reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day, they convince their mother to allow them to play Minecraft for an agreed upon length of time before doing their homework. At the appointed time, they refuse to stop, claiming this that and the other as wholly unrealistic reasons. Preexwife relents and set a new time limit, which they also refuse to follow. After several repetitions, a big fight between them erupts. One chases the other, I don’t recall which, up the stairs from where yelling and banging is heard for a long time. I tried to intervene before it got to this point but the preexwife told me to shut up, she is handling it. After a long bought of door banging, I go up stairs and find the 11 year old kid pushing against their bedroom door to get in and learn that preexwife is inside pushing against it to keep them out. I grab The Kid and carry them down stairs thus bringing to an end that day’s hostilities.

I later learn that while they were fighting upstairs, The Kid intentionally kicked their mother’s foot, the one she broke earlier this year. It is now healed, but they knew it was her injured foot and chose to kick it. Two months shy of their 12th birthday, they are just 8cm shorter than their mother. This just further confirms in my mind that after I leave, one or the other is going to seriously injure or kill the other. This is not their first attack on their mother. But I am no longer allowed to punish them when they do.

Some time later the same day, they are all chummy and The Kid is playing Minecraft again. What lesson is she instilling in them? This began when they were 3 or 4. I told preexwife at the time that this was a huge problem and we needed to start immediately working to solve it. She ignored me and eventually forbad me from doing anything about their behavior and even worse attitude. If I didn’t honor my responsibilities as a father and husband, I would have left years ago, and given how she is just throwing me out like trash but waited until I expended my savings to make bills after the destruction of my income due to covid policies, I should have.”

To this I will add the current situation. The preexwife directed that I hang up laundry to dry. The house is being repainted and thus the inside of the house looks like a Chinese laundry. One laundry rack is behind the sofa the other at the end. The only access to the clothes on them is from over the sofa. As soon as the preexwife tells me to take care of the laundry, The Kid plops themself right down on the sofa. I tell them they can’t sit there as I need to take down the dry clothes and hang up the wet laundry. They get up and go to the other end, even more in the way than before. I tell them that they can’t sit on the sofa until I am down with the laundry. They storm out of the living room. I did not yell. I just said that they couldn’t sit on the sofa until I was done with the laundry.

When lunch is ready, they refuse to eat with me. Later I went up to their room to inform them that one of the pieces of clothing was thrown out because there was a hole in it and they covered themself with a blanket and screamed at me to go back down stairs. As I have stated earlier, every day the preexwife and The Kid makes leaving easier.

Last night I sent contact emails to two realtors that help gaijin find housing in Japan. I plan to leave when it is best for me. She wants me to stay until January so that I can pick The Kid up from cram school two of the three days a week they attend and to talk them to their weekly tests on weekends. Screw that. If all I get in return is the shit they shovel at me, what do I need to continue to earn less than I could if I worked later? Why do I need to keep spending what I do on the house instead of on my new residence?