When all else fails, there are always these.
Posted on 02/04/2007 10:39:47 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
TOKYO (AP) -- Mitsutoshi Fukatsu has been with his wife for three decades, but their lives have grown apart. As a busy stationmaster in central Japan, he has usually come home only to eat, bathe and sleep.
Now with retirement looming, the 56-year-old wants to get to know his wife better. He calls her by her name, Setsuko, instead of just grunting. And he says he recently learned a new phrase: ``I love you.''
Fukatsu is among a small but growing group of men who took part in Japan's second annual ``Beloved Wives Day'' last week in hopes of salvaging their marriages by doing something different paying attention to their wives.
``For about a year now, I've been starting to help out with the housework,'' Fukatsu said. ``I can't stay at my company for ever. I have to return home. But right now, I don't feel like I have a place there.''
Last year, the Japan Adoring Husbands Association set itself up and designated Jan. 31 as a day for men to return home at the unusually early hour of 8 p.m., look into their wives' eyes, and say, ``Thank you.''
On Wednesday, the village where the association is based held a renewal-of-vows ceremony for a local couple in their 50s and handed out prizes to three top ``doting husbands.''
The movement is small about 230 people posted messages on the group's Web page about this year's event. But it represents quite a change for a generation of Japanese men taught to care about their companies first and their wives a distant second.
Among the forces driving the change are demographics and money.
This year, the first postwar baby boomers will reach 60 and retire, meaning an unprecedented number of men will have to abandon their home-away-from-home the all-consuming office and spend more time with their wives.
Meanwhile, an impending law change gives a housewife a bigger share of her husband's pension, which could trigger a surge in divorces as long-neglected women take the money and run.
Japan's divorce rate is a relatively low 2.08 per 1,000 couples but the number has increased more than 60 percent since 1985 to 261,917 in 2005, according to government statistics.
Divorce among those married for more than 20 years has grown the fastest, nearly doubling since 1985 to over 40,000 couples in 2005 with separation more likely to be initiated by women. That leaves their ex-husbands to face a lonely old age in a country where the average male lifespan is over 78, one of the world's longest.
``Once children become independent and wives get more free time, they start wondering: 'Am I happy with this life?''' Atsuko Okano, a Tokyo-based divorce counselor, writes on her Web site.
Sadao Ito, 67, wishes he had been more sensitive to his wife's feelings. She left him seven years ago, just as he was facing retirement from a busy office job in the northern city of Sendai. Even the couple's daughter and two sons blame him for the breakup, Ito said.
``My wife took care of me so well. She made me breakfast every day, and did all the housework. But I never did anything in return,'' he said.
Ito now acts as a volunteer adviser to the Adoring Husbands Association, which was founded in 2005 in Tsumagoi village, north of Tokyo.
``Repent, repent, repent. That's what I do every day,'' Ito said in a phone interview. ``My wife didn't take a single family album with her. I realized then that I had driven her away.''
Tsumagoi, whose name sounds like the words ``wife love'' in Japanese, is marketing itself as a romantic destination for married couples.
Last year, it invited couples to an event called ``Shout Your Love from the Middle of a Cabbage Patch'' where husbands took turns hollering romantic messages against a backdrop of Tsumagoi's wide open fields. About 100 people came.
That was where the stationmaster finally told his wife, ``Aishiteru'' (I love you) rehearsing it 20 times.
``I had never told Setsuko I love her not like that. But now I want to say it more often... It feels nice,'' he said.
Setsuko Fukatsu appreciates it. The couple's two daughters will eventually leave home, ``so the two of us need to live a happy and a healthy life together,'' she said. ``And I'm sure my husband will help me out with that.''
When all else fails, there are always these.
Well I'll be...I never realized it, but my 6'4" blonde, blue-eyed husband *must* be Japanese! He's at the office right now...
Why is a man's work always portrayed as some fun-filled refuge?
Those are mostly the ones that bother to speak to them.
I noticed several exceptions but they were in the vast minority.
Does that pillow come with a beercan holder?
Ah, yes, there's nothing like a dismembered body pillow to sooth you after a tough day at work!
Who buys those things? Serial killers??
For some men, it is. They take real pleasure in the camaraderie, the infighting, the competition and the feeling of success work gives. Nowadays a lot of men don't hunt or go to war, so they have this substitute to channel their competitive hunting drive into. The paycheck is a symbol of what big successful hunters they are. Mr. Fairview is like this.
Yeah, working to buy food, clothing and shelter is nothing at all, I guess.
I certainly agree that men should be kind and loving with their wives. They should surely spend time with their families. But let's stop acting like going to work every day is nothing. It accomplishes a BIG something.
I try very hard to remember to thank my husband for working so hard and taking such excellent care of his family.
"He calls her by her name, Setsuko, instead of just grunting."
If he's the grunter does that make her the gruntee?
Beloved Wives Day....I like that.
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