Recently, I’ve heard so many first- and second-hand accounts from people in unhealthy relationships here in Japan. Some of them are intercultural like mine, but some are two ‘typical’ Japanese people. It amazes me what constitutes a marriage or relationship here; certainly not what I grew up learning.
Here, relationships can be a thing of convenience, power, prestige, etc. It’s not that uncommon to hear of a woman marrying or chasing a man based solely on his job/salary, marrying a guy or getting pregnant so she can quit her job and lounge about at home in PJs and play mobile phone games (while totally ignoring the man, except for his paychecks), or hear of a married man tolerating his wife’s infidelity, lies, and sexual withholdings just to keep the benefits that come along with being married. Interestingly, I’ve witnessed the latter point directly as prospective job-seekers are grilled during interviews about their intentions with a significant other, and some partially overlooked because of the perception that single people are somehow less trustworthy.
Internally, so many people here are unhappy because they have compromised what western people might idealize (true love) when settling into a relationship, in exchange for a family name, a title, an income bracket, etc., yet in public, you’ll see one or both people present the most enviable kind of happiness; a mask they both wear, because to show the opposite invites gossip, distrust, and shame.
It’s just my opinion, but I find the idea repulsive. We only get one chance at our one life, and then we’re done. Our pursuit of happiness is our only real purpose, and as a social species, that pursuit often includes others. Compromising or eschewing altogether our happiness for something else–especially of material value–seems akin to self-mutilation or prostituting oneself.
Not that long ago, especially here in Japan, many unions were more or less arranged; young men and women were tossed into situations their families deemed beneficial. It seems certain aspects of that outlook on marriage have managed to survive where the obvious (and more controversial on the world stage) parts have not.
I certainly don’t have intentions of upending any of the local customs, but when I see, hear, and live on the receiving end of it, it’s incredibly hard to sit idle. Japanese people are generally known for their suppression of feeling, or at least the outward expression of it; is it better to trade one’s happiness for something else, and lie to the world from behind a mask and a fake smile?