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The story
A month after his divorce, a post laying bare the pain of not being able to see his kids drew a wave of responses. The thread eventually spiraled into a debate over who’s worse off on the marriage market — a divorced 40-something with kids, or a 42-year-old who’s never been married at all — and the replies kept piling up.
What people said
The pain of not seeing my kid is unreal.
She's the one who filed for divorce mediation, so I had no choice but to give up.
'It's the little things that felt like happiness…' (quoting the lyrics to Sukima Switch's ballad "Kanade")
I want to get married again…
But a 40-year-old divorced guy with a kid? No way that's happening.
42, never married, 175cm, college grad —
I'm the real washed-up one here.
We're basically the same.
Hang in there.
Saying that and then posting this anyway, lol.
It started over some dumb argument, but my wife took our kid and went back to her parents' place for a few days.
We blow up like this once or twice a year, so it's usually a "here we go again" thing, but this time was probably the worst ever.
My son's three, and he's unbearably cute.
Even just a few days without seeing him was rough, so I get how you feel.
I honestly don't care about my wife, but not being able to see my son — that I can't handle.
Exactly this.
Mine's a daughter, and after the divorce, once I couldn't see her anymore, I lost my reason to keep living.
Is your kid a handful?
Uh, I was being self-deprecating…
Doesn't change the fact you're washed up either way.
Come on, no divorce, 175cm, college degree — I'd say I've still got better odds at marriage than you.
Women won't even look twice at a guy with kids.
Being that age and never married is worse than being divorced.
And a college degree isn't worth anything these days.
I think never having been married at all at your age is worse.
For what it's worth, I'm 181cm and a college grad too —
you're the only one who cares about that stuff.
He's a handful, but he's settled down some.
At two he was going through the terrible-twos phase and it was really rough.
Re: #39
That's exactly my wife.
Her parents' place is a 10-minute drive away, so she goes there every day.
Grandma ends up doing most of the childcare — she's never really cut the cord from her own parents.
All I can say is my condolences.
Sounds like your wife was raised pretty spoiled, huh?
Lucky you.
Mine are girls in 6th and 4th grade, and they won't even hold my hand anymore.
No, I didn't.
She just took our kid unilaterally and it went straight into divorce mediation.
Then why didn't you just refuse to go along with it?
Why'd you agree?
The mediator talked me into it — stuff like "you're still young, you'll get another chance" and so on.
They basically half-threatened me with "the divorce is going to be a done deal in two years anyway, you know?"
There is no "next."
Who's gonna marry a divorced 40-something with kids?
Maybe some woman in her late 50s, if you're lucky.
So at the time, did you figure it'd be fine even if it meant not seeing your kid anymore?
More like I realized there was zero chance of patching things up.
You should've fought for custody.
If you've given up, just move on already.
Mothers get custody like 100% of the time.
Even more so once she's already taken the kid away.
Custody overwhelmingly favors the wife. Japan always sides with women.
Background and Key Points
Not being able to see my kid, I lost my reason to keep living
The bitterness in this thread traces back to a structural fact about Japanese family law: Japan has no joint custody after divorce — it’s the only G7 country without it, though a 2024 civil code revision (taking effect by 2026) will introduce an optional joint-custody system for the first time. Under the current sole-custody regime, courts and mediators (chōtei) overwhelmingly award custody to the mother, especially once she has already relocated with the child, as poster >>83 notes. Japan also has no enforceable visitation mechanism comparable to Western court-ordered parenting schedules; a father who “agrees” to divorce in mediation is, in practice, agreeing to a sharp cut in contact with his children, which is why the OP describes his life as suddenly empty a month out.
The thread doesn’t actually split on the custody system itself — everyone agrees it’s stacked against fathers. The real fault line is the tangent that hijacks the back half: whether a divorced man in his 40s with kids is more or less “marriageable” than a same-age man who has simply never married. That argument (>>17 through >>84) runs on pure vibes and self-deprecation, with posters trading claims about height, education, and age as if these were fungible dating-market credits, never citing any actual data on remarriage rates.
What outside readers will likely miss is that the OP’s “no choice” framing (>>66) reflects a real practice: Japanese divorce mediators commonly steer reluctant spouses toward settling by suggesting that contested cases invariably end in divorce anyway after the mandatory separation period, which is a persuasion tactic, not binding law — a nuance no one in the thread challenges.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “It’s Been a Month Since My Divorce”.
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