Wouldn’t it be ironic

In notes on the last entry, some have asked if a divorce in Japan counts in the US. The marriage did count in Japan, even though it was performed in the states, and I have always assumed it would work the other way, that getting divorced in Japan – and it was a real divorce, done in the Ward office of our township in Kobe, Japan – would count in the US too. Since my ex wife has not lived here since 1992, and since she returned her "re entry permit" that we got from Immigration early in the last decade, she has not had a legal presence in the US. She comes as a tourist, with that kind of visa (in fact, tourists to either country do not need visas to visit).

It would be ironic if we were still married in the US government’s eyes. We have been divorced since 1995 – 16 years – and I have had no hint of it "not being true" from the US – I file my taxes as Single, not Married, as I used to, from 1984 until 1995, and although I have some tax issues with the IRS, they are about being an "Independent contractor" for part of the time I worked delivering the newspaper. The IRS, and I have talked to them several times, has never said anything about us not being divorced.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if indeed, we were still married?

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I have to say this. I am SO glad we did not do the usual US divorce, where people HATE each other and talk shit about each other and inflict damage on each other. We did not do the usual marriage, no, we did not do a very good job at being married, obviously, Neither one of us had divorced parents – both sets were married "until death" parted them. My parents died when I was 15; her father died in 2008 (and I could not go to his funeral because my passport had been seized, another story altogether) but her mother is still very much alive. Being with her family is one important reason she lives in Japan, although she did live here in the US for ten years. She did better at living in a foreign country than I did.

We also did not do the divorce in the usual fashion – we still think of each other as friends, and have come to the conclusion that getting divorced saved the friendship, that being married was ruinning our friendship. She has come to visit me here most of the years since I left Japan in 1996.

She is a good looking woman; I don’t doubt that men hit on her, but I don’t ask, specifically because I don’t want to know, whether or not she has or had any boyfriends or "significant others". She has told me she never intends to get married again, "once was enough" she said. I haven’t had to hold anything back myself – I haven’t had any real relationships since her.

I know, what a loser, eh? My excuse for most of those 16 years since our divorce is that I have been poor, broke, even, and no woman wants a man who doesn’t have anything. Being broke most of that time, I haven’t been able to do much but try to live. Who wants a piece of nothing? No one. I stay home a lot, because, well, it’s already paid for. It costs money to go out, to do things, to meet people. I’m not overly shy, and I don’t think I’m like, horrible looking – people don’t run when they see me.

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Wouldn’t it be ironic if we were still married in the eyes of "the law". Well, for one thing, it would mean we’ve been married 27 years. We’ve known each other for more than 30 years now….

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