I reference a few previous points from the YomiJ saga in this entry. I recommend that you read the previous entries first if you really want to know what's going on.
One - Two - Three - Four - Five

Volume 6:

I tried everything I could think of to end the suffering. What is the best way to pry hellspawn out of your life anyway?

I tried being the good guy for the first 7 months, but things didn't improve at all. She just kept taking and taking. She actually told me that I should stop keeping money for myself and that she would give me a weekly allowance like other salary men get. I asked how much that was supposed to be and she said 500yen per work day. No way was that going to happen.

I was giving her 50% of my paycheck off the top each month and then taking the money I had left to give her parents money, to pay our bills and to buy my train pass.

In trying to please her, I even went so far as to buy her the thing she wanted most. She said that she wanted a dog (I did too honestly) and I took the money I had been saving and bought her one. She cost 80,000yen which is sadly a pretty good price for a dog here. Shots were another 30,000... Anyway, she was the best and cutest dog ever! The thing is, I would come home from work and the house would be a mess. Laundry wasn't done, dishes weren't done and she asked me to do these things because she had been "taking care of the dog all day".

Strangely enough, when I asked her why she couldn't do these things before we had the dog, she said that she was too tired from making my lunches. (i.e. putting the stuff her mom cooked and gave her into a box for me.)

Now, I lived alone in the US for a long, long time. I know a thing or two about cleaning up the house. Actually, I prefer things to be neat and orderly and I kept my place as such. However, working 6 days a week (off on Wednesdays), leaving the house at 10:30am on weekdays and arriving home at 12:30am and leaving at 8:00am and arriving home at 10:00PM on weekends was pretty much kicking the crap out of me. I didn't want to come home and do the dishes and laundry every night!

So, I tried being the bad guy for a couple months to force a change on her part. It's not really my thing, so it was a struggle trying to be pure evil. I had just had a pretty decent crash course in evil though, so I thought maybe I could try it. I didn't give her anything she wanted. When she asked for money, I told her she should get a job. I even told her that I decided I didn't want kids anymore either because she couldn't even take care of a dog on her own without complaining, so I couldn't imagine her trying to take care of another human being. I stopped doing the laundry and dishes. They would just sit for days at a time until her mother came and did it. Of course she would tell her mother that I wouldn't help her do anything which is why it was so trashed.

In August of 2007 I told her directly for the very first time that we were not supposed to be together and that we should get divorced.I really thought that if I made if one year, things would somehow change. At least, that's the mantra I liked to chant to myself even though I felt it wasn't true.

She cried her eyes out and begged for another chance. She said things would be different.

We had some pretty frank conversations after that. She dropped a few bombs on me. For example, "I didn't love you before, but I'm starting to now." and "It's always been my dream to marry a foreigner." ... Way to help the cause lady.

I told her I wanted to get an apartment and live seperately for awhile and see if things would change.

So we went out and tossed a couple hundred thousand yen into a place for me to call my own.

Remember that I started my journey to Japan with $80,000+. I had been working nearly a year and I had made another $40,000 due to massive overtime and another $8,000 or so by running a side business on ebay and my own pitiful website. At this time, I asked how much money "we" had in the bank and was informed that it was easily over 2 million yen still.

I felt pretty comfortable that things could possibly work out after hearing that she hadn't spent everything.

In September, she started moving her stuff into my place secretly while I was at work.

We had a HUGE argument and she started moving her stuff back out a few days later.

In October, we had a Halloween party at work. We had about 20 clients attend and many of them brought guests. One of the clients that I had taught only a few times came over to talk and she had her very cute sister (who was not a client) with her.

We hit it off right away and I left the party with an email address.


NEXT BLOG: A new challenger appears!