I've heard about this phenomenon before, and even seen it with my own eyes. But why do mid-aged Japanese couples start sleeping in seperate rooms at a certain point in their relationships? What is the cause?
2006-09-27 05:04:29 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Travel ➔ Asia Pacific ➔ Japan
Is it something that all Japanese couples do when they reach this very age?
2006-09-27 05:07:46 · update #1
Hey, listen...not all countries fallow the "American" way...every country has a different culture. Now, sure that may be strange to you, but it is normal to them.
2006-09-27 11:32:46 · answer #1 · answered by Japan_is_home 5 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Lots of Western couples do that too, if they have enough bedrooms!! Most of the time it's because the snoring of one person becomes too much for the other to cope with. My parents have twin beds, because my father's twitching kept my mum awake too much! They would sleep in different rooms, but they don't have enough bedrooms..!! (They're English, BTW!)
Japanese people will have trouble sleeping in a double bed - you might not have noticed, but futons are ideal for a couple because they don't sag in the middle, and when one person moves about / twitches / gets up in the night it doesn't normally disturb the other person! It's MUCH better than sharing a double bed - take my word for it, I've done both!! So when a Japanese couple decide that having a Western style bed would be a status symbol, they're likely to realise that twin beds are more convenient than a double! If they DON'T realise it, they'll soon find out - and then one of them will probably start sleeping in the spare bedroom...!!
; )
There's also the problem that many Japanese men get transferred to a different area by their employers - these men usually rent a small flat / apartment near their new 'office' for convenience (you know how long the Japanese working day is - when you live a 6 hour commute from home it's not worth travelling!) These men go home at the weekends normally, but after sleeping alone for 6 nights a week the couple usually find it hard to sleep together again ... so when the man gets transferred back to the town where his wife and children live (or he retires) they just can't settle to sleep in the same room. That's another good reason to sleep in separate rooms!!
Then there are the reasons others have mentioned before me - but I can't help feeling that MOST of it is caused by the reasons I've just presented to you. You already know this, but there are probably at least 2,000,000 different reasons why any given couple might sleep in separate rooms, and even if we tried for a year we STILL wouldn't be able to think of them all...!! Some of those reasons must be totally obscure, and absolutely ridiculous to anyone not personally involved!
Don't let over-zealous news articles put you off - many 'news' sites insist that Japanese men can't bring themselves to have sex with their wives after the birth of their first child. So how do they explain the fact that most Japanese couples have 2 or 3 kids??? I only know of 1 child around here who has no brothers or sisters, and she's the child of a divorced woman - so it's not so surprising that she's the only child at the moment!!
2006-09-27 12:58:17 · answer #2 · answered by _ 6 · 5⤊ 1⤋
I guess it's becoming more and more common in Japanese society. It was the norm back in the day to marry for status and not for pure love and passion. Although the younger generation tend to frown on this and many would rather stay single than to "settle" for something out of fear of being alone and unmarried.
As DayneG said it may be an Asian thing as a high divorce rate is a western thing.
I think it's the same with most married couples all over the world, they realize one day that they've just been tolerating each other rather than wanting to be together.
Only difference is the Japanese try to get as much space as they can get without divorcing. The US get divorced and look for others.
Don't know which is better.
2006-09-27 05:27:12 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
In some situations it may be a case of "katei-nai rikkon"-that is literally at home divorce. In other cases it may just be due to snoring, different schedules, etc. I think it's fair to say the low divorce rate in Japan does not necessarily mean that most marriages are happy ones, but every couple's story is different.
2006-09-27 17:41:17 · answer #4 · answered by michinoku2001 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Not only Japanese. I noticed that many Asian couples does so as well. and they prefer twin bed to double size.
Don't you wanna sleep alone sometime? That is the answer.
2006-09-27 06:51:02 · answer #5 · answered by Joriental 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
kentaiki..mean boredom of each other..after time each wants their own breathing space..its an Asian thing
2006-09-27 05:09:06 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋