Couple divorces and remarries every three years for ‘complicated’ reason

When you say your vows, it usually indicates you’ll be together forever, but not for this Japanese couple.

It all stemmed from their very first discussion about marriage when they first began dating.

The couple, who live in Tokyo, met when they were in college and naturally gravitated towards the idea of becoming man and wife.

However, one thing about their wedding seemed to spark a fight.

It was their names.

Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda and his wife, Kiyoko Kashiwagi (Instagram/@sodakazuhiro)

When the woman, who works as a company employee, spoke to her boyfriend about maybe keeping her surname because she has a nickname associated with it, her boyfriend, a civil servant, waved it away.

According to reports, he said to her: "Don't women normally change their surnames to the guys'?"

This caused some tension between the two, who then decided that there was only one way to get what they both wanted.

The 32-year-olds began to talk about their life together seriously, and after graduating, the man threw out a solution that he had heard of another couple doing.

It was to alternate surnames every three years.

Both seemed pretty pleased with this agreement, as it meant that they would both be able to use their names and wouldn’t feel as though they were giving up their identities.

So, when they wedded in 2016, they took on the first round of names, which they decided after pulling straws during their honeymoon in Vienna.

The couple got married in 1997 (Instagram/@sodakazuhiro)

Her husband won round one of Operation Surname.

But already, things became too much for the wife, who wasn’t able to use her maiden name at work due to a security risk as she worked abroad.

So, she was asked to use her legal name - her husband’s name - and it left her depressed.

But it was just three years later that the couple divorced and then immediately filed to re-marry using the wife’s name.

While the hubby could use his given name at work, ‘in important settings, I was reminded that my name was not my name’ and he had to use his wife’s name.

It’s not like they wanted to get divorced.

They just wanted to keep their names and keep the marriage fair.

Even when they tried to change names while still married, they were denied by the courts and had no other choice but to end the marriage in order to re-marry with a different name.

Then a Tokyo District Court ruling caught their eye.

Film director Kazuhiro Soda and his wife, Kiyoko Kashiwagi, married under New York law in 1997 and submitted a marriage registration form under their separate surnames to the Chiyoda Ward Office in Tokyo, but it was rejected.

So, in 2021, the Tokyo District Court ruled that they should petition the family court if they wanted their own surnames to be kept.

But the Court also recognized that although their surnames were different, the couple were legally married because they had done it abroad.

This could be the break the couple have been waiting for.

No more will they need to divorce and re-marry just to keep their own names.

However, it’s quite the ordeal to go through.

They would have to spend thousands of dollars to travel to somewhere like the US to get married again, to then come home to Japan and file their marriage, and to then petition to keep their names separate on the family register document.

It’s a little much, don’t you think?

For now, they’re happy to keep doing what they’re doing.

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