Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Amazing story. So relatable. *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, December 31st, 2016 1:43am PST - promote requested by dag.

Very heart-warming!! *doublepromote

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, December 31st, 2016 2:49am PST - doublepromote requested by shagen454.

*happy (in a sad sort of way )

Adding video to channels (Happy) - requested by shagen454.

This had me tearing up as well. I couldn't help but think that the father is possibly on the autism spectrum.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Yeah, that's definitely possible - though I could almost see this happening to anyone. One thing that's not mentioned, is that they presumably had two children after he stopped talking to her ... how does that work?

I'm revolted by the light-hearted way this story has been handled by this TV show and in the press, where I've seen it reported on the last few days. Sulking? I don't buy it. The husband's behaviour is bizarre and cruel and he doesn't change until he's called out on it. It's manipulative and abusive, not just to his wife, but to the whole family who've had to live with this hole in their family life for decades. It's not heartwarming or relatable, it's monstrous.

Thank you. I agree. I get kind of a sick feeling when I consider they conceived multiple children during this supposed silent era.

For these reasons I just hope this is just fake television.

Sulking might just be what they're calling it. It might be pathological, like hoarding. 23 years, I'd think it was mental illness, not just being a dick. Also, if it just took telling him he's an ass to stop it, why'd no one say bugger all for 23 fricking years?

If not mental illness, complete bullshit. I vote for the latter.

I feel like this is the result of a downward spiral. It could be the result of so many psychological or inter-personal issues blending together until the repetition of the behavior became ingrained. It is very strange that no one said anything about it but some families are... different.

I was in a relationship once where neither my girlfriend of 7 years or I spoke to each-other for 2 months... we still lived in the same apartment and slept in the same bed. Like I am saying, for me it was an amalgamation of many issues in the relationship emerging around the same time along with having a stressful job that took the brunt of my time & energy and just not wanting to deal with our issues; I went silent, like constant anxiety. Eventually, we broke it off for both of our mental sanity's even though we were still in love with each-other, I doubt we could have lasted 20+ years like that though lol....

ki

I think the fact that they're Japanese has a *lot* to do with how this played out. I'm not going to claim to be any sort of cultural expert, but I know in general that Japanese culture is wildly different from what we're used to in more Western nations. Pride is huge, as is suppressing emotion. Could easily see this having started as sulking and just continuing out of a sheer inability to admit to a mistake (even indirectly). The wife likely could have talked to him about it and gotten him to speak, but she wouldn't want to hurt his pride or feel as though she's accusing him of anything negative. Don't see anything like this happening in damn near any other society on Earth.