Younger Japanese Women, Older Western Men: How Do the Girls’ Fathers Feel?

I was 13 years older, from a foreign country, and struggled with his language. Would he let me marry his daughter?

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“I want you to meet my parents.”

With those seven words, my heart palpitated, my testicles turned to raisins, and my breath got stuck in my throat.

“Meet your parents? Cool.” I said. But I was anything but cool. And this was not cool. The sushi in my tummy was suddenly ready to evacuate. This shit was getting real.

“How old is your dad?” I asked.

“52,” came the answer.

“And your mum?”

“53”

I did the math, first crisis averted — I was 38, my girlfriend 25, which meant I was closer in age to my girl than I was to her dad. Just.

I’d always gotten on well with past girlfriends’ parents but I’d never had such an age gap in a relationship. And to complicate matters further, I was an Australian man in Japan, dating a Japanese girl.

So, how did this Japanese father take to his daughter dating a much older Western man?