In many countries, if you heard that a married couple were living apart, you might assume that things in the relationship have been going poorly. That's not always the case in Japan, where it's actually sometimes thought of as a healthy decision as a practice known as "tanshin funin"(単身赴任). The phrase roughly translates to "persons on assignment alone", but simply refers to a situation in which a married person, usually the husband, lives apart from his family due to work.

It's a hard decision, but practiced as a solution to several compounded societal pressures. Many Japanese companies transfer their employees to faraway branches for extended periods of time, housing costs make uprooting one's family difficult, as do entrance exams for transferring children between schools. Many Japanese families just bite the bullet and accept it as "just for a little while", allowing the dad the live separately renting an apartment or company dorm while the rest of the family stays in the original home, focusing on the household needs and things like school life. While obviously difficult, some families try to look for the positives in it, and reconcile themselves with the fact that the now-separate working person was likely not at home a lot to begin with anyway.

Japanese Twitter user and current tanshin funin husband @terajun6966 found out one of the more specific difficulties in living separately, however, when he asked his wife back at home to clean his old room. His wife was happy to oblige, but apparently even happier to mock him with a nicely hand-drawn woman scolding him after finding a school-girl porn DVD in his room. Fittingly, she is wearing an outfit similar to that of his beloved school girls!

"This was under your desk, so I'll just break it apart and throw it away for you."

"I'm in the middle of tanshin funin, and this was the result of asking my wife to clean my room for me."

@terajun6966 apparently has had practice for such embarrassment, as this isn't the first time his wife has been able to dig up his porn stash. His pinned Tweet reveals that a similar incident happened in 2012, with his wife stumbling upon his porn-filled USB while doing the laundry. Her note reads:

"I was shaking one of your dried shirts (after doing laundry) and this fell out. But that's not my fault, is it? Yeah, thought so.

"A surprise ending after I lost my porn flash drive.

While he may feel a little helpless while posted away from his family, @terajun6966 can at least take solace in the fact that his wife has a great sense of humor--and some drawing skills!


By - grape Japan editorial staff.