Anonymous Interview: The Person Who Does Divorce Coaching

I didn't know about things like joint custody, or that Japan has sole custody. I was shocked.
Because when you get divorced, the number of parents a child has drops from two to one. I mean, that makes no sense.
Regardless of marriage, a mother is a mother and a father is a father, right? It's amazing that there's a system that denies that.
Well, let's start with recognizing the facts. What's important is to change things, not to look down on them.
I hope you enjoy it.

Joining us this time is Maki Yamamoto!
Twitter

1. Reverse Zexy: Divorce Services

qbc: You were introduced by Mr. Koga, right?
*Mr. Koga will be interviewed at a later date!

Yamamoto: Yes. I received an email from Mr. Koga and learned about the Anonymous Interview. He asked me, 'How about appearing on this?' I co-manage a joint parenting promotion and a divorce-related co-parenting salon with Mr. Koga as a new form of child-rearing.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: It was just when we were talking about how we needed to get the word out.

qbc: Actually, I heard the terms joint parenting and sole custody for the first time too, so I thought, 'Oh, I see.' I had heard that custody issues were difficult, but I'm surprised to learn that there's a mismatch between the system and the reality.

Yamamoto: There are many things you only learn once you become a party to a divorce, including custody issues. Until then, if you're just raising children normally, you wouldn't know that such a reality is waiting for you.

qbc: Understood! So, what kind of interview should we have?

Yamamoto: First and foremost, I want people to know about joint parenting. I want to convey that even after a divorce, you don't have to force yourself to build a relationship of trust with your ex-partner; joint parenting is possible as long as you make arrangements.

qbc: So, what are you doing now?

Yamamoto: Currently, my job is as a personal coach. I mainly provide coaching sessions and deliver courses for the school I belong to. In those coaching sessions, I provide support for joint parenting.
I use coaching to help joint parenting work smoothly for those who are thinking about divorce but are wondering how to raise their children afterward.

qbc: I'd like to hear more about joint parenting.

Yamamoto: Joint parenting means that even if you divorce, both parents continue to be involved in raising the child.
The details vary depending on the person, such as where they live, their jobs, the child's age, and the frequency of meetings, but it means that the parent living apart continues to be involved in child-rearing.

qbc: In that case, where does the child live?

Yamamoto: If the former couple lives close by, the child can freely go back and forth between the mother's and father's houses. In other countries, there is also a form where the parents go back and forth to the child's house. Even if the child basically lives at the mother's house, if she is busy with work, the father can look after the child flexibly.
However, in Japan, there is still a strong sense that you raise a child alone once you divorce, so the reality is that fewer people have that environment set up.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: So, in the first place, they often don't live at a distance where the child can go back and forth.
Also, if they can't be involved in child-rearing on weekdays due to work, some people can only manage to meet once or twice a month.
Even so, I think the major premise is that both sides have the awareness and responsibility that they are raising the child together and that they will properly take care of the child if something happens.

qbc: What is the coaching like?

Yamamoto: First, I have them come in for an initial consultation to learn about co-parenting information or to sort out their feelings. I help them organize what is necessary for them.
If we continue to work together, I help them organize the current issues and what they can do moving forward, in line with the form of co-parenting they aim for and their own future life.

qbc: Oh, I see. Right, right, that makes sense. After all, there isn't really such a thing as a 'divorce service,' is there?

Yamamoto: Divorce service (laughs).

qbc: For people getting married, there's Zexy, right? There's no 'reverse Zexy,' is there?

Yamamoto: For a 'reverse Zexy,' there are only lawyers or administrative consultations.

qbc: Even if there are legal services, there are no divorce services. But what you are doing, Yamamoto-san, is something close to that, isn't it?

Yamamoto: That's right. When you go to administrative or legal consultations during a divorce, the conversation ends up being mainly about procedures regarding rights, like what to do about the children or money. This makes conflict more likely and tends to amplify negative emotions.

qbc: Ah, well, that's true, isn't it?

Yamamoto: So, in the stage before those legal consultations, I want to help them face what they can do for each other and their own feelings, so they can avoid conflict as much as possible. To minimize the wounds.

qbc: Do you do that for both the man and the woman?

Yamamoto: Of course, if I receive a request, I work with both parties.

qbc: Well, I see. If the other party is okay with it, you do it, of course.

Yamamoto: That's right. I think it's more effective if both of them take it together.

qbc: How long have you been doing this?

Yamamoto: Since the summer of 2020. I started Twitter around that time, and I receive requests from people who saw it online or through friends.

qbc: What is the situation like specifically now? What kind of people are you receiving consultations from, or what does the content look like? Of course, only to the extent that you can say.

Yamamoto: When getting a divorce, people have a lot of conflict toward the other party. All their focus is directed at the other person.
So, I use coaching to change that perspective. I shift it toward what kind of relationship they want to build with their children. By doing that, when they become able to focus on the children, the conflict gradually fades, and they can start to perceive parenting and their relationship as parents as separate things.
As a result, rather than worrying, it becomes fun to think about the next steps and what to do with the children.
Furthermore, in that state, they stop blaming the other person unnecessarily.
That is what I have started to see now.

qbc: Oh. That's quite a discovery.

Yamamoto: I am a parent who lived apart from my children, and I am currently co-parenting, so I have some confidence that I can empathize with the feelings of those involved. Therefore, I inevitably have many clients who are non-custodial parents.

qbc: I see, that's interesting. Just talking, calming down, using coaching to separate the problems, separating emotions from facts, and so on.
That is a very important job.

Yamamoto: Thank you very much.

qbc: Because, I mean, until now, family or friends have been doing that, right? That usually fails, doesn't it? Since they aren't a third party. They take the side of the person they know directly and try to add fuel to the fire, right?

Yamamoto: That's true. (Laughs)

qbc: It becomes a conversation about how you should squeeze more money out of them, right?

Yamamoto: When it's family or friends, they end up saying, "Go get 'em."

qbc: To crush the other person completely. Or, to have nothing to do with them at all, right?

Yamamoto: That's right.

2. Confidence that I am in my child's heart

qbc: I want to ask about you, Yamamoto-san. What kind of co-parenting are you doing yourself?

Yamamoto: At first, I had a divorce by mutual consent. We wrote the divorce papers ourselves, and in short, we divorced through discussion. I wanted to do co-parenting from the start, so I filed the divorce papers with the father as the custodial parent and me living with my daughter. Of course, we discussed it thoroughly. Then, one day, a detective came to my house.

qbc: Huh?

Yamamoto: It was like they took advantage of the fact that the other party had custody, and apparently the father reported that she had been "kidnapped."

qbc: Seriously?

Yamamoto: Also, from a little before that, we were arguing a lot about whether to get back together or not. If I didn't get back together with him, he said things like, "I'm the custodial parent, so I won't let you see the child."

qbc: From a woman's perspective, getting back together is physically impossible, right?

Yamamoto: Well, that's true (laughs). We're divorced, so why would we get back together? I thought, why are you using the child as a shield, saying you won't let me see her? Then, one day, my daughter had a fever and couldn't go to his house. He probably thought I didn't want to send her back. So, he resorted to the means of reporting it to the police.

qbc: I see. How was that report itself resolved?

Yamamoto: I took my child and went to the police station together. At that time, I had just filed for mediation to change the custodial parent, so I had a lawyer, and I had them come with me just in case. Inside the police station, the detective and the lawyer went back and forth between the room we were in and the room the father was in to discuss it, but they told me, "If you don't return her today, we will file a damage report." If that were filed, I would be even less able to see my child, so it was decided that I should return the child to the father, who was the custodial parent at that time. I tearfully parted with my daughter.

qbc: Ah.

Yamamoto: From there, I became a "non-custodial mother," a mother who cannot see her child. Also, the term "non-custodial parent." It seems it's read as "bekkyoshin" in the circles of experts. In spoken language, we say "bekkyoya," "bekkyohaha," or "bekkyochichi," though.

qbc: Seriously, nothing but new terms. "Separated mother," huh.

Yamamoto: Immediately after that, I went through mediation, filing for a change of parental authority to become the custodial parent, and a visitation mediation to ensure I could see my child. But I couldn't change the parental authority. Apparently, you can't change it unless there are significant circumstances that make it necessary, such as the other party being ill, the child being severely abused, or the other party being financially bankrupt. Furthermore, since we had already decided on the father as the custodial parent and finalized a divorce by agreement, it was even harder to change it later.
So, I withdrew the petition for a change of parental authority and asked them to improve the visitation arrangements, and it was decided that I could see her four times a month. Even then, the promises weren't kept, and there were days where I couldn't see her or was just ignored.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: And about two years later, I filed a claim for damages regarding the failure to fulfill the visitation arrangements during those two years.

qbc: Oh, finally.

Yamamoto: Yes, I sued. The father also filed a lawsuit to reduce the visitation, but his was dismissed, and in the end, my claim was successful.

qbc: What was the result?

Yamamoto: In addition to the four times a month we had before, I was granted two or three days where I could see her for about two hours on weekday evenings, and I could also attend school events, so the number of days I could see her increased. But about a month after that started, one day when my daughter was at my house, she said she didn't want to go back. She was crying and saying she hated being over there and asking why she couldn't stay at Mom's house more.
That was when the father finally realized it, or perhaps it was also due to his lawyer persuading him, but he finally acknowledged it. Since my daughter had originally said she wanted to go back and forth between Dad's house and Mom's house every week, we had our lawyers handle the negotiations and draw up a simple document, and we started that lifestyle on a trial basis.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: So, from the end of her third grade, we have been in a state of co-parenting where she goes back and forth between our houses almost every week.
At both houses, we can come and go quite freely, deciding things like 'I'll go until this day' or 'I'll return from this day'.

qbc: Are you keeping records?

Yamamoto: I was at first, but now I hardly keep any. There are no particular problems, and even if the father were to try to restrict my daughter again, I believe my daughter would take action herself from now on.

qbc: I see. And that brings us to the present.

Yamamoto: Yes, that's right.

qbc: Seriously? How many years did you do this for? Counting from the divorce.

Yamamoto: Five years.

qbc: You did this every year?

Yamamoto: Yes. (Laughs)

qbc: No way. Is it really that tough?

Yamamoto: There were some breaks, but it took five years to settle into the current arrangement.

qbc: I see. Thank you for your hard work.

Yamamoto: Thank you.

qbc: How are you feeling right now?

Yamamoto: I think the current arrangement is absolutely the best. I can raise my child and I can work. However, I feel I took too many detours. That is where my awareness of the problem lies. That is why I thought it would be good to be involved as a coach even before the divorce.

qbc: How about your child? Does she seem happy?

Yamamoto: She seems happy. Especially right after we switched to the weekly rotation, she was really delighted. She looked happy every time she came over. Recently, both lifestyles have settled down. The feeling that both places are her home has really taken root.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: When she comes to my place, she has many classmates in the neighborhood, so she plans her schedule around playing with them. And she thinks about her own schedule, like, 'Next week is Dad's house, so it will be like this.' I feel she is managing both sides well.

qbc: From a child's perspective, I wonder if it's fun. Having the environment change back and forth can be fun, too.

Yamamoto: I think it depends on the child's personality, but for us, she had been doing visitation since she was four, and by the time she was old enough to understand, she was already living a life where she went to my house on weekends and lived at her father's house during the week, so she doesn't seem to have much resistance to having two homes. However, having to choose between mother or father seems to be a burden. Also, it's a child-like opinion, but she gets to have two Christmases and two birthdays.

qbc: Well, yes. The parents are each trying to spoil the child, aren't they? I feel that might lead the parents to compete with each other, which increases the quantity and quality of the spoiling.

Yamamoto: My child senses that competition herself. When she got a 100 on a test, apparently her dad bought her a game. There was a time she told me about it in a 'look at this' kind of way.

qbc: Kids do say things like that (laughs). That's true.

Yamamoto: Like, 'What will you get me if I get a 100, Mom?' (laughs).

qbc: Men tend to give gifts, don't they?

Yamamoto: According to my daughter, especially when she was little, it seems he bought her things quite often, perhaps to distract from the loneliness.

qbc: I see. What is the relationship like with her father?

Yamamoto: For a while, it seemed she couldn't say 'I want to see Mom,' feeling scared, or had a sense of distrust that he wouldn't understand even if she did say it. But since we moved to this current arrangement, it seems she has gained confidence that her feelings are understood, and I think she trusts her father more than before. So, in a good way, I can remain indifferent. When my daughter is over there, I leave it entirely to them. I don't really think about anything in particular. I only send business-related messages very occasionally, like 'Please take such-and-such to school on this day.' Also, my daughter has her own mobile phone, so she can contact either parent with it.

qbc: So the father and mother are not in the same group LINE, right?

Yamamoto: Yes.

qbc: I see, I see. Is there a clear reason why things are going well now?

Yamamoto: The biggest thing is that my daughter truly thinks of me as her mother. That gives me confidence.

qbc: I see.

Yamamoto: Before, I was constantly going through visitation exchanges without knowing when I might not be able to see her again, and after I waved goodbye to my daughter, I was filled with nothing but anxiety that I might be separated from her forever. When you're in that state, you tend to think poorly of the other person. You blame them. And then you lose confidence and lash out at them in frustration. But even if more than a month passes before we meet again, my daughter still runs up to me so energetically, shouting 'Mom!'

qbc: Wow.

Yamamoto: At that moment, I was able to be certain that even though the time I spend with my daughter is short, I truly exist within her. When that happened a few times, I realized it wasn't about the form of spending time together, but the substance of it. I was able to shift my focus toward how I could do something that would connect our hearts. Actually, coaching was the catalyst for that.

3. Coaching

qbc: I personally think that the idea of a marriage lasting for a long time is miraculous in itself. I feel like it's impossible to keep loving one person for 20 or 30 years.

Yamamoto: That's true. I'm more of that mindset myself.

qbc: You like some things about this person, but you dislike others. But for now, there are other positive aspects, so you endure it and stay together. Or, your life and feelings change, and you decide that you shouldn't be with this person for a long time. And so, you think it won't last and decide to break up. At times like that, I think we need a cleaner way to part ways than what we currently have.

Yamamoto: People feel this very rigid obligation that once you get married, you are responsible for guaranteeing the other person's happiness forever. But we are both growing every day. I don't think it's about enduring things for the sake of the other person to guarantee their happiness. The choice of divorce is a valid one, and I want to minimize the trauma of divorce so that both adults and children can be happy afterward. To do that, the parents first need to have a solid sense of self. That's why I'm working to create an environment where people can easily turn to coaching when they start thinking about divorce or when cracks start to form in their marriage. At the same time, I want to support co-parenting so that even after divorce, the two of them can continue to raise their children together.

qbc: Wonderful.

Yamamoto: Thank you.

qbc: Now, let's talk a little about the future. What kind of life do you want to live from here on out?

Yamamoto: Let's see. I have a grand goal of creating a society where both adults and children are free from loneliness. I am aiming to create an environment where all generations can learn coaching. After all, I believe that relationship tangles are a matter of communication skills. That includes not just communication with others, but also dialogue with oneself. So, I hope to create an environment where people of any generation can learn coaching at any time.

qbc: What kind of feeling is that loneliness?

Yamamoto: It is we ourselves who create anxiety. We end up bullying others or committing crimes. And I believe that this chains onto other people, and everyone is losing their own heart. So, if that loneliness can become even a little warmer, if we can warm it up, I think a society that is kind to oneself and others, where respect is born, might be possible.

qbc: Why do people become anxious?

Yamamoto: It's because they don't have a foundation of 'self.' Or rather, it's gone.

qbc: A foundation?

Yamamoto: For example, if you're on the bullying side, you don't have a sense of self, you don't understand yourself, so you can only find value in your existence by bullying someone else. Because you're seeking your own way of being from others, in the end, you're always dependent on someone else, remaining in a state of loneliness where you can't fulfill yourself.
On the flip side, for those who are bullied, the strength to recover from that becomes necessary. There are kids who commit suicide, right? Instead of just telling them to 'stay alive' or pushing them, it's about how they can avoid taking in that negativity as much as possible, turn it into strength, and overcome it—a resilient way of living. Resilience. They grow up without ever learning or remembering these things. I think that's what's creating even more loneliness.

qbc: Is that resolved by looking at yourself?

Yamamoto: It's not immediate, but I think it's a repetition of looking at yourself, looking at the other person, and then looking at yourself again. It's about how you perceive things and your thought processes.

qbc: Some people solve it just through self-analysis, while others can't solve it unless they talk to someone. I also think things would change if coaching and various counseling skills became more widespread.

Yamamoto: Counseling and coaching have become things that only 'special' people go to, but it shouldn't be that way. I wish everyone could receive them as part of their daily life.

qbc: I really agree. Coaching is just about listening, isn't it? If anything, it's just about asking questions. Counseling, on the other hand, is for when someone is really struggling, so there's a part of it that involves sharing those emotions and healing by empathizing with them.

Yamamoto: Like, entering the swamp together with them.

qbc: Coaching, on the other hand, doesn't involve entering the swamp with them.

Yamamoto: That's right. Even if you do enter, it's more like you're looking at things from a slightly different perspective.

qbc: I hope the importance of having those kinds of conversations—of talking—spreads.

Yamamoto: I agree, I hope it becomes more accessible. I actually do something called 'partnership coaching.' It can be used for marriage hunting, so I can do both.
Well, I mostly do the divorce side of things, though.

qbc: Interesting. So you coach for both divorce and marriage. How do they differ?

Yamamoto: The partnership coaching materials themselves are designed to be very romantic and full of love. When it comes to co-parenting after divorce, there are commonalities in terms of the partnership you value, but the difference between marriage and divorce lies in whether the theme is love or trust.
For people who are in the excited state of looking forward to marriage, it's easy to work with. It's easier to set goals, and because their emotions are high, they can easily envision their future.
But when it comes to divorce or hitting a stumbling block, it's easy to lose sight of the goal, and what they had envisioned can change completely. I think coaching is extremely useful in setting new goals in those situations and helping them not lose sight of them.

qbc: Finally, is there anything you'd like to add?

Yamamoto: My theme is 'growing together and raising together,' and I'm promoting co-parenting.
In terms of the legal system, I'm aiming for 'joint custody.' Currently, only one parent can hold custody after a divorce. Because of that, conflicts often intensify during divorce.
With joint custody, both parents would have responsibility for the child, be able to handle administrative procedures, and it would eliminate things like one parent preventing the other from seeing the child due to their own convenience. Broadly speaking, it would make it easier to create an environment where both parents can easily raise their children after divorce. As a result, children wouldn't lose one parent and would be able to build their own identity more easily. I'm working toward a society where that kind of parenting is possible.

qbc: I see. That's a huge change. Was this the kind of activity you always wanted to do?

Yamamoto: It started when I became a party involved myself. Before that, I was really just living my life thinking it was enough to just make money and have fun.

qbc: Yes.

Yamamoto: There's a famous quote from lawyer Koga: 'Read the Civil Code instead of Zexy before getting married.' People get married without thinking about the exit.
Even if divorce is unavoidable, I wish people could divorce more positively. Like, as a step toward the next stage. If parents can just take responsibility for the children and promise not to hinder each other's desire to raise them, I think they could separate without escalating the conflict.

qbc: That's true. There are also issues regarding employment for men and women.

Yamamoto: Yes. I think it is also a social issue.

qbc: Thank you. As for the issue, I feel like I've been brought to the entrance. I didn't know anything about it at all. I learned a lot.

Yamamoto: Thank you very much.

Afterword
Adorable children. Once a divorce happens, one side is no longer a parent. Legally.
That's impossible, right?
Since it's impossible, I will fix the law. I support people who can do this.
That's all!

Editorial Cooperation: Hina Arishima

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