I’m Struggling with How to Respond to My Ex-Wife’s Request to Remarry

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:49 JST, September 14, 2025

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a 60-year-old man who is a company executive. My ex-wife, whom I divorced six years ago, has asked me to remarry her. I’m struggling with how to respond.

The reason for our divorce was a difference in financial mindset. At the time, she was running her own company and I was a regular company employee.

However, even after our divorce, my ex-wife and I have continued to eat together often. I found this distance to be comfortable, but it appears she has recently become anxious about living alone in the future and proposed that we remarry.

I’m not saying I dislike my ex-wife, but I’m sure we would just end up fighting again if we moved in together. I’m satisfied with my current life living alone, and don’t want to disrupt the rhythm of my life.

Is there a good way to turn down her request while keeping our relationship as it is now?

E, Osaka Prefecture

Dear Mr. E:

Amid a rapid increase in the number of single middle-aged and older individuals, spouse-hunting by seniors has become popular.

Lately, it’s becoming more common to hear about people marrying a former boyfriend or girlfriend that they hadn’t seen in a while. For most, the primary motivation appears to be a fear of loneliness in old age and a desire to have someone by their side in an emergency.

Likely, your ex-wife’s motivation is not that she has fallen in love with you again and wants to live together. Rather, she probably wants the security that a marriage certificate provides to guarantee the relationship will last.

It is also far more cost-effective than trying to find a new partner at this point in her life.

I think you have no choice but to be honest and tell her that living together is impossible. If your relationship with her breaks down because of that, there’s nothing you can do. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

What would you do if she proposed having a “commuter marriage” instead, where you’ll technically married but you live apart? You are also getting older, so aren’t you worried or feeling any anxiety about that?

These days, more young people are doing so-called friendship marriages rather than marrying for romantic love. Perhaps this is a time for you to reevaluate and reorganize various relationships, keeping that in mind.

Masahiro Yamada, university professor