Daniel came to Japan in 1999 and dreamed of starting an English school almost immediately. He established the core concepts and materials in 2001 and met the woman he would marry soon after. He got married in 2002. He started having problems almost immediately because of harassment and domestic violence. All money and back accounts were forcibly confiscated under the guise that he didn’t understand enough Japanese to manage them.
Daniel has a strong passion for caring for children. After trying for children for several years with his spouse with no results, Daniel was diagnosed as infertile. Harassment and domestic violence increased, with one of the forms that the lack of children was Daniel’s fault.
Wanting to give back to the community and help children in his local area, Daniel developed a plan and went back to school to start studying. He graduated from the University of Phoenix with a master’s degree in early childhood education in 2008 with a GPA of 3.93 and established an international kindergarten in 2008.
In late 2008, a miracle happened. Daniel was going to have a child. This child, a daughter, was born in 2009. Child care was mainly Daniel’s responsibility, because his spouse rarely wanted to do anything other than work. Daniel was happy with this arrangement and took his daughter with him almost everywhere he went. But the rift between him and his spouse widened significantly.
In 2010, after severe and unrelenting abuse, Daniel suffered a nervous breakdown. Daniel was then ordered by his spouse to go to a mental clinic. The doctor, after a sitting with Daniel’s spouse privately first, was instructed that Daniel was a liar. Daniel was then informed by his spouse that the doctor was told Daniel is a liar, and that any mention of abuse would be severely punished, after which the doctor then diagnosed Daniel with some form of manic depression.
Daniel was consequently kicked out of kindergarten by his spouse and co-worker with the threat of being arrested, committed or deported. Afterwards, he worked at various Junior High schools and High schools, wedding halls, and other jobs while running the English School and Kindergarten.
Then the best and worst thing happened. Daniel was expecting a second child in late 2012. Distress came in the form of persistent demands for an abortion. Daniel’s spouse imagined pregnancy a second time would never happen. But for the sake of satisfying both her parents and Daniel’s parents, his spouse demanded trying for a second child. After petitioning for mercy for over 2 months, his spouse relented at the cost of intensified verbal abuse. His son was born in 2013. However, breaking point for Daniel was reached.
His numerous divorce attempts were denied, sometimes with the tearing up of divorce papers in front of his face. Traumatized and kicked out of home in 2014 over a quarrel regarding being over worked, (6 jobs and 7 days a week work), Daniel moved to Yokohama in 2015, with weekly visits to his children. As far as his spouse was concerned they were over, however, Daniel was ordered not to disclose that information to anyone under threat of losing everything, especially his children.
His relationship with his children was strong. He helped with homework, bath times, dinner everything. He raised them with all the love he could muster. At one point his daughter, usually calling Daniel “papa”, accidentally called him “mumpa”, a blend of mummy and papa. Daniel laughed, but his daughter insisted is was an accurate name. In his daughter’s eyes, Daniel was both mummy and daddy so mumpa was appropriate.
In the middle of 2015, Daniel’s spouse came to him with an ultimatum. Either get a vasectomy or be committed in a mental institute. If Daniel’s spouse would get pregnant again, Daniel’s spouse would make sure Daniel would be committed. Celibacy was an offered alternative and denied. His spouse toyed with the idea of getting a tube ligation, but very quickly turned it around and forced a vasectomy. Appointments were made, Daniel was dragged to consultations and a procedure was scheduled. His spouse attended all meetings under the guise that Daniel could not understand Japanese well enough and that Daniel was nervous without her. On the day of the operation, Daniel’s spouse (on record doing so) suddenly burst into the operation room. The doctor, visibly disturbed, asked why. The reply was that Daniel was nervous about giving his consent without his spouse present. Consent was given and the operation completed.
In 2016, harassment and domestic violence evolved to a new level. Wishes for Daniel to get cancer from his spouse, dreams of Daniel dead in a coffin while his spouse and friends danced at his funeral, food poisonings by his spouse and denial of the fact afterwards. In order to protect his children, Daniel endured this abuse to prevent his children from being targeted. But he held on to hope that a divorce would end such suffering.
The request for divorce was denied again and again, and Daniel had to explain many times to his parents and his father-in-law that he over reacted (under duress).
In 2017, Daniel discovered an opportunity to build a government supported kindergarten. His relationship with his father, took a surprising twist when during a visit in 2017, his father assaulted him at his spouse’s request. The reasoning was, that Daniel was a horrible son (to his father), father (to his children) and husband (to his spouse) and that Daniel was destroying his family. After public assault and food poisoning by his spouse in front of his father and in-laws, with Daniel behaving in what was a planned breakdown, his spouse commented on the quiet, “See? Now no one will ever believe you and I can do to you what ever I want.”
During this time Daniel soldiered on to create the new kindergarten. After the kindergarten was green lit, Daniel endured more assaults, verbal abuse and food poisoning by his spouse. Then suddenly, in September 2017, all his assets, bank accounts, etc., were seized by his spouse. All visitation to his children were banned under threat of police action. Daniel’s father then conspired with his spouse to draft a settlement that would effectively strip him of all assets, as well as paying compensation money to his spouse for a marriage that was already broken since 2014.
Since then, Daniel has been harassed with phone calls to “allow” him the opportunity to talk to his children. These calls came when Daniel was working, driving and without warning and commonly lasting only 3 to 5 minutes. This jeopardized Daniel’s job and put unnecessary stress on his children.
In March 2018, visitation for 5 days was granted to Daniel, but his English school and original kindergarten was shut down. All property and assets migrated to a new spouse-controlled government-funded kindergarten. Final visitation was granted in May 2018, 2 nights. From this point Daniel was completely cut off from his children.
During the divorce proceedings, that his spouse finally agreed to, Daniel, battered, word down, out of work, and nearly homeless, was forced to give up custody of his children in a country with sole custody. After the divorce was finalized in May of 2019, a court order that no personal matter interfere with the children’s right to visit their father was agreed upon. The two final authorized calls we on his children’s birthdays of 2019.
Near the end of 2019, Daniel filed for an investigation into nullifying his marriage to his ex spouse. At the end of 2020, after a thorough investigation by the Catholic Archdiocese in Tokyo, the marriage was canonically declared null. Daniel’s father, who had petitioned for a friend of his, and successfully obtained a declaration of nullity, commented “How can Daniel call such a failure an accomplishment.”
In 2020, the day before Daniel’s birthday, Daniel’s daughter called Daniel in hysterics. His daughter claimed that she had been lied to, that Daniel had changed his address, phone number and had abandoned his children. Daniel reassured his daughter that this was not true and that Daniel was fighting to obtain visitation. Daniel told his daughter to call him any time, day or night. It was the last time he ever heard his daughter’s voice.
Daniel is now suing for visitation that has been denied since May 2018. However, every reason for denial has been a personal one. “Daniel is crazy for suing for lost property.” His ex spouse wants to allow visitation, but the stress of the lawsuit is unbearable, ans she cannot in good conscience allow visitation while the lawsuit is not settled.
Daniel’s daughter explained, in the 2020 call, that the reason she is not allowed to talk with Daniel is that her mother is afraid she will say something incriminating that will cause her mother to lose the lawsuit.
Currently, as of March 18, Daniel’s ex spouse has obtained a medical certificate, stating that, Daniel’s daughter is suffering from manic depression. It is the advice of the issuing doctor that Daniel’s daughter refrain from seeing her father until her symptoms subside. No reason for the manic depression was given, but the family court is upholding this advice until the issue can be investigated further.
All efforts to claim that a violation of the court issued agreement has occurred has been ignored by the courts.
These experiences, and the experiences other parents are having, have spurned Daniel into this ambitious crusade to bring justice.