Please help my children

13 years ago, I married a Japanese woman and let her convince me to move to Japan. That was the end of my happiness.

After I moved here, she became physically and emotionally abusive, but we had a kid, so I did my best to work it out with her. I tried to get counseling, we tried mediation... but she wouldn’t change.

She was so kind when she was pregnant with our second child, and so I thought there was hope. But as soon as our daughter was born, she went back to being verbally and emotionally abusive. The day our daughter was born, she was already yelling at me and telling me she wanted a divorce. Her main reason: because I wanted to help take care of the kids and spend time with my family.

Three and a half years ago, she got pregnant with what she said was not my baby, and moved out one day while I was at work and filed for divorce. She took the two kids with her.

Courts in Japan aren’t as expensive as the US, but they’re not cheap. In addition, alimony is awarded to every woman regardless of situation.

After three and a half years, my lawyer (who is perhaps the most skilled and hard working lawyer in the country) and I have amassed an incredible amount of evidence of her lying to the court. She worked for a year at her father’s company in secret, and lied to the court saying she couldn’t work because raising the kids was too difficult. She also received her salary under the table without reporting the income to the government.

However, after paying the maximum child support and alimony for over three years, my funds are running low.

She stole 9000$ from our son’s savings, and almost 40,000$ in family savings and investments. She liquidated everything and gave the money to her mother who said it was repayment of some mysterious loan.

Shortly after she moved out, she beat our son double fisted and kicked him out of her house. He was 9 years old. He has Aspergers Syndrome. He ran 40 minutes to my house and hid inside alone for almost 4 hours. He had no way to contact me and his mother didn’t tell me he was waiting for me. She tried to come and force him back, but he refused.

Now, he has decided to file a lawsuit to take his mother to court for visitation with his youngest sister and to recover his savings. She will only allow him to see his sister if he sees her too, but he doesn’t want to see her ever again.

However, I have already been paying legal fees for 3 and a half years, despite my lawyer doing countless hours of work for free because he believes our case is the right thing to do.

I don’t have the funds to pay for his new lawsuits (they have to be filed separate), and I don’t think I’ll have enough to buy them Christmas presents this year.

My mother was helping me, but she passed away to cancer last year just before my son’s birthday. My father would help me if he could, but the years haven’t been kind to him financially

Standard lawyer fees are 2000$ each, plus around 10% of the awarded winnings, but the lawyer will waive the fees for winning the visitation case. Taking on a new client pro bono has some rules, so he can’t accept my son’s two cases for free unless I basically quit my job.

Any help, even donations of a single penny would be closer to helping my children get back what should already be theirs.

I can’t offer rewards or benefits for any helpers, but I am quite sure my children would write thank you letters to everyone who helps us.

I don’t know if anyone will be able to donate to help us, but at least thank you for reading our story.