Is my J-bf still married?

My J-bf and I have been together now almost two months. I really like him and all seems well, but I'm confused about one thing.


He told me after we first met that he had married his ex (Japanese) gf in the USA while they were intl students. They never registered the marriage in Japan and eventually she "dumped" him and moved back here. Then she later remarried some Japanese guy here.

Well since they never divorced in the States, I assuming he's still legally married to her there. Is he still considered married to her here? I asked about his koseki and he said there's no one on it. And his ex re-married someone here with no problems.

My friends say he is still married and I shouldn't date him anymore until he fixes that, but he hasn't seen or talked to her in over five years.

It is quite likely that in the US, his ex-wife would be considered to have committed a crime, as she is now legally married to two people. However it looks like the Japanese authorities have no knowledge of the marriage.

Since it's not as if he is cheating on her by dating you, I see no reason to basically punish him by not dating him over a situation like this. Strictly speaking, he should try to get his US marriage annulled, however if his ex-wife doesn't cooperate it could be a drawn out and costly procedure.

I think the best thing for him to do would be to contact the US Embassy in Japan, explain that the marriage was never registered in Japan, and see if there is any simple way to annul the marriage. It seems as if you two would be free to get married in Japan, but that would technically mean he had broken the law in the US.

So he got married once in the US (so he must have his marriage registered somewhere in one state, with a marriage certificate issued), but never registered it with the Japanese authorities, which in itself is subject to a fine actually (Japanese nationals residing outside Japan need to report any change to their marital and other status to the Japanese authorities within 3 months or something like that). But as far as the Japanese authorities are concerned, it is not known to them that he got married under the US law.

I would be very careful how you/he goes about it - a marriage in the US IS a marriage, and while a Japanese law-based marriage can be dissolved by both parties agreeing to and reporting a divorce, a US law-based marriage may not be that easy to dissolve depending on the state, and its dissolution will most likely require legal proceedings, which he and his ex have not taken the trouble to follow through.

He needs to sort it out in any case. He might consider the past marriage outside Japan as something he can just ignore as youth's folly, but he (as well as his ex-wife) needs to realize that it was a legal process. I agree that since he's not cheating on you or anything, there is no reason not to date him :)