Actor Mari Natsuki will appear on the NHK news program "Close-up Gendai" (General TV, Monday to Wednesday, 7:30 pm) on June 4th.
The program will introduce various "forms of love" of the middle-aged generation living in the era of 100-year lifespans from various angles. Natsuki-san, who got married at the age of 59, will be invited as a guest to discuss various values that change with the times.
This time, we covered a "matchmaking bus tour" for the middle-aged generation, which is held over 300 times a year. The people looking for new connections are not necessarily looking for marriage after meeting someone, but rather, "I want to go out drinking and share a good time," "I want something a little exciting!", "Even if we're not related by blood, I wanted to experience what it means to be a family before I die," and so on.
On the other hand, we also speak to a man who was the victim of a romance scam in which 200,000 yen was stolen in one week after he used a dating app, and a man who went ahead with his remarriage without telling his children and now says his family is on the verge of collapse.
◇Comment from Mari Natsuki
I feel that both first marriages and middle-aged marriages are partnerships in that they involve mutual cooperation in life, but I feel that the new form of family that we form as we get older is more effective at healing our loneliness and anxiety than when we were younger. In other words, it feels like our quality of life is more fulfilling than social connections.
Now that we are living in an age where we can expect to live to 100 years, I want to be healthy and active, and our conversations are mostly about health management, which is fun. The increase in middle-aged divorces and the choice to remarry is proof that people are establishing their own standards.
