Man breaks silence after refusing to talk to his wife for 20 years

You’ve all been there… Your husband, wife, partner in crime has done something that has downright annoyed you and in response you feel the only course of action is a time out and a bit of the ‘cold shoulder’, but one man in Japan has taken things to the extreme by not talking to his wife for 20 years!

What could she have possibly done?

A television show was on-hand to film the moment Otou Katayama, who lives in Nara in the south of Japan, finally breaks his silence and speaks to his wife Yumi.

The pair are seated on bench in a park while their conversation was being recorded and listened to by their three children who were some distance away.

Katayama explained that the reason he had stopped speaking to his wife was because she had paid too much attention to their children and he felt put out.

“Somehow it’s been a while since we talked,” Katayama says, in what could well be the understatement of the year.

“You were so concerned about the kids. I was kind of … jealous. I was sulking about it.”

The children are filmed crying as their parents talk.

“My father doesn’t talk to my mother but my mother talks normally to him,” the couple’s son Yoshiki told the television show when he asked for their help.

The good news is that Katayama is keen to get the conversation started, and apologised to his wife for his behaviour.

Has there ever been a time where you have stopped speaking to a loved one because of something they did? What do you think of this man’s reason?