Mitsutoshi Fukatsu has been with his wife for three decades, but their lives have grown apart.

As a busy stationmaster, he returned to their home in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, only to eat, bathe and sleep.

Now with retirement looming, the 56-year-old wants to get to know his wife better. He's helping with chores, calls his wife by her name, Setsuko -- instead of just grunting -- and recently learned a new phrase: "I love you."

Fukatsu was one of a small group of men taking part in the second annual "Beloved Wives Day" on Wednesday in hopes of salvaging their marriages by doing something unusual -- paying attention to their wives.

"For about a year now, I've been starting to help out with the housework," Fukatsu said. "I can't stay at my company forever. I have to return home. But right now, I don't feel like I have a place there."

Last year, a new group for men called the Japan Adoring Husbands Association designated Jan. 31 as a day for husbands to return home at the unusually early hour of 8 p.m., look into their wife's eyes, and say, "Thank you."

The movement, though small -- about 230 people have posted messages on the group's Web site about this year's event -- represents quite a change for a generation of men taught to consider their companies first and their wives much later.

The reasons for the movement are many.

This year, the first of the postwar baby boom generation will reach 60 and retire, meaning an unprecedented number of men will have to abandon their home-away-from-home -- the office -- and spend more time with their spouses.

There are financial reasons as well. An impending law change that gives housewives a bigger share of their spouse's pension could trigger a surge in divorces among older couples, as women frustrated with years of neglect take the money and run.

These are tough times for marriages.

Japan's divorce rate is a relatively low 2.08 per 1,000 couples, but the number of splits is up more than 60 percent since 1985, reaching 261,917 in 2005, according to government statistics.

Older couples are prime movers in the trend. Divorce among those married for more than 20 years has grown the fastest, nearly doubling since 1985 to exceed 40,000 couples in 2005 -- with separation more likely to be initiated by women.

"Many older married women have built up frustration over the course of their marriage. Once children become independent and wives get more free time, they start wondering: 'Am I happy with this life?' " Atsuko Okano, a Tokyo-based divorce counselor, writes on her Web site.

A member of Adoring Husbands, Sadao Ito, 67, wishes he had been more sensitive to his wife's feelings. She left him seven years ago, just as he was facing retirement from a busy office job in Sendai.

"She took care of me so well. She made me breakfast every day, and did all the housework. But I never did anything in return," he said.

Ito now acts as a volunteer adviser to the association, which was founded in 2005 in Tsumagoi, Gunma Prefecture. He often gives the local chapter's 20 members advice on how to avoid his mistakes.

"Repent, repent, repent. That's what I do every day," Ito said in a phone interview. "My wife didn't take a single family album with her. I realized then that I had driven her away."

The association offers five golden rules for a happy marriage, such as asking about a spouse's day, expressing gratitude as often as possible and "swallowing your embarrassment and pride." The group held "Beloved Wives Day" last year for members but opened it this year to a nationwide audience for the first time.

The village of Tsumagoi, whose name sounds like the words "wife love" in Japanese, has also recently started to market itself as a romantic destination for married couples.

Last year, it invited couples to an event called "Shout Your Love from the Middle of a Cabbage Patch" -- where husbands took turns hollering romantic messages against a backdrop of Tsumagoi's wide-open fields. About 100 people came.

That was where the soon-to-retire Fukatsu said, "I love you" to his wife -- for the first time.