Before the game was released internationally, many international players thought that a patch in the Japanese version fixed a glitch that had unintentionally made gay marriages possible for Miis, causing fans to complain about this feature being removed, while in actuality, Nintendo was simply fixing a data transfer issue that corrupted save data and prevented people from progressing after they transferred Mii characters from the Japan-only Nintendo DS installment "Tomodachi Collection".

Gay marriages are able to be performed in Tomodachi Life due to the ability to create Miis that have the appearance of Miis of the opposite gender. While many have complained of the inability to have same gender relationships in Tomodachi Life, Nintendo has refrained from including the feature, explaining that the game is not to be looked at as though it is a "simulation" of real life.