Done Over by a Filipina in Australia
A Cautionary tale for anybody contemplating Cross-Cultural marriages
Your website is excellent: if only I'd read your site years ago…. It might have saved me from the worst hurt of my life earlier this year as well as a great deal of money. (So far I've only touched the tip of the iceberg, regarding reading all your material there but be sure that I'll spend lots more time there between now and Christmas!)
I am writing this as a cautionary tale mainly for Australian blokes (although it can apply to men from any wealthy Western country) in the hope that it might help anybody reading this to avoid the heartbreaking (and very expensive) experience that I've just endured with my ex-wife who is now living with a much wealthier man following her months-long affair with him.
I don't want to sound totally negative (I'm not) but I felt compelled to write this in an attempt to help others avoid the traps and pitfalls that await the unwary regarding marriage with much younger women from overseas countries.
If you're considering marrying any young Asian girl from a Third World country, this is what you should look out for, can expect, what they are really after in marriage and it often sure ain't love!! (note to my ex: if in the highly unlikely chance YOU read this, don't even bother going after me in the courts because my article identifies you in no way whatsoever, and that's what any competent solicitor or barrister will tell you too – I have had this printed out, read, and checked before posting this here.)
Filipina / Asian meeting / marriage scams usually go something like this; at least Down Under (Australia), it does. I don't know how immigration or domestic violence laws works in other countries so I can't comment there.
Many Filipino (and Vietnamese, Thai or Russian) girls advertise themselves on the Internet on sites such as A Foreign Affair, FilipinaHearts or Cherry Blossoms for friendship / husbands. Other popular methods of meeting men are Friendster, Facebook or MySpace pages. International Yahoo Messenger chatrooms are another form of meeting people.
Many of these Asian girls are invariably beautiful – The ones to be very, very wary of are the raging young 18-23 year old beauties who will say or do anything to hook you into meeting them
(including giving the most fantastic sex of your life after meeting in person).
I've been a member at Cherry Blossoms and FilipinaHearts before and I've had girls asking me to visit them and saying they think about / miss / love me already (or all three!!) after less than 5 minutes of excruciating chat because their English is either so bad or they have no interests beyond singing / dancing. So many of them were stunningly gorgeous – as in seriously beautiful but… conversing with most of them was a nightmare. At this point, what they say about themselves in their profiles should offer some guide relating to the level of their English, education, sophistication, sincerity, and what they're really "looking for" in a guy. NEVER go just by photos or looks alone! (oh, and by the way, so far the record for offering to meet me in person is three minutes)
Stop for a minute before reading on: why do you think they want to meet you so bad even when you've never met in person?
Now continue reading:
The other thing to watch out for is this: after meeting and / or corresponding with your dream girl, if she starts asking for money for expensive gifts such as computers, financing college fees, little black dresses, chocolates, hospital fees or so on – other than reasonable requests such as financing costly mobile phone or Internet load or net-café fees so you can stay in touch (you can hardly expect her to bear the burden of meeting these costs), drop her like a hot potato.
You're being used. Already.
Some of these amateur con-women earn a lovely little living milking men this way before creating a new identity and dropping them. One friend of mine is currently being used this way, only he doesn't realise it yet. She's taken him for around $10,000 of goods so far and they have not even met in person yet.
But I digress: the inevitable, sad predictable result usually follows thus: Lonely and often vulnerable guys who find it hard meeting local women for various reasons such as looks, disabilities, need to meet kinky sexual fantasies such as bondage etc., obesity, deafness or age usually end up turning to the Internet to find someone who they think will "accept them for what they are".
I have personally seen seventy year old guys in Manila shopping malls (Robinsons Ermita) with girls who could not have been older than eighteen. The above-mentioned girl I saw with him was dressed like a prostitute in a TINY red skirt, orange sleeveless top that partially showed off her breasts & high heels, and even the blasé Manila locals who are all used to seeing foreigners there looked shocked too. Another girl I saw in the same mall was with the biggest, FATTEST guy I've ever seen. He was maybe 5'5" tall but he was also 4 feet wide, and all the Filipino locals were staring & laughing at him & his girlfriend (how they managed sex, I have no idea.)
These men fall in love very easily because these girls are so skilled when it comes to pushing all the right buttons, particularly SEX, before going through the expensive, time-consuming and stressful hell of completing all the Immigration formalities (see this link) before being allowed to bring their foreign girlfriend or fiancée of their dreams into Australia and marrying them before the compulsory nine-month time limit for marriage expires when they would have to go home.
Immigration is tougher than ever nowadays with good reason and it is the dishonest, skanky women discussed in this article who spoil it for the genuine ladies who really do love their partners.
Now, let's face it, why do you think she's marrying you? Your looks? Personality? Money? (or even lack of it) Remember, most of these girls are beautiful enough to have their pick of men and so many of them know it too. They're invariably from desperately poor families in Third World countries and for most of them, marriage is the only escape from the poverty there (so I can understand to some extent their motivation for leaving home, family and marrying some stranger they met online but it still in NO way excuses the behaviour of some of these people!!).
Quite often before, but most usually after marriage, you'll also be expected to send money home to help their families in a bewildering variety of ways: school / college fees for brothers or sisters, medical bills, taxes, novenas for the dead (in the Philippines), financing fiesta parties, computers for communicating back home, motorbikes, financing visas for overseas jobs in countries like Saudi Arabia or Dubai – the list goes on and on. That's also why so many of these girls marry men they often don't really like just so they can obtain a better life, a job and / or a healthy allowance to send home to meet what they see as the above family obligations which can be a real burden if your income is not very high, or paying off credit cards or mortgages.
Many of them also steal extra money from your bank accounts (usually in small lots to accumulate and send home via Western Union or local Pinoy stores – never ever allow them access to private accounts, unless you have joint accounts and always keep tabs on what they're doing money-wise.) Others send money in more devious ways over the Internet through services such as MMBB Union (Australia) via regular credit card / bank transfers so watch out for these as well.
Other issues you'll need to consider are homesickness, cultural issues, different values and / or methods of resolving arguments.
After marrying, your spouse is required to remain married (you will be required to demonstrate compelling evidence of a genuine ongoing relationship – see this link) for a minimum of two years before obtaining her permanent residency when she can stay in Australia for good. In between, what often happens follows the following predictable script although it can occur in a number of different ways:
They'll advertise themselves on their Friendster, Facebook, MySpace pages or even dating sites in order to find younger / better looking / wealthier benefactors for better sex and / or to fund the lifestyles that they want (for example, regular nightclubbing and / or long morning lie-ins) without being forced to work for anything. Webcams are great for taking pornographic images or even videos! Regular nightclubbing with "friends" is also another convenient way of picking up prospective partners (so beware if your fiancée / wife wants to go out clubbing often unless it's something you enjoy together.)
These girls usually end up conducting an affair (or series of them) only after obtaining their spousal visa or leave you once your usefulness (or money) no longer satisfies them upon expiry of said visa and they've got their permanent residency.
It's usually either that – or they hang around long enough to obtain their two year permanent residency before dumping and divorcing you, and taking you for half of everything you own.
Other methods of obtaining early permanent residency involves creating (by somehow goading their partners into striking them – even one slap is all the excuse they need) or inventing "domestic violence" so they can obtain all too easily obtainable intervention orders (IO) against them in the courts for said alleged domestic violence in order to compel Immigration to give them early permanent residency upon these grounds. The majority of magistrates just give in and grant them the intervention orders they want simply to cover their own arses just in case said partner really DOES turn out to be violent. Contesting everything can be staggeringly expensive which does not help either.
Read article 15 in this link to learn about how they exploit domestic violence laws in order to stay here. (Article 14 applies if you already have children, so watch out if wife begins pressuring you into having a baby very early in your relationship!)
Applying for easily obtainable intervention orders is an especially popular method used by opportunistic women who easily rid themselves of older or less wealthy husbands in this manner even if they have never done anything wrong all their lives. It's also an especially convenient method of facilitating "the creation of new relationships, in circumstances where there is no evidence of violence or stalking or fear of any sort. The only reason for seeking the order appeared to be to avoid further embarrassment in the relationship" (see this for more information on how easily intervention orders are created and abused by such women).
Even Australian government MPs have been used and trapped in this way (This case involved Kanitha Eren, the Thai-born wife of a local Victorian MP who was attempting to secure an intervention order against her estranged husband. The case was vigorously fought out in the Ringwood Magistrates Court – follow this link – read more information about these kinds of scams below).
So yeah, I really know how many of your readers feel (especially that other Aussie guy done over by his Vietnamese wife here).
If you're not sure about your partner or the way she's behaving, particularly if she spends long hours on the Internet or excessive mobile usage, I thoroughly recommending spending the extra money to buy covert computer and / or mobile phone monitoring software (www.remotespy.com is one of the best, although there are others out there) to prevent this kind of behaviour from getting out of hand before it's too late. (How I wish I'd installed everything months ago, but I trusted my "butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth" wife until almost the very end when I finally became aware and worried about her increasingly erratic and suspicious behaviour.)
Having said that, it's not ALL bad news:
OK, so I sound totally cynical here: too bad. If all you want is sex, go for it! (My ex got me into bed with her less than 6 hours after getting off the plane in the Philippines in 2007; geez, I was suckered bad.) Romance her, pretend you love her, sweep her off their feet with romantic holidays at nice resorts and the end result is a great holiday with all the sex you can handle for virtually nothing except the cost of your airfares and resort stays.
But don't EVEN think about marrying them. They'll break your heart in the end unless you are a) very "guapo / pogi" meaning: good looking, b) reasonably young and c) possess a high income, preferably all three. If you're in that category, why look overseas for a wife anyway?
There are however, genuine Filipina girls out there, but they're much harder to find though. Land one though, and you're set up for life. Such "good girls" are wonderful wives; you'll never meet more loyal, faithful or hard-working partners than these types.
Perhaps I'm making generalisations here but I've found that it's the plainer, more homely girls with good education and English, who are also not from dirt poor families that are true marriage material and the girl I'm meeting there in 5 weeks time is just that (there's nothing wrong with her looks though – she is pretty, even if she'll never be "Mutya Pilipinas" beauty pageant material).
They'll be more concerned about, and interested in issues such as trustworthiness, fidelity, and establishing close family ties rather than coercing you into costly shopping trips, stays at expensive resorts or giving them money. The other big thing to look out for is: can you really talk with her? I mean, hold a real conversation about just anything? (This especially applies if English is not her first language.)
Because at the end of the day, what all men (and women) need are partners who they can truly respect, trust, love and talk to – that is, real companions whom you actually enjoy being with. Sure sex is important (and so it should be) but what are you going to do with yourselves during the hours in between?
My new girlfriend and I can talk about anything for hours in Yahoo Messenger, for example, we've enjoyed intelligent discussions about politics (don't laugh, yes really – she understands why electing Obama is important for America), poverty in the Philippines, our family and her friends, cultural customs, abortion, heaps more in between and *gasp* sex. And that is a Good Thing.
I never managed to talk to my ex in the same way like this before meeting her in person – her chats all centered around love and fighting for our love, blah blah *yawn*. Whenever I asked her what she did today, all I'd hear was something like "I had a good / bad day" and that was about it – she never provided any interesting detail about what she actually did at school, work or home. As I've already said, if all you're looking for is a fuck buddy for a few weeks, go for it, but as marriage material, forget it.
Also, does your partner or wife-to-be have the maturity to handle arguments or disagreements every relationship inevitably faces at some point in time? Cultural norms often mean they follow different means of resolving arguments, for example remaining silent and refusing to talk about anything (until your relationship passes the point of no return…). Can she discuss everything with you in a rational and calm way, or just sulk and pout for hours?
Anyway, I hope this helps those interested in meeting Filipina / Thai girls for marriage or even just obtaining cheap and easy sex (which is not what I really want because I'm seeking long–term partnership).
Stickman's thoughts:
Yep, one has to go into these sorts of relationships with their eyes open. Introduce her to you friends and family and allow them to spend time with the two of you long before you think about getting married.