Told You So 9 – A Lot Can Happen in a Week

Thanks for those who responded to my previous submissions, and thanks to Stick for his comments. It’s obvious that my little bit of ‘local domestic trouble’ has struck a chord with a number of readers. I promise that everything I
write is true and although it may be subjective (it’s bound to be, really) I try to be as objective as possible.

I thought that Korski’s excellent submission on the ‘Filipina Mindset’ was absolutely spot-on and was written with a detachment and lucidity I envy. I wrote to him and suggested that the problem went further than he took
it when he spoke of a ‘high school’ education.

FP has a Philippines four year ‘Bachelor’s’ degree in Business Administration/Studies, majoring in Economics. I saw her college reports and they are comprehensive and (initially) impressive. But there was absolutely no
evidence whatsoever of any requirement for research or for critical or analytical thinking, and her everyday conversation and thought processes in the ‘big stuff’ such as marriage, where to live, career, etc. (the normal stuff most
people think and talk about) didn’t reveal any evidence either. I had a previous Filipina girlfriend with a similar degree and similar paperwork. Hers was in ‘Food Production’ or something similar. What she had really learned,
it seemed, was how to make ‘village sausages’ and her goal in life was to open a shop in her village producing and selling them.

I know nothing of the education system in the Philippines or in Thailand (and for sure most of the system in UK isn’t sparkling) but I wonder if the ‘college degrees’ aren’t really an extension of the ‘rote
and repetition’ which don’t really equate to what some of us expect. FP and other Filipinas I met had excellent spoken and written English, and I wonder if this lulls into a false sense of how we’re really communicating. FP
has an enhanced natural cunning (she’s not alone) but there is an innate ‘dumbness’ which can’t help but come through, particularly in the area of lying. Korski pointed out to me that you have to be smart to lie well.
FP isn’t, and here’s an example – true and recent.

As far as FP knows, I believe that she is renting a room from a female colleague in the Care Home where she works. The divorce is going through (slowly) and on the odd occasion if she’s stuck for transport (it’s way outside
town) I might pick her up on her day off and maybe give her a ride to do shopping etc. (When I really believed this, I was quite proud of how she was getting her life sorted.) I still get the calls – I hope you’re taking care of
yourself, etc., and a lot of the ‘poor little me’ stuff.

Last Friday afternoon I was chatting with my brother. He and I get on well, and he was kind enough to give me a room in the 10 weeks or so I was still paying for my house but FP was occupying it. We were enjoying a few beers in his well-stocked
bar in his summer-house/shed (indeed, this was what it was built for) and after a few ‘Old Speckled Hen’ (thoroughly recommended) I indulged in some immature and childish behaviour – I called FP on her mobile phone. It was
just after 5pm. She told me she was still in work, she’d call me next week when she had a day off because she may need help with a ride somewhere. The child in the background? Oh, that was some visitors who’d brought a grandchild
to see a patient. Immediately I called the partner of her new boyfriend (this will become clearer later) who told me that FP, new boyfriend and vulnerable child were at home, in the kitchen. So I called back the Care Home on the land-line, announced
myself as her husband and asked to speak to her, saying that the mobile call had ‘dropped’. There was consternation and delay while they tried to find her. Finally, they told me that she had finished work at 4pm. A few minutes later,
FP called me on her mobile phone. She’d just got home, she said, she’d had the flu vaccine injection at work and had reacted badly, so they’d sent her home early. This was accompanied by the ‘little girl’ voice.

Yes, it was childish and immature on my part, but why did she lie? It didn’t matter to me whether she was at work or not. Did she think she’d previously told me she was working until 8pm? (Didn’t matter to me, and I wouldn’t
have remembered anyway). What was to be gained? It just made me wonder whether lying is the default position. (I can understand someone lying for gain, as in ‘a lie is an abomination in the sight of god, and an ever-present friend in time
of need’.) I suppose that when you’ve been as deceptive as she has you really can’t remember what lies you’ve already told and sometimes the dumbness is spectacular.

To bring things up to date, I ended the last submission (written a week ago) saying that I was going to meet the following day the established partner of FP’s new boyfriend. I did, things checked out (this is a small area and I know
many people) and the story just gets worse.

I will say now that I bitterly regret bringing FP to UK. Not for my sake (I’m a big boy and I can deal with it) but for the trouble she’s caused in my family (luckily, they’ve forgiven me and we’ve repaired the
damage as best we can, but it’s not a good position to be in) and for the damage and harm she’s now causing to a very vulnerable child. (Yes, this continues to be true, sadly, and I’ve shared details of the child with Stick
but details won’t be published to protect the innocent). In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have believed FP capable of this behaviour.

This submission is a little different from most of the ‘bad girl done me wrong’ or even ‘good girl done me wrong’. Most of those end up something like ‘she stopped taking my calls, maybe she went back to
the bar, she changed her phone number, I wonder what’s happening … etc’. Well, I know every day what FP is doing. I can know it in almost real time, if I want. And it’s not pretty and I would not have believed it if I wasn’t
living through it. My own part in the story could be over, the divorce is pending and I don’t really care what she does. But there IS someone else involved in this that I care about (though I’ve never met her and probably never will).
And maybe, just maybe, some Stick reader perusing this will think twice. And this is a continuing story about a ‘good’ Filipina woman.

To make this story readable on its own, I’m going to have to repeat some details from the previous submission. I hope Stick will tolerate this.

On 14 July this year I saw my lawyer and filed for divorce from FP on the grounds of her unreasonable behaviour, mainly jealousy and suspicion, particularly her oft-repeated allegation that I was the father of my own grandchild. Having told
her that one of us (me) had to move out of the matrimonial (rented) home I entirely paid for, she threw a chef’s knife at my chest. I deflected it with my hand, veins were cut, paramedics (and police) were summoned. I was treated, she was
arrested and ended up with an official caution (conviction) for assault. Photo, fingerprints, DNA sample and all. It could have been worse, she could have been done for ‘threats to kill’ but they didn’t want the paperwork
and I didn’t want the grief. Her (free) lawyer whilst in custody advised her quite correctly that as her name was on our tenancy agreement (yes, I’d tried to do things correctly) she was just as entitled as me to live here. No ‘Domestic
Violence Shelter’ (Women’s Aid Refuge – could have been interesting!) available for me, of course, so I moved to stay with family. Safest place, I thought.

A complication was that my landlord is a friend of my son. The last thing I wanted was for him to become embroiled in any of the detritus arising from my marital breakdown. I spoke to him, and so that things were done legally, he gave us
notice to vacate the premises by 30 September.

I told him that I would enter into a new lease in my sole name from 1 October. FP understood this – she had to be out by 30 September and make her own way. In the meantime, I would pay the rent, the bills, internet, etc., so she could
save up some money and make her own way. Fair enough, I thought (absolutely far too soft and generous, my family thought).

And so we went along. I wasn’t really happy – this wasn’t how I’d envisaged my life would be after all those years working for a pension and especially after all the effort, money and time I’d wasted getting
her papers and the visa for the UK. On the days she was working, I’d go to my house, do some washing, take a shower (I have a tremendous power-shower en-suite) and enjoy ‘my place’. Yes, of course she’d filled it with
knick-knacks that Filipinas seem to love (‘tat and crap’ others called it) but I made sure that the fridge and freezer were filled with food, there were a couple of bottles of wine in the rack for her (she likes rose) and I was waiting
for the divorce to go through. My plan was to keep things amicable, because I believed that’s the best thing in divorce situations (worked for me last time). Some days I’d give her a ride to work when she was stuck (40 miles there
and back twice) and some days on her day off I’d help her by taking her to do her shopping and we’d have lunch.

All seemed to be going OK, and she told me of her plans when she left the house. The Care Home could give her a room to ‘live in’ but she didn’t really want that (because of the all-pervasive smell and atmosphere, I didn’t
blame her) or a female colleague with a large house had a room to let. She was going for the female colleague’s room, and I helped her sort out a lot of stuff from our matrimonial home to take with her. Not to mention, of course, the digital
camera, laptop computer, etc. etc. I’d bought her. So she moved out on 30 September and I was quite proud of her, she’d adjusted to her situation and was making her new life. The divorce was going through and she hoped to be able
to stay in the UK. I’d actually written a letter to the Care Homes Regulatory Authority (by now they’d been advised of her conviction for assault by the police) saying that this was a purely marital matter and she should be OK to
keep her job.

29 September was her day off and I wasn’t doing anything that day. She’d called me and asked for a ride to do some stuff. Done. I suggested we have something to eat and so we ended up in a very pretty local seaside town (Tenby,
if you want to Google it). I worked there in the Old Bill many years ago and bumped into a few old friends. We had a great evening, a good meal, and by the end of it I didn’t want to risk driving home. I found a hotel. We had a twin room
(I wasn’t going to pay £150 for two rooms) and nothing happened. (I’m stupid but not that stupid). We had breakfast and she told me that she was going to our local capital that day with friends from work. So I dropped her off
at (my house) and all was well. She moved out, I moved back in on a sole tenancy agreement and I waited for the divorce to go through in its own time.

A week ago, Monday 31 October, I’d been out doing some work for my brother’s removal business. I love doing this because not only is carrying a few tons of furniture up and down stairs good exercise but we have a good ‘crack’,
earn a bit, and nobody knows what I used to do for a living. To most, I’m just a furniture ‘humper-dumper’. I enjoy that.

When I got back to the office, our office manageress, my niece actually, but the manageress bit sounds better, was looking a bit askance and waiting to talk to me about a phone call she’d just received. It was from, as it turned out,
the long-established partner of FP’s new boyfriend. She’d tracked me down and after a great deal of doubt she’d made contact. I called her back, met her the next day, and this is the (distilled) situation so far.

New boyfriend is from a local farming family. They say ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ and that’s about right. I know people who know this family (it’s a small community) and this guy has a reputation
for being hard-working but he’s by no means worldly-wise and his world has very narrow parameters. He’s divorced, has kids in their 40s, and actually seems a nice guy. Pleasant, but slow, you might call him. He’s 66, works
in the Care home as a general handyman and does agricultural contracting on the side. To the Filipinas who work in the Home he’s known as ‘Daddy’ and is always prepared to give them rides, etc. (Go figure). He owns a small-holding
(20 acres or so) with a big house worth about £350,000 unencumbered and has about £150,000 in the bank. (Well out of my league, I split my capital between my kids when I retired and now live on a comfortable pension with no thought to
capital or acquisitions).

His partner and he have been together for more than nine years. They moved into the house together and built up a business together on the side. Successful, international. (Stick knows what it is). About four years ago, she became pregnant,
at the age of 45. Amniocentesis test revealed the worst and a severe Down’s Syndrome girl was born. The child could not eat until she was 4 and had to be fed on special milk. She now goes to a Special School (it’s only about 1km
from my house and as it happens I know the Principal) and will need close care for whatever her (probably) short life span will be. Everyone she meets is touched by this child. She has her own page on a web-site (Stick has the details but we won’t
publish it here).

The mother asked the father to marry her in the interests of the child. He declined. Mai pen rai (my comment, not his or hers). So their life went on. The mother and father had a ‘normal’ relationship, getting on together and
caring for the child. (I had a ‘normal’ marriage’ with two children and I just can’t imagine how difficult their life would be).

Until 21 August this year. ‘Out of the blue’ I’m told (and I can’t comment on this) the father told the mother he wasn’t happy anymore and he wanted her to go. (This is five weeks after FP realised I was
divorcing her and she got her conviction for assault). Four days later he told the mother he’d met somebody new, it was unplanned, but she had to go. This was followed up by a lawyer’s letter but following a court hearing she has
the right to stay in the house until January 2012.

On 17 September, FP arrived at the house and spent the night in the matrimonial bedroom. The following morning she bumped into the mother in the house and said ’Pleased to meet you’.

(I questioned this, of course. How could FP just have arrived at the house and ousted the mother from the bedroom? Well, turns out that a year before the new BF had a bad accident and smashed his arm and his hip. Stick has evidence of this
in the website photos I sent him. BF had to sleep propped up, mother took the spare room to allow him to sleep and never moved back in. I believe her).

On 30 September, FP moved in to the matrimonial home. With all her accoutrements, potions, creams, etc. This was the day, you may recall, that she was due to leave our matrimonial home and the day after we’d spent a night with a good
meal.

What was worse for me was the information that her new BF had spent the last two weeks of September away from home every night except for one. Well, you won’t be surprised to learn that after I moved back home and spoke to my neighbours
he spent them in my house – except for the 29th, of course. She told him by mobile phone message that she was with Filipina friends.

I could go on and on, but it wouldn’t get any better. I can imagine (without any rancour or regret on my part) that sex is playing its part on the new boyfriend. Not wishing to be coarse, but ‘reverse interlock cowboy’
and BJs certainly clouded my judgement (and where she learned those I have no idea).

This poor child’s father and mother have a mediation hearing in a couple of weeks. He is applying for custody on the grounds that FP can take care of her. What I am told is that this is the furthest thing from FP’s mind –
the last thing she wants is a severely disabled child to ruin her plans. I have provided information to the mother, and we hope that it may be useful. Her lawyer will be able to ask ‘Is it true that you have a criminal conviction for an
assault with a knife?’ and ‘Is it true that any day now you may be deported?’.

From my point of view, my easiest and quickest answer is to divorce FP as quickly as possible, and now I could speed it up because I have evidence of adultery. But there’s always the chance that if I did, this evil bitch (and now I’ve
succumbed to what others call her) could marry her rich new farm boy BF and REALLY fuck things up for a poor vulnerable child.

Well, that just about brings it up to date. There’s a few things I could tell you about the UKBA but suffice to say I wait for a phone call to tell me that my ‘good’ Filipina girl is on the plane back home.

Just one final bit. This is true and documented. FP was talking to her new boyfriend. In her small and tearful voice (I know it so well) she explained to him just how much she missed her aged mother and her son. ‘No, darling’
she said ‘you don’t understand, if I leave the UK to see them I can’t return’. (Too damn right she can’t, because despite all her pleadings I never got her a Residence Card). She had to explain this to him several
times (probably he hasn’t been outside the county, let alone that big trip over the Severn Bridge.)

‘Don’t worry’ he said ‘I’ll pay for them to come on holiday here and then next year we can go and see them’. There was, apparently, much tampo until he realised what he had to do to keep the reverse interlock
cowboy and BJ going (and the support for the child Custody Order).

‘Marry me, you dumb schmuk, get me a UK Residence Card, then I can go and see Mama (and show her what a clever girl I am) as I please.’

Now I’m getting a little cynical (too late! many may say) but I report it as I see it.

I am in daily contact with the vulnerable child’s mother. To me, the child’s welfare seems paramount. I have discarded a friend’s suggestion (it wasn’t a friend actually, it was my brother over the Old Speckled
Hen) that I should ask the new boyfriend for a financial settlement to divorce her quickly so he could remarry her.

I don’t suppose that this will be my last submission on this subject. Please remember, this was a ‘good’ Filipina and I wouldn’t have thought of myself as naive. There but for the grace of whatever go you.

Stickman's thoughts:

This really is quite unreal. The ruthless and callous way FP goes about life with total disrespect for others is incredible. It's as it she has no conscience whatsoever. I just hope that she ends up back in the Philippines and doesn't get a chance to sully anyone else. She is truly poisonous.