One of my former classmates in Australia, a chap who is not particularly affluent (he’s a car mechanic, not a shop owner) is on his third Filipino wife. The first two marriages lasted between 5 and 7 years. And his wives coming over to Australia immediately started the process of their parents and siblings applying for and eventually getting immigrant status.
He estimates that he is responsible for bringing twenty people to Australia from Philippines over the last 35 years.
His latest wife is having more difficulty bringing her family over, as apparently the wait times are now over ten years.
He literally goes to Philippines after each divorce on every holiday (so 2-3 times a year) until he’s got a new finance. This took almost ten years between first and second wives, but only a year or so between second and third.
I expect many women would balk heavily at forsaking their extended family by moving 3 islands away to yours. As such, once the OP is settled in Davao City, I’m going to bet his catchment area for likely mates shrinks to the equivalent of a county or 3.
Speaking just for myself as a single dude dating in Greater Miami, I find that folks from 25+ miles away are almost more trouble than they’re worth. There might be a big hit there, but the logistics get difficult quickly. And itll be a wrenching change for one or both of us to transition from BF/GF to cohabiting SO. And 25 miles in a modern US city with modern US freeways is very different than 25 miles in the PI. Much less 2 islands.
For the first several years. Most Filipina spouses get terminally frustrated with the demands of their families. Mrs.D was done with most relatives after 20 years, and she agreed to the Three Island situation. It’s now been 32 years and she only fraternizes with her immediate family, some of whom have good jobs.
I was watching an episode of Forensic Files last night (about an American army officer stationed in the Philippines, who had his wife murdered so he could marry a Filipina sweetie). They interviewed his son, who mentioned challenges of living in the Philippines, including enormous mosquitoes and spiders as big as your head. Probably not as bad as Australia as far as venomous creatures go.
A perpetually hot, humid climate can be draining. I lived in SE Texas about 40 miles inland from the Gulf for a few years, and even with a break in temperatures from late fall to early spring, the heat and humidity weren’t easy to live with.
In my experience the mosquitoes in the PI are smaller than here in Wyoming. The ones here can be felt when they land on you. The smaller ones almost always are fed and gone before I knew they were there. I think mosquitoes get larger the further north you go.
To the degree the current American political climate is informing the decision to move, American politics has always been heated, divisive, and polarized. Trump has intensified the crazy, but it has long been a strong force. Just one data point: George Wallace. Is this observation enough to move your needle a little? Up to you.
George Wallace was never President and won only 5 states in the Deep South. He was never a threat to actually win and he doesn’t even come close to Trump.
Size considerations aside, U.S. mosquitos generally don’t transmit dengue, malaria or Japanese encephalitis. The same can’t be said for their Philippine cousins.
Yes, Wallace was more mainstream at the time, a holdover from when racism was the norm in the South. A better analogy would have been Nixon, another president that thought he was above the law. But Nixon was a much better politician that Trump could ever dream of being. At least Nixon had the capibility of knowing he should resign,
But enough hijacking my own thread.
And they are not shy about mentioning this on the dating sites, as they know its common and so no use hiding it. What I fear is that they may hide is multiple children when they say they have only one. But the same things goes here is the states, baby mommas are thing all over the world.
Another fear is dating people who are not divorced or who are separated. Divorce isn’t easy to get there and they often just separate to avoid the expense of a divorce. This could complicate things as far as tax benifits are concerned or it could cause unrest from an exspouse trying to bank out on the relationship and hold the children as hostage. Yes, I think of these types of things.
I am aware of this from my Filipino coworkers. I’ll deal with it, no one is going to know how much money I actually have. I tell people now that it is none of their business and am not afraid to tell them MYOB and fuck off. Now a party or two and money to help out close relatives will be discussed on a individual basis, but its too early to even speculate how these future senarios may play out. So I’m not going there at this time.
My experience from when I was working in China and in regular contact with a number of expats* that circulated through southern China, Thailand and the Philippines is that the default assumption will be that expat American = rich. Regardless of your own actual personal circumstance or what you have or have not said.
*We had a few guys we worked with that were more or less retired, but picked up cash acting as our representatives on the ground since we were too small to have formal offices. I assume, but never knew formally, that they arranged bribes, but mostly they helped us understand when we were being told yes, no, the yes that means no, the no that means yes, and the array of non-answers that often meant fuck off.
A cousin of mine who spends a lot of time in SE Asia always told me that there is a custom in many SEA countries where – if you marry the daughter – you tacitly agree to support the entire family.
When I took a shot at Googling this, it led me to this video (6m43s).
Candidly, I found the whole video just a bit unseemly for my tastes, but I’m not naive. I know this sort of thing happens pretty much worldwide.
I also have a friend with whom I was close years ago who basically met his Filipina bride online. They’re now married with a child, living in Cebu, and – at last communication – quite happy together.
Unfortunately, it’s been too long since he and I were close for me to comfortably ‘offer him up’ as a possible source/point of contact. I doubt it would be difficult to find that sort of ex-pat connection, though, to help add texture to the potential realities of the adventure.
From my time in LatAm a net worth of e.g. US$100K and a US$2k/mo pension puts you in the top 1/2 percent of the national populace. And the top 0.01 of the rural populace.
Just to put a fine point on it, in all my travels – preferentially to “emerging nations --” the common refrain was that, since you flew here, you are rich (to the locals).
Per capita GDP vs. the cost of my ticket? They weren’t wrong.
Heh. That is quite close to a tongue-in-cheek rule I made up years ago for my international travel: “Never fly on the national airline of a country whose GDP per capita is less than the price of your ticket.”
This is where real danger lies. I keep hearing it’s legal to murder someone found in bed with your wife.
Another fun fact: Filipinas are insanely jealous. The upside is they can be insanely loyal as well.
I keep up with Philippines news but I’ve never heard of anyone being sentenced for killing a foreigner. In-laws in the Philippine National Police told me it just isn’t publicized but I have doubts.
The monsoon season will be coming to an end as I arrive, but of course it always rains there no matter what the season. From what I have been told that unless there is a major storm coming thru the rain will be on and off most of the day, not constantly coming down. Of course it may rain all day for three weeks while I am there.
