WARNING: This is your filipina wife after she lands in U.S

[davewe]

One of the reasons that forums like this focus on how easy/hard it is to get laid, lay counts, trip reports filled with brags and lies, is that it's just easier to talk about that sort of stuff than about marriage. A guy can determine in a 2 week vacation whether he likes the girls in a place but he can't determine after two weeks of marriage what's going to happen.

So yes, many marriages end. They end in the West and they end in 3rd world countries. Even in the Philippines where there is no legal divorce, marriages end (the guy moves away). Sometimes divorce is unfortunate and sometimes it's the best thing that could happen for the couple.

Even in my case, with more experience than most of the posters, having been married and divorced before, and currently being married to a Filipina, I can't say with any absolute certainty that I know what the future will bring. Change is universal. Whether you move to the woman's country or she moves to yours, both parties will change. Their goals and ambitions will change, they will gain experience, their views of what they like and dislike will change. That is inevitable. Hell, if we come back 10 years from now, even people here on HA will have changed.

The success or failure of a marriage is not based on that change, since it's inevitable. It's based on whether those two people wish to continue to explore those changes together. There are no guarantees but it's still a great journey.

In all likelihood the story of the man with the 2 Pinay wives is true. But none of us will ever know whether he was just a dumbass who married bar/bad girls or whether he was a lousy or abusive husband or what the true causes were. Hell, the guy himself may not know. So it's easier for him to just say it's because they are Filipinas coming to the West.

I must know 100 Fil-Am couples and most seem genuinely happy, but behind closed doors - who knows. OK, I know one couple I have real doubts about.

There are no absolute methods to guarantee success. If I had one, I'd be the next Dr. Phil. That said, there are strategies that I believe in. People end or stay in marriages for an infinite variety of reasons. Who am I to say who should do what. I know a lot of smart, accomplished and generally good guys who are divorced, and a few A-holes in long term marriages. It's a mystery.

I too married a Pinay because of those sweet qualities those of us who have visited or who live in PI discovered. I do believe in those qualities and the good marriage that can result. But there are no guarantees! When you stop thinking that relationships are like a mathematical equation it will become more likely to have a successful one.