MrMan wrote: ↑July 10th, 2018, 4:19 am
I am just responding to the OP and the posts on the first page. I haven't read all the pages yet.
Wassup, MrMan! Long time no chat. Same here. Been busy with new job and studying for school.
I have been in situations with my wife's family where they wanted me to pay for stuff, like when I first got engaged, and they wanted me to buy them groceries. I really wanted to marry their daughter, and I was young and didn't know how to handle these things, and stuff was cheap. My wife and one of their daughter's apologized for how things went down. Someone must have talked to my late mother-in-law because that sort of thing stopped. Her children probably talked to her a bit, too. A couple of times I felt like they were trying to get the rich foreigner to pay for everything. We do help her dad now, sending a bit of money each month. That's the normal thing to do over there, and it isn't a huge amount, and if my parents needed it and I could, I'd send them money. I can't talk my parents out of giving me money sometimes. But in Southeast Asia, the retirement program, typically, is grown working children giving you money.
Yup, I heard from a friend of mine that culturally, Filipinos, but not all of them, expect the "western guy" (regardless if you're Asian-Ameriacan, white/Caucasian, black/Afro-American) to pay for their meals, their transportation, etc. Oh well. I think my ex learned her lesson. She's very sorry for her tampo tantrum/sulking (just sitting there and pouting like an idiotic stone statue) and handing me back the engagement ring that I gave her when she left the hotel room.
The only obstacle between me and Grace is my crazy mom. But at the same time, I also have this feeling that I don't want to go back to see Grace, because of how her older sister yelled at me. I was shocked at the older sister's behavior.
The dirty mouth joke might have been something really sensitive for Grace. Maybe it means something worse in the Philippines.
Or maybe she does not practice good dental hygiene! Hahahahaha!!! some times she has gum problems where it hurts or is swollen. that is what she has told me via text message. She does not have any dental insurance in the Philippines (do they even have health or dental insurance in the Philippines?!), so she only gets her teeth cleaned once a year.
Sulking.... so you dated a sulker. Not everyone gets over a little conflict easily.
I did not know that Filipina's are big time sulkers….if there is a word like that. But the terminology that people in the Philippines use when a person is mad and does not want to talk to you is "tampo."
I have NEVER experienced tampo in my entire life, because Grace is the first FIlipina girlfriend that I had ever dated in my entire life.
When she is mad, like when I joked to her "is your mouth clean?" when she wanted to bite and rip open my sauce package,....she just sits there, crosses her arm, and ignores you. Just stares at the wall or fixes her eyes on something, and does not respond to anything that you tell her.
She did that on the bus, and the same crap "tampo" when I confronted her in the hotel room about her "using" me for my money, for the meals, the dried mango that she wanted me to purchase, the taxi fare, bus fare.
Sometimes a woman takes a while to get over an argument. But if she sulks now, it is likely she will sulk later. I have heard the advice before that before you get married, you need to see the other person angry. If my wife gets upset, she needs longer to cool down than I do. Usually, I'm calm in 2 seconds.
True. Which is why although I want to get back with Grace, and forgive her, there is the other part of my mind that is cautious of Grace because of the way she sulks and sits there with an angry/upset expression on her face, not wanting to talk to me to resolve problems.
her aunty, who lives in Hawaii, scolded Grace for doing that tampo shit. Her aunty told her that if she is not satisfied or is upset with something, Grace should open her mouth and speak up.
If she had no intention to 'use you'-- or maybe even if she did--what you said was insulting. The gas to pick you up might have beena big deal for them financially. If her and her family's intentions were noble, in spite of their short-comings, she would likely find the accusation of using you to be quite insulting. I can see why that would bother her.
I actually would not have mind spending money for Grace, buying her the dried mangos and paying for the taxi fare if she came along with me by herself. My big mistake was bringing along her older sister on our trip to Manila. However, I thought the older sister was the same nice,chatty, social girl whom I had met back when I visited Grace and her family back in January.
However, after the January visit, and the damn stupid older sister posting Grace and my photos on her facebook page, which somehow, made it to my facebook account (which is how "J" the other Filipina I was chatting with caught me with Grace and got shocked and really pissed off,...and same for her friend "L" who was my former co-worker who introduced me to "J"), Grace's older sister really changed personality. Like a total f--king change!
I understand that the older sister underwent a mammogram and the doctor found couple of cysts in her breast. Plus the older sister had arm pain and was diagnosed with Gout. So her health condition has been going down south since March of this year.
And yes, older sister was dumped because her ex-husband, some kind of Filipino muslim guy, ended up marrying another Filipina and ran off to Saudi Arabia with another Filipina wife.
So I can see how the older sister is bitter with life. But does not mean that she has to keep silent, make a big face at me, and ignore me in the house. Terrible behavior.
And after Grace's older sister yelled at me in the hotel room after I confronted Grace about her and her bitch ass sister "using" me for money, I did not want to see the older sister ever again.
I know them picking me up and using their gas to drive all the way from the far province to Manila cost a good chunk of their money.
However, for me, I had to pay a LOT for airplane fare, I have to take days off from work and burn off my paid time off that I had accrued, I also bought Grace birthday present, as well as presents for her mon and dad.
Only to have me pay for the bus fare, the stupid older sister's hot dog at the bus stop, the taxi fare, the aquarium entrance fee. So damn stupid mentality.
If you had just gotten on her case if you felt like she was bossing you around, IMO, that could have been legitimate. That doesn't attack her character and goodwill in the way saying she was using you financially did. It also would help set the tone for an important issue in future marriage--- your wife cannot try to boss you around.
Yes, I also did not like the way she was bossing me around. When we were at a supermarket in Manila, Grace just took two bags of dried sliced mangos into the cart I was wheeling around in the supermarket. Yeah, stupid me. Those were just two bags of dried sliced mangos. However, the way she just took those bags off the rack and told me "you are going to buy me these mango's" really irked me. She also took off a bunch of red grapes from the fruit section, placed the grape bunch in a plastic bag and told me "hey, I also want to eat some grapes tonight for snack." That I understood because she was going to wash the grapes and share them with me and her bitchy older sister.
However, I am glad that I confronted Grace about the issue of me keep having to pay for breakfast, hotel feel, taxi fees, bus fare, zoo entrance fees,....because if I said nothing to her about what was on my mind, she may keep continuing to do this in the future.
This is apparently a bigger deal in the Philippines than in Indonesia. I have read that nice girls from the village rarely go out alone. The traditional idea is that a good girl, or woman, stays home. If she goes somewhere, she goes with someone. That may not be the case as much in the big city as it was. You wanting the girl to have a chaperone was probably a good thing from a traditional perspective.
No no no, Mr. Man.
I did not know that Grace's older sister really changed TOTALLY her personality and that the older sister harbored (and probably still harbors) resentment towards me.
This stemmed from the disaster back in early February where Grace's older sister posted photos of me and Grace standing next to one another at various locations in the Philippines. Those photos somehow were available on my Facebook timeline where "J" and "L" (former a-hole coworker...also from the Philippines) and "L" 's friends in the Philippines saw those photos and made them really really upset.
Anyhow, after that big hoopla, Grace's older sister did not really like me. I also had to break up with Grace in early March because my mom wanted me to marry this young Korean girl back in Korea. That further made Grace's older sister even more angry with me.
Strange, but guys here who are more knowledgeable with the Philippines .........are "break ups" really taken that seriously in the Philippines?
It seems to be that way.
Because when couples here in the US break up, they either divorce in court, or simply go their merry way. None of this begging and working long hours type of work.
Btw, what do chocolate-covered mangoes taste like?
They taste very well damn good! I like the dried mango SQUARES that are covered with dark chocolate. Ooh ooh! Yuuuummmmyyyy!!
You can go to any large supermarket in the Philippines....I hope (so don't quote me on that).....to find and purchase these dried mangos. The stores would sell dried mango slices, but also chocolate covered mango slices.
You've online dated this girl and gone to visit her.
Haha, no, MrMan. I did not online date Grace. I only chatted with her via Messenger text since the first day we had met, but long distance. It was my mom who asked one of her Filipina clients if she knew of any single girl. And that lady, who happens to be Grace's very distant aunt (but a different lady, not the aunt who lives in Hawaii whom I was talking about earlier), introduced me to Grace's closer aunt in Hawaii, who then gave me Grace's facebook account and told me to start chatting with her.
Filipinas will probably always be loyal to family, but at some point, she should become loyal to you. It should not be an either-or situation where she has to choose either them or you.
AMEN!!! AMEN!!! AMEN!!!
Your mom.... I don't have a problem with parents being involved in chidlren's selection of spouses-- especially dads.
Why especially "dads"? For me, my dad is very chill and laid back. If my mom was chill like my dad, I would definitely be able to marry Grace next year.
I've got kids and I explained to them no girlfriends or boyfriends until they are close to marrying age. And dad has to approve them if not pick them out. These tweens and young teenagers dating on the Disney channel is fantasy just like Disney fairies and pixie dust as far as they are concerned. In Asia, socially, probably that was easier to enforce. I"m in the US now, so I'll need to be more vigilant.
Wow, I have never heard of a white American dad telling his kids "no boyfriend or girlfriend until close to marriage age."
It is usually that your typical white American family tends to be chill, laid back, don't really care much about what goes on with dating.
As for this girl, you haven't even asked her parents right?
Yes, I did ask BOTH of Grace's parents if it was okay for me to marry their daughter. Heck, her dad was like "do you want to take my daughter with you to the US?" when I visited Grace and her family back in January.
I was like "hmmmm…..she needs to first pass her board exam and then get a license to work, and then need to financially support me, even if we are living in the US."
Coz shit, I am not going to be working my ass off in my job, financially supporting Grace if she comes to the US after her spouse immigration paperwork gets cleared, and she stays home, watches TV, and basically becomes a bump on the log. She too, will eventually have to work to help support the family (and sadly....also may have to financially support her own parents
).
You didn't complete the engagement as far as Filippinos are concerned, I'd imagine. You might have broken her heart. She might have also thought you loved her enough to overcome some sulking in the airport.
heh? She did not sulk at the aiport.
She sulked "tampo" in the bus, on our way from San Fernando City in La Union province to Manila, when I joked to her if her mouth was clean, because she wanted to bite my plastic sauce bag to open it up. No sulking at the airport.
she also became upset and angry on the second night of our hotel stay (the last three days of my trip to the Philippines were spent in Manila) after I confronted her on her and her bitch ass older sister "using" me for money,...such as lunch, sandwich, aquarium entrance fee (and these were not the basic entrance passes.....these were expensive entrance passes that I had to buy).
If you had it to do over again, I think you should have had a frank conversation with the sister about why she didn't like you to clear the air.
Number one, the older sister is usually not living in the main family house. The older sister lives alone in a large two-storied house, couple of miles away from Grace and the parents. Although it's a large house, the bathroom looks dirty as hell, and some of the roads are bumpy.
So no, I did not have time to talk to the older sister. However, I did send the older sister text messages, asking her why she was not talking to me while I stayed over at Grace's house. Stupid older sister was not specific, but told me that she was sick, and did not want to talk.
She also responded to me via text message that "time will go by and heal me."
Yeah right. Probably 10 years can go by, and I bet you, the older sister will still resent my guts.
I can tell that the older sister does not like me at all. I guess it was the condition where "J" saw me in a photo with me hugging Grace somewhere in Baguio. But that's the past. What can I do?
You may not get the chance if the relationship with Grace is over.
Well, the relationship is not completely over. I still send text messages via Messenger to Grace,...
every single day regardless of whether it is morning time, or evening / dinner time here.
I even called her up tonight, via Messenger, to say hi to her. However, I only address Grace as "po" rather than "honey" or "yobo" (equivalent to "honey" in Korean language...….)
We are just in conversation mode right now. No lovey-dovey conversations that we had in the past (i.e. "good night honey ko" or "I miss you yobo.").
Just the "good morning, po"....basic conversation.
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I will type more tomorrow. My head is bobbing down right now because I'm sleepy as hell...... and I had to re-edit a lot of my sentences because I was randomly typing stuff that did not make sense! Sleepy time.