Popular Post barryneves Posted March 18, 2015 Popular Post Posted March 18, 2015 Houndriver's advice in post #4 is bang on the money. I have lived here for ten years now, with no regrets, but have always made a point of keeping a fair distance between my partner's family and our place of residence. We live on Negros while the family are on Leyte. This sits extremely well with my other half, as she was stung several times early on in our relationship by her family members before she learnt to handle the emotional blackmail that sadly can be part and parcel of a foreigner / filipina relationship. Now, four years down the line, she limits visits to our place to her mother (who is a gem) and one of her nieces who is also a great lass. She has no time for the rest of the family as they only see her as a potential source of revenue, and, as a consequence, her bank account is much healthier these days. I fully appreciate that there are exceptions to the above and some expats do live comfortably in close confines with their spouse's family, but in the majority of cases it's not a recipe for long-term happiness, more so if you haven't even been there or met them. The oft repeated advice holds true here - come here, rent for an extended period first, to get a real feel and understanding of the reality on the ground here prior to committing yourself financially. I have lost count of the number of people I have met who have done the opposite and suffered a tremendous financial hit as a result. This is a great place to live (IMHO) but go slow and good luck with whatever you decide. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpbago Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 Secondly, if she is a young wife, there will be a powerful peer pressure to hang out with her 'classmates' which normally has a bad effect on an older guy / younger girl relationship. If she is of the type that would rather "be" with her classmates being the same age as her, she will find that person or persons where ever she lives be it the cable guy or the tricycle driver. To move her far away from her family and friends seems like you want to control her in your environment in her country. You have to trust her. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBM Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 Secondly, if she is a young wife, there will be a powerful peer pressure to hang out with her 'classmates' which normally has a bad effect on an older guy / younger girl relationship. If she is of the type that would rather "be" with her classmates being the same age as her, she will find that person or persons where ever she lives be it the cable guy or the tricycle driver. To move her far away from her family and friends seems like you want to control her in your environment in her country. You have to trust her. Think what Mr Houndriver is meaning is temptations and social responsibility. I recognize here the importance of bonding where in people whom graduated together, were class mates and such does hold a stronger than normal bond. If one is dealing with bureaucracy and suddenly the person acting on your behalf says....no problem the one in charge was my classmate....Happened to me many times. I do not believe controlling comes into it, the esow would be taken away from the situation where this potential clash and subsequent problem could emerge. Personally I agree each to their own, how ever I would always advise living some distance from the outlaws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Larry45 Posted March 19, 2015 Popular Post Posted March 19, 2015 Personally I agree each to their own, how ever I would always advise living some distance from the outlaws. Why not just choose a girl from a good family? There's plenty of Filipino families that actually have pride, work hard, and won't milk you dry. I've known lots of foreigners that put more thought into choosing an internet provider than they did choosing their wife. Then they continually bitch about the girl's family and promote the "two island rule." It all seems silly to me, and unnecessary. But yeah, to each his own. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Hounddriver Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 If she is of the type that would rather "be" with her classmates being the same age as her, she will find that person or persons where ever she lives be it the cable guy or the tricycle driver. To move her far away from her family and friends seems like you want to control her in your environment in her country. You have to trust her. I recognize the dangerous grey area of isolating her from her environment. I also recognize that she already left her family and friends, on her own, to seek out a new life. To put her back in close proximity would be to undo all her own efforts. In a similar way, I could put the shoe on the other foot. It would not be fair for her to take her back to my hometown where she would be at home tending the house while I was out with all my old mates. All this being said, each person's personality is different and what works for me may not work for you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Peterson Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 Why not just choose a girl from a good family? There's plenty of Filipino families that actually have pride, In many respects you are right But... You choose a Girl, marry that Girl but not the family, I have one just like that but over the last 7/8 years, Skeletons have started to come out of the Wood work, it is a very fine balance that we have no control over, Customs, Culture hit Hardest at our weakest times and this is the main Problem with so many. Your Granny will have told you I am sure as ours did us, You know nobody until you marry them (or live with them) and sometimes it is all too late. You can take the Girl out of the Family but you cant take the Family out of the Girl, (Well not all of them) another grannies oldy to us was "Pride before a Fall" Pride, can do a Lot of Damage I am very Wary now of the False Pride thing, The family are very Proud to let us look after "Mama" and then tell all oh we are really looking after the Old Girl, There is nothing we would not do for this wonderful 93 year old Grand Lady But.............. The family? Nada. They wouldn't even know where her prescriptions were. Let alone go and buy her things OH! I tell a Lie, They would but would call in to our House on the way, to get the cash. Your mileage may vary but not that far out methinks. But don't you just love them all the same, With out THE Family we may not have all these things to talk about. JP :tiphat: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpbago Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 I also recognize that she already left her family and friends, In this case, then yes, she has already left her family and friends but in post # 4, you refer to her hanging out with her classmates which most likely are in her home city. Some of the ones that we know who have left their hometown were actually tarred, feathered and ran out of town on a rail. They left for a reason. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacBubba Posted March 28, 2015 Posted March 28, 2015 In many respects you are right But... You choose a Girl, marry that Girl but not the family, I have one just like that but over the last 7/8 years, Skeletons have started to come out of the Wood work, it is a very fine balance that we have no control over, Customs, Culture hit Hardest at our weakest times and this is the main Problem with so many. In 25 years, I have yet to come across a skeleton. The only surprise I still get is how now and then it hits me how much I love her friends and family. Most of her family are right here in Toronto, but there are still a sister and a brother and many cousins who reside in Manila. They say that home is where the heart is, and my heart is at home in both cities, and also in Marinduque (even though its far from family). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manofthecoldland Posted April 9, 2015 Posted April 9, 2015 Logical decision matrixes are fine tools... for helping aide in some problems and situations. I'm not so sure how applicable it is here. For one thing, if you tweak the weightings.... you may well get some very different end results. Its a good problem to solve.... how to maximize your chances of experiencing a high quality of life here. I don't know if quantification is possible or advisable for many of the factors involved due to incomplete or poor information availability. This is a highly illogical culture and many things turn out to be quite different that what your initial assumptions were based on. We all discover this to some degree after living here for several years. All the old hands and site-meisters here offer very excellent advice, based on their own experiences. Some have been luckier than others in how their individual love picks turned out in terms of positves and negatives that affect your living experiences here. You just never know.... too many unpredictable and changing variables... or things that are far beyond your ability to control or change. I personally think that you might be better off using an 'intuitive' solution based on lots of deep expat advice research. Absorb it all and sleep on it for a long time. Then go slow on everything you do here. Of course, practically no one does that. That's why reading ex-pat sites is interesting and provides a good hobby/pass-time for us old-timers. A case in point re: where to live. Asawa ko... my wife.... who has never lived outside of the PI, but seems unusually blessed with alot of innate Western-type values and thinking processes, decided to close her little market turo-turo carrendaria after relatives made it a habit to stop by, eat and not pay. She ran away from her matrilineal home/province/island and went to her deceased father's island/province where she grew up. Many better relatives. We ended up buying lots in four different barangays over 13 years. The first, we built a small house on. She decided to move.... and let a good cousin live there. ...too many problems with the other relatives there. Then came a series of rentals... houses and nice apts., gated-ungated, etc. We tried a lot of different things and were generally content, but she wanted a house of her own on one of her properties. Ended up building a small bamboo & nipa hybrid in the one barangay that she had no relatives in. Close to her social support system... but not too close. Its all a fine balancing act here. Good luck to you in your future endeavors. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Posted April 9, 2015 Posted April 9, 2015 We have chosen, 1) Security/Safety - 5, 2) Expense - 7, 3) Schools - 4, 4) Expat Community - 4, 5) Hospitals/Medical - 4, 6) Locations (Urban vs Rural) - 3, 7) Restaurants/Supermarkets - 4, 8) Access To "Civilization" - 3 and 9) Airport Access - 2. We've also assigned Weights to each criteria...seen in bold. See attached preliminary matrix. Which of Urban and Rural get plus? :)Restaurants/Supermarkets geting (almost) same importance as Safety and Hospitals??? Good airport access can be BAD because of disturbing noice :) As some have said distance to family CAN be a very important factor, depending of how the family is. Some expats need to be far away from BAD families, while others LIKE to live even in same house as GOOD relatives. The wife's network can be both very USEFUL as well as SEPARATION reason, partly depending of how we treat her, partly depending of her personality. (In my case I don't want ANY PEOPLE in my home mostly, which make it more complicated. I mean except wife and kids. Probably I will go for a place - if I find any I like at such distance - with BAD public communcation from the family, but rather EASY to reach by car, so we can visit THEM easy, but get visits seldom :) I would think mainly of: /suiting distance to family /a close sorounding we LIKE /good enough safety and hospital access. The rest is much less important, because seldom used, or is easy solved by just drive some longer. You choose a Girl, marry that Girl but not the family Many foreigners forget/don't know in Filipino culture we kind of marry the family too. (Except if the family has very bad relations so the wife DON'T WANT to have any contact with them, or the wife is an orphand :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now