Quaint questions

[peterfe]

I wonder if other people's wives or girl friends ask them quaint questions from a bygone age such as "Are you hungry?" or if she's going out for a couple of hours, "Will you be ok?". Or maybe you mainly get not-so-quaint questions like: "Why do you drink so much beer?"   

S asks me, "Are you hungry?" about once a day on average, and of course I could reply, "Look, darling, I'm perfectly capable of opening the fridge door and making myself a cheese and tomato sandwich" but of course I don't, because that wouldn't fit in with her worldview that men don't know how to prepare food, wash clothes, etc.   Yesterday evening at about 6 she went to see grandpa, and of course she said, "Will you be ok?", in spite of the fact that I'm healthy and there were others in the house, including her tomboy sister. But in her worldview, her sister is not the one to look after me, and anyway has no experience of husbands...

Wonder if it was like this in Victorian England? Strange how these traditional roles endure in many (most?) parts of the world in spite of internationalisation, social media, etc.  

[Joey G]

Yep... pretty much the same here... as do most of her friends.  Used to get under my skin... but after 4 + decades, I'm numb to it... in fact, I probably do the same to her now... 

[Dave Hounddriver]

1 hour ago, peterfe said:

Or maybe you mainly get not-so-quaint questions like: "Why do you drink so much beer?" 

Mainly I get questions like:  Would you like a beer?  Would you like coffee?  Would you like tea?  What do you want for breakfast . . lunch . . supper etc?  Can I cut your hair . . fingernails . .  toenails etc?  Do you mind if I play with your . . (you know).?  Etc etc.  Life is good.

[Old55]

Peter, I think like many of us here your wife is special. For the most part what she’s saying is she loves you and always wants to be there to care for your needs.

[peterfe]

1 hour ago, Joey G said:

but after 4 + decades, I'm numb to it..

Wow, 4+ decades, you must be one of the minority who married someone more or less the same age as yourself! S knows an 80-year-old Australian who married an 18-year-old Filipina, but I don't know them, so I judge not, lest I be judged  If I live as long as my parents lived, we will have had about 22 years together, but I'm hoping to live longer than that... But I tell her that if she eats too much sugar and doesn't exercise enough, then when she's middle-aged and I'm very old, I'll have to look after her instead of the other way round!  

[Tommy T.]

L is mostly loving to me... Yeah, she has her moments... but she gets over them quickly.

She does not ask me questions, rather she says "come here and eat." Or... "I will cut your hair today." Heaven help me if I refuse or ignore her edicts... But they are always friendly and loving... how can I possibly refuse?

Her questions tend to be rhetorical  questions...i.e. not requiring or expecting answers. And that's okay with me...mostly...

Edited July 27, 2020 by Tommy T.

[manofthecoldland]

A stable, non-skirtchaser, non-alcoholic husband/SO who respects and financially supports a woman and maybe the family to some degree, is worth his weight in gold here because of the laws of supply and demand.

Intelligent women recognize this. Their lifestyle and social status depend upon seeing that his needs are tended to.

A woman without a reliable helpmate is at a severe economic disadvantage in this society, and remains dependent on the greater family group social web.

One of her primary goals to build an independent, successful and sustainable family life, of which she is central and in control. Even professional women here don't consider the single life as a desirable option.

A day never goes by without her asking me, several times it seems with no apparent reason, "Are you OK, honey?".

Good women here have the most advanced and sensitive radars re their husbands/SO needs and emotional states. They are continuously monitoring and tending to a husband's moods. Since her own happiness and life satisfaction is intertwined with her husband's, she considers it her responsibility to include him in her sense of self. He helps define her self-image and social standing. 

There  is no need to settle for a selfish or self-centered woman here.  But once they are Westernized..... things may or may not change if they adopt non-Filipina values, many of which veer drastically away from traditional, in-country norms. 

Its quite a challenge to find a woman who can balance the best of the two social value systems and avoid developing too many of the negatives when they partner up with a Westerner. 

I am content to have mine be over-attentive than under-attentive.... or in worst cases, indifferent.

If you find an older (over 30) woman here to live with you as wife/GF/SO, chances are that she has experienced life's downsides and hardships and will put things in proper context as to other options and probable outcomes in life.   She will value you  very differently and probably much more highly than the average Western woman who considers independence and self-reliance as paramount in this current age.

As a father of 4 middle-aged daughters, I do not see them getting more satisfaction from life than their traditional mother or my 3 older sisters did as housewives, homemakers and family-centered mothers.

The times, economies and living standards have changed over the last 5 decades and women now work outside the home and traditional female occupational roles. The Philippines is an extremely time lagging economic society. Some of us find that desirable since a woman's social role is still a traditional one here with husband,  children and family life at the top of the list in terms of time spent and importance. Trading that for more money is not always considered desirable, despite the many OFW moms choosing to go that route. What to sacrifice to devote time to earning additional income has always been a major issue of discussion, but when there are few options for women, they tend to husband and family.

But I don't think they overdo it here, and am reluctant to  complain. 

Here's a rather dated and probably vastly oversimplified/idealized throwback look at life here that might give insight to the way family life is here even now.    Not 1956 USA is the only thing I am sure of.

 

[hk blues]

My wife pays enough attention to me to make sure I'm OK - but not so much as could be annoying.  I'm lucky to have her - I know this because she tells me it often!  

[peterfe]

2 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

If you find an older (over 30) woman here to live with you as wife/GF/SO, chances are that she has experienced life's downsides and hardships and will put things in proper context as to other options and probable outcomes in life. 

Thanks for your essay (and video) on "The Filipina"  I basically agree with what you say, except that a woman doesn't need to be over 30 to have experienced life's hardships. But maybe you meant that at that age she's probably had a relationship or marriage which didn't work out because the man was not the "stable, non-skirt-chasing, non-alcoholic" type. And she's probably a single mother. Apart from S, there can be up to four nieces in our house, aged 12-16, who also make sure I have enough to eat, etc. Two of them were poor, and two were very poor, before I came along, and judging by the way they behave at the moment, they would all make good traditional wives when the time comes. This is a barangay where everyone knows everyone, more or less, so they're hardly going to start sleeping around, drinking and experimenting with drugs, like some Western girls would!

[JDDavao II]

An hour ago, I made a fried-egg-on-toast sandwich (with eggs fried by the MIL and put in a container on the table for me). I made it and ate it in front of my wife who was sitting at the table next to me.

Twenty minutes ago, she asked, "Do you want to eat?"

"I just ate a sandwich in front of you!"

"I thought you might like to eat because it's lunchtime."

"No, thanks. I'm fine."

Five minutes ago: "If you're hungry, we have spaghetti."

(sigh) "Okay, honey. Thank you."

"You want it now?"

"No, later."

It's part of the deal. What's funny is, a few months ago, coming into the house during a rain storm, I slipped, fell against the screen door and scraped a chunk of skin off of my head. Blood everywhere. Trip to the horsepistol. The next morning, nothing. She didn't even ask how I felt.

But asking about food? Four or five times a day.

It's weird.

Edited July 27, 2020 by JDDavao
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