Separate but Equal?

 There’s no denying that a Fil-West marriage is, in many ways, different from a “conventional” marriage (on in which both partners are from the same country and culture).  In most cases, both partners in a Fil-West union have purposely deviated from the norm by seeking mates from cultures other than their own.  Courtship is usually a long distance affair.  A Filipina and her fiancé/husband must appease government officials if they ever hope to be reunited in the husband’s homeland.   Expenditures of time and money are considerable.  Cultural adjustments are unavoidable.  Etc. 

Don’t be fooled, though.  Despite all these differences, your marriage is just as legitimate, important, and binding, as any “conventional” marriage.   And, importantly, it deserves just as much respect.   

You and your wife owe it to yourselves not to make a spectacle of your marriage.  There are a few folks out there (thankfully, fewer with each passing day) who find Fil-West relationships objectionable.  Some of these people are bigots, some are radicals looking for a cause, and some are just gullible television fanatics.  Such people feed off the sensational stories about Fil-West relationships that are so often found in the popular media.  Radicals, in particular, cling tightly to the stereotypical “mail order bride” scenario which casts the Filipina as young, pretty, submissive, and naive, while the westerner is old, ugly, dominant, and exploitive.  

Certainly, there are Fil-West relationships that are mirror images of that stereotype, and as a community we need to address ways to prevent such ill-conceived unions.  But we know that those relationships are deviations from the happy marriages most of us enjoy.  The problem is that today’s media are addicted to the profits sensational stories generate, and happy marriages are hardly sensational.  A story about a western guy who pretends to engage a Filipina only to put her to work in a brothel is a moneymaker for a network.  A story about a western guy who marries a Filipina and enjoys a pretty normal life with her is a “yawner”.   

I’m happy to report that most Fil-West relationships are, indeed, yawners.  They are marriages like any others, once the difficult courtship and immigration period ends.  Within a few months or years, things settle down, and a normalcy sets in.  There will be happy times and sad times, arguing and lovemaking, feast and famine.  Fil-West couples experience the same ups and downs as other couples, and after awhile… 

(End of book excerpt – if you’d like the entire text, please consider ordering The ASAWA Guide to Fil-West Relationships.  Thank you!)