14 More Ways My Filipina Wife Knows I Am Committed To Her

This is an upload version from a previous live stream about a year ago. I am thinning it out so more people can see it. Subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea where I am committed to helping men learn about foreigner and Filipina relationships. Get notifications by clicking the bell and leave comments here or in the Community Corner message boards. Sign up for email notifications for upcoming lives in the links in the description box.

You’ve heard the expression that talk is cheap. Anyone can say they will do something but until they are in situations that require them to prove it, no one can know for sure. When someone gets married, of course they want to hear their spouse say that they are committed to them, who wouldn’t? When we say we are committed to someone, initially we are expressing the idea that come what may, we believe we can be trusted to do what is best for the relationship.

A definition of commitment is to bind or obligate, as by pledge or assurance. It is not to be taken lightly. Before committing to someone, we need to consider what could go wrong. There are plenty of YouTube videos about that, but I want Love Beyond The Sea to be a channel that helps a foreigner be committed to his Filipina wife. I do not think that commitment without marriage is commitment.

Here are the words I wrote for my wife on our wedding invitations: Aiza (last name), you are the apple of my eye and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It will be my privilege to protect you, provide for you, defend you, honor you and meet your needs as best I can. I am excited for you to be my lover and best friend. Having you as my wife will make my life complete. I am eternally grateful to God for our union and with His help will be forgiving and unselfish, loving you all the days of your life. We got married in less than eight weeks but I have been trying to live this out ever since.

Before we got married, all we had was promises. During the wedding ceremony, we were told what God’s expectations were for us and to rely on His help to fulfill them. Once we were married, words were only going to go so far, there needed to be actions behind them, and they needed to be repeated.

I’ll bet if you asked my Filipina wife if she thinks I am committed to her she would say that I am. If you asked her if she thought I would be committed to her after we were married, she would probably respond with “I think so”. How would she really know at that point? After over four and a half years of marriage I have had opportunities to prove my commitment to her, which is another way of saying to prove my love to her. In a little while I will be more specific about how my wife would know that I am committed to her and there are probably more than 14.

To me commitment means being obligated to each other no matter how hard, how much it hurts, how inconvenient it is, and how much you just don’t feel like it.

Since I didn’t invent the concept of commitment, nor do I have the ability in myself to be fully committed, I want to show you where it does come from. Romans 5:8 says But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus’ commitment to his bride the church started while she was in a sinful state, and will continue on for the rest of her earthly life.

He has committed himself to her knowing she will often rebel against him. He took on in his body and soul the eternal punishment she deserved to get. She is still often aloof and disinterested in His interests, yet his love is constant. The reason he died for her was so that she could be perfect and enter His perfect heaven to be married to him. The bride of Christ is the entirety of believers throughout time.

What this means to me is that I wasn’t looking for someone perfect to marry, I wanted to be good to them, meet their needs, and help make their dreams come true. Jesus did more that forgive her, he has promised a life of eternal bliss. Since both of us have discovered how sinful we can be, we both need God’s grace to sustain our marriage.

Hebrews 13:5 says Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” This is reiterated in various forms in other places in the Bible as well such as Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, 1 Chronicles 28:20, Psalms 38:28 and Isaiah 42:16. Once God has made a commitment, he keeps it.

If I as a believer in Christ, understand that he is eternally committed to me, then I am to be fully committed to my wife because marriage is a picture of Christ and his bride the church as seen in Ephesians 5. I am constrained to be committed to my wife, I don’t have the choice not to be. If there happens to be unrepented infidelity in a marriage, I believe God does allow for divorce, yet at the same time he says it was not so from the beginning and that he hates divorce. My wife and I haven’t talked about it, but I would like to think that I would be committed to her even if she were to cheat on me, because I would want to show her forgiveness.

I don’t believe that marriage is about getting your way, I believe it is about doing things God’s way. That means putting her welfare above my own. Here are the 14 ways.

She knows I won’t threaten to leave her if such and such happens-We have had our arguments like anyone else but if I am to give the impression I am fully committed to my wife, then I should not make any threats of leaving her. Now and then I talk to her about what makes for a good, long lasting marriage. I want to reinforce to her that I am trying to accomplish this in our marriage. If you threaten but are not serious about something, then you are just playing games and I won’t do that to my wife.

You might ask me, what if your wife cheats on you? As I mentioned, we haven’t engaged in that kind of conversation and I’m not sure I even want to talk about the possibility of one of us cheating on the other, as if that actually could happen. If I tell my wife that I will divorce her if I catch her with another man, then my love for her has limits, doesn’t it…doesn’t it? I would be telling her that I love her so much that I will do anything for her, BUT should she for whatever reason be unfaithful, then all I said was just hot air.

To me, being a no-nonsense guy, it would be nonsense for me to tell her I am committed to her, then say if she is unfaithful, then I am not committed anymore. It’s like a commercial I heard when I was a kid about “I am behind you…90 percent.” I tend to be black and white. While I do believe the Bible teaches divorce is allowed for sexual sin, that still needs to be forgiven and time should be given for confession and repentance. As with most things, there is no precise statement spelling out how long is long enough. If there is continued, unrepentant sexual sin, then it appears a divorce would be allowed. At that point, it would appear a marriage doesn’t even exist anymore.

I think that by telling my wife I am committed to her 100 percent until the day I die, that if she believes that, and my actions back that up, then she will give me her very best in our marriage. Here are some other ways I try to do that.

She knows we have plans for the rest of our lives together-We have talked about having a baby, and at present, that is still ongoing. I think that indicates commitment. We have built a house in the Philippines for us when we go there, and should we retire there and some family is there now. I have a video about that called “Our gift to our Filipino family.” I believe this demonstrates to my wife I am in it for the long haul.

She knows I try not to make promises, but keep them if I do-Talk is cheap. Promises can be made out of emotion. Making a promise can make someone feel better at the time, but sooner or later they have to act on that promise, and not drag their feet doing it. Breaking one promise casts doubt about one’s willingness to keep subsequent promises

Many guys tell a Filipina they will go to the Philippines to see them and never show up. Other men have been with a Filipina, give them the impression they are serious about them, then are never seen again. I think Filipinas are wary of anything a foreigner tells them before they are married. They have good reason to be. Be the kind of man that says what he means and means what he says.

Earlier I recited what I wrote on our wedding invitations and when we were married I am sure we made some other vows (it was such a surreal experience!). Obviously to get married you must make a statement declaring your intentions but then we must keep them.

She knows her well-being is my highest priority-Partly, this is because I tell her this, and partly because of the ways I am listing in this video about being committed to her. If she needed my eyes then I would give them to her, because I care more about her than I do myself. We did a pre-visa health screening before even going for the real one before her interview. As soon as she arrived here in America, we found a women’s doctor for her to see regularly. I felt like I should take the lead in this area.

Helping her find a few Filipina friends and introducing her to people at church is another way for me to look out for her good.

She knows I have made sacrifices for her-Being willing to have a child is a sacrifice for me. Building the house in the Philippines represents a sacrifice. Allowing her to work on a later shift is a sacrifice. That’s not my first choice, but there are reasons for doing it this way.

Going where she prefers may or may not be considered a sacrifice, but I would rather go where she wants to go on vacation than where I would. Maybe one day we will see Sturgis South Dakota where I worked for a year in radio, there is also the Black Hills to see, but that has taken a back seat to other places. One day I asked my wife if there was anywhere in the world she would like to go, where would it be? She answered Paris. I was asking for information only, but decided to ask her if she wanted to go. We did go to Paris and I certainly want to do it again.

We went to the Eiffel Tower about four times and saw the Mona Lisa. It is a really cool place to be. Incidentally, while it takes us at least 24 hours to fly to the Philippines not including layovers, it only takes a paltry nine hours to fly from Nebraska to Paris. There is a one-hour flight from Omaha to Detroit, and then Paris is exactly eight hours from there. Amazing. I don’t sacrifice anything ultimately, when I put my wife first. What she enjoys, I will enjoy with her, which is far better than enjoying anything by myself.

Another sacrifice was the time we couldn’t see eye to eye on this very channel Love Beyond The Sea, as far as promoting it, spending time on it. I decided after the first five months to delete it and that hurt. I felt absolutely terrible about it and considered that maybe I should have done more to find some kind of compromise. Now, I try to spend most of the time working on it when she is at work, so she doesn’t feel like I am ignoring her. I told her she doesn’t have to be in any videos if she doesn’t want to. There is a little more to it than that, but the point is that I made some concessions after originally pulling the plug on the channel. Thankfully, she has been in videos and those tend to do well.

She knows I behave the same way towards her at home as in public-If I was to act one way in public and another way in private, this would give my wife the impression that I am not totally committed to her. It would make her wonder exactly which husband she was really married to if I’m nice in public but demeaning in private. Consistency shows commitment and builds more commitment.

She knows I have nothing to hide from her- I have a video about social media/email transparency where I elaborate on not hiding this kind of communication from my wife. We can look at each other’s email. We exchange passwords and usernames. I can see her activity on Facebook although I can’t always tell what she is saying. I can open her mail, she can open my mail, because it is our mail.

She also knows about my past, that part of my life that not everyone knows about, the part I am not proud of. I believe she should know things like this about me. I certainly don’t want her to find out from somebody else. She knew before we got married that I was not “Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Perfect.” One day my wife talked to me about something personal and I went to bed that night beginning to have feelings for her, for the first time. I think that was because I realized we had started to form a stronger connection, one that led ultimately to a commitment. She knows what turns me on and what turns me off. I am not afraid or ashamed to be real with her and I want that to rub off on her.

Money is an area where I believe we should have transparency. My wife is able to see what is in our bank accounts, and see all the transactions, just as I am. I offered her the responsibility of balancing our checkbooks and paying bills but she wasn’t interested. She just wanted to be able to know how I did it, and she should, in case something happens to me (subject of another video). Occasionally I will not be familiar with a certain expense because I hadn’t seen it before, and I will ask her what it was. Then she just tells me what it was for and that’s that.

I believe we should make major financial decisions together and that there is no such thing as “my money” even though we both are employed. What we have is to be considered “our money”. It is all able to be seen in one click in a link from our financial provider-pension-401-K, savings, checking, house information, her account, her 401-K, it is all there in full view. I am not hiding money somewhere in case our marriage doesn’t work out.

She knows I like being with her more than anyone else-If anything she might feel now and then that she is competing with YouTube for my attention, but she knows that I am crazy about her and love being with her. She often comments on how she is concerned about what would happen to me if she died first. I need this little woman, and I love to meet her needs. So far we have gone to the Philippines together, and she has threatened to go without me if I don’t stop griping about airport TSA! I really don’t want to spend two or three weeks without her. I would miss holding her, kissing her, caressing her, complimenting her. She is my best friend.

She knows I will always support her-We had talked at one time about the possibility of her taking some classes at a local community college. I think trying to have a baby falls in this category. I have supported her at work when there was some difficulty. I paid for driving lessons in the Philippines. I allowed her to take her America driving test in a different place because she thought it might be easier, even though I protested. At the end of the day, it isn’t worth arguing about.

I made my case for why but I let her try at this other DMV. I allowed her to buy a car when it became clear that she really needed one. Previously I had been wanting us to use my car, which we could do, for a while, before her job hours changed significantly.

She knows I will make changes to suit her-There are some things I can do to make her feel like I am committed to her in this area such as allowing her to change my hairstyle! OK, we are getting personal now. I have to admit, and I hope she isn’t watching this, that her ideas are better than mine! She is from the Philippines where short, clean-cut hair styles are what she is used to. That’s what she wanted for me. Naturally I put up a fuss about this, then decided to do it her way.

I have a video about facial hair and Filipinas. She wasn’t crazy about my beard while we were Skyping before we got married, and one day I surprised her by shaving it off. After she immigrated, she wanted me to grow it back, then after I did, she changed her mind. At that point I thought we should compromise somehow and I decided to let her trim my beard, even though she had no experience! She thought she could do better than a barber and she did really well. I have also let her cut and color my hair.

Talking about changes that suit her, that would include her changing my wardrobe to something she liked. I also protested this, but I have to admit my Amazing Aiza is good with fashion. She wants me to look well-dressed at work regardless of what my job is. She thinks my appearance reflects on her. She also feels that what I eat is the same way, so she wants me to eat good meals.

She knows I plan for her life after my death-She has been with me to see our financial advisor many times. She knows our financial situation. She knows about our life insurance, and what happens with that after I retire. We have a will that covers various contingencies. She knows about social security and some details that she will have to get from our financial advisor when she is 60. She will get help with accessing her 401-k at that time of my death. Our financial advisor is young but gifted and has assured us that she or the one that follows her will make sure Aiza has everything she needs after I am gone. I believe this reinforces commitment.

She knows she is the most significant person in my life besides God-She knows God comes first. He is more important than anything on earth. He is the one who commands me to be committed to my wife and showed mankind about sacrifice when he died on the cross.

She knows I pray for her regularly-I like to pray for her at night in the dark, snuggled up to her. I try to be transparent as always, and let her hear how I regularly pray to God for her, I want her to hear what it sounds like. I think she hears commitment in my prayers for her. I thank God for her when we pray at meals, that’s the first thing I say. I pray when we are driving together, at the start.

She knows I am her biggest fan-She has said this herself, that I am her biggest fan. I get real satisfaction from complimenting her, making her feel good about herself, giving her opportunities in life by marrying her, when no one else had, but could have. I honestly don’t want to let my own happiness get in the way of hers. I want her to come first. That has never disappointed me. This should give her a sense of commitment.

Only God knows what lies ahead or how long we will have to be together. She tells me she wants me to live to be 100 so we have more years together, and that she wishes I was younger for that same reason. I don’t think she would say that if she didn’t believe I was committed to her, totally.

I hope everything I do shows her I am committed to my Love Beyond the Sea!