How Long Should it Take to Marry a Woman from the Philippines?
Some men take their time finding a wife, and others move faster. That depends on a variety of individual factors. We must evaluate which way God calls us to go. Yes, as a Christian, I need to look for…another Christian. I tried to just limit it to this one main thing. The more things on my list, the longer it will take to find her. I am not saying to not use some discernment, just to not get carried away. Subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea, where I want to make marriage great again. It sure beats being alone, and for good reason. I will help you by sharing what I’ve learned being married to a younger woman from the other side of the world, the Philippines.
Today I will talk about how fast or slow to move, Of course, it’s up to you, but I think some men move like snails or turtles to find a wife but perhaps they should be like road runners? I ran like a cheetah after my little woman in the Philippines. I won’t tell you what to do, but I will say what I have observed. Eventually, you are just going to have to do it, ask someone to marry you.
We should always examine risk level, comfort level, trust level, am I looking for the right things? How long does this take? Risks are the distance, which limits how much time you can spend shoulder to shoulder. Not only that, but you don’t know what she is up to when you are not together. You should know. For instance, is she sleeping when you are working and is she working when you are sleeping? If she is a teacher and school is not in session, what is keeping her occupied?
Another risk might be not knowing her all that well but that’s what questions are for and that’s what plane tickets are for. On lvbts.com I have a link at the top of questions you can ask a Filipina at various stages of your relationship. Please check those out. Personally, I think that with me being so serious about finding a wife, not a girlfriend, that hastened our relationship because my wife wanted the same thing.
She had no control of whether or not I was going to propose on day 18 and she could have said to hold off, but she didn’t. Her very first day on Christian Filipina is when I winked at her. I’d like to think we both talked enough to realize what basically the other person was like.
If you are thinking farther ahead, you might consider bringing her to be with you a risk, possibly a big one. I believe this is minimized by getting to know each other. If you make a good choice, I think she would be able to live about anywhere. The thing that seems to be the biggest sticking point is what exactly is meant by “getting to know each other”. Asking a multitude of questions is only part of it because only by living together will you really know each other more fully. Am I advocating living together before marriage? Not at all. That is unbiblical and people who cohabitate before marriage have a higher divorce rate.
One of our sponsors told me I will still be getting to know my wife for another two years, and after over six years of marriage I am still learning about her. That doesn’t surprise me at all. I don’t think you can know everything you’d like to know by dating someone. Doesn’t this present incredible risk? How many things don’t involve risk? The more picky or particular a man is, the more difficult it will be to find someone to marry, and the less time you have to get married and enjoy it.
How I try to minimize this particular risk of only knowing so much, is by prayer of course, and by going into the marriage understanding that I do not know everything about her and that she doesn’t know everything about me, and we don’t know everything that will happen to us, that is, life circumstances, so let’s get married! I believe that a man can find so many things he must have in a wife and take so long to make sure nothing bad will happen, that he weakens his odds of a marriage at all.
What is the merit in that? I mean, it can sound like wisdom but it could just as well be sort of an excuse for not being able to find someone (“Well, I just couldn’t find someone to check off all the boxes on my list”).
A man could lose his job, or get injured, same could happen with his Filipina wife. None of us is guaranteed anything in this life. I understand being cautious, but some give me the impression they are too cautious, to the point of risking staying alone the rest of their life. Now that’s a huge risk!
Trust is an issue too. If you can accept that you don’t know everything about her or how she will react in situations she hasn’t been in before, then you have to have a basic trust about her. What I am trying to say is to realize risk is always real but that is just the way it is. You are in control of asking questions, trying to be discerning, and that may include getting opinions from others close to you about whether or not this woman makes a good marriage choice. Yes, that is even if she is half your age. Obtaining sound advice is always a wise thing to do.
My suggestion, and what I try to do, is take it day by day and try to continue to understand my wife, be good to her, cherish her, make her know that she has my full support and that I will do whatever I can to meet her needs. She needs to know she doesn’t have to be perfect for me. Today you might hear the phrase “over abundance of caution” when it comes to the coronavirus, and this I think often describes the way some guys go about looking for a wife. It’s almost like they are trying to talk themselves out of it, while at the same time, realizing that a wife is a good thing.
I had no relationship experience for thirty years before I met my wife online and we were married less than eight weeks later. Almost all of our time together in over six years has been as husband and wife. I wish I had married her sooner! Unless I am as fortunate as Forrest Gump, I think it basically comes down to how I treat her, how I regard her, how I talk to her, how I treat her family. She bears my last name. As her husband, I am the CEO of this relationship of two. I have to take responsibility for the wellbeing of our marriage.
I told her when we got married that she would be the apple of my eye and she is. Whatever happens, happens. I will need to make the right decisions along the way and remember my vows to her and to God. Whatever happens, we will just need to pull together. I think I am not as concerned with how she might change as I am about how I am going to lead her, lead the relationship. I think that’s the most important thing.
The Bible is silent on dating so we have liberty to go about this any way that God is approving of. I don’t even think a couple even necessarily has to even date at all, but once they are together as husband and wife, they have a partnership that is supposed to last until one of them dies and that’s up to them.
There is no right or wrong approach, but there is good and better. It is good, okay, acceptable to take some time, but in my specific case, I reckoned it was better at my age and long yearning for marriage, to get after it hard and be willing to accept some risk.
Knowledge is the application of wisdom; ask God how to conduct your search. Obviously, I am sharing my opinions, and I understand my experience is pretty unusual, but the most important thing is, we are doing well, we have to.
Wisdom means that it will be different for each man. The Bible isn’t going to spell out how many months to date someone, or years, but I surmise it shouldn’t be for very long, if you’ve been spending quality time getting to generally know each other. Some men don’t want an age gap, some do, some think it is wicked, others think it is perfectly permissible.
What worked for us was focusing only on each other, and seeing how that went. Generally, I think a Filipina wants to get married much quicker than a western woman. I insisted I wasn’t going to play games, we got married quickly, so maybe that wasn’t exactly a surprise.
If you identify a good one early on, is there any reason to keep looking? I know of two men who identified someone early on and “went steady” so to speak, and only spoke to each other.
If you feel that you need to know everything about her before marrying her, then how would you know that you knew everything about her? You can know what she discloses to you. I don’t think you have to be afraid of what you don’t know. I just think you will continue to get to know each other in normal ways after marriage.
Being married will put both of you in new situations together and you’ll just have to wade through it.
How long will it take you to build up a trust level? If you have been hurt badly in the past, this part may take longer but try to remember that at some point you just have to trust them.
I have learned things about my wife that I didn’t know about before we got married in less than eight weeks, and I expected to. The one thing I needed was for her to be a Christian and build the relationship from there. I am committed to her, so I will have to do some adapting, as will she. Even with someone you love, being in such “close space” will occasionally bring out the worst in each of you.
Another thing to consider is how old you are and how much time you can afford to spend looking for someone. I was 53 when I married my Filipina and had been alone the last thirty years so I felt I had a lot of ground to make up. I wasn’t that old, but I wanted to enjoy as much of a marriage as I could.
I wasn’t planning on getting married 8 ½ weeks after becoming a paid member on Christian Filipina but I was open to whatever God wanted, and He wanted the search to end quickly once we connected. I was not expecting that but hadn’t had much of a chance before that.
I don’t know your situation, but I was alone a long time and prayed and studied marriage a lot so I would be ready, and I was hungry. See lvbts.com at the top where it has Find Your Lvbts and you will find a couple of CF affiliate links
Another approach is to proceed slower. You need to be comfortable with the approach you choose. Get to know a certain number of women and pare them down. This is what I assumed I would do but it didn’t work out that way.
Proceeding slower probably means seeing more than one woman in person, and that is certainly alright. It is like investing in the stock market, how much risk or perceived risk can you be comfortable with? Meeting more women first can help you to compare them but how will you be able to decide if there are any better ones out there?
Trying to visit several Filipinas can be time consuming and expensive depending on how far they are from each other. It may require a lot of traveling and if you are working, there is only so much time for vacation. The more women you think are good choices the more difficult it is to decide which one you should ask to spend the rest of their life with you.
On Christian Filipina, I found so many choices that I think I could still be there looking at all the new profiles but since I was looking for a wife, and found a good one that accepted my proposal, I decided I would marry her and end the search.
Some guys are just more deliberate and some take more chances, I think our personality will come into play to a high degree. Remember though, to keep your eyes open for red flags and take note of the green flags; indications she might be one to marry.
Those would be being punctual for webcams, being consistent in what they have said, having the family around while they talk to you, their demeanor, what they do that is important to them and of course, their relationship with the Lord.
There will be conflict after marriage, of course, so a good indicator would be how the two of you deal with conflict that arises between you before you are married.
Pray, pray, pray, even ask help in evaluating.
It will be exciting whichever pace you use to find your Love Beyond The Sea!