How to Make Future Plans with a Filipina-Important!

It is clearly important to have basic knowledge of the Filipina you want to marry or have married, and it is important to have commonality in important areas and having good relationship skills is a must. If a couple aren’t on the same page for their future plans, that needs to be worked on. I have heard it said that a team is only as strong is its biggest weakness. If a foreigner marries a Filipina, they may have a lot going for them, but if their weakness is their future plans being the same, that would spell trouble. Does this make sense?

Please subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea where I will talk about anything I am learning that would help a foreign man excel with a Filipina. I know from experience how wonderful and exhilarating it is to go to the other side of the world to find the wife I have wanted a very long time. All the communication, adjustments, travel, meeting the family, visa paperwork and fees. You tell yourself it is all worth it when you are together, and that’s true. Eventually the bloom comes off the rose and the usual challenges of two sinful people show up. We all go through that.

As I say that, I think how many couples end up not even having a future as the relationship gets short circuited due to any number of things, one of which could be your future plans not being in sync. Naturally, when you marry a Filipina it will be awhile before the topic of future plans really becomes urgent. I am not sure exactly how important it is to talk about that when dating because you are usually focusing more on the present and the immediate future and it is possible you haven’t thought that far ahead.

My wife and I didn’t talk about that at all, I wanted us to focus on our roles and our responsibilities to each other. If we weren’t on the same page there, I figured we wouldn’t have a future to discuss anyway. “Future plans” would certainly include retirement but are for mainly down the line five, ten years of more. It is possible if the man is old enough, the near future and the distant future could be fairly close together. I have in mind being able to be married for ten to twenty years just because that is perhaps more likely. Here are some things to think about that are especially true of the foreigner married to a Filipina.

Be willing to step out of your comfort zone-If a Filipina has already made the move to leave the Philippines to be with a foreign man in his country, she has already shown a willingness to step way out of her comfort zone, way out. She has temporarily at least, left everything behind. I find it remarkable a Filipina would be willing to marry a foreign man so far away from her family, to be able to help her family, and at the same time be a good wife. I don’t believe a Filipina is likely to move to another country just to go through the motions.

In order to stay together and grow together, future plans must match up. This does not happen by accident and I think the husband is going to have to make most of the adjustments. Before I married and after I married, I didn’t really contemplate too far ahead but my wife has talked about her thoughts for the future but it has come out of normal life being married, just in the course of conversation. Do you know what would require you to step out of your comfort zone marrying a Filipina?

Just in marrying my Filipina wife I had to already go way out of my comfort zone. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would get in a plane by myself and travel to a country almost ten thousand miles away, to marry a woman I had known for about five weeks that I hadn’t met in person yet! I always thought fifty miles was about my limit to be away from someone to date. I think I did it because I recognized an opportunity to finally get married and had waited patiently for so long that I was willing to do whatever it took to marry when I got the chance.

Perhaps marrying someone from a different culture is problematic to you, or at least makes you uncomfortable because it isn’t something you have given much thought to. Maybe you are a little apprehensive to marry a woman a lot younger. If you have gotten that far, you have already experienced going out of your comfort zone in order to achieve a marriage to a Filipina.

I could add here that if you are aware of the danger of getting scammed, and still found a good Filipina to marry, then you again were able to take some risk in order to accomplish something you believed was important, so you can do it. As far as future plans with a Filipina the same mindset will need to be realized again. In between you will be involved with the getting to know each better stage as well as growing your relationship and enjoying life together. Eventually though some things may come into clearer focus.

Be open to new circumstances-When I married my Filipina, I assumed we would be staying here until I died. I hadn’t allowed myself to think too far ahead other than wanting to provide for her after my death. I greatly appreciate the sacrifices my wife made when she immigrated here to be my wife. I really don’t think I could do that if I was in her shoes. It just may be that going out of our comfort zone and being open to new circumstances could be the spice of life, even all the way to the end.

Before I married, I had not even considered being a father, but all of a sudden, I am confronted with this possibility as my wife wanted a baby. For her sake, and because I believed we should try, I became open to it. At this stage of my life, and my wife becomes pregnant, we might have to seriously consider raising a child there. My wife might relish this thought, but would I be willing to? As far as retiring in the Philippines, I fully recognize not all men can do this because of having family here, they might not want to or practically be able to leave.

Let’s say that future plans don’t involve retirement in the Philippines. If your Filipina wife is interested in traveling to different places in your country, how willing would you be to do that? What if she wants to have a baby? That is normally very important to a Filipina. Perhaps she will want to move from a colder climate to a warmer one, would you be open to that? Maybe she already knows some people in another state or wants to be around more Filipinos, are you willing to move there?

I am not suggesting that will happen just that your plans for the future, just like mine, might contend with ideas that she has. My point here is to keep in step with each other, and that will likely involve someone having to be more flexible than the other, and soon I will tell you what several of them are and give you my take on our situation.

Give and take-Considering the Filipina you are seeking or have married is from a different culture and likely a lot younger, there is a great chance that her goals are different and may change as she gets older. In the Philippines it is more difficult to have future plans because there is so much focus on the present. The older foreigner is more likely to want to slow down and not try different things, and may have had his future plans firmly in place for a while.

Consider your place in life-There are three considerations I will describe for the foreign husband to be more willing to make some concessions in favor of his Filipina wife. It may happen that if she has been working that she is fine with continuing to work after you retire. It is also possible you won’t see eye to eye on certain plans or those plans could end up changing as time goes by. My concern is that there may be a natural likelihood to not have similar plans and that it is best to be working toward the same end result.

I spent significant time trying to find a wife, a few decades, so our future plans aren’t too far from our present ones. There are always years to get to know each other, to get used to each other, to find her a job, maybe teach her to drive, basically get your marriage off the ground. As a single person, I don’t remember thinking much about my future, whether that be retirement or earlier, since I didn’t want to be alone. The future was fuzzy. It was that way through our first three-plus years of marriage. I didn’t think too far ahead and we had talked about my wife working after I retired. I need to say a few things about retiring in the Philippines to help make my point.

Then came the idea of a house in the Philippines. One thing led to another and it became a bigger house that we could stay in when we visited the Philippines, which had been twice in the last three years. Some family members would be there too. I started to think about what it would be like to live in that house and when that might be. My wife was content to stay here until I died, then return to her homeland because it isn’t like I have a lot of family here. I have no children to stay for and my mother is 86. I had been thinking of going to football and basketball games at retirement and there is nothing wrong with that. I didn’t have any big ventures planned for then.

There was a tussle between what I had envisioned for my life and what my wife wanted to do. I don’t recall that she pressured me into wanting to retire there. I am trying to get a read on the medical situation I would face mainly with meds assuming I have had all the surgeries I’m going to need. I think the house will be nice and the scenery is great and it is very close to the beach. I probably can live on fish and rice. Since we have a house there we might end up retiring earlier than I had originally planned.

I believe my wife would be very happy to live there again, in the best house she and her family have ever had, but at the same time, I think my wife could be ok living here until I died. Again, not everyone is going to be able to realistically consider living in the Philippines for various reasons, but it is something I am dealing with and I want to come away with some things to share with my viewers that might be helpful to know at whatever stage you are at with a Filipina.

Here is where considering my/the foreign husbands place in life comes into play. I have consistently maintained to my wife that I want to defer to her whenever possible for her good. It may be good for me to retire in the Philippines but I am sure there is no doubt it would be good for my wife. Would it be better for her than staying here in America? I think she would say yes. She has never said she wanted to stay here for the rest of her life.

Now here is where “consider your place in life” fits in-Since marriage is a mesh of two people’s lives and all couples might want different things, I want to recommend “breaking the tie” so to speak, by considering all the time that I have had to live my life when compared to hers. I understand this won’t jive with everyone but that’s ok because no decisions have to be made right this minute, but this is just what I am experiencing and maybe there is something that could be helpful to you.

I am 27 years older than my Filipina wife so I have experienced a lot more than she has, and none of it while being poor. I have always had family within reach. I have worked for almost 40 years at the same company. I have learned many life lessons and matured over the years in the school of hard knocks as well as learning from the Bible. I may want a life of leisure at retirement age but maybe a younger wife won’t? I have a pension and a 401-k. We know how expensive life is in America. Instead of there being more definition in my life, there are more possibilities (and with it more unknowns), but is that necessarily a bad thing?

The conclusion I come to when considering my place in life is that I know what I could do and I know what my wife would like to do and why it would be important to her. This video is about future plans together, so I want to talk about considering my wife’s place in life.

Consider her place in life-I can’t make a decision on what is best for us without understanding where she might be when I am older and our future continues albeit different from today. We have been married for five years and she left the Philippines on January 10 2016 and arrived on a chilly morning on January 11. She has been working most of the time and thinking mostly about her family. In another six years she will have gone about eleven years away from her family and friends with some visits in between. I know being an OFW is common in the Philippines but it wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. Depending on how long I live, she might be in America another ten years after I retire. All things being considered, I’d prefer she be around her family.

Part of her place in life is being away from her friends too as she has been since she arrived in America. As I get closer to retirement, the next so-called stage of life, my Filipina wife accompanies me there. I believe I have every right to ask my wife to stay with me here through retirement and death, I think that is understandable. I could reason that I have met certain needs and wants that she wanted when no other man on earth had done before, and that I want her to stay here in America as I live out the rest of my days. But another thing to consider is what she means to me and has done for me.

Consider what she means to you and what she did for you-The exercise in making decisions for our future continues. Honestly, I felt like I was poor before I met my wife. I didn’t have any glaring material needs, but relationally I was starving every day and getting malnourished. At one point I just wore out and was told by a specialist they thought it was from “super stress”. All well and good but I didn’t know how to get over it. I didn’t want to contemplate a future without a good wife. Marrying her was a great relief and has been enjoyable despite the typical clashes every single couple in the world deals with. I didn’t see how I was going to marry, then God gave me her. That doesn’t mean along with her comes a life of easy decision making and doing everything I want to do.

It may be better than you think-I am advocating getting in synch with each other’s future plans and as much as possible, to try to align yourself with what is important to your wife. Is that a blasphemous statement.? I mean if it is possible for you and your Filipina wife to not have to struggle too much to get on the same page, that’s wonderful. If there is a sense that one might have to give in a little bit, it is my belief the husband should be willing to do that.

It doesn’t always have to be 50/50-I am always a bit puzzled by what doing something 50/50 even means. A marriage is about doing what is best for each other more than it is splitting everything half and half. That sounds mechanical and compulsory to me, not so much free will. It is easy to look at giving as losing something, as not having something we might have preferred to still have. However, I have been a believer in the Bible verse that says to Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap (Luke 6:38).

I firmly believe I can default to this concept. I have been doing my best to be as supportive and helpful to my wife as I can be, and it has not been bad for me it has been rewarding. I don’t have marital, social needs that are unmet. I don’t know what kind of plans you and your Filipina have for the future or if you have even felt the need to discuss them with each other, and if that is the case, I want to be able to help give you some perspective that I have gained, and that’s all it is. If any of it resonates with you then I am happy about that and would ask that you subscribe if you haven’t to get more and more help with foreigner and Filipina relationships. Just browse through the videos or the playlists. The topics will expand the longer we are married.

It is important that our future plans match up to the degree that both the foreigner and Filipina can be mutually happy, it is just that concessions have to be made to that end.

Here are 8 points I made in the video about things to consider for your future plans together.

Be willing to step out of your comfort zone-

Be open to new circumstances-

Give and take-

Consider your place in life-

Consider her place in life-

Consider what she means to you and what she did for you-

It may be better than you think-

It doesn’t always have to be 50/50-

I am thrilled to have a future with my Love Beyond The Sea!