Are Westerners Approaching Relationships Wrong With Filipinas?

Around the 1 hour 37 min – 1 hour 50 minuteish mark from the last livestream; (September 2 2019) Aiza and JBUD were having an exchange regarding “why western men won’t marry” and about commitment. Aiza questioned why JBUD and western men in general refuse to take action and commit. I felt compelled after a long absence to write into LBTS as I feel the need to bring up something most people in the audience and maybe even Bob and Aiza themselves missed. While Bob and many of the male audience members understand why western men are so risk-averse committing to women (no fault divorce, disrespect towards men, etc.), what isn’t talked about is “How it got this way?”. To make a long story short both Aiza and JBUD are right!

Something hit me during this exchange that I thought I should share as I feel the message went over many of the audience’s head. This exchange put something into words that I have struggled with the past little while. One could even make a video about it called “Are Westerners Approaching Relationships Wrong?” Truth is yes! What Aiza is describing and what JBUD are describing are 2 different things. Aiza is describing courtship and JBUD is describing dating. There is a difference between dating and courtship. As westerners, we often equate these things as the same. However, both dating and courtship are not mutually exclusive, they are two different things. I have noticed something very peculiar in my exile and that is the longer you draw out a relationship without making a decision to get serious (i.e. marry), the more likely the relationship will fail. So, for men who date a woman 5+ years and generally take their time (in their eyes) are more likely to divorce or have the relationship fail. Whereas men like you (Bob) who committed very fast and rushed to the alter (from contemporary western wisdom) are more likely to be successful. I find it interesting that this phenomenon is the case and this observation I made keeps reoccurring and being strengthened as time goes on; as I find couples who have married in this fashion. You’re probably wondering how can that be? Well like I said above it has a lot to do with dating mindset vs courtship mindset.

What has happened is that for us westerners, somewhere along the way the wisdom of courtship and dating somehow got mixed together. Originally dating was something you only did as a fling or for fun and generally meant you weren’t serious or looking for marriage. Whereas courtship’s purpose was marriage and family formation, generally with both families involved in giving their blessing. As a result, a decision was made rather quickly (under 1 year) whether the couple in question were a good match.

Generally asking for blessings of parents or even getting families involved in relationships is considered alien in modern dating. Ultimately, what I am getting at, is the process of courtship (which Aiza is describing) is a different mindset and process than that of dating (what JBUD is describing). With courtship your mindset is marriage and forming a family from the get go, whereas dating is more fun activity without commitment or any sort of attachment. So when Aiza or any women asks “why won’t men commit?” The answer to her question is because of the breakdown and corruption of the courtship process. We western men equate dating and courtship as the same, thus when we get bad results, men rightly feel jaded and blame the process, since we don’t have knowledge from our elders or know any better. More importantly a bigger problem both sides have is; a lack calibrated filtering in determining each other’s intentions. This leads to both parties feeling miserable with each other.

For marriage-minded men my advice is to return to what courtship used to be in its most basic form; a pseudo-job interview or audition on your prospective wife and ask the right questions and qualify her.

The most important qualifier you must find out is if your prospective wife values family over career, or career over family. If she values career more than you or her family, you are on path for divorce.

My parting knowledge to all of you is treat marriage like a business and not like a hobby!