Foreigner Filipina Relationship How Did Your Family React?

Marrying a woman from a different nationality isn’t all that unusual, but add in a large age gap and travelling thousands of miles to be with them raises more eyebrows. We can say that what others think doesn’t matter but sometimes it really does, and if family members are shocked, saddened, or disgusted with what you’ve done, that will affect the dynamics constantly. Please subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea and get an inside look at how foreigner and Filipina relationships work and what you can do to have a good relationship with a Filipina, hopefully leading to marriage. Comments are always welcome. Remember to check out lvbts.com for podcasts. let me know if your family accepted your relationship with a Filipina or if there was someone who just didn’t understand.

I didn’t have much family here in the states, my mother lived nearby, so did my aunt and cousin, now and then my aunt and mother would spend some time together. My father, sister and grandmother had passed away, my father at 55 and my sister at 51. I will just say now that my sister would have been absolutely elated that I married a Filipina because she knew I liked them and told me one time that she thought I was going to marry one. I told her that was basically not possible or at least I couldn’t see how.

My mother is not one to take risk and I married Aiza so quickly I don’t remember having a long conversation with my mother about it but I probably did, because it was such a good feeling to have a girlfriend and have realistic thoughts of getting married. I can imagine my mother warning me in some way but I don’t, and maybe it went right past me. I am pretty sure with something of this magnitude I kept my mother informed of this wonderful relationship that had started online the morning of March 17 of 2015. I remember because I kept chat transcripts from those days to use for my visa petition for her. By May 10 we were already married, so the quick marriage aspect would also be a reason my family might question what we did.

My wife wanted to see my mother and aunt on webcam so one day we did a Skype session which was the first time my family had ever done one. It went well, Aiza was excited about it. I should mention that if your Filipina prospect wants to do a webcam with your family, and raises the idea, I’d think that was a good sign. I doubt she would want to do that and expose herself to fraud if she can’t answer their questions. My wife’s English was good enough to communicate with them, which by the way, helps the family dynamic.

My mother had heard all about my struggles with being single for thirty years, and It wouldn’t surprise me if she thought I would never marry, so being told I was going to marry a woman on the other side of the world, 27 years younger, that I had never met in person, likely didn’t make her jump for joy. I can understand if she was skeptical. I am sure I tried my best to help my mother feel comfortable about my decision to marry her.

Come to think of it, my mother has her circle of friends, and I can imagine she was wondering what she was going to tell them about our marriage. It would be eight months after our marriage before my wife was able to arrive in America. As I think through this, I don’t think I spent any time being concerned about how others would view this decision, I was focusing on our relationship. I can tell you I have never been ashamed of it, and have never been uneasy talking about it.

My wife wanted to surprise my mother when she arrived so we told my mother that she could go with me to the airport on a Wednesday to pick Aiza up, but all the while we knew I was going to get her on the previous Monday, then surprise my mother. I met Aiza at the airport, she looked as small as ever in this soft furry grey coat with a hood around her head. Her first words were “let’s go to the car” or something romantic like that. One of these days I should ask her what exactly she was thinking when she had gathered her luggage at the carousel and saw me walking towards her.

As we were driving to our then apartment, she remarked that she wanted to meet my mother before we even unpacked our bags. That says a lot about my Amazing Aiza. She had been up for about a day and a half, but before seeing her new place to live, she wants to meet my mother. I reminder her we were going to surprise her, so we pulled into the driveway, Aiza hid off to the side of the front door, and I rang the bell. When my mom opened the front door she asked me if I had gotten locked out of the garage door that we always use to get into the house.

Then Aiza whipped around to the front door and hugged my mom and my mom started crying and they hugged each other my mom kept crying and it was a beautiful sight. I have this as one of my videos. It was a special scene. About six months after that we were about to buy a townhouse not too far away before my mother asked us at the last hour, if we would move in with her. She had been concerned that she would be uncomfortable if we argued in the house. We have done a fairly good job of not arguing around my mother.

My wife is polite to my mom, frequently asking her if there is anything her son can do for her…Aiza watches tv with her, will run an errand for her now and then, always asks her if she wants to eat with us, helps her with the Christmas decorations. And of course, my mom feels better not being alone in the house so if Aiza is there that is a good thing. The more I think about it, how your Filipina responds to your family before she meets them is a good indicator of how that dynamic might go after she immigrates.

My mom calls Aiza and I “the kids”. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing but you can’t expect it to be. My mom is fastidious and meticulous and it is good that Aiza is similar but at times there has been a little clash or two probably because there are two “women of the house” now. My mother tells me that she wants Aiza to feel like this is her house and to decorate the way she wants, but at the same time, my mother lived here for ten years and I am sure is set in her ways. Aiza certainly has her ideas for how to arrange the house, so naturally there could be a little conflict now and then, but as far as how my mother has accepted my wife into the family, that has gone well.

My aunt and my cousin get along well with my wife too, Aiza took the initiative early on to be nice to them and immediately integrate herself into the family very well. My cousin’s girlfriend accepts Aiza too. So do my coworkers. Some of this is due to how she was taught to be in the Philippines and some of it is my wife’s personality. It may be hard for some of you to believe this, and that’s understandable, but the more you see a foreigner and a Filipina together, even with a large age gap, the more the age gap diminishes in importance and you end up with two people who love each other.

I am sure if our family was larger, they would still be glad I found Love Beyond The Sea.