Old Western men young Asian wife....How in 2012?

FeministWife, I think humans are pretty good at pulling the wool over their own eyes if it makes them feel better. One can ignore some pretty awful stuff if we think that we are getting something we want or will eventually get something we want in the end.

Men who leave their wives/partners for what in their mind is a newer, better model, will probably make up plenty of excuses to justify what they do in leaving (e.g. spark is gone, wife's too bossy or bitchy, I don't feel loved, sex isn't so good, etc.) and focus only on the elements of the new relationship that make them feel good, (e.g. she must love me, look how attentive she is, she treats me like a king, I can do whatever I want to her and it's okay, etc.) They can easily overlook what to others might seem unsavoury, like the power imbalance. They can also ignore what are probably the woman's real motivations for being with them.

Women in such relationships are really doing the same thing in terms of rationalising the situation. They think of the benefits of having a full belly, a warm home and decent clothes to wear, maybe a chance of an education and some "luxuries" in life, a better prospect for her children, etc.. It might seem a better option than the alternatives - selling sex to many men, grinding poverty, hunger and exploitation, working to exhaustion, etc.) They can convince themselves that being a servant to and having sex with a person you may not have much feeling for is a price worth paying for what they get.

What I'm trying to say here is that while I can most definitely see a predatory male of 35 using age to take advantage of a 15 -year-old girl, I find it impossible to believe that a 45-year-old woman could be brainwashed and led astray by a man 20 years her senior just because he is older than her.

But your hurt is down to the fact that he has left your mother.
She is not his age, but so what of it? Plenty of people go off with people who are not their age.
The age here is irrelevant in terms of any potential emotional abuse by the patriarchy. A 65-year-old man cannot emotionally take advantage of a 45-year-old adult woman. He could a 17-year-old girl.
In this respect, it is surely a relationship issue not a feminist one, then.

Any 'taking advantage' will be down to economic status not age.

God how awful. My ex next door neighbour is a middleaged overweight man with health problems with a younger thai wife who doesn't speak much English, doesn't speak to anyone. My mum's friend is from thailand who married an english white man as part of an arrangement. It's buying people therefore it is slavery and it's fucking disgusting.

Wamster, I think you are missing an important point. There isn't a defined universal age at which a woman ceases to be eligible as a "trophy wife." In any case, the OP seems to think her father or the woman in question are lying about her true age and she may be younger.

Put it this way - maybe he has the wealth and status as a 60 something man to "land" a 40 something woman but not enough to get a 20 or 30 something women.

Fair point wamster- but I was told that this was not a relationship issue by op /£3! Mentioned this

And why this image of China as a backward country? It has the fastest growing economy on earth. She inspected the factory with your father. Why would this be so if not on similar level to him?
I think you are deeply upset-as anybody would be!- and have made this into a stereotypical feminist issue when it may be 'just' a relationship issue.

TheFeministWife. I understand that you are hurting and sympathise with that pain, however, younger does not mean young. Can't you see this?

You say this woman is 45. By Western, patriarchy standards (not mine!) -which you are attributing to your father and what this thread seems to be about- that is positively ancient in terms of women's attractiveness terms.
Forty-five-year old women do NOT frequent the covers of soft (or hard) porn mags, do they? They don't appear on page 3 of the Sun.
Whatever your father is doing, he is not following the Western tradition of 21-year-old trophy wife, is he?

With respect, TheFeministWife, men who are after 'trophy wives' or a woman to do precisely what they say do not usually go after 45-year-old women.
I find it interesting that you are thinking of this in terms of your dad's age. Your father's is age is not really relevant. So what if he is about 20 years her senior? She herself is a 45-year-old woman. A 45-year-old woman. far from adolescence and youth, surely?
Like Daughteroflilith says, she is not a 17-year-old Thai bride.

Cogito, it's true one couldn't say whether the op's dad might not have strayed had her parents been living somewhere else. Maybe he would have still thought of having a fling or leaving his wife regardless of where they lived.

However, dumping your wife for a younger woman tends to be frowned upon at least a bit more in the UK. Also, as the OP says, he wouldn't have had as much money, power or status in the UK to be of similar appeal to younger women here.

Because of his elevated power and privilege in China, he had more opportunity to act on any inclination to stray. So, the location is imho, very important.

It is certainly in my mind a feminist issue in part because it is the result of a further extreme of male entitlement and an indictment of a world in which many girls and women see their best prospects of survival or at least attaining a decent standard of living tied into selling themselves to more powerful men.

I'm not sure it's a feminist issue. It seems to be a normal case of somebody leaving a marriage for somebody else. I'm sorry for your mother, but it's not exclusively a male phenomenon. I can't comment on the situation in China, but if she's 45 and they met through work it's not as if he's purchased a 17 year old Thai bride. Hope things work out for your parents.

You can't say he wouldn't have done it here. He's gone looking for someone to flatter his vanity... paid for it originally, got it for nothing subsequently.... and I can't see location would have made much of a difference. Do you know that he was scrupulously faithful for the rest of the marriage or has he always played away.

Your mother's had a lucky escape and deserves your support. Your father deserves your pity but not your hatred. Life's too short for that.

Sorry, but the age gap between a 45-year-old and a 65-year-old is not that much in terms of real-life.

I think it is. It's pretty much a whole generation. He's old enough to be her father. And in terms of real-life experience, as an oldie myself, 45 year olds seems pretty young to me, and in many cases pretty immature too....

Soory, www, I'm in the UK. I was talking about my travels in the far east.

How old is your father? I am guessing around 65? Sorry, but the age gap between a 45-year-old and a 65-year-old is not that much in terms of real-life. 45 and 25? Oh yes a huge difference.
Don't make it even worse for yourself by seeing the age gap as yet another thing that bugs you on this issue. Lose that at least because, really, your father has not been stolen by some young woman using her youthful charms on him to get a visa.

Where are you YNK? That would drive me nuts.

www, I think there is also a fear in these countries that single western women will give oppressed women ideas and I have experienced harrasment as a result of the challenge it creates in more
male dominated countries. I have often been asked where my husband/brother/father is because they cannot comprehend that I do not need the permission of some man to go travelling.

He talks of it from time to time. I am hoping for a happy ending. Especially when she realises that "assets from the marriage" go both ways.....

Portofino - that is such a sad story. I wonder if he would have left if he hadn't been pushed? Who not divorce her?

If your father went with hookers in the past then the marriage may have lasted 40 years but it's been pretty rocky for the last 5 at least. If he's in China and he's looking for a bunk-up in a hotel then there's a good chance the women he's going to take with him will be chinese. If he was in England, it would have been someone more local.

It's really not a feminist issue and it's not helped by trying to make stereotype generalisations about the motivation and behaviour traits of chinese women. It's an unfaithful and foolish old man issue. They are capable of being badly behaved wherever they are.

When Rose Castorini, the wife with a cheating husband in Moonstruck, asks "Why do men chase women?" she gets the answer "Because they fear death"

My dad did this - left my stepmother after many years and took up with a chinese woman younger than me. It has destroyed him. She is/was no victim here (well not of him at least) - she wanted a wealthy foreign husband and a UK passport and she got one. She got numbers from his phone and called my stepmother to tell her exactly what was going on. My dad was kicked out and financially cleaned out by the subsequent divorce.

The minute she finally got her UK passport, she moved into the spare room, got a job and whilst my dad pays ALL the bills, plus sends money to China for her family, she keeps every penny of what she earns. My dad lost all his friends, his health (he turned to drink). his job. He is 62 - looks like an old man, on incapacity benefit, whilst she swans round on foreign holidays. He is a fecking idiot, yes - but this woman knew what she was doing. Her sisters have done the same thing.