This makes me feel uncomfortable, what do you think?

[InspirationFailed]

Bit of background.

My dad has a friend (Derek) who is in his 60s. Without being unkind, he's not a young 60 or a handsome 60 more of a chain smoking, denture wearing 60. They met a year ago at a hospital during step mothers treatment for cancer, and bacame friends. He drove step mother to and from hospital, kept them company, did bits of shopping - he was invaluable to them. Unfortunately she passed away 6 months ago, and since then he has been a good friend to my dad. He seems to have become part of their family and seems close to my sister and brother.

I've always thought him a bit odd, and felt slightly uncomfortable around him, although he's ever given me a reason. He's not suggestive or bad mannered, he's friendly enough.

However, he went on a month long holiday to Cambodia about 5 months ago. I thought it was a strange place to go for a holiday and said so to my dad, who said he had gone because he has never been. Derek has a Facebook page and started adding younger (late teens and early 20s) Cambodian women and tagging them in photos etc.

He went again to Cambodia last month and has announced that he has got married. His wife is in her 20s. I was chatting about it to my dad and said that it doesn't seem right, he said that Derek had made a conscious effort to pick a woman who was not in her teens (yuk) and that he really wanted to become a father so he would have someone to leave his money too.

I just think the whole thing is uncomfortable. My dad and I had a slight disagreement about it, he thinks that the lady in question will be glad that she has someone to look after her now, I think that having to have sex with an old man just to put food on the table is disgusting and he's taking advantage. Derek says Cambodia isn't what I'm thinking it is (im imagining a poor country, with a big sex trade industry and sex tourism etc)

His wife will be coming to the UK shortly for a visit and staying with my dad and his family.

It just doesn't feel right and I don't want to be around someone who would buy a wife, but maybe I am just totally wrong about the whole thing.

You can't possibly know his exact reasons without discussing it directly with him. What you know is what your Dad has told you, and that's not the same thing.

Grim. Can totally understand why you feel uncomfortable but agree with what Armani and WooWooOwl are saying.

I can see why you are uncomfortable with it.

I see those types of relationships every now and then and find them uncomfortable.

Oh gosh. I can sort of see everyone's point of view. Derek might be a perv or he might genuinely be a man who has never been in the position of being a father. And as he's not Rod Stewart or Mick Jagger the chances of his finding a UK bride of child bearing age are zero.

She might be vulnerable, naive or groomed or she might be walking into this with eyes wide open.

YANBU

so he has not found a women in his 40 odd years of being an adult, or maybe did not want to settle down so he goes to a country where he knows he can buy one, simple reason being is that they are desperately poor and now she will be able to support her family

not someone i would want to be spending time with

I don't necessarily think "love" marriages are the be all and end all - what's the divorce rate again? Many people are in happy arranged marriages in this country.

For much or history and in much of the world marriage was a transaction - this kind of relationship makes it more obvious.

The best insult I've heard on MN yet! Eurocentric!

If you regard poverty as a coercive factor (as I do), then the idea of consent in this case, is a lie really, isn't it?

there is only one person being exploited and that is the women

if she lived in an equal society, if she was from a wealthy family, had an education, the options and benefits that we have in this country she would not being marrying this man

how can the desperate exploit those that are buying them

Quite frankly, if I had been born in to such abject poverty as some women are in certain countries, with little education, health care and the expectation that I would provide for my own family, and a wealthy man arrived with money, prepared to look after me and my family, then I'd probably do exactly the same thing. Is it ideal, no. But for some women, it really is the best chance they can see for themselves.

Women marry for money all over the world. Ever seen The Real Housewives of wherever? Girls of the Playboy Mansion? Do you share the same outrage at the relationships portrayed on those shows?

I can understand your fears, but I think it's best you wait until you can speak to this woman before you assume she's a victim. She might well be a cynical adult, who wants a better life than she could have marrying a local man in her home town who's gone into this eyes wide open about what the downsides would be, and weighed that up against the upside.

I know a couple of British woman who have clearly married for money, they aren't as happy with their DHs as I am with mine, but they have fabulous lifestyles and show no sign of actually wanting out of their marriages, they've made choices not expecting a great romance, but they have the sort of lifestyle I could only get with a lottery win. This woman might well be taking a similar choice.

Presumably the woman thinks Derek is an improvement on the situation she's leaving.

And she's in a better position to know than the OP.

Midnite I think your post has just tipped the scales for me into the its wrong camp.

I just had of Google Eurocentric

I can see how some people could see it as she is making a choice, but when your options are either work 18 hour days in a labour intensive job for less than £60 a month or marry an old man and have to have sex, have a child, leave your family behind, just to make sure they can eat, it's not really a choice at all, talk about a rock and a hard place. It shouldn't be that way for anyone, it's so unfair.

I hope he treats her well, my dad harps on about what a kind man Derek is, because he came out of nowhere and saved the day, taking them all to the hospital, looking after my nephew so my half sisters could spend time with their mother, bringing gifts, he lent my dad the money for my stepmothers funeral, he lent him his car whilst he was in Cambodia. He takes my half sister for meals out etc. I told my dad that if this was a relationship of the same amount of time as this friendship had been in place then it would be a huge red flag... But he's just a kind, generous man they say. I said no thank you when he offered to take my children to the park for me though

I am going to stay away whilst he is there I think. It's not my place to say anything to him and I wouldn't want to have to sit there and offer my congratulations and make polite conversation about how wonderful I think he is.

MidniteScribber, yes I do

no because the women in the shows like Playboy Mansion have choices and opportunities open to them

and as you have listed in your post the reasons why these women do make those choices

i feel no outrage for the women just for the men that feel it is ok to exploit them, to buy these women and those that see it as being ok because she knows what she is letter herself in for

OP I thought you didn't like him being around your sister?

Ever seen The Real Housewives of wherever? Girls of the Playboy Mansion? Do you share the same outrage at the relationships portrayed on those shows?

I don't think that's comparable at all.

I'm amazed that a concern that global inequality might be a factor in a twenty-year-old woman from a developing nation marrying a sixty-year old man from a first-world country might be termed "eurocentrism".

It really is perverting all the discourses that have evolved to name and protest global inequality to try and stick the adjective 'eurocentrist' on any perspective or viewpoint that interrogates global inequality.

I think you should judge only after you have seen the married couple together for a few months.

I agree with Rumple and Eehbahgum. I also think that you're projecting, OP. You don't like this man much, probably have concerns about him influencing your dad in some way (as AF suggested) and you just feel 'weird'.

I've taken all of your posts, removed reference to his age and dentures and input a lower aged man with good teeth... and found that it changes things considerably.

You have no idea of Derek's life or his relationship with this woman. I too think it's patronising to suggest that the woman is being coerced. You could say that about many marriages in the UK too and, unless you think that women are inherently weak-willed, you have to accept that this is an adult woman engaging in a marriage with somebody she wants to be married to. You know no more than that.

If you don't like him, you don't like him. Keep away from him and keep your family away from him but don't start slapping labels and 'red flags' on him without basis. You wouldn't like it if people did that to you, presumably.

I don't like him being around my sister, unfortunately I don't get any say in it, she lives with my dad and my brother and is in her early 20s so makes her own choices (even though she has a mental age of 13).

I think you should judge only after you have seen the married couple together for a few months

How will this tell anything though? Of course she's going to act ecstatic.

YANBU at all - agree with Freudian and others.

But I would also be concerned by him altruistically infiltrating your family in such a rapid timescale. Something doesn't feel right about that at all. Sorry, but a 60 yr old "family friend" offering meals out to your sis like that, and offering to take your dc to the park (or were you joking about that??) would ring massive alarm bells for me.

This is the MO for, well lets just say, unsavoury predatory men. With possible ulterior motives.

Also - do watch out for your dad. Mightily strange that they're staying with him for 2wks - I wouldn't be surprised if he was being eyed up as another suitor for another Cambodian bride.