45 year age gap - Filipino bride

[binkyblinky]

Argh help me.

My step dad (mum's Ex partner) is in his 60s. He split from my mum when I was 14 and we have remained very close. He has been like a dad to me and my sister.

He is a lovely, warm, kind man. We both love him to bits. He has been unlucky in love and has been desperately lonely.

Well anyway he's gone to the Philippines and met someone - turns out she is only 19. (He has told us she is 25) but I've had a nosey on Facebook and found her.

I know the age gap is huge but I've seen bigger. I don't understand the attraction and I don't have a clue about Filipino culture. Is this the norm? Is he in danger?

We are going to visit him and have a frank discussion with him. She has applied to come over here on a work visa (she's a student)

Just wanted advice / thoughts. Also I know it's a shocking age gap. I don't need to be told that and I don't want to hear abuse towards him. I'm not keen on the idea.

Thankyou

The reality is that any asset he has will not go to his daughter and grandchildren. It will all go to the invisible wife.

Situation is rare, because the opposite is more likely. Younger wives become carers, then are left with fuck all, because numerous children from previous relationships want their share of inheritance or all of it.

Well, his will should reflect who he wishes his estate to go to. If he marries this woman and changes his will to leave everything to her, then she will get it all. If he leaves everything to his DC/step-DC then they should get it, but a very young wife can end up with the right to live in the property and to a share of pension and they can also outlive the beneficiaries.

When living in the middle east, there were a few British men who were married to young Thai brides.
Their reason were that they found European women too strong minded. They basically wanted a subservient woman.
None of those wives lasted, as soon as their contracts ended they returned to the U.K and their wives were shipped back to Thailand never to be heard of again.

@Ifangyow

Was just about to menion the Middle East. When I lived in the Gulf, I used to see lots of couples like this. British or American man in late middle age, with young Asian wife. The men would feel obliged to work in a country and a job they hated, at a time when they would have expected to be at home relaxing with their young totty. Trouble is, young totty coes with an extended family who have to be maintained, which doesn't come cheap. The young wives often looked totally bored and isolated - living on a compound and wearing black robes in 40 degree heat wasn't exactly what they were hoping for when they married a British man.

Personally, I don't feel sorry for any of them. That's what you risk when you treat marriage as a cynical business arrangement.

I have 3 close Filipino friends. All are married to much older, financially comfortable British men. All admit to marrying for security and British citizenship BUT......the shortest of the 3 marriages is 15 yrs, longest 30yrs. All 3 friends work incredibly hard and are extremely proud that they contribute to the family budget. They are wonderful mothers and housekeepers and incredibly loyal.

They are wonderful mothers and housekeepers and incredibly loyal.

The perfect 1950s wife, in other words.

Hence their appeal to men who grew up in that era.

I have a Philipina aunt (only 3 yrs younger than her husband & marriage soon to hit 50 yrs duration).

Don't under-estimate Catholicism. Aunt is a radical leftie but her church is powerful for her; she'd almost rather die of shame than ever get divorced. Even if husband was total arse. Yes there are scammers from all cultures, but I'd rate the risk of divorce after British man marriage with a Filipina lady to be much lower than from many cultures.

There have been threads on here about many step-mums getting all the marriage wealth (none to a man's biological offspring after his death). That happens when everyone involved is same age & British born, too.

God I thought my ex was bad enough, pushing 40 and running off with a just turned 19 year old. But 60's. :( Sorry op.

My husband's uncle married a woman from the Philippines who is more than 30 years younger than him (I think she was early 20s or maybe even late teens and he was late 40s/early 50s). The age gap between them is bigger than between me and my dad. They divorced after about 15 years.

I have met quite a few women from Thailand or the Philippines married to British men, but never any men from those countries married to British women.

Gosh, this is sad for both of them, but if she really has a child, would she be able to bring that child with her?

I used to work with a man who had 'bought' a Thai bride. I remember him telling me how he used to threaten to stop giving her money to send home if she didn't do what he wanted. I suspect that she was over here and yet had no friends or family around; looking back it must have been incredibly abusive.

@6utter6ean

And that, sadly, is the reality of these arrangements.

The man feels he has 'bought' something and can use it as he wills. Despite some of the posters above worrying about how this poor man could be 'exploited', guess who's really at risk here? The relatively rich older man in his own country? Or the young woman who depends on her husband for a visa and pretty much everything else, living thousands of miles from her family, perhaps speaking little English?

Take a wild guess.

I’ve conducted one or two of these weddings.

They are very worrying. What tends to happen is one man in a community gets a similar wife from whatever culture and the others follow suit. It’s disturbing.

Obviously not every case is the same, but you are right to be concerned.

Pineapple

The point is one can’t make a blanket statement and lump all “developing countries” together and make an ignorant assumption just because they’re all poor.

The Philippines is poor, but the women are generally considered equal.

*sorry, meant “the women are generally considered as men’s equal.”

Typing on my phone, in bed, upon waking up.

@Pineapple

They are both adults and if they are both going into this with their eyes open then it is a matter for them

She wants money, visa and a better life

He is having his ego boosted and great sex

Both are playing a game if he is foolish enough to want to believe she really loves that is down to him

Please don't mince your words. You can do it in such a way that he knows you care for him but basically tell him he's an old dirty fool.

Sorry to say but your stepdad sounds like a dirty old man and the woman, sorry girl, clearly wants his money.

It’s a win win situation for the both of them, he can fool himself into thinking that she is attracted to him and she can have a better life.

If she takes his life savings from him then he’s really only got himself to blame.

There’s no fool like an old fool.

@dworky I totally agree with you.

He is a pervert and I would no longer have anything to do with him, nor would I let my kids have anything to do with him, harsh you maybe think but the fact that 19 year old Filipino women look way younger than 19, makes me think of paedophilia, it’s disgusting, so many men get to a certain age and then suddenly want to sleep with teenagers, it turns my stomach.

I meant to add this on my post above but sent it out rather than previewed, sorry!

It must be hard for you OP to accept that your previously lovely stepdad is verging on being a paedophile, it just shows you that he’s not really that lovely at all.

She is being exploited more so than him because she most likely lives a life of poverty, he should know better.

@Missmother it's not paedophilic when someone is 19 pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children.

I'm just turned 20, my boyfriend is in his 30's, doesn't make him a pedophile does it? Relationships with big age gaps can work and we've been together nearly 2 years and just moved in. Personally though a man in his 40's is way to high for me.

I think he knows what he's getting into with a mail order bride and she probably does too so they're both equally bad as each other! (Him potentially financial control/pretty thing to have on his arm, her life in the U.K., money etc)

No but it almost feels like that, especially as Filipino women look so damn young, it’s not right at all and this loneliness crap he’s coming out with?! He wants a tight young body to have sex with, let’s be honest.

Also your situation is totally different and you know it, your in your 20s and your man is in his 30s, you don’t think that’s very different from a girl at 19 and a man in his 60s? How can you compare the 2?! and this isn’t a normal age gap relationship, he has the advantage because she’s poor, don’t make this out to be some age gap love story because it’s not, it’s about a dirty old man taking advantage of a young, poor girl.

He is worse because she’s poor and maybe feels like this is her only chance at having money and feeding her family, etc, etc.

Imo, and most other posters, then it’s he who is in the wrong and not her.

What’s consent without payment?