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 stepfather is 64 isn't he. He's almost old enough to be her great-grandfather.

Just another perspective on this. My sons grandparents on his dads side have an age gap and his Grandma is Filipino. My sons dad is half Filipino. They were pen pals back in the early 80s when she was in her early 30s and working in Hong Kong as a nanny. There is an 18 year age gap. She came to meet him in 1985 and they fell in love, got married 3 months later and had my sons father. She was 35 when she had my sons father and he was 53. To this day, they are still very happy and in love with each other. She is in her 60s and he is in his 80s. Filipino women do send money home when there is illness in the family as their health care system is very expensive and it’s customary for all the family to chip in, but that’s all my sons grandma has done in the past and her husband knows about it. All the Filipinos that I have met have been very nice, polite and kind people. It can work sometimes.....

He has been there twice already and has met her family (11 siblings, father and uncle high ranking public servants)

That's a lot of siblings who'll want cash for emergency operations / road smashes / house fires, etc, and he'll probably find the "high ranking jobs" are a myth to persuade him that "HER family wouldn't need to do that". It happened to an employee of mine and followed the usual pattern of her disappearing once she'd cleaned him out ... only she'd taken out loans against his house and took that cash too

That's her "transaction", but it many ways his is no better since he's effectively buying a young woman for sex, companionship, housekeeping and the rest - also cutting her off from all forms of family and community support

I hope you can get him to see sense, but as PPs have said there's no fool like an old fool

If she tries to get a Tier 2 Work visa, you've probably got nothing to worry about.

Check out the eligibility criteria here

The Tier 4 Student visa is their other option. They'd have to get their skates on to start Uni in Sep. 2019 as UCAS applications have cut off dates.

Tier 4 details here

Like a few others on here, I know Filipino women - about 5 actually - all 35 to 45 - who married British men, some 20-30 years older than them. Like the ones mentioned on here, they send lots of money back to the family in the Philippines, and only married the men to get into the country. They rub along OK together, but they definitely are not in love with these men.

It is incredibly common, but both parties know the score. As a number of posters have said; the man gets a wife, housekeeper, and a child or two (if he wants them and hasn't already got any.) And she gets a decent quality of life, and British citizenship, and a chance to send money to her family.

I have not yet known a man of 60 get with a 19 y.o. though. That's pretty grim. And I would say the same if it was woman of 60, and a boy of 19.

why not approach her & warn HER to stay away as first priority.

Tell her what? What doesn't she know about what she's getting into.

In this scenario, they either both know what they are doing, or, if one of them is deluded or miscalculating, it's the man.

Not only he is the only one who might not be thinking rationally, he's the one with the life-savings to lose. She can back out at any time, in the unlikely event that things turn out worse than she signed up for.

He's the one taking all the risks.

@LisaLops

Not really a good comparison. The woman you descibe was an almost middle aged adult when she married her husband, even if there was a big age gap. Not the same as a 19 year old marrying a 40 years older man. Also, she was already in the UK and got to know him there, as opposed to this man who presumably went to the Philippines specifically in order to find a much younger wife.

Men exploiting young women in poverty deserve everything they get.

^ This.

@icedpurple, yes, he gets to been seen with a hottie but I don't think they'll be many men who would be envious of their situation. Most will see it to be what it is, or what they think it is. I completely agree with you that the chances are that it won't last as hes already said she wants marriage and children eventually and he won't / can't give that.

I think if your SD is going into this with his eyes wide open then fine but otherwise intervene when the time is right....which doesn't help I'm afraid.

I will add to what @LisaLops said though... All the Filipinos I know are courteous, polite, hard-working, and kind.

I looked up a guy in FB I knew a few years ago and discovered he'd recently married a beautiful Filipino woman who looks to be in her early to mid 20's. He's 67. They were married in the Philippines and only her family were in the pictures. He lives in a very small terrace house but now owns an expensive sport car. Most of the pictures he has posted are her posing in and round it this car, or sleeping. He takes pictures of her asleep in little shorts or in her under-things and the captions always start with 'My wife...' Example; 'My wife was so sleepy she fell asleep on the sofa' Very creepy.

Judging by the photos on her FB they are living the lives of millionaires (flying first class, expensive bag shopping etc) and I wonder how long he can keep this up.

Either he's lying about being 25 or she is.
I'm erring on the side that he is. In which case he's already ashamed of himself on some level.

I think that if the woman was 35 and the man 64 it might be more likely to work.
You change a lot between 18 and 28.
The age gap is something like Prince Philip and Helena Bonham Carter or Rowan Atkinson and Lily-Rose Depp.

(I am not in any way suggesting that there is anything going on between these people)

All the the ones i know are hard working but do not love their husbands and are using them.for the finacicial support they can get they have to provide for the family at home.

This case is sad as he is lonely and they will not be having a child together not at his age but she will have everything when he passes im sad for him.or she might just get him to empty his account and spend on her

It's so many womens get citizenship in a western country card. Its a shame he can't see it. She'll be after his money for sure

Is he in danger?

No, he's exploiting this young woman.

His very blessed to have both of you in his life.
No one wants to be alone

I'd lose all respect for him, TBH.

Furiosa there are other available work routes. If father and uncle are high ranking public servants then she may well be able to use the T5 charity worker or international exchange route, or she may be able to apply as a domestic worker.

I've seen a lot of similar age gap / power gap relationships with visa applications and it has rarely ended well.

Yep it's a trade off.
If she could get a decent job in the Philippines then she would not be getting involved with your sd.
Years ago I remember watching a programme about middle aged, out of shape western men going to Asia for sex. I watched it because a woman I vaguely knew told me her ex h was on it!
Out of ear shot of the men they asked a young Asian woman what she really thought of the men she was laughing and joking with, she replied they made her feel sick and they repulsed her.
There is little option of a decent life for these women do they virtually prostitute themselves.
The men know the score.

Sounds like a transparent and transactional relationship - it's easy enough to see what both are getting out of it

I used to live in the Philippines - saw this all the time. The girl is escaping desperate poverty. The man is gaining a housekeeper with benefits. If both parties understand their roles, then it can and does work.

This kind of arrangement is completely unacceptable to 'naice' Filipino families. Completely. Nice girls do NOT marry old Western men. There's very little likelihood that her family are senior public servants. She will be expected to send as much money home as she can each month - that's the point of all this. The kind of 19 year old girl from the Philippines that behaves like this invariably works in a bar. Not as a barmaid. But as a bar girl - very different. He's probably sending money each month to her already, as she'll have asked him to help her as her younger brother needs new glasses/has been ill/her mother is sick etc etc.

There's no way she'll get a work permit, and even a student visa is unlikely as she will not have sufficient funding. The application with most chance of success is a fiancee visa, which she will almost certainly suggest, as she will know many girls who have already done this or are trying to do this.

There's not much you can say to your stepdad, beyond asking him why he thinks a long term relationship would succeed with a 19 year old foreign girl, when he would never consider one with a UK girl. But it's unlikely to stop him. Sorry.

im sad for him.

Why?

There are lots of single women about his age. If as the OP says he is "a lovely, warm, kind man" why does he need to go to the other side of the world to find a (presumably) relatively impoverished teenager to marry him?

He is lonely? I really don't think there is a shortage of single women in their 50s and 60s in the UK . Being the same age and having grown up in the same country speaking the same language they would have lots in common, which is a great basis for a good relationship. I wonder why he doesn't want that?

Pervy McPerv.