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

And yes, a Filipino 19 year old girl will probably look like she's 12 years old in the UK.

I would disown any male relative who did this - no question about it. He didn’t just “go to the Phillipines.” He went on one of those “mail order bride” packages. Grim, I can’t believe you even need to ask what to say to him. And where have you seen a larger than 40- year age gap?

Op feel free to pm me. I’m engaged to a Filipina. ( no age gap met on holiday, so not comparable.) however, I can offer some insight into the culture.

How did he meet her? If it was via an agency then he made a choice of age/looks etc. It's unlikely that he just met her in passing. Certain bars etc are meeting places for these older (and some young) guys and these desperate/ambitious girls.
Did he travel to the Philippines alone?
It's also likely she will get pregnant asap to seal the agreement.

The power imbalance here means sorry but he exploiting her

Sorry but she is making this choice too. You don’t have to sleep with old men, just because you are a poor Filipina. Options may be limited, but it’s hardly the only one! It’s a risky path, though, but she would be familiar with these set-ups.

He’s a gross old man and she’s being opportunistic.

He's a sex tourist who knows exactly what he's doing

This. Sorry you're in this situation OP, I'd be really disgusted if my step dad did this, I'd see him in a totally different light.

And I don't feel sorry for older men who are so "lonely" because they won't date women their own age as they find them too old and ugly. It's pathetic.

I definitely think it's easy to make assumptions in these cases. And certainly, in her mind, if she is involving herself with him for a visa/better life then ime culturally it's not really too frowned upon in Asia (though I can't comment directly for the Philippines.

I have a friend who is Filipino and have met many over the years, I always joke with my friend that people always assume she is on the take because she is SO genuinely friendly and interested in everybody. It comes across almost false to our western sensibilities but it does seem to be the way they are (in a very general sense, so obviously there will be exceptions).

You are right to be cautious and anxious but I very much doubt she will be going into this with purely nefarious intentions. He's probably shown her kindness and she likes the romantic notion of being whisked away to the UK.

Yes, the age gap isn't great but it's not illegal, and I'm sure he will have had his own personal struggle with what people will think etc.

I would be supportive but vocal if anything ends up not seeming right. I sincerely doubt you will be able to change his mind etc.

It is sexual exploitation and awful. He wants a nursemaid and she wants some cash. It is grim and the sad thing is she will also be sneered at dreadfully here because everyone knows what is going on.
He will inevitably be taken financially to the cleaners too.

You’ve seen bigger? In real life or Take a Break magazine?

He’s taking advantage of a desperate situation for his own needs, exploiting a young vulnerable woman. I actually do hope he makes it worth her while and she ends up with a bit of financial gain when he’s done using her body. I’m just sad she feels this is her only option.

The first words that came to my mind were 'dirty old man'. Noticeable that UKIP and others who want to restrict migration don't ever mention those such as young Filipinos and Thai women being stopped from being exploited by such old men.

I really can't feel sympathy with any man who is 'taken to the cleaners' over this.
If I was 65 and a young, attractive 19 year old from an impoverished country came on to me telling me they loved me and wanted to be with me after I'd known them for all of 5 minutes, what would my reaction be?
Flattered? Suspicious? Or would I think hey let me bring him back to the west, away from his family and all he has ever know . Then when he asked me to marry him, obtained a visa so he could work here, sent all his earnings back home, yes I'd still be flattered by hardly surprised if it all went tits up.

Sorry but she is making this choice too.

Is she really though? There is a very strong likelihood that she is under extreme pressure from her family to do this. As the old saying goes, if you want the truth follow the money.

There was a 50 year age gap between Dh great-grandfather and his great grandmother but that was in a different time. Bit distasteful these days.

To be honest I think that would have been highly unusual in the old days too, assuming you’re talking about Britain. I’m not sure about other cultures.

It's just wrong and they're both exploiting each other.
I've known a few older men who've had Filipino or Thai wives- they've been dads of friends and also, I worked in a doctors' surgery where I got to know such couples and it's always, in my experience, sad and lonely, for the husband and the wife. They go into it with expectations which never get met. The 65 year old husband usually doesn't have much to offer but a roof in a country with a grim climate. The 'bride' misses her family terribly and inevitibly feels stuck with an old man and his unapproving family.
The women always end up spending half the year in their home countries as soon as they secure residency here. The husbands end up lonely with the illusion of a wife, one who's out of the country and back in her own as often as possible. In every case I've known, this has been the outcome.

There is no fool like an old fool. OP your beloved DSF is a bit of a dirty old man (sorry, but he is), and he's being naive and ruled by his aged cock if he thinks this teenager is interested in him for anything other than his home and his savings. Sorry, but that's the truth of it. There are plenty of lonely women in the UK his age, who I'm sure would be delighted to meet someone as kind and considerate as you say he is, but if he's been lonely because what he actually wants is a bit of tight 19-year-old you-know-what in his bed then that explains why he's been so lonely. Please try to open his eyes. No one is going to look on this favourably or kindly. His friends, neighbours and wider family will think it's disgusting and I can assure you that she will milk him for whatever she can in order to support those 11 siblings, parents and god-knows-who-else back in the Philippines. He is a meal ticket to her, a chance at getting away from the extreme poverty and lack of opportunities facing most young women in the Philippines. So make sure that he understands it. And if the tight pussy is still worth it to him, well then at least he's going into it with his eyes wide open, but he could well face ostracism if he goes ahead with this totally inappropriate relationship.

Actually I has a neighbour who had a Filipino wife a few years back, he was probably late sixties, early seventies, I'd say she was late thirties, early forties, it was hard to tell.

They seemed happy enough, you didn't see her often. He was wealthy, his kids were adopted too, and he had three rescue dogs, he used to joke that he had rescued all of them.

But I think a twenty year age gap is a very different thing to forty five. And the reality is, if any of us knew a 63 year old man who hooked up with a teenager, irrelevant of nationality, most people would find it distasteful. What makes it even more distasteful in this scenario is the financial element of the transaction. Because let's face it, if this young woman was financially secure, she wouldn't be looking to move away to a strange country, away from her friends and family, to be with an almost elderly man who she barely knows.

As for the power imbalance - right now its in his favour and he's the one with the power - but that will change and he needs to consider that. The post above about the woman wanting to put her aged DH in a nursing home so she can cash out and go home is a very real possibility. He may see her as someone who will care for him in his old age - but she may well not see it the same way. He could end up a lot poorer and still alone.

Is HE in danger? What, compared to the exploitation of a teenager probably living in poverty being used to massage the ego and the cock of a much, much older man??
The power imbalance is of epic proportions. It's not ok.

Yuck.
If it was my Dad doing this it would change my perception of him forever and I'd have to tell him that. I'm afraid I'd be telling him exactly what I thought of him.
Being lonely is no excuse.

I'm finding it funny posters call Philippines impoverished.
It's a (lower) middle income country, nearly in the uppper middle income country group for GNI. GDP pc puts it at about 125th out of 184 nations.
I'd probably save a label like impoverished for lower income countries in World Bank group.
Uk is 22nd in world for GDP-pc, 18th for GNI.

I'm fairly certain that his young woman is also being exploited by her family. If she had her own way do you really think she'd be fucking some old white guy, or some hot young guy her own age? With so many siblings to support I wouldn't mind betting that her DM is putting pressure on her to make this 'relationship' work, so she can support them all.

Yet, 19 year olds are prepared ro marry 60 odd old foreigners.
GDP tells very little about inequalities in the country and distribution of wealth.
There's a clear economic imbalance between the two countries. Or uk teenagers would be looking to marry middle income Phillipinos.

This girl, and thousands like her, is being exploited, coerced and trafficked as a sexual and domestic servant. Let's stop pretending otherwise and dressing it up as some mutually convenient arrangement.

Just because it's some kind old grandad doing it doesn't make it any more acceptable than a gang pimping off girls on an hourly basis.

The Philippines economy is distorted by remittances. Half of the value of their “exports” is actually selling their citizen’s labour overseas, who send wages home. Without this they would be very impoverished indeed, and there are few opportunities at home if you don’t leave for work.

OP, what were you doing when you were 19? Just started uni, or started out in work? In the early stages of a relationship with someone? Did you have hopes and dreams for your future? Can you imagine a situation where the only way of securing a half way decent life for yourself would have been to sleep with a man in his 60s? Can you imagine your own family pressuring you to do it, making you feel horribly guilty if you didn’t? Yes this girl has a ‘choice’, but the fact that no 19 year old girl in the UK would choose a relationship with 65 year old man from half way around the world should tell you it really isn’t a true choice. She’s desperate, no 19 year old would dream of a life like this. The fact she is poor and from a different culture does NOT make this ok. I hate the attitude of ‘well it’s not for us in the UK, but we shouldn’t judge different cultures’. Yes we SHOULD! I don’t mean judge the poor girls in this situation, but we shouldn’t just accept that this system is fine, it’s so exploitative. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to hide my disgust at your step fathers behaviour.