Thoughts on Western men pursuing foreign women from low income countries

[SofiaJessica4]

I'm divided on this as you do hear of people marrying, staying together long term and being happy

At the same time there's a reason people side eye old white dudes with young, pretty asian wives.

You rarely hear of women doing this (aside from casual relationships) so there is obviously a power dynamic going on

The context is my ex, a man with a bucketload of problems, has 'moved on' with a Filipina woman he's met online. She's a student and I reckon 10 years younger. While still waiting for him to move out of my home, he's talking marriage and babies with her. This is a divorced guy with two kids, a Cluster B ex wife, and his own mental health issues. You couldn't make this shit up.

I left him as he is a serial liar and I couldn't trust him anymore. I'm grieving whilst he's apparently infatuated with this person he's never met

Interested to hear people's stories as I've never encountered this 'international' scenario before firsthand

My ex and childs father, who left our home in May, is in love with a girl hes never met, 10 years younger. Planning marriage. 'It's not about money or visas' he says.. the girl is from a very impoverished country and clearly needs to provide for her family.
He's utterly obsessed, skypes her daily, acting like a teenager in love, it's nauseating, he's going to meet her soon in her country for 3 weeks, meanwhile he has 3 children who have become nothing more than a hindrance to him...

I have two friends whose fathers both went off in their fifties, one to Thailand and one to the Philippines. The guy who went to Thailand married someone his daughter’s age, and comes back once a year, maximum.

The one who went off to the Philippines hasn’t been back in five years, doesn’t stay in touch with his young adult children and has never seen his grandchildren. He has completely checked out of their lives. He’s married to a local and we’re fairly certain (going off his Facebook photos) that his his new “wife” is a ladyboy. He has transferred all his money over there, has bought property (probably in his new spouse’s name) and told his kids not to expect anything off him when he dies.

I honestly don't know if you mean the UK or Thailand in that paragraph about raw sewage, rats, and the King and so on. (The most rats I ever saw were in a restaurant district in Oxford.)

I think others have articulated it well but I'll try again. These men are racially profiling women. They are targeting a race or nationality who they think will be the easiest and most pliable 'catch' then bringing them into a situation where they are extremely vulnerable due to lack of community, money and legal status. They are deliberately creating the perfect conditions for abuse to flourish unchecked.

Yes, they could abuse a British woman too, but based on their own racist stereotypical beliefs they've decided this route is the easier one for them.

I’m assuming this is a faux-naive question.

Nailed it! ^

While I was living in Asia I met a couple of men who were not conventionally attractive (very short, very fat, facial disfigurements) who felt that they did better with Asian women than women back home in the UK, USA or Australia. They almost always had good marriages and seemed respectful of their wives. BUT the vast majority were not in relationships back home because of their shitty personalities - think Andrew Tate before he was a thing. The kind who boasts about not paying child support and they cant get him because he is in another country. Or who only has any kind of standing because he is a foreigner. Living in Australia, a lot of men where I was had Filipino brides, some were kind to them, but again, many were not which is why they could not find anyone to marry them. And the worst behaved were always the most shocked when the women left them as soon as they could claim residency.

There's also the fact that people have different cultural norms for attraction. A tall stunning woman with high cheekbones I knew was considered ugly and 'mannish' in her birth culture (and left to marry an even taller white western man). Small or nerdy men in the UK might be closer to average size and norms of courtesy or 'educated' behaviour in some places?

Yes, I worked in the outback where lots of the men had foreign wives - mostly filipina from memory. I worked in housekeeping at a hotel so worked with a lot of them, and women regularly came in with bruises etc. They all knew how long it would be before they could claim residency. Then sponsor family members to come over. And for what they put up with, I did not blame them. It was a shame for the nice men though, there was one who was hugely overweight and probably not very attractive even without that - but the most lovely gentle man who was very kind and attentive to his wife. She also left him as soon as she could while staying in the country.

It's fucking grim full stop. I do wish all the creeps could be wiped off the earth.

Oh it's this racist trope again. Asian women are subservient and essentially just prostitutes (compared to western women who are all progressive and intelligent feminists), and men who are attracted to them are creepy sex predators.

Cannot even begin to articulate how offensive this is as a mixed-race woman (including Asian and white) in a relationship with a white man.

It's rich to suggest that the appeal of Asian women is because we have a more "traditional" mindset when every fucking day on this site there's some airhead British women cooing over how she wants a traditional man who can provide for her, and any man who earns less than her gives her the ick. Every relationship I've ever been acquainted with that I thought was exploitative involved two white people.

Whereas in all the relationships between a western man and an Asian woman I know, including my own parents, the latter tends to be fairly formidable - especially if she was actually born elsewhere. The stereotype of the submissive Asian woman is funny to me because of how inaccurate it is behind closed doors.

Thanks for the replies. My feeling about it in my specific case (my ex) is that it reeks of looking for a situation where he won't be challenged. I set some boundaries around his behavior (honesty for one) which he couldn't meet... and so I left

now he's found someone who cannot check what he's doing as she's overseas, and if she ever does get here, will most likely not be in a rush to leave if he keeps lying (I've found he's already lying to her)

My ex in particular has an interest in SE Asian food and is not white, so the weird racial dynamic is less of a thing, but I do find it altogether quite creepy

I am personally against transactional relationships and prefer to be with people of a similar age, success etc and frame of mind. I want equality. Each to their own though!

I do agree that if the women involved has the same passport and financial freedoms as the men involved they most likely would not be partnering up with these men.

But isn't there a difference between relationships that happen organically between people who happen to be from different cultures, and those that happen because one goes deliberately looking for someone from a specific place because of their own beliefs/expectations and wants? I have worked all over the world and met lots and lots of couples from different cultures - certainly in the States and here I would say the relationships all seemed quite equal. But in the outback and living in Asia I saw the other side of things, including women being horribly abused.

I think we do all grasp the transactional nature of these relationships and what each side gets from it and no, it is sometimes but not always an inaccurate racist trope.

My brother met and married a Thai girl. His friends got into the habit of visiting Thailand too and also became very interested in relationships with Thai girls. They were all very clear about why. Apparently they are very 'sweet'. Specifically in my brother's case, his wife was happy to take over mollycoddling him from our mother. To go out to work all day but also do all the cleaning, cooking, washing, shopping etc. while telling him all the time that he's wonderful. He wasn't so much in love with her as the appealing image of himself that she presented to him. There's a strong whiff of the misogynist about my brother which is a red flag for most women I know. The Thai women he and his friends had relationships with weren't bothered, they seemed happy to be subservient. That was their side of the bargain. This isn't any imagined trope, it happened. Of course it didn't last. She said England was too cold and went back to Thailand. They divorced. She swiftly met another English man out there and repeated the whole process. She's currently on her third English husband.

I have a feeling these relationships don't stand the test of time. Culturally, these people are so different. I'm sure the sheen wears off after a few years, and the foreign woman gets sick of the man.
I see an older man in a my local church with a Filipino woman and all her family, and he looks like a fish out of water amongst them. It just doesn't look right.

I live next door to a Thai ‘massage’ parlour. I’ve gotten to know some of the ladies there, and they’re very savvy about the situation.

Some of them have multiple western boyfriends who think they’re ‘saving’ them from a life of prostitution and poverty. They often are up late at night talking on the phone to men in other countries, pretending to still be in Thailand and needing money to ‘escape and come to them’.

That said, the majority of their customers are young Middle Eastern and Somalian guys. I feel quite bad for their wives pushing around their babies and walking 5 steps behind them totally covered up when I saw them at the brothel that morning with their skimpily stressed Thai girlfriend.

It's the men seeking out disadvantaged Asian women who are feeding into stereotypes, not the women on here who are calling those men out.

The OP was about men who go online or abroad specifically with a type in mind. We all understand that the majority of mixed race relationships are not like this and are based on equality.

Do the guys consider pre nups in these things as I know of one elderly divorcee who married a Russian younger woman here , settled here for a year, and is now paying alimony.

I think a lot of people saw it coming.

Well, if British men are as awful as often portrayed in this forum, you should be thanking the Asian women for taking them off your hands! 😄

@SofiaJessica4 I see this topic popping up a fair bit online and I've thought about this. Here's what I think...

First of all, while it's true that many men are attracted to younger and exotic women, most of the men who say they want foreign "traditional" women don't actually want this. The thing about trad women is that the men don't get to pick and choose the trad stuff they like while leaving out the trad stuff that they don't like. Men like the idea of a stay at home wife, but they don't like the idea of financially supporting her. Supporting a wife and children on one income is a mammoth task and the overwhelming majority of men could simply never afford this.

Second point is that many online profiles are fake. OP, I note your husband has not actually met this woman. Are you able to check his bank balance? He could be spending thousands of pounds talking to a woman that he has no chance of ever meeting.

Third, I think reports of men going to foreign countries to marry younger and exotic women are massively exaggerated. The "MGTOW" crowd likes to put forward this narrative about men ditching women in western countries and finding women in foreign countries instead. But keep in mind that the MGTOW crowd loves this narrative, and is keen to exaggerate it, because the ultimate MGTOW fantasy is that men leave women and women will feel bad about it. Of course, the idea of leaving a partner to make the partner feel bad about it and wish they had you back is a fairly common romantic fantasy.

Last point...

You rarely hear of women doing this (aside from casual relationships) so there is obviously a power dynamic going on

There's actually nothing to stop women from doing this.

It’s grim they can’t manage a relationship with a woman who expects to be equal so they go to Thailand. But there are many older women who go to Gambia and that’s pretty grim too.

@shuggles I cant access his bank accounts sadly but I did see he was sending small amounts to someone overseas. I've heard it's extremely difficult to get a visa for the U.K. or US if you're in the Philippines and so a lot of people going down this road struggle to actually meet. He'd argue he wasn't seeking out a Filipina but I noticed he'd almost uniquely been speaking to women in Asia 🤨

I know he was very insecure and I have noticed men who do things like that (similar to grown men who date teenagers) enjoy looking 'big' ... where a counterpart would be very unimpressed. It's very boring and sad.

I was hoping he would rise to the challenge of growing and changing, with or without me, so he could properly look after his two kids, and break the cycle of generational trauma. But I suppose that won't be happening now, not least if he actually continues pursuing this woman.

@SofiaJessica4 I know he was very insecure and I have noticed men who do things like that (similar to grown men who date teenagers) enjoy looking 'big' ... where a counterpart would be very unimpressed. It's very boring and sad.

Insecurity yes, but it's almost never done to "look big." Keep in mind that chasing a foreign woman in this way has a really strong image of insecurity, and the men who do this are looked down upon as losers.

I don't know why your husband is doing it as he was already in a relationship, though one of the reason why some men may look for foreign women is that they have been unsuccessful finding women who are interested in them, or they have been sunsuccessful in relationships. Contrary to popular belief, men also like to feel loved and appreciated, so I can see why some men might get sucked into a conversation with a woman online who appears to like them. But again, it's a very small minority of men who go down this path.

The language barrier also helps them to hide their personality defects and MH issues, it's an ideal cover.

My experience is mainly around Darwin too, where it's prolific, but there's plenty scattered around the rest of the country too.