Old Western men young Asian wife....How in 2012?

[TheFeministWife]

I would really like to explore this phenomenon. I get the money, young body blah de blah. But how the fuck does it happen so often.

My father is leaving my mother for a 45 yr old Chinese woman, he's the last man in his office to dump his wife, of 40 years, for a younger Chinese wife. Many of the Chinese women get pg very quickly and the sight of decrepit Westerners watching his young wife run around with a child is not uncommon.

Is it that we bombard men with the 'ideal' woman so much so that they stay focussed on that their whole lives?

Why doesn't my father care that she only loves him for his passport?

How can he walk away from 40 years?

He's also never going to see myself, sibling or our children EVER again.

When a woman goes off with a man many decades older than herself it is nearly always because she can get a much better life through his comparative wealth than she can earn on her own. She likely does not fancy saggy balls or liver spots, she is upgrading her life, as soon as she gets the money/opportunities she needs, she will be off. That is human nature, he should know better at his age.

I would call that a balance rule. A couple can happen if both sides bring more or less equal values to the table. The most common situation is when both are from the same social background. However, more interesting cases contain trades-offs. He brings title, she brings money. Match! He brings employment, she brings care about home and status appearance. Match! Everything is on the scales: education, age, earnings, looks, social skills, you name it. He brings passport, she brings youth. Match! The problems often start when the scales goes seriously out of balance. Say, she loses nice looks (what happened to mum), or she also gets a nice citizenship (what will happen to the new wife). Ooops.

OP my FIL was working in China and divorced my MIL and married a Chinese 'lady' who he told us at the time was 24 (about my age at the time). We subsequently found out that she was only 16 (my MIL met the registrar who married them). He later divorced her and came back to the UK an alcoholic. Went back to China again and got married for the third time to another Chinese lady who was 26 when they married (actual age as I have met this one). FIL is in his early 60s.

MIL and FIL went through a horrible divorce and neither DH nor my SIL spoke to FIL for many years. FIL has never met any of his 4 grandchildren. He has a son by the 2nd Chinese wife who if they were in the UK would be in the same school year as my ds and my nephew. He doesn't now have much money though and when we visited them a few years ago when their ds was only a few months old and I felt very sorry for him (the son that is not my FIL). Their apartment was not very clean and old and worn down. He is working as an English teacher and she is an interpreter (which is how they met originally). He has asked dh for money before to which thankfully he's always said no as we currently support MIL financially because of the divorce.

We also live in Asia (Singapore) and dh and I often sit and spot 'inappropriate couples' when we are out. It's still commonplace here (although I don't think it's quite as bad as China or Thailand) and referred to as 'Bamboo Fever'.

FWIW this all happened over 10 years ago now. MIL was a complete nightmare at the time (understandably) and dh didn't handle it well leaving her with me to deal with on more occasions than I care to remember. She is a completely changed person now and does things she wouldn't have dreamt of doing before when she was still married to FIL. I hope that given time your Mum will appreciate what she has and not what she has lost.

I've just logged onto MN for the first time in months, and stumbled across this thread. How unbelievably awful. I'm so sorry.

It might help your mother's sanity if you buy her the book Sexual Politics and get her to read it, force her if you have to. The only reason I say this is because this is how I plan to drag my own mother into sanity.

As for your father, well he's done it because he can hasn't he. China is patriarchal, so is Britain but CHina perhaps moreso, and so he has privileges as a man, (offered to him on a plate by the political system), that he has taken advantage of.

The obvious advantage of being a man is economic, and to be honest, it's very obvious why governments/the system keep women poor through discrimination. If women had as much money as men, men wouldn'T be able to do this kind of thing would they. Prostitution wouldn'T exist. And which woman would choose an old man over a guy her own age, if status wasn'T factored in?

It's not human nature at all, it's political.

And so certain am I that it is not human nature that if it makes you feel any better, I guarantee it won't last long. The women aren't stupid, they're desperate. They've also probably been conditioned to believe that a Westerner can save them, just like a lot of women in Britain are force fed the dream of meeting a prince.

Feel free to PM me.

oh, and this is absolutely a feminist issue!!!!
How can status in exchange for reproduction and sex not be a feminist issue [boggles]. It is the feminist issue!!! WHat kind of "feminism" s everyone else talking about here??? Not the kind I'm familiar with that's for sure.

women's status as chattel is what got the women of the seventies angry enough to begin the women's movement. There has been some success in the UK, America and elsewhere. Not so much in China, it seems. Women's chattel status continues there, and these men are quick to take advantage of it.

Actually, the more I think about it, the angrier I'm getting on behalf of the OP's mother. I'M sure she must be in China because she was supporting her husband's career. Fourty years of supporting a man, giving up your own dreams, and this is the thanks.

comment spamming here: reproduction, sex and domestic service . sorry I forgot the last one. That's the other thing men require of women.

I think if two people are in love and want to be together we shouldn't interfere.

Lollygag - please stay on topic. We're not discussing love. We're discussing betrayal, self-delusion and power imbalance. Keep up.

Sorry,Such,thought it was a love story.Didn't realise it was some kind of revenge thriller.

Revenge? What thread are you reading Gag?

While I agree totally that it is most definitely the case that men and women in places such as China do exchange money for a youthful bride, the fact is that nobody here has the first clue about the individual circumstances of the op's father and his new love.
I don't think it particularly healthy for the op to encourage her fantasy about a woman she has never even met.

The truth is that I feel there is a strong sense of racism going on here that I find distasteful. That is, labelling all Chinese women as being weak, in need of assistance, and money-grabbing. My grandmother is Chinese. She is none of these things!

I have an American acquaintance online who lives in China. His story is that he is on business there and he shares his apartment with his interpretor and her Mother. He wants to marry the interpreteur. He is 59 and she is in her twenties. I'm not sure I belive it would be socially acceptable for them to be sharing the same abode. He is about to become a millionaire too via hid business venture. I fear he too will be used. He is Italian American and good looking.

Sakura, how do you explain there being male prostitutes if it's all down to men having more money than women?

There would still be poor women however much equality there is between the sexes, just as there are poor men now.

I can understand your concerns and grief about your father. It is a very complex phenomenon, older men meeting younger woman overseas and losing their perspective on love and life. I have seen a lot of this type of sexual behavior in Southeast Asia, in Thailand and the Philippines. Men like your father act differently in a new social environment than what he came from. In many ways it permits men to explore what may have been only fantasy before. They don't act like themselves in this new rose-colored world...they aren't themselves. It is easy to put his old life out of mind since it is out of sight. It doesn't mean that he doesn't love his children. He is responding to his id needs in a way he has never been able to. This does not forgive the behavior, but hopefully sheds more light on it. Not every man goes through this transformation, and some snap out of it and regain their old sense of values. Some unfortunately don't. It is sad to hear what has happened to you and your mother. I wish you happiness and peace of mind.

Portfno I am sorry but I am finding it very hard to have any sympathy for your father. What goes around goes around.

FeministWife, I think this is a feminist issue and I am really sorry for your family and your mother. I think it will probably jump up and bite your father at some point.

Most Western women are not in such a bad financial position that they would want someone older then their father as a partner, I think the woman take advantage of the men as much as the men take advantage of the women