Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Philippines	Maybe retireing in the Philippines, I have some questions	Someone has mentioned it is automatically a year when you come in with your spouse, but you can also get extensions by going to an immigration office. Not sure how far you can stretch it out. If you aren't keen on investing there, you can do it that way. You'll fly out of the country now and then to start the clock over. Bring the money over when you want to lay permanent roots.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-01-11 04:23:00
Philippines	hey guys!!	I think that a consequence of English being his second language. There wasn't much really to go on here except "attention and respect top notch", which I infer to mean that previously the attention and respect were lacking. The main issue before was manipulative behavior, which is why a short visit is hard to go on. There are a number of threads on VisaJourney where the green card arrival induces an amazing change of behavior in the spouse. Some are able to put an act on for months or longer. It helps a great deal when the petitioner wants so badly to believe, willing to overlook every red flag and magnify scraps of attention out of proportion. Positively giddy. Mine is still putting on the act. Wow is she good. Very convincing. But deep down I know she's just stealing my DNA.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-30 18:27:00
Philippines	hey guys!!	Sure, if you can go over Christmas... I'm a big proponent of maximizing the amount of time together. Not sure how many days you spent over Thanksgiving, but it is much more difficult to put on a performance for a sustained period of time. I lived for over two months with my wife's family before we filed the I-129F. During that period I discovered her medical issue with migraines. I had no idea they could be so incredibly debilitating. But I walked in with my eyes open. It's been the only real traumatic thing, but we've figured out how to deal with it. It was kind of interesting in her home city. She would see friends from high school in the store. They would ask in amazement if I was hers. Then they'd do high-fives. Geez. She still makes me feel like that three years later.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-11-30 08:53:00
Philippines	Pinay / American get house stolen in Texas by HOA	She was alone and taking care of her family in a $300,000 home her parents had given her as a gift. "When Michael went to Iraq, I went into a very bad depression," she said. The mail piled up unopened and Mrs. Clauer missed $800 in payments to her HOA. Then she missed the letters saying the association planned to foreclose. "I ignored a lot of our bills," she said. Even after the HOA foreclosed and sold the home at auction, Mrs. Clauer didn't open the letters that said she had six months to get the home back, and that time lapsed, too. I don't know how long she went without paying bills and ignoring second chances in all, but it looks like it was on the order of a year. The fact this detail is missing from the article shows how slanted it is. Just wanting the home owner's association look bad without fully acknowledging the lack of responsibility by the girl. It could easily have been worded "deadbeat wife doesn't pay bills for over a year, loses Daddy's 300K gift house. But the author is instead trying to play up "freedom fighter has home taken by evil scrooge" angle to sell copy. People that don't have to work for things behave less responsibly. All this shame on the neighbors and home association for not pandering to the princess and her free house. Thank goodness she has her free house back now. I hope she has some servants to open the mail for her now so it doesn't happen again. Depression is a real illness that has to be treated. But this free house situation has another lesson that the writer clearly ignored to try making it into a tear-jerker.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-01-19 15:01:00
Philippines	hi	According to your calculations, the population of the U.S. would double after 15 days. After 45 days, the U.S. would have about the same population as China. After 400 days, the U.S. population would be roughly equal to the population of the earth today. Thanks Einstein. I think you'll find that 2 + 2 = 5 for sufficiently large values of 2. Gosh Wilfinance - if you had you also stated she was out 'till 2 am every night and had secret cell phone, email, facebook etc. then I'd be getting tested to see it was mine. But you didn't, so I'm assuming that is out of the question. We looked into a birth center and home birth because we didn't like what we saw after touring the hospital, but we did not feel right about the people we looked into with these. We ended up doing the hospital on a number of grounds but we could have decided otherwise. One thing to consider, as we did, is that if you have a petite filipina like I do then the baby might be pretty big for her and require a cesarian as ours did and many Fil-Am births do. We had insurance so it's no problem for us but we did not give the hospital the nod automatically. A birth center or home birth will cost way less of course. That is not why we were looking into it, but that's a fact. If the birth center is close by as ours was then you can zip right over to the hospital if you need a cesarian or whatever. No big deal. Then it will be medical bankruptcy, but that's life. The hospital will still do the job, and you will pay up to what bankrupts you. I have no idea about your finances and whether you can withstand $20K or more for a c-section. If you call ahead, like we did, they'll tell you the charges. In our case you had the hospital doing some of the charges and then the anesthetist, the surgeon, the nurse, and the pediatrician all billed for their services separately. You can call them and find out. Our Anesthetists were way over what the insurance would pay for, so it is good to know this before it happens instead of being surprised with over $2K in uncovered expenses after-the-fact. You'll know whether you want an epidural or not, so just call and find out what it costs. Congratulations. If it was my child I would want it to be born in the US (automatic citizenship) and later the child could get permanent residency in Philippines if we so chose. It looked pretty easy to me going US -> Philippines as opposed to Philippines-> U.S. Way less paperwork and way less money. I can retire there and if the kids want to come back to the US at any time they can.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-03 19:33:00
Philippines	How do you say goodbye?	This guy is so much more like me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOQJN8FrxtI I ignore the vast majority of your trolling posts, but the pretty gal in that video was worth a look. The guy in the background is the son of the Ambassador to Italy and is on a full academic scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania in performing arts. He's doing a subtle courtship dance seen in the Middle Victorian Era, performed by the Nobility. It's hard to interpret if you don't have that effite background.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-03 19:01:00
Philippines	Wife wants to leave and go back home	Sorry to hear it. States vary, but some do not require that both parties show up to the dissolution hearing. (In our state if it is uncontested they call it dissolution) So if she really wants to go back badly then check your state laws. She may be able to go home the minute she signs the papers, and won't have to wait for a hearing. If it's over 90 days you don't get your money back on Philipina returns though. With an exchange you just pay the restocking fee. Kidding, of course.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-05 15:46:00
Philippines	Sleet in Texas	I don't know how you survived.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-06 18:16:00
Philippines	prenuptial-question	I am know this might sound rude but I feel I need some kind of protection. I hear people losing their house and things like that. I really can not afford to lose my house or my retirement. I will be screwed for life. Check your state law on property division from dissolution or divorce. But generally you will find that whatever is yours now remains yours, and she gets half of the accumulated assets from the marriage date onward. You wouldn't lose your house or retirement if things turned out badly after a short time here. There wouldn't be any reason to buy her a house in the Philippines if she stepped off the plane and you determined she had defrauded you for a green card. A shovel and a couple bags of lime should do in that case.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-13 03:04:00
Philippines	How was it the first time you meet him/her personally?	Na its just lazy speak, i mean who says National Aeronautics and Space Administration, same thing kinda? I guess so. Online introductions/dating sites probably have a whole acronym bibliography the rest of us are unfamiliar with. Same with "text-speak". When a cell phone junkie writes an email it's "hru bb tx cya ltr"	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-14 01:05:00
Philippines	How was it the first time you meet him/her personally?	Well it was interesting reading about the first time meeting after an online romance. I also learned that people who don't like public displays of affection cannot even bring themselves to speak the words, and use the code "PDA" instead.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-13 07:18:00
Philippines	Marriage Fraud, Divorce and a life on hold . . .	According to Jane, this was a 'set' marriage If I understand the term correctly. In order to be in Japan, she married a Japanese citizen and paid him 50,000 Y per/month (~400.00 US?) for this 'privilege'. She stated she did this so she could help get her sister out of possible run-in with Japanese immigration. I won't go into details, but it seemed on the face of it to be credible. She also sent a good bit of it home as well. She stated that her father had just passed away; this mess and 4 1/2 years of chemical engineering education up on smoke - she had one more semester to complete her studies. She has a number of siblings that are foreign countries that are work as engineers in a variety of specialties. She also stated that except for her sister and mother, the rest of the family and friends are clueless. She is suspected of being lesbian, and even some of her posted Facebook images has references to that in a joking sort of way. I remember on where she is dressed up as a bridesmaid with the caption "Brides Maid Forever?". These of course, could be fabricated for appearance sake for an interested guy . . . . It would be a rather elaborate ruse . . .but possible. The marriage fraud was not perpetrated in the manner of classic 'honey pot' faux marriage. If she is truthful, then I think that both her sister and her and the Japanese 'husband' got the better end of this deal. Her impulsive responsive of 'sure I'll help sis' lead to another couple of missteps (non-illegal) that have really turned her life upside down. The Poodle Guy Thank you for clarifying that it was not a "honeypot" fraud where the Japanese guy was fooled. Instead it was a fraudulent marriage against the Japanese government that both of them participated in. I can't figure out how a second immigration fraud would help her sister out of some previous immigration trouble (fraud?). But one thing about scammers is that their stories are always convoluted into noble causes. Even serial killers do this - freeing the world of lowly prostitutes for example. The other stuff about being a lesbian and the whole cryptic nature of needing to conceal details - this is a sea of red flags. From this discussion and our PM's you seem like nice guy, and boy howdy there are so many beautiful fish in that Filippine ocean.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-27 19:36:00
Philippines	Marriage Fraud, Divorce and a life on hold . . .	It wasn't clear to me that the marriage to the Japanese guy was fraud. I also hesitated about what to think. But it was in the title of the post. The very first words: "Marriage Fraud..." We have to accept what he called it. Naturally, we don't want to write a post about the details of the fraud when what we are interested in doing is turning her life around. If this guy had written about all of the details of the multiple-year fraud and then asked if he should be in a relationship with this person, he would have gotten very different advice.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-27 16:08:00
Philippines	Marriage Fraud, Divorce and a life on hold . . .	Neither pursued an annulment. She did not make enough and he could care less of course. Hey, thanks for that personal event. The best part of it is in terms of how difficult it is for Filipino domestic annullment by comparison to dissolution or no-fault divorce in the U.S. Exactly so. I do not mean to trivialize this. One thing that helps with foreign marriages of course is the Marriage/Divorce treaty so that the Philippines' intransigence about domestic divorce is attenuated by the treaty forcing them to recognize one granted abroad. There are a lot of things that are different about your personal story of course, and we need to understand that: a domestic marriage that over a long period drifted apart, etc. My observation is that a lot of husbands just walk away from their wives in the Philippines, and don't pay for their childrens' upkeep. There's no child support enforcement there - at least I sure don't see it - so why bother doing it. Domestic divorce they say is possible for the rich, but not the poor. I understand the scene. When someone is coming off a two-year foreign marriage scam I don't have a lot of sympathy with the poverty argument. I understand that they don't want to sell the karaoke machine and all the other little treasures. They don't want to work until they have to. I understand it, but am not granting empathy to it. Because I am thinking about the guy who had his guts ripped out, defrauded for years. His hopes and dreams. The money, sure - but most especially his person. This is a really cruel thing to do. It's grave. A case is being made about a "real" foreign marriage being the girl's life dream. I may misunderstand that, but that is my read of it. By virtue of extended family logic in the Philippines it is the dream of the extended family too. The case is made she is intelligent. A person of great sacrifice. Were this me though, I'd want a big pile of measureable evidence. For one thing, what did she ever do with this Japanese guy to at least assuage some of the harm? Sell some of the items obtained by fraud and give him back the proceeds? I picked up that she accepted responsibility for it, but personally I want to see the recognition of the harm done to that Japanese man and what sacrifice was made to him, if we are presenting a case of self-sacrifice and real acceptance of responsibility. Accountability. It's the difference between "we accept responsibility, but we got away with it" and "we accept responsibility and made ourselves accountable as best we could". Then the record, in the interim before meeting the new foreign suitor. He's going to see for himself, and that's a very good idea. On a video chat you can put on an act easier than you can in-person for days on end. But thanks mjaye65 yea, divorce is more difficult there. Domestic especially. Edited by rlogan, 26 February 2011 - 04:38 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-26 16:38:00
Philippines	Marriage Fraud, Divorce and a life on hold . . .	I understand the clarification you made Poodle Guy You listed off some potentially good things. Sure, I understand forgiveness. But it can't be blind. If I understand the sequence it is at least two years of marriage fraud at over twenty years of age, then a few years working, and now unemployed for three years. She has not asked for money nor given the "sick caribao" lines. I don't know if or how much you have sent. It matters somewhat. If her life's dream is to marry someone like you then why in six years has she not taken care of it or else knowing decisively what to do? You came straight here wanting to get the job done in no time. You acted responsibly. A family has to constructively participated in marriage fraud, at the very least pretending along. You are marrying into a family with Filipinas. They can't use the excuse they were young and pressured into it. I'd have to see a pretty strong accounting for themselves. Helping the daughter get the divorce recognized in the Philippines for example. The nine of them can use her for fraud but can not pull off a divorce/annullment? I weigh this heavily. Nine people times six years: 54 man-years and no annullment. Yes we see them constantly on the "Effects of Major Family Changes" page - scammers that put on a successful act right up to the green card. She's stunningly beautiful. Kind of a no-brainer that influences our thinking. It sounds like you are going to be there, but also see other girls. hey, best of luck. There's no ill will here at all.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-26 04:49:00
Philippines	Marriage Fraud, Divorce and a life on hold . . .	I'd hate to see this stunningly beautiful and intelligent woman not accomplish what she dreams of. Hi Poodle Guy "Intelligent" enough to pull marriage fraud on a Japanese victim. Not intelligent enough or without sufficient drive to fix the problem she caused for herself in five to six years, or even to find out what she needed to have the next guy pay for. It is her responsibility to know what to do, not to drop it in the lap of someone else. some of her friends who did this... Sounds like she runs with some really nice people. Her dreams did come true - regarding fraud - it's just that those dreams are very short-sighted, irresponsible, and cruel. There are plenty of Filipinas. Since this one has yet to start her life in the right direction on her own volition, I'd say she isn't so beautiful. Beauty is as beauty does.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-02-26 00:15:00
Philippines	I'm a bit Nervous and paranoid:(:(	Of course you are nervous, and not because you did anything wrong. Just because there is a lot at stake. Just tell the truth. It's so easy because there is nothing to remember. The interviewer is mostly interested in closing the file cleanly. Our interviewer couldn't find our marriage certificate, but we had one in the glove compartment so she let us run out to get it. I know we sent it in, and there was no RFE about it. Someone must have lost it. So anything they need they're going to ask you for. If you do what they say in that interview appointment letter you'll be just fine.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-02 00:49:00
Philippines	Flying US to Philippines / one way ticket ?	So whats a good solution here for people that want to fly to the philippines and aren't sure how long they want to stay? I thought about buying a ticket round trip with a return date as far out as I could get, and in the event I wanted to come back sooner, I could maybe call and ask them to move it up? Thanks to Richard535 for bringing this up. Wow. If you enter with your wife, you get a one-year stamp in your passport. So I was considering a one-way ticket for the next trip, which won't be a while but I was actually going to stay even longer, getting an extension after the first year. So getting a round-trip with a return date more than a year ahead is what we'll have to do I guess.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-12-01 21:47:00
Philippines	My beautiful wife is very irresponsible	QUOTE (Señor Pepe @ Nov 17 2009, 04:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> QUOTE (Rhiann @ Nov 17 2009, 05:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I tried SO hard to read the above post, but it was so long. Sorry to the poster about it, it actually was interesting, just too long x_x In Alaska now, I think the fish ain't biting, hunting is slow, it's cold outside, and the days are too long; hence, it's time to write stories! It's twenty below zero and I'm sick. I don't normally spend this much time indoors. I don't mind being a simpleton. So you "got" me by eliciting a sincere response when you were just kidding. (The OP) Nobody can say what the situation really is. The people who claim to be proud that they really know what is going on are wrong. The only thing you know is that he exaggerates wildly. One possibility is that he says three hours when in acuality it is seven minutes. He thinks five minutes is enough, so he says three hours instead of seven minutes. Ha ha so funny, and we are supposed to "get" the point that they are just long. But all we really know is he says three hours and does not mean it. Now we're down to twenty or thirty minutes. What is it in reality? You can't know that she lost two jobs. You can't know she lost a job from talking too much. Sure, you can't know whether anyone on this forum is completely making up what they say. But here we have someone who had demonstrated what they say is not what they mean. So hey, you know - there is no way for this simple country boy to go through the posts from this guy (like the other really smart people here are capable of doing, apparently) and decide how much exaggeration there is. I don't watch TV like some of the sharper people here. So you know, I'm a little dull.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-20 14:33:00
Philippines	My beautiful wife is very irresponsible	QUOTE (Jasman0717 @ Nov 17 2009, 07:07 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> QUOTE (rlogan @ Nov 17 2009, 01:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> She's sure proving how little respect she has for you. The question is - how much respect do you have for yourself? You know, a guy has to press for marriage counseling or some kind of probationary period before he fires a wife. You owe them that because it's a wife, not a girlfriend. But with behavior so childish and disrespectful you have to lay down the law and mean it. Or else shut up and be a door mat. Not a great set of choices. So sorry about that. Sorry, this is more a tongue in cheek post. I love my wife very much and have learned to live with her anoying habits. I was just wondering if others married to a Filipina have experienced similar habits. I do appreciate everyone's comments. I might have to have her read them. Ok, I am off for my morning walk. Thank you. I took you literally, so please be accurate in your descriptions. It makes a big difference if you are saying "Showers three hours a day" when you mean twenty minutes. Please just say what the situation is if you are relating it to other people who are sincere in wanting to help. Because the behavior you described, if accurate, is bordering on clinical. If I understand it a little better, though, you have serious trouble although the degree depends on the amount of exaggeration here. The electric bill strikes home with me. In the beginning, my teenage wife was led by her family - just like you - into laying emergencies at my feet and using what I call emotional blackmail to get money. They don't want to ask you for the electric bill when it arrives because they are "too shy". So therefore they plan to wait until the day before it is shut off, and then they can spring this "crisis" on you. Whatever brush fire you put out today will be followed by another one tomorrow, and the day after. Forever. It is one of the most disheartenting things for a sincere person to send money for something, and the immediate response is... send more money. It is really discouraging. You have to strengthen your resolve about being frank with yourself, your wife, and your family. I sat her mother down and said in very blunt terms - I will leave her. Do you understand? Do not make my life a perpetual crisis. You do this to me again, and it's over. Got that? I am not stupid. You actually hide bills from me. You are untruthful about how much something will cost. You tell me it will cost half as much because then it doesn't seem like you are asking for so much money. Endless games. You figure get him to send one transfer now, and another transfer later. It costs me twice as much, but the important thing is following the strategy of getting him committed to help by making it seem less expensive. Who cares if the result is that it costs a lot more than if they had been honest in the first place. Set the hook, then reel the fish in. You might be dealing with people who have made a lifetime out of scamming money to get by in some Filipina-Americano relationships. Not you necessarily, but they're out there. Mine was not that bad, but I have seen them. It's their profession. Some of them are just amazing and can run circles around you with one story after another. They have the answers well thought out before you have the questions. Because they practice, practice, practice, and have nothing to do all day but think about how to scam. I was really clear about knowing what was going through their minds when the electric bill arrives. "I will blackmail my son-in law for this the day before it is shut off". And I used the word blackmail. And I went on about how for 29 days in a row they knew. That this was not "shy". This is cruel. Leave someone in the dark on purpose so you can manufacture the crisis to use for extorting money. You have to confront them. Go ahead. Look at my face and lie to me. Can you do that? If they could lie, and maintain that this manipulative behavior was innocent and unintentional, I would have left. Because the first time they do something like that, and you call them on it, they can no longer come back with that lame story. If they do not have a source of money, and they take on an electric obligation, and they come to me in the end to ask for the money, then that was their plan from the beginning. You will not bring the next bill to me at all if that is not your plan. There will be no emergency at the end of the month to spring on me. Unless you have specifically manufactured such a thing against my protest here. And if you are planning on incorporating me into your whole economic plan, then it has to be out in the open and planned carefully together, with sober accuracy and words that mean what they say. Confronting her mother was outstanding. She agreed completely. Said I was right. She apologized. The daughter was actually harder than the mother initially because she was too willing to make excuses for the people she loved. I had numerous discussions with my wife about different members of her family and said some hard things. When they tell you there is no work, for example. Oh really? Let me get on the internet here. Oh look. I got your father a job in one whole day. Isn't that a shocker. You actually look for work instead of waiting for a job to be delivered to your door, and see what happens? I explained to my wife the logic of their position. They are happy to live in poverty. So there is no reason to work. As long as they can pull this perpetual manufacturing of emergencies off with a sponsor - playing on your emotions - then being out of work is no problem for them. I say this in kindness because it has to be said. I love my family. We are developing a really good relationship, and it had to go through its maturing process. I lived with them for three months before applying for the fiance visa. So nobody could pull any B.S. on me about the situation there. Or mishandle money. You bring me receipts. So they plop the two-year-old brother in front of you. He has a fever and there is no medicine. Again. So you are made to feel like a bad person if you don't immediately send the money. And it needs to be western union for $25 instead of mail transfer for $7. But suppose in the meantime, they were buying a stereo with the money you last sent. (mixing your example in here) There is no money on hand for normal common expenditures like medicine and other bills. Being sick is a normal part of life. I plan for that. The hard question for the daughter is why does your family know, with certainty, the baby will get sick. Yet they sit on their butts and do nothing to prepare. Who is the person responsible for this? It isn't me. How dare anyone use their own child's health as a means of manipulating others. The only way they learn other behavior is to actually have the electricity shut off. To have the phone disconnected. To run out of food. And I did that. Once she went to a city on immigration business in Cagayan de Oro. I gave her money for that, and then told her to put a specific amount aside for the trip to Manila and the embassy next. She spent it on new clothes instead. So she went to Maniala on the ship without a single peso and without food. She told me she was breaking up with me and not going to Manila. Because when she asked for money I said no. She hung up on me and refused to talk to me for two days. But she went to Manila, did the medical, and she learned I don't do blackmail. She went hungry instead, and had to walk for miles. She made promises to other people about money before I agreed. Too bad honey. I gave you a rule. That is what a rule is. The answer is no. This was her grandmother's funeral. I told her before she left: budget this out. Item by item. Do not come to me again later and give me this story about things cost more than you thought. That is what your mother is going to do, with certainty, so it is your responsibility to defeat that strategy by actually calling the people that make caskets and finding out exactly what you have to pay the priest, etc. Make a list. I send one money transfer for this, and only once. So here she was at the funeral and she's the one with the Americano and everyone is looking at her to come through with more food and whatever. Guess what. The answer is no. I love you very much but I knew this would happen. I told you. The answer is no. Learn how to plan. Learn how to sacrifice something yourself to pull this off. I am not an ATM machine. She borrowed money another time when she felt what I gave her was not enough. And then came to me with this story about needing to pay back. Gosh honey, that's not my problem. You spent money beyond the budget without talking to me about it. Took on a debt obligation without the means to pay, and then want to blackmail me with a sob story. Too bad. Suffer the embarassment. She took clothes back to a store. Because it was unauthorized. She was reasonable, but still a teen. I'm proud of her for doing that. I made a monthly calendar. Put the water, electricity, etc. on the calendar. One of their strategies is that the day before the electric is due, they ask for the thing they really want, and they need to get that purchased before springing the electric on you. Because in their minds, if they tell you about the electric then you will pay that instead. The only way to get both is to hide pending expenses. Geez, such cruel manipulation. You buy a basketball uniform for one kid, and all that does is encumber you with the obligation to buy something for all the others. You thought buying the uniform would result in "thank you". Instead it resulted in a finger pointed at you. Inequality. A dollar for one means a dollar for all. And what can you do with such logic? They are experts at this kind of thing. My answer was "that's the last basketball uniform". One more trick: After the money is sent, suddenly whatever plan was made is nullified because conditions have changed. I didn't talk to my husband about raising the pigs we just made a business plan for. So therefore the important thing to do is spend all the money on somehting else. Aren't you proud of us? Instead of coming to you and deciding what to do, or better still returning the money we did something else without telling you. We bought more chickens instead. Cool. No more chickens or pigs or cows or anything. Now that my wife is here, she is doing to them the same thing I was doing to her. Writing out a budget and planning. The money comes from my wife's pile so she now sees what all these little games mean for her own spending. We have come so far. It is a joy, really. To have my wife agree with me and work together on some of the tough calls we have to make. Some of the family is really hard working and grateful. One is a bum. Fortunately, sort of, her aunt married a Japanese guy and has a track record of over ten years to look at, and boy is it a train wreck. Countless thousands just squandered. Family members that are bums. Drink, gamble, and smoke. Lots of really ugly fighting between the family members jockying to be the favored ones. Physical assaults. And there are others making their own way, in the Philippines. One uncle is a retired guy on a pension that goes out to ride a tricycle every day. One of those things you give people rides in. Not motorized. You pedal it. He already has a pension, but it's just proof a guy that wants to work can just do it if he wants to, and so what if it is just peddling a bike for ten or twenty pesos at a time. I am not giving you B.S. here, but next time I go I am going to pedal one of those trikes for at least a full day. I already did manual labor there building her family a house and the neighbors were unmerciful teasing her father about this americano employee of his. They would come to watch me carry seven hollow block at a time up the stairs. So you have all these professional bums sitting around doing that game with the domino-type thingies, smoking and drinking and doing the cockfighting. Basketball. And the americano is the one carrying the blocks and mixing the mortar, pounding nails etc. These people will tell you that they behave as they do because they are poor. No, they are poor because they behave this way. It is not a marvel to see a "rich" americano work. The reason why the americano has money is because he works. Look at you. Look at me. I am the one working. You are the one who is doing nothing. You see the correlation there? This house is being erected by my own hands. Not because I "Had Money". In their minds they sort of justify the idea the americano should pay for building a house because he "happens to have money". Like it fell from the sky or something. So when they see the americano work, it is unsettling because it goes against their self-justification. They think "Americanos do not have to work because they have money". So they can just buy a house with all their free money. But no, here is the americano actually building the house. So why do you not have one? Because you didn't build one like me. I had to be willing to walk away from this really scorching-hot youngster. It just isn't worth living that way. We had more than one moment of truth but the biggest single event before immigration was her going hungry for two days on that ship. When she got here it was the final moment of truth. Was the family going to have an email or text message on our computer waiting for us when we got home? What would be the first phoney crisis they would try to play on us? No messages. No phone calls. Day after day of honeymoon. They never called us. When she checked in with them, there was no crisis. The budget regime got underway. We send by mail through a remittance corp a small amount each month, and there's one birthday or school thing or whatever every month. The father is working. He is establishing a better resume and has advanced from the job I originally got him. He's worked two years straight. I think it was really important that I made her go hungry for two days. Had her suffer the consequences of bad decisions and didn't bail her out. She was always testing my boundaries and of course I slip up and I did not make the best decision every time. But she is a really hard worker and I consider myself extreemly lucky. Good luck to you.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-17 18:39:00
Philippines	My beautiful wife is very irresponsible	She's sure proving how little respect she has for you. The question is - how much respect do you have for yourself? You know, a guy has to press for marriage counseling or some kind of probationary period before he fires a wife. You owe them that because it's a wife, not a girlfriend. But with behavior so childish and disrespectful you have to lay down the law and mean it. Or else shut up and be a door mat. Not a great set of choices. So sorry about that.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2009-11-17 04:19:00
Philippines	Men Your Thoughts On Filipina	I think the thread is about why our Filipina is "the one". One point that is germane I think might have been made by the Antichrist's (joke!) wife. The broken english made me think that, but maybe not. Men do not treat the women very well in the Philippines by comparison to how their Americanos fawn all over them. Drinking, gambling, fooling around, abandoning them, not supporting the kids... There are good men in the Philippines, but from living there I can sure see why they adore a man that treats them like a princess. It's nice to be appreciated.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-17 15:18:00
Philippines	Men Your Thoughts On Filipina	We need to be careful about stereotyping but it was clear to me after visiting a number of countries over many years that Filipinas were wonderful wives, friends, lovers - just blew the doors off the competition in my humble opinion. Sure, there's bad apples in every barrel. But if you have a good Filipina then you are kicking butt in the wife department. Not to mention how awesomely beautiful Filipinas are. I call my wife my Filipina Unit and she calls me her Americano. Interesting to see the politically correct cops on the beat, scouring the countryside to brow-beat people with their belief in their right to dictate what words between spouses "really" mean. That isn't anyone's business but ours. We also have a lot of playful x-rated names for each other, too salacious to use here. If "My Filipina Unit" and "My Americano" get your panties in a wad then sheesh those would make your head explode. Too many things to list on why my wife is the one. She was $7.99 plus shipping and import duty.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-17 02:48:00
Philippines	Sending money to your wife's family for hospital expenses	While some people in here have offered some good advice, what many are forgetting is that I love my wife. After reading many of the responses, I get the impression that many of you view bringing a wife over from the Philippines is more a business arrangement than an act of love between the man & woman. If I didn't love my wife and simply viewed it as a business arrangement, I would have had her sent back to the Philippines well over a year ago. Do many of the women in here view it as business arrangement or an act of love? How about the men? Do they view it as a business arrangement or an act of love? Fascinating for its manipulative content. You have the false dichotomy between "business arrangement vs Act of Love" in the first place. Yours looks more like war or mutual extortion. So there's a third version right there. But you are projecting the insinuation that others treat their wives as mere commoddities because ironically we treat them as team members and view marriage as mutual cooperation. Furthermore marriage is definitely a legally binding contract so that much is a tautology, and the contract absolutely does include both sex and economics. In the muslim societies they actually sign both an economic marriage contract, before the wedding, and the civil contract for the government. In western societies it is often pretended that since everyone is more or less rich relative to the rest of the world that relationships have nothing to do with economic motives. Except you never see these faux princesses marrying bums begging on streetcorners, or even deigning to lower themselves by speaking to them. If any of us men start laying around on our butts instead of contributing to the marriage in either money or other weight-pulling then our wives are well-advised to leave us for someone who will. The irony meter is under severe stress. Your theme throughout this whole odyssey has been money. So don't be pointing the finger at others as if it is they who are all about money. It matters. But sheesh, I'm not marrying anyone who got hit with the ugly stick. I want the sporting model, not miss gargantua. She has to think of us as a team. Fit my character. And have a good bass boat. The truth about me is I am no better than the next guy. Everyone does something better than me. Edited by rlogan, 24 March 2011 - 05:18 PM.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-24 17:15:00
Philippines	Sending money to your wife's family for hospital expenses	But more importantly, her two year green card expires in a couple months and I've told her if she's not contributing to our budget in a reasonable manner, then I will not sign the papers for the conditions to be removed so she can get a 10 year card. Just what happens if I don't sign/submit the form for doing that? The "Effects of Major Family Changes" page is where all relevant questions can be answered. The upshot is that she can apply on her own for the 10-year green card if the two of you divorce, so "nothing" happens insofar as her right to the removal of conditions regardless of whether you apply for her or not. I put "nothing" in quotes because there's the little matter of divorce. If you don't apply and just let the date expire but remain married then she's out of status and there will be problems but it isn't like they'd hunt her down and deport her the day after expiration. If she left the country she would not get back in. But why even go there, it's not rational. Either get divorced or apply for the removal of conditions and have a marriage with these ongoing problems. I've ruled out fixing the problem based on how long this has gone on and the strategy you adopted of trying to manipulate the manipulator. The books say don't try to out-manipulate a manipulator. It's just war with this agonizing over how to respond to the latest iteration of underhanded out-guessing of each other. I'm not going to get all judgemental about it. It can be evidence of abuse when a person uses immigration as an extortion racket to get what they want from someone. It needs to be in the context of other things, but it is something to be careful about saying give me money or I won't sign.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2011-03-17 02:13:00
Philippines	Feel that we are moving backwards with US Embassy	I keep getting the feeling that you think we are hiding something...I can begin from the beginning and repeat this entire story that has previously been posted. Thank you for finally pointing out there was an earlier thread. That would be a thing to link to in the OP, as many of us do not follow every thread here on VJ. You didn't have to re-type it. Showing us where the discussion was would have been fine. So if I can summarize, her original birth certificate was mis-spelled. Her family name is Olive, but it was mis-spelled as Olib. She had used Olib officially in her past, which included a passport in the name Olib. It is threfore definitely an alias now that the Birth Certificate has been changed. She requested the birth certificate mis-spelling be changed to Olive before you applied for K-1, but after the I-129F was approved in the name Olib. She applied for the K-1 visa under the name Olive, which was not the name you used on the I-129F. You included the alias Olive on the I-129F, but you would have received your I-179C Notice of action in the name Olib. She had a passport in the name Olib (Original misspelled birth certificate name) expiring Sept. 2010. She requested it be renewed under the name Olive. She has received now the corrected Birth Certificate, in the name Olive. She also has a new passport in the name Olive. But you have an I-129F application approved for the name Olib. Furthermore, she did not include the alias Olib in her CENOMAR and NBI clearances. She had them done under Olive. Now I understand why at the interview she was told to do CENOMAR and NBI in the name Olib. It is because your I-129F application was in the name Olib; because it was her birth certificate and passport names before you did anything under primary applicant name Olive immigration-wise. After applying for I-129F and having it approved in the name Olib you had her birth certificate changed, her passport changed, and applied for the K-1 under the name Olive, and did not do CENOMAR and NBA clearances with the name she had apparently used her entire life officially up to that time. Wow, no wonder this is all bolloxed up. It does not surprise me at all this would take another six weeks to to through, and that it would require going back to the consulate. I do not agree it is the same thing as requesting additional information. Window X may be a possibility insofar as information, yes - but I do see why they are saying it would take another six weeks. My condolences. It is really tough to go through this, and i think indeed you are in for the wait. If nothing else, I think people can learn that this manner of applying will cause some real complications.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-07 17:25:00
Philippines	Feel that we are moving backwards with US Embassy	It is the Embassy that is calling her name misspelling an alias. CENOMAR was done with her correct spelling and taken to interview -- requested at interview that she go to NXO Pasay and have CENOMAR for misspelling of name....this was done on Monday 8/2 but she was told only the Embassy could pick up the document NSO Pasay told her it was done and was ready to be released on Friday and the Embassy told me that they would be picking up from NSO around 4 p.m. on 8/6 NBI was done with her correct spelling and taken to interview -- requested at interview that she get NBI clearance for her misspelled name which she did in Angeles and delivered to Embassy on 7/29. Called and this document had been documented as received. What we don't understand is why it would take up to 6 weeks longer now for her VISA to be approved when these documents once completed would seem to be no different than someone that needed to have a 2010 tax form or additional payroll stubs for there VISA. Also one of my senator's office told me that her VISA would now go to the bottom of the stack of 1000s of applications and have to work its way back to the top???? J & O There is still something missing from this story, and it is impossible to answer until it is pinned down. It is the most important part: the beginning. Where did the whole thing with mis-spelling start? The fact you are omitting this and seem to be evasive about it makes it look like something fishy is going on. The way most people start a story is from the beginning. When someone leaves out the beginning of a story, suspicions naturally arise. Did you mis-spell her name on some document? Did the interviewer just invent some different spelling out of thin air and order you to do a CENOMAR in that name out of spite? It just doesn't make any sense. I would put it at the bottom of my pile too if it was explained to me as you have. Remember, you have lived this and we know nothing but what you tell us. Please be clear. It is a terrible thing being in the clutches of bureaucracy and you have my sympathy for it. But please explain the story in a way that makes sense, and that means not leaving out why this whole thing got started. It could be a minor thing, and it could be a major thing. Correcting a problem requires knowing what the problem is in the first place. I hope you can clarify this. Thanks.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-07 13:55:00
Philippines	Feel that we are moving backwards with US Embassy	Olive had to get her NBI Clearance and NSO CENOMAR with her alias name spelling. She had neglected to put down her misspelled name on these two documents. Sorry, but I am confused by this because of the word "misspelled". An alias is different spelling, sure - but that isn't a "misspelled" name. She has her name, and she has an alias. My recollection is that you have to report any aliases used in the visa application, along with her legal name. CENOMAR application is here, and it indicates using your legal name: CENOMAR I see that in the NBI clearance it talks about people with "Namesakes" taking longer: NBI FAS I am inferring that you have to put both your legal name and your Alias (namesake?) on the NBI application, which would make sense but I could not find a copy of the form online. Maybe someone else with a copy can chime in. The upshot is I think you are saying she did not report aliases, not that she failed to report a misspelling. I am not sure what they do when someone fails to report aliases. But regardless we should clarify exactly where she failed to report aliases, and if it is on the visa application too. That would really gum up the works.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-06 16:40:00
Philippines	I want to Divorce my Husband & back to Phils.	Heart-broken, Have you asked your husband to receive marriage counseling with you?	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-18 20:04:00
Philippines	I want to Divorce my Husband & back to Phils.	I see we have people taking things out of context. In the U.S., without extenuating circumstances a man who buys his 24 year-old daughter cars and pays her phone and insurance bills is not "helping" her, unless you mean helping her be irresponsible and not grow up to accept her responsibilities in life. But it isn't his daughter. It isn't even his stepdaughter. It is the daughter of someone he lived with. It isn't a situation of a multi-millionaire where nobody else is lacking because of it - the wife is. Furthermore he has lied about it. I don't know what kinds of things he is keeping. Furniture is one thing. Hanging pictures is inexcusable. Telling her to go back to the Philippines and then refusing to allow it if she concedes? Emotionally abusive and immature. The last question was whether I would in her shoes want to try making the relationship work. I see this as the priority, not faking it for a green card. You need a counselor, kiddy. If he does not agree to one then no, it isn't worth trying in my view because a decent man doesn't lie to his wife, threaten, and refuse to allow her in on things. Nobody is perfect but you've said he lies repeatedly and that is a big recipe for disaster in a marriage. The reason for a counselor is to have an impartial referee that can put a stop to the childish threats, the non-cooperation, to ask the right questions, etc.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-17 21:55:00
Philippines	It's Finally Done	No not Bi - Polar ? Just thought that some would like to know that another success story but maybe I was wrong????? Well I think he was looking for another kind of success story involving maturity and possibly even following forum rules. I am very glad to hear she'll be here. We went through some real nightmares including me having to leave manila without her. I can understand the kind of stress a person is under and we don't think all that rationally when it happens.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-20 02:50:00
Philippines	Do you have to have proposed to your fiance?	You sign a letter of intent to marry in the application process. That is a formal recognition of engagement. Engagement is nothing more than the agreement to marry, insofar as immigration is concerned. Culturally we have these traditions like the ring. Mine was through my nose, with a chain tied to her nether region. You can probably pick up a pretty inexpensive ring or find one a relative has in a box from great grandma hoositwhat or something until you can afford something else. I would try to do that because the ring is an outward sign to other potential suitors to back off.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-22 14:23:00
Philippines	Why there are pinays out there who feels so conceited about theirselves once they arrived here in the States?	most of the members in this forum "brag" about themselves by way of their significant others to some extent. some just do it a little more covertly... Yes we do, and in general brag on ourselves - or put others down, which amounts to the same thing. So allow me to say that my wife is the best on the planet, of all time. With respect to the OP, it takes character to attain either wealth, power, or fame - and not cop an attitude. Fate can put us in the gutter or strike us down with some awful cancer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-15 14:41:00
Philippines	cheapest hotel in Manila	Good Lord - six months? A "Bedspacer" is going to be a fraction of a hotel cost, and there are plenty near St. Lukes. You can just walk around and find them since so many of them don't advertise anywhere. There's just a sign out front. So she could get a hotel for a day and find one. She can get an apartment the same way, if you want more than a bedspacer.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-07 14:03:00
Philippines	Question on Manila airport fees	At the domestic airport we've had security personnel try to get us to pay them a "fee" too. They've come up to us between the time we walk from the ticket counter to the last carry-on luggage scanner pretending to be very helpful while trying to con us out of some beer money.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-22 14:32:00
Philippines	Starting to file for I-129F help and advice needed	Hi peeps! Follow up question if anyone can help or know something about it. My fiance as mentioned has just been recently divorced so his 1020 or income tax return for 2009, 2008, 2007 was filed jointly with his ex i.e like combined income since he was married then? Would that be a problem? He does make the cut off for the poverty guideliness even with his ex and kids and me included. Not a problem. Make sure it is complete enough to show his individual income, whether business or wages/salary/armed robbery etc.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-25 19:09:00
Philippines	Building and Extension on house in Philippines	how much 2200 sq ft lot cost in phil. I am very new to this. I only visited that country once. Depends on where and how you go about doing it. Philippines is third world and property advertising is not online or even in a newspaper or through real estate companies. In Manila or a very few other big and more modern cities yea - but even there it's spotty. You drive around looking for signs posted on land or start asking around. Work through your family so you are not paying the Americano price. I would be very careful about the title and have a reputable law company with that kind of experience look at it. I spent a month on Palawan looking at land and learned about the survey system in the Philippines. Very little land is actually surveyed and recorded. There is a class called forest land and then agricultural land if I remember correctly and they have different degrees of security in the survey and title. My memory is a little cloudy on this but some land has just about no security at all and I don't remember how they referred to it but that's why you need to make sure about survey and title. I'd be way off the mark even guessing about Cebu or Tacloban land price ranges.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-26 12:16:00
Philippines	Building and Extension on house in Philippines	Wow, Wyatt - you can't afford not to build at 100 pesos a day! Yea, with the milling and gravel - way to go. Good data Ann Marie and Leo - half the house for more than twice the money and five times the wait. I'm curious what the workers were paid on Luzon if you don't mind saying...	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-26 02:49:00
Philippines	Building and Extension on house in Philippines	I built a small house on Mindanao. I've built numerous houses in the USA, log structures in Alaska, and this reinforced concrete block house there in the philippines. I mean I built them myself, not paid a contractor to do it. I run heavy equipment, do carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrical - all of it. Your question is pretty broad - there are some structural issues and some cost issues that are pretty big-picture items like whether the existing foundation contemplated a second story and how much reconstruction you have to do in order to get the second story in. It might be cheaper to build a place from scratch or just buy one if there is too much involved. You can have a structural engineer look at the foundation and whatever is involved in the second story and give you an opinion on that. Yes, absolutely there is an Americano price and a Filipino price for everything. I wouldn't touch anything with a ten foot pole if I wasn't there doing the construction myself. I want to see receipts and pay the other men on the job with my own hands. I ran into minor corruption and cronyism on things like electrical and phone but my family knew who and how much to pay to speed things up. I couldn't imagine building in Metro Manila. I'm a country boy and cities here are bad enough with ridiculous building code/inspection tyrannies. I would do some study on what it is like in metro manila. Permits, delays, inspections, bribery - that's where it can become a big hassle and I don't know Manila. But I would sure want to find out. Labor is really, really cheap there. We were paying 200 pesos a day plus snacks for unskilled. 250 for someone with masonry skills. I paid an electrical contractor 350 pesos a day after I left because I had not finished all of the wiring, but he was the most expensive guy, and there wasn't much left to do. So I do think that if you oversee it tightly you can build very cheaply there. If you can't oversee it I think you'll be spraying money like a fire hose.	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-23 21:47:00
Philippines	Why was her answer considered a 'gaffe'?	i would've figured that she would've used her experience about being stripped of the Bb. Pilipinas title earlier this year and then explaining what she learned from it (which is don't lie)....would've probably gotten her better results. I didn't know about this. Nor did I follow Miss Universe. I don't really like the politically correct mamby-pamby stuff that you get in these things though. My wife showed me her statement and it was weak. I didn't realize she diverted it to a comment on her family. If she lied on a material fact in a contest and was stripped of a title - wow. What's she even doing there? Geez!	rlogan	Male	Philippines	2010-08-24 16:53:00