Thank you for explaining your culture GS. The US is relatively a new country (when not taking into consideration the native inhabitants) but most of the cultures from which we all came from here in the past were pretty much the same as yours unless they just abandoned the women.
The difference in this day and age is that women are able to take care of themselves and their children often on their own not having to live with a man that they no longer love or that can satisfy them sexually (or that they were never attracted to or loved - just chose because they have money).
Yes, men's utility in your country is not appreciated. This is why many American men go the the Philippines to partner up with women who will appreciate them.
In your culture would it be ok with you and your extended family for your wife to go out and find herself another man? Would it be ok for her to get pregnant with another man? Would you still stand by her? In our culture there historically were outrageous double standards.
Our culture is in FAMILY mode. Your culture is in INDIVIDUAL mode. As such when people get married, the family / extended family of the man expects all children from that woman to also be of their blood... part of their family. Blood is most important.
The reason for the double standard is families marrying families.
In our culture, grandma expects her grandchild from her son to be authentic, by blood. As does grandpa. As do aunties, as do uncles. As you can see in some of the Maury Show episodes, grandma and the clan are totally PISSED when the daughter in law cheats on their FAMILY by cuckolding their FAMILY representative.
In individualistic society... maybe relatives do not care.
This is a common friction when the American man finds out later on that his Filipina wife asks and gives financial assistance to her parents and siblings.
Of course there is more to love than sex - but you said yourself earlier that you thought that your wife never really loved you.
It's like American Archie Comics. I'm Archie and I really dig Veronica. Even if there are Bettys who are chasing me Archie. I squeezed 3 children out of veronica... with 2 boys at that... very good sacrifice.
If my husband never had sex with me again I would stay with him. Love is MUCH more than sex. But my husband and I would talk about it. I guess in your culture it's all set up where you don't have to talk about it.
We agree on zero contraception. This is why. And you must remember her medical background with 3 c-sections and 1 appendectomy. So I truly understand her predicament.
Most women can live without sex for the rest of their lives. Most men cannot unless they are sick.
Women here who are incapable of bearing any more children are known to order their husbands to get another woman pregnant specifically to snatch the baby for themselves. And this is why some women who are impregnated hide the baby from the married man because that plot is quite common.
My father in law was hidden by his mom from his biological dad who was married with children.
My grandmother's nanny ordered her husband to make them a baby to bring home to them because she was already 40 and they only have one child.
You are expected to go out and get mistresses.
Mistress I define as having at least a kid. Prostitutes and girlfriends... are also out there and lumped together.
City women expect prostitutes... and actually welcome them more than girlfriends or mistresses.
This is the reality of how monogamy works.
Don't get me wrong. I am a staunch pro-life activist and volunteered for years with
www.prolife.org.ph and still volunteer.
Just being factual as an amateur social scientist stating how monogamy works for most people.
Women here just line up to be mistresses... must be biology that the American occupation and the Spanish occupation could never root out.
I observe that Filipino history should be seen more from the Point of View of Women.
I feel our islands were easily conquered because Filipinas welcomed the Spanish with open legs. My wife agrees.
There is interracial synergy and attraction. Filipinas just lined up to Spanish priests.
Often though, even if it is accepted, it doesn't mean that the woman is truly happy with the situation.
There is no such thing as everyone will be happy. That is fantasy.
In the meantime, men in sexless marriages need to f**k to maintain their sanity.
And this many Filipinas understand where I see American culture does not... unrealistic expectations.
You also probably in your culture are not taught how to really pleasure a woman - or there wouldn't be so many women that stop wanting to have sex with their husbands.
It's a case to case basis. The most pleasure a woman gets will usually be wealth first. Then other things. But as long as you bring in the bacon... you rock. This my own mother knows. This my mother in law knows. And this is why these mothers are very supportive of their sons.
In other cultures that I'm familiar with the women are considered to be the pleasure objects of the men and when a woman stops it's not up to the man to figure out how to make it better - they just leave for another woman.
Filipino women stature is among the highest in the entire world. Was even higher before the spanish came and instituted their laws in these islands. Laws haven't changed the power of women... as long as there is FAMILY... women are very very powerful. It is when there is no family backing the woman that it becomes a problem.
When women get ligated, they dry up and many have total loss of sex drive.
My driver and I have a standing joke about this because his wife got ligated on her 4th child. She lost her sex drive. At the same time 5 years ago my driver also lost his erections because of illness. He was lucky to have gotten me as a boss and I cured his erectile dysfunction by teaching him to eat raw red meat.
Now he's complaining about his wife's loss of sex drive. But I remind him that he too lost his erection until I rescued him. So he should stay put and commit to his family . He still gets his chicks every now and then as long as the girl is paying instead of him.
It does affect the children - especially the girl children dramatically. The girls expect that they will have little chance at real happiness - that's for the men.
Most people here are concerned with survival, Dorothy. There is this maslows law of needs, right? Most people here are just in survival and reproductive stage. So just having a kid and sending them to school to eventually graduate is already a good deal for many... and that makes them happy.
It sounds like you married more than your wife - you married her family. That's actually a beautiful thing.
Yes... that was always the plan. Marrying into a great family.
In a sense in your culture in a way you learn how to divorce without divorcing.
The intellectual understanding of marriage in my culture is far different than yours.
First for the non muslims, there is no divorce... but there are hard to hurdle legal loopholes.
Second... the poor do not bother with formalities such as paper marriage or paper separation unless there is some legal requirement for migration or a migrant job.
Third... there usually is no property or assets to fight about or even pay divorce lawyers.
The FAMILY again is always there... with common grandchildren and nephews... families do not really divorce. They are tied by blood.
You still will take care of her and the children financially but go off with other women to meet your emotional and sexual needs. But where does that leave your wife?
Having mistresses and multiple girlfriends is just like having multiple children. Parents love all their children whether 2 or 12 children. That love is always unique to each child. Having number 2, 3 and 4 and 5 and 6... does not change the love for #1.
And this is what the book Ettiquetes for mistresses teaches that the mistresses should not aspire to dislodge #1... most of the time it is YOU the mistress who will be dropped. Because usually #1 is THAT SPECIAL... much more special than the rest...
(Unless #1 has unrealistic expectations and leaves her husband... which is usually viewed as a dumb idea.)
Check out this wildly popular movie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Other_Woman
What will that do to your daughters if you have them?
Have mistresses?
Mistressing in the Philippines may have been going on since pre-historic times.
I see it so ingrained in the culture.
Sometimes your girl may be #1, and sometimes she's the mistress, or worse... life goes on.
My maternal grandmother was the mistress... #2.
My paternal grandmother was #1 and only one.
My mother wanted to be #1 and only one so she got a man like my dad.
It sounds like something was created that is better than abandonment - yes, but it sounds like a world of continuing hurt for so many women.
Hurt - only to the foreign mind, Dorothy.
And this is the problem with Imperialist policy is that they always want their new conquered lands to be like them instead of letting the natives be and just study and appreciate the differences.
What foreign tinkering has done in the past 50 years is NSSM 200 written by Henry Kissinger and the depopulation contraception scheme.
Ah, that is life... I'm just here to observe and tell fellow raw paleo dieters how I see it.
