Reply #10: My best friend is married to a woman from the Philippines

[skygazer]

He's 53 and she's in her late 20's. They have a very nice marriage and two kids. She was not "desparate" when she married him but she did want to come to the United States. She was willing to marry a man she didn't know well to do it and it's turned out well for both of them.

Sometimes I think it's a little insulting to people to assume that they must not have any idea what they were doing or that they must have been coerced or desparate to make the decisions they did. I know several other women through my friend's wife who made the same choice. None of them are unhappy - all of them look at marriage in a somewhat different light than American women do. A less romantic, more pragmatic way.

None of them was "desparate" either. As a matter of fact, most of them came from families that had a little bit more than the average - they had internet availability and the means to advertise and all of them had a good education.