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| February 5th, 2010 When Can I Meet The Family? Every now and then one of my very good listeners on Monday nights asks me something I may have not been asked before – and brother, after nine years of Monday nights, that’s NOT easy to do. “Bud, during my recent visit to Ukraine I met a nice girl I had been writing to and we spent a lot of time together – almost a whole week. We dated, had entire days together, and agreed to move forward and start the K-1 (fiancée visa) process knowing it would take us 5 – 6 months to get it. Everything seemed great between us but one thing troubled me: I did not meet her parents. Isn’t that a little strange? Why wouldn’t a girl who was serious enough to get engaged to me NOT want me to meet her parents? So I began to wonder… I know there are media stories in The FSU about women who have suffered at the hands of their foreign husbands here. Some – not many, but some – Ukrainian women have a negative impression of this whole process because of a few sensationalized media attempts to discredit us guys – could THAT be the reason she doesn’t tell her family about us?” This is a great observation – very insightful – let’s dig deeper into it. Yes – there are stories in the Russian / Ukrainian media which paint an ugly picture of us men in the foreign bride search. Most foreign ladies have seen them. Such articles or news segments depict life for the average foreign bride abroad as one of unexpected, complete servitude to a controlling, manipulative husband who turned out to be not as nice as he promised to be. “Beware of marriage agency scams,” they seem to say. “You’ll end up isolated, imprisoned, a slave with no control over your life – or worse!” Are such stories true? To a certain extent – well, yes. That’s the unfortunate thing – there are always a few idiot guys who make their way to this process, meet a girl, make lots of promises and then bring the girl here only to completely change face and become not as nice as they seemed to be in the beginning. The end result of such situations is sometimes tragic. This is by no means a typical ending for the thousands of international couples who meet every year. Most couples go on to a happy, thriving marriage and love experience. But the tragedies are there and they taint the many of us who are here for the right reasons. FSU women know this. We have the same stories here. You’ve probably seen a stereotypical “foreign bride from hell” segment of popular programs on major networks. The media, our congress, special interest groups and pretty much everyone else loves to do this – hold one tragedy up and draw inappropriate conclusions about the rest of us men seeking a life-mate abroad. It happens there – it happens here. But does this minor cultural perspective of foreign men keep our girls from revealing us to their families once we’ve met, fallen in love and committed to one another to move forward? Sometimes, yes, I believe it could have an impact but most of the time I don’t think it affects us at all just as those nasty media bits don’t really discourage us from getting on the plane and going abroad, right? We don’t trust everything we read or see on TV – they don’t either. We have met more happy couples than we have heard discouraging stories – so have our FSU women. Unless some girl’s life or family has been personally touched by a specific horror story, I don’t expect the overall stigma impacts them at all. So no, my friend, I don’t think that’s what’s coming into play here. The more likely reason for her hesitation is just simply a matter of timing. As much as we THINK the primary motivation for foreign ladies to join an international marriage agency in the first place is to secure citizenship abroad – the REAL reasons have more to do with the lack of available men in their culture. The truth is once she announces she is one of the rare successful ladies – thanks to you and your resolve to go and find HER, that’s gonna kick up a lot of dust. In other words, her family will suddenly be faced with the reality of her leaving for a new life half a world away. Of course they will be happy for her on the one hand, but also extremely concerned over the pending changes in their family and their lack of access to her and any children. This will cause a lot of emotion and reconciliation as it would to any of us old enough to have children who could ever make such an announcement to us in reverse. I don’t know about you – but were any of my sons or daughters to tell me they met a perfect life-mate they love very much and their eternal happiness is virtually guaranteed – all they have to do is move far, far away – I’d flip! The love any Russian or Ukrainian mom feels for her daughter is no less than what you or I feel for ours, yet again, the reality for many such ladies is once they hit 28 or 30 the odds of finding a monogamous, loving, marriage-minded partner go down considerably. Ultimately, when things settle in and a year of living in America has gone by and you’ve turned out to be a wonderful husband, father – and son-in-law, everyone in her family will relax and be happy for both of you. Be sure to send her home for a visit once a year or more if you can afford it – and you’ll win the support of those who mean the most to her. We just need to understand that support will take time to gain and in the meanwhile we can’t do enough to help her get to that point. You will likely meet your girl’s family sometime just before or after she gets her fiancée visa. Foreign girls usually plan this carefully to cause the least amount of stress on everyone over the shortest possible time. Your will inevitably be given the critical chance to bond with her family – and bond you must. Having her family’s approval of you in the early stages will lessen the otherwise huge amount of stress she will be under during that whole first year together. Don’t worry, you’ll get through it all together. And believe me, she’s so worth it. |
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| Read Previous 2009 - 10 Bog Entries Below! Here are a few blog postings from last year you may enjoy! I'll keep archiving 2010 articles here as well! |