Mixed Marriages

[Jimbo]

Passports have been obtained and all papers are in order. He has sent the money for the air tickets and now all that remains is to book the flight. He phones and asks what date she is coming but is distressd to hear that there is a problem and that there has been a death of a grandparent. This will cause a delay of a few weeks but some of the money for the air ticket has been used for the funeral expenses. Can he send some more.

The tickets have been bought and his wife is coming next Wednesday at 06.35. He is waiting anxiously at the airport when he see's her coming through the customs. He is overjoyed that finally after all they have been through she has arrived. The rounding on her stomach from the pregnancy makes him feel really proud. Lots of kisses and hugs later they get in to a taxi to take them to her new home.

She asks why he did not bring the car instead of a taxi. He explains that he has not bought one yet but as soon as he has saved the money they will choose it together. She gives him a quizical smile but says nothing. When they arrive at the flat she is suprised at the smallness of it and says she thought all westerners had big houses. He said its only temporary and soon they will get their own house.

He asks how she is feeling especially with the new baby and she says that she is fine. They are bboth hungry but he learns for the fist time that she does not know how to cook. He suggests they get a local take away meal as there is one that cooks food similar to her own country. This sounds good and after the food they relax and she is delighted with the Television programs and the number of channels. Next day he takes her to meet his aging parents. They try hard to make her welcome but feel the strangeness of he appearance and culture.

He now has to go back to work but says they will go shopping for food on his return. She waits all day in the empty flat watching television to keep occupied and eating snacks. By the time he comes home she is feeling bored and is overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. The dirty manufacturing city is not her idea of being in a foreign land but the worst thing is everything is cloudy and grey. The lack of the sun makes her start to feel miserable and she is missing her friends and family already.

She brightens up when her husband comes home and starts to talk to hime in a fast and excited voice. He does not understand everything as language is still a bit of a problem where they speak a mixture of both of their tongues. He gets changed and although feeling tired from the days work they go to the local supermarket. Her eyes light up at the variety of foodstuffs and clothes and many other items on sale. They get a shopping trolley but soon find one is not enough as she attacks the shelves for the first time. He begins to worry at the expense but the joy in her eyes silences his words. At the check out he has to use a credit card because he does not have enough cash. She asks him what he is doing and after he explains she requests one for her self.

They get a taxi home and struggle up to the flat with all they have bought. It takes him 3 trips from the taxi to the flat. After unpacking everything he cooks dinner with his wife popping into the kitchen to show him how delighted she is with what she has brought home. They sit down to eat and he gentley explains that today was a special treat and they cannot buy like that all the time. She asks why and he explains he is not rich nor does he earn the same kind of money he got whilst in her country and he also has to send money for his own children. He does not see the look of disapointment in her eyes.

Next day he comes home from work to have their first arguement because she has not washed the dishes or cleaned the flat from yesterday because she has been watching Television. He is tired and has yet to cook the evening meal.

TBC

 

[mimpimanis]

Looking forward to tomorrow's installment Jimbo!

 

[pooochie]

I am looking forward to tommorow's installment too

 

[dandan]

cant wait jimbo.I'm hangin off your every word.

 

[Jimbo]

Next day and he goes to work but she is feeling lonely and depressed. Her family is not there her friends are not there and she has little to do and does not feel confident to go out on her own. When her husband comes home she try's to explain how she feels but he is too tired to listen and says he will take her out at the weekend. He will also ask to take a few days off work to take her to the hospital for a check up and to get her involved in the ante natal check ups.

He does take her as promised and also takes her round to his ageing mother where is sister has promised to be. Language and cultural problems abound and they treat her more like the child she is carrying. It does nothing for her happiness or self esteem. To try and make up he takes her out for a meal but she knows enough of the language to understand people are talking about and looking at her because she is different. She feels no better.

Weeks go by and the situations does not improve and then another really big row over the phone bill. He opens it and see's over 2000 dollars in phone calls almost all are to her family. He rages about the cost not seeing his wife trying to explain how she is lonely and only the calls to her family keep her sane. She asks why does he not realise that. Things from there go from bad to worse. The life here is not what she thought it would be and for him it is not the same as it was in her country. They love each other for sure but is it enough. They both cry and promise to work harder at the relationship.

A week later a letter comes through the door with a job offer to work abroad at really good money. Would she mind if he went as it will be the answer to all their money problems. She feels trapped and asks who will be there for her while he is away and he assures her that his mother will take care of here. Passport and visa sorted out a month later he leaves her on her own. Most days are just TV, sleep and tears.

Time passes and her pregnancy is coming along. She talks to her mother and then asks her husband on their nightly phone call to let her go home to have the baby. Both know that this is not the reason but cling to the hope thet it will be just temporary. He sends her the money and she goes back. Stepping of the plane she feels so happy to be home. He is feeling lonely there and already has been unfaithful.

Although there are letters and phone calls both know she will never go back to his flat. He cannot stay with her there unless he has work and that is very difficult to get. They both come to realise it is a tragic mistake and that maybe the differences are too much. They agree to part.

This is a story based upon many expats I have known in many different countries. The point was about mixed marriages and the difficulties faced. The reason some of the difficulties were not pursued is that it was a composite tale which could have gone off in many directions.

I could go on and on but felt the point has been made. What was that point?

MIXED MARRIAGES ARE MORE DIFFICULT TO BE A SUCCESSFUL.

I never said it applies to all people but I believe the secret of success is to follow the woman if you are a man and stay in her country and conversely if you are a woman getting married to a foreign man. For those that follow the path of our mythical non hero it is much more difficult but it can and does succeed. If you see yourself in any part of the story be aware of the pitfalls and avoid them.

My Marriage has had like most its ups and downs over the years but it has lasted for over 23 years because of one reason. LOVE. It can conquer all.........but it can be very hard. Mixed marriages aremore difficult.


Thanks for reading. If you agree fine, if you do not well, as I said it is a subjective viewpoint.

 

[JAMIE]

Man - o - man ...what a heart breaker for both parties , I could see well before you wrote this "story" that a mixed marrige with such culture/money ect backgrounds is doomed . The falure rate of such marriges must be very very high . And that being said , I feel for anyone who ends a relationship for any reason at all . Jimbo your a very good writer and I enjoyed your "story" very much , thanks a million !!! Jamie

 

[pooochie]

Hi Bapak Jimbo

Thanks for the story. Pity it is so sad :cry:

What follows is my opinion and I perceptually agree to agree to disagree that you also disagree with me, but agree to disagree, if you know what I mean :wink: :lol:

Overall I still disagree that mixed marriages are more likely to fail. I think that given a control situation where equal tests are done then the statistics may be quite similar to non-mixed marriages. But we will never have this sort of test. Maybe our adorable, most learned and streetwise :? resident “Environmental Psychologist” could help out here :wink:. :lol:

I think that some of the problems raised within the story are not just with mixed marriages. Any person that works continuously away from his wife and family is allowing potential problems to creep in from either party. The man is approaching and playing about with the local girls and he would probably do this if he was working away in the same country or a similar culture. What if he was from New York and worked down in the Florida Keys. He would not be able to make it home very often and the local girls would be American, his own culture.

I also think the money factor affects lots of marriages and is the ruination of many. Your story clearly shows that money is a major problem with the new couple, could it be that if many of these failed mixed marriages did not have money problems then they would not fail? The man could have also easily sought work locally, packing shelves or whatever, it is a job. Obviously he had a good trade as he was sought after to work abroad, unskilled workers do not get these jobs. If he truly loved the girl he would not want to leave her just to earn more money.

More money is not important enough to leave your loved ones if it is going to cause problems with your family. The wife and the kids will understand that if money is short they will have to make the best of it. Her choice is more money and no husband to be with or a loving husband and not being rich. If she loves him she will want to be with him and he will want to be with her, both with “unconditionality love for each other for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health and until death do them part”.

In summary I am saying that the main reasons that cause the failure of these mixed marriages if applied to a non-mixed marriage would probably make them fail too.

To add to the subject of mixed marriages I also think that being a mixed marriage can also add an extra spice to the chemistry between the two partners. They do say: “opposites attract” :wink: .

I also want to add this:

I personally do not agree, nor does my circle of friends reflect in any way, that mixed marriage are any more, or less a challenge than non mixed marriages. In truth, my circle of friends here in Bali would reflect just the opposite when I consider my friends from my “other life” back in New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut.

I think mixed marriages across Asia are more stable than those of the baby boom generations in the west

I do hope that someone can find some statistics on this. My gut feeling is Oom Roy and Lou are right in that mixed marriages in Asia are more stable than non-mixed marriages in the West.

Many readers may not agree with me, this is just my opinion and maybe I think too much for the best. We all have different experiences and therefore form different opinions based on these. How boring the world and this forum would be if we all agreed all the time :lol:.

Bapak Jimbo I am sure you speak from experience and that what you say is valuable and very true for many, however I needed to highlight the many angles. I think it is different for everyone and that it is not the “mixed marriage” that fails but the “marriage”.

Kind regards

Ni Luh

 

[Jimbo]

Poochie

I could have written many different endings to the tale. I could have gone off in many different directions and come to many more conclusions. The fact is I hardly touched on the inter racial aspects mixed parent babies et al.

You are perfectly correct in that it is the marriage that fails and you have missed my point which I have stated all along is that a marriage that is mixed has inherently more problems to solve and that the likeyhood of failure is higher.

In the UK 50% of all end in divorce. In MY experience mix marriages are much higher than that. Societies are in the main against mixed marriages.

How many indians, pakistani's, chinese cross cultures or indeed want to. This is not a matter of absolutes but a matter of only minute percentages marry and a high percentage of those fail.

Even in our beloved Indonesia the average person seeing a bule with a local girl will think the worst of the girl. In the Indian sub continent, Africa and especially the middle east it is even worse. I know because with the odd exception I have seen more of it all in many different countries, many times.

The failure rate believe me is very very high. For me its time to end this thread and thank all who listend to my point of view. This will be expanded upon as a whole chapter when I write my book

 

[Lou]

Jimbo, Thank you for the thoughtful and insightful reflections on your experience and observations of mixed marriages. I can see that we have each of us lived in a different niche of the expatriate community and accordingly formed different conclusions. That in no way invalidates yours but should position them as being correct for the very difficult sector you have operated in but not necessarily so in the wider picture. The same also applies to mine.

In the earlier years of my career abroad I frequently visited large mining operations in remote areas of developing countries but was never resident at one. The mining engineering and project management departments were staffed at the senior levels by guys very similar to what you describe, many were in mixed marriages and you have certainly jogged my memory of the kind of anxieties that concerned them. I wasn't close enough for long enough to any of them to have an insight on the failure rate of their marriages but there was certainly a great deal of stress and insecurity...far more than normally the case in international cities like Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo or even not so international ones like Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing.

It's interesting to also note your observation that

societies are in the main against mixed marriages

still holds true in the second group of less cosmopolitan cities above while being significantly diminished in the first group. In Singapore such marriages are in fact being tacitly encouraged by the government while in Hong Kong or Tokyo people in general haven't batted an eyelid at mixed couples for decades.

A third sector of mixed marriages not yet touched on are the non expatriate or Diaspora ones. The best thing about this sector for the purposes of our discussion is that statistics are available - but I'll leave it to somebody else to dig them up. Let me however just insert one titbit on those - a fairly recent government census related one showed the rate of mixed marriage for various ethnicities in the US. To the best of my recollection the highest rate of outmarriage for any Asian group was second generation Korean girls who had hit an astonishing level of something like 75% if married to a non Asian ethnic spouse or 85% if Indian husbands are included. The lowest was Indians but it was also trending up quickly - very quickly from my own observations as I have significant contact with that community. I strongly doubt that an Angelino, even a Mrs Kim, would be aware a mixed couple had just walked by much less disapprove.

My conclusions derived from a significantly different world are not surprisingly at odds with Jimbo's and Dr Bruce. In my view, cosmopolitan city expat based mixed marriages failure rate is a lot less than the 50% still common in western societies and I will go so far as to say it is in single digits. The not so cosmopolitan derived ones are no less successful, save for the glaring exception described in my earlier post, but they have significant hurdles to overcome prior to the marriage and in the first subsequent year or so. Furthermore both Japan and Korea now have seriously bad divorce rates, 50% in the latter case, and I'll go out on another limb by saying that mixed couples living in those countries have a tiny fraction of the national failure rates ...oddly enough for cultural reasons.

For non expat mixed marriages I hope some of our analytical members start digging out the facts, at least on the failure rates as that will be really interesting.

 

[Roy]

Salam from Bangkok. Apologies in advance for any spelling errors, as the computer I am using does not have word processing or any other spell checking features...except in Thai.

The last couple of nights I have been seeing a number of expat friends that have been living in Bangkok from five to forty years and are married to Thais. I brought this discussion up, just to get their reaction and ideas.

While no one could point to specific data, their gut feelings, and their experiences with other expats, also married to Thais, is that the divorce rate is low and uncommon. What I've heard here in the last few nights is no different than what I have been hearing for almost eight years living on Bali.

I think all of us who are in a mixed marriage would agree that there are unique cultural challenges involved with such marriages, but the unique benefits (from a man's point of view) far outweighs the energy and commitment needed to make a cross cultural marriage work.

You can count me in Lou and Ni Luh's camp.

 

[Tomas]

Hi all,

Statistics.....well. I beleive it is pretty much up to you if things are going to work out. Have an open mind, respect each other and your partners values/culture/religion. Don't try to change your partner - adjust to each other. For me it has worked. I have been happily married for 26 years with my wife who is from Africa but is of Asian origin. We have three wonderful grown up children together.