Don't worry, we won't judge if you've been planning on ordering a mail-order bride; in fact, a lot of these stories have a happy ending!
Trapped in Marriage
I went to a college course and one of the other students was a pretty obvious mail order bride. She was Thai and the more we got to know her, the more she shared about this relationship. She was late 20’s and he was at the lower end of 60, he didn’t work but had received some big work compensation payout and was apparently quite wealthy because of that. She told us they met online on one of those ‘meet Thai ladies who are just dying to be your girlfriend’ kind of sites, and after talking for all of two weeks they agreed to marry, this country is a little bit stricter about these sorts of unions so there were some hoops they had to jump through, such as the fact he had to go visit her for a certain amount of time in Thailand before starting the process, but essentially they were engaged after a few weeks and married within a few months. The guy essentially wanted one of those stereotypical asian marriages where the wife was subservient and existed to please their husband. she would tell us he would make her wait till he was done to eat and he would only let her eat ‘ladylike’ foods like salad, he payed her a monthly ‘salary’ which was pretty abysmal and she had to use that for clothing and other essentials, he also wouldn’t let her go anywhere by herself and would drop her off and turn up an hour before classes ended in case we got let out early to drive her home. I remember we had to do a group assessment and I had given her my phone number and he forced her to delete it (I’m a female). I think the saddest part was when she asked a bunch of us if we could get birth control pills for her because her husband kept destroying her scripts/pills, and you could tell she was absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. The weird thing though was that she wasn’t terribly bad off in Thailand, her family was apparently quite wealthy and she had her own home and stuff over there but for whatever reason she didn’t want to live there. Personally, I would have ran the second I saw that purple faced blob of a ‘husband’. (Source)
The Other Woman
One of my uncles, who is Filipino, convinced one of his white coworkers to marry his 28 year old niece who was still living in the Philippines at the time. The guy was at least 20 years older than her. The relationship was really rocky the first 2 years. She hated him, basically. But she stuck with the relationship, got him to go church and they were more or less, together. About ten years into the marriage the guy needed a kidney transplant. Months pass, he can’t work anymore and she’s spending all her free time outside of work taking care of him at the hospital while he’s waiting for a kidney. I visited one time while he was in the hospital and she broke down telling my other relatives and me how much she loved him and she didn’t want to lose him. The doctors finally give him like less than 3 months to live if he doesn’t get a kidney and after a month and half later, he got the kidney, recovered and went back to work within a year’s time. At a family get-together he bragged to everyone including me about how amazing he feels and how much he thought he was dead and that he was blessed to have a new lease on life. Then, a few months later, I get call from him saying that he’s met someone online and that he still considers me family. In shock, I tell him I’m busy and then called my aunt who then explained to me he found a 21 year old single Filipina mom from Cebu and already filed divorce papers against my uncle’s niece, who was almost 40 at the time. (Source)
Bon Appetit!
My girlfriend and I were recently eating at a restaurant in Las Vegas seated right next to another couple. The lady was a ~30 something Asian woman and the guy was a ~50 year old American man. They spent about 5 straight minutes with the waiter trying to order food for the woman who didn’t seem to understand they were in a place that served food. Then, once they did order, she leaned in and told the guy something we couldn’t quite hear. He got up immediately and left for a bit. In his absence the woman tried to ask for something from the waiter in super like, beyond broken-English. Waiter couldn’t understand and she just stopped talking and stared straight ahead. The guy eventually got back and put a box on Tampax on the table next to her and said very loudly, “Because I take care of my baby.” She smiled and grabbed the box and started opening it right at the table, took out a tampon, opened up the plastic, opened the tampon and stared at the guy with a super confused look. The guy turned pale and started asking her things like “Do you not use those? Do you use pads? Do you want me to find you some pads? For your period. Your period, you’re on your period right now. Yes, the blood. Yes dear, that’s your period” all the while the woman was like repeating what he was saying super loudly. Meanwhile I’m eating spaghetti like a foot away from the guy, almost shoulder to shoulder with him. They eventually left without eating or paying or saying anything. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen and I now completely assume without any other kind of supporting evidence, that she was a mail order bride. (Source)
Purple Birthday Cake
Although my parents were always too ashamed to admit this to anyone but myself and my sister, my mom was a “mail order bride” about 23-24 years ago. This was before all the online companies that do this, so my father had to find my mother in a sort of magazine catalogue of Filipino women. He sent her letters, and she replied, over the course of a year. They finally met and my mom moved to my dad’s tiny hometown, got married, and they had two daughters together (one being myself). They were both looking for a better life, and someone who would treat them better than past partners had. And they both got that, plus it turns out they both have the travel bug. So now they’re retired, living a nomadic life traveling the globe, and they got more than they ever hoped for. Sure, I’ve always known there were some serious cultural differences between my parents that they’ve never been able to fully reconcile. My mom, being from a very traditional village in Northern Philippines has a hard time understanding a lot of North American norms and beliefs, and they butt heads over a lot of small things. These cultural clashes have taught me so much though, and their collective love of travel and culture has inspired me to study Anthropology and travel around the globe. I can’t imagine having lived in a home where we didn’t eat bacon and rice, pancit and steak, or purple (ube) birthday cakes on a regular basis. (Source)
Return to Sender
My friends dad got one and she flew back a week after she got to the States. I always thought he was creepy, but he must have been a maniac for her to voluntarily go back to Thailand after a week. (Source)
Suspicious Circumstances
I knew a guy who owned his own business that got one. He got crushed by a skid steer and she now owns the business and has a new husband closer to her age. (Source)
Yin and Yang on a Motor Scooter
I used to work retail with Filipino woman who was a mail order bride. She was a tiny little thing, around 35 years old, and her husband was a very large, stocky white man around 50-55. I thought it was very weird when she first told me, but when I met him and saw them together, it actually seemed like a nice fit. He was always coming into the store to bring her lunch or to buy her things, and pick her up from work on his motor scooter. It was pretty cute watching them ride it together. It seemed like he really enjoyed spoiling her, and when she talked about him, she seemed very much in love with him. It didn’t appear that he was particularly wealthy or anything, but he treated her very well and they seemed very happy. Just before I left that job, she had just became pregnant with their first child. (Source)
Short Engagement
My brother up and went to Russia a few years back to visit a girl he had met online. Only stayed about four days which made it an expensive and short visit, but probably a good idea if you’re not sure what’s going to happen when you actually meet. Several months later she came to visit us and surprise, they’re engaged! My mom was not expecting this, I was. You don’t bring over a girl from another country and introduce her to your family because you’re “just friends.” They spent the next couple months getting the paperwork organized and then she moves to the US and then two months later they got married. Had their buddy officiate at a pretty little ceremony at the lake, just immediate family. She and my brother are around the same age and have similar interests and they seem really happy together. Sis-in-law is going to school and I now have a niece. (Source)
A Better Life
I married a mail order bride. Or at least what people today call mail order brides. I went online, found a site very much like Eharmony, and started chatting with maybe 100 Filipinos live on yahoo chat. I liked one in particular after a few months- I had a real, almost paranoid fear of scammers, so I picked one that seemed like the opposite of a scammer- she was not in makeup, was not wearing sexy or no clothes, was not living in Pampanga (Sex tourist destination) did not ask for money, etc. Cancelled the Eharmony thing and Video Chatted with her for 6 months 4 hours a day to make sure it would work out. Went there 5 times over 6 more months, it worked out well, brought her to the US and married her. We have a little girl. We get along pretty good. I know that she married me to get a better life. I married her to get a better life, so that’s OK with me. (Source)
Missus Fixit
My uncle lives on a farm. The neighbor (in his 60s) married some Japanese 28 year old. She’s the ultimate ‘trophy’ mail order bride!
When she moved into his house it was a little run down (standard single male behavior). She took his truck into the town library everyday to use the internet..get this…to learn home improvement from YouTube. She installed a huge deck and replaced all the roofing on his wool shed (as it leaked) Pest control is common on Australian farms. We were out one night and shot a few kangaroos. She gets out of the truck and walks over to the dead carcass, drops to her knees like reciting a prayer, then pulls out a knife and starts surgically cutting up the animal. Putting what’s edible for the dogs in one pile and what’s not in another. Last time I was at my uncles farm she was learning generator maintenance (as the power goes off every few months) (Source)
Dog Thief
Buckle up, this one’s weird. Grandfather had a mail order bride from the Philippines. They got married within a couple of weeks. She made us popsicles made from guacamole. We got them a dog named Sasha, she thought we said Tasha and now its name is Tasha. Married like 2 years, she took the dog’s husband and daughter (Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl), and fled the state after she got her drivers license. Idk how my grandfather got the dogs back. (Source)
Living the Dream
Some guy in my small hometown married a Filipino “mail order” bride. Guy was kind of a creep and it didn’t last. She left him and got a minimum wage job at a fisheries shop (grueling work for no money). She cried when she got her first paycheck, she couldn’t believe how much money it was. Really put my quality of life into perspective. I’m pretty rich for a poor person and I occasionally remember this tidbit when I lose my way. (Source)
In It for the Long Haul
My friend Richard has a mail-order bride from the Philippines. He’s a scruffy redneck long-haul trucker from West Virginia, she’s tiny, slender, and ten years his junior. At first she cooked, cleaned, and kept his bed warm, but after a few years she told him she wanted an education. He put in a ton of overtime and saved up enough to put her through college. She’s a physician’s assistant now and makes more money than he ever has, but she still makes him dinner and makes a point of always being waiting at the door when he gets back from a long haul. They’ve been together for 20 years now and its a joy to see them together. (Source)
Now You See Her, Now You Don’t
I think an old high school buddy of mine did this. Went off to college on the west coast, came back with a Thai wife who barely spoke any English. He spoke a bit of Thai, but not much. They were together for about 3 years, then she just up and disappeared one morning. Leaving their son behind. Not sure what happened to her. He claimed she went back to see her family. We joke that he killed her. He may have killed her though. (Source)
Power Scooters Are Sexy
A patient at my uncle chiropractic clinic is 75+, morbidly obese, and uses a power scooter. One day he scooted in to the building with an extremely attractive Filipino girl (early 20’s) riding on his lap. She was a mail order bride. The old guy was pretty wealthy, so I’ve always imagined swooping in after he dies. (Source)