The Data Say Yes, You Should Date/Marry a Filipina!

I couldn’t be happier to write this article! Most other Philippines dating advice blogs just contain the writer’s opinion with anecdotes. In this article, I present actual data from the largest survey of western men in mixed marriages to Filipinas.  I asked over 300 men who are married to Filipinas from The Philippines how they feel about their relationships.  Many of my findings were common sense but you’ll be pleasantly surprised what wasn’t…

Most Men Are Happy Being Married to Filipinas

According to the survey, 78.87% of respondents said they’re ‘Very Satisfied’ with their marriages. When asked why the most common reasons stated were:

• Physical attractiveness
• Kindness
• She accepts me as I am
• Doesn’t complain too much
• Doesn’t question his judgment

Whiners May Be the Loudest but They’re not the Majority

Imagine, there are two restaurants. The first restaurant is good. The prices are reasonable, and the food is decent. You think to yourself, ‘I’ll write them a good review when I get home.’ But once you get home, you realize that the lightbulb over your stove needs to be changed, you’re late for your doctor’s appointment, you forgot to take the garbage out, etc., etc. Eventually, you forget to write the review.

Now imagine you go to a restaurant the food isn’t that good, and it’s way overpriced. When you ask the owner why he charges so much, he cusses you out and tells you that if you don’t like it to go somewhere else. I bet you’ll give them 1-star reviews on every website you can find, and you tell anyone who will listen not to go to there.

If you go to any blog or YouTube channel about Filipinas, you’ll see articles about scammers. There’s no doubt that they exist, but it’s not as common of a problem as we think. According to my research, 89.87% of respondents answered that they have ‘No doubt’ that their wives truly love them.

I think the issue is that bad news travels a lot faster than good news. If you got scammed, you’re more likely to tell people on social media about it and warn anyone who will listen about that girl. Would you do the same if you were happily married? Probably not.

Good Girls Don’t Ask For Money.

Want to know the most common aspect of all the marriages where the man answered he was ‘Very satisfied’? Over 95%  of guys responded ‘no’ when asked if she ever asked for money prior to the marriage. Additionally, according to the data, answers to the question ‘did she ask for money prior to the marriage’ was the number one indicator of men’s high satisfaction levels in the survey.

Culture and Family Were Cited As The Biggest Difficulties

When asked, “What was the most difficult aspect of being married to a Filipina’ 58.37% cited cultural differences and dealing with her family as the most difficult aspects.  In the written responses, jealousy was cited as a common issue. The saying ‘when you marry a Filipina, you marry her family’ is very true. A common theme is you must get along with her family if you want your relationship to last.

Another commonly cited issue is ‘tampo’ otherwise known as the silent treatment. When a Filipina feels slighted, she may refuse to talk to you and not tell you why.  I asked guys to describe some cultural differences that they had to deal with. Here are a few of their answers:

Misunderstandings, simple words taken out of context, overthinking things and insecurity issues regards my life in the West compared to my life here in the Philippines. Some days it is not just another country, rather, another Planet! I love it here and live in a Nipa House, pump water by hand from a Well, love my life here. But there is a stigma attached to that when a westerner embraces the Filipino lifestyle. I don’t know, some strange ways of thinking or over thinking things here.

The data show that 51.14% of respondents said they met their Filipina spouses online. See my list of best Filipina dating sites.  Other popular meeting methods were introduced by a friend (14.61%) and a bar at (7.76%).

Don’t Get a Girl From a Bar!

Oh, and of the men who answered that they met their wives in a bar, almost all of them (94.12%) reported that they were either ‘very unsatisfied’ or ‘wished they hadn’t done it’. In addition, only one said that he ‘had no doubt’ that his wife truly loved him.

Bar girls are trained to manipulate you by telling you sad stories or pretending to fall madly in love with you quickly to get you to pay up. In order to do that job successfully, a woman must learn how to abandon almost all her generally accepted morals. I suspect the reason bar girls are more likely to cheat or leave is she didn’t love him in the first place.

In short, your pops was right: you can’t turn a hoe into a housewife.

Common Sense isn’t Always Right

We’ve all seen that guy; the old man with the young chick. Most of us figured he couldn’t possibly be truly happy since he knows she’s just waiting for him to die.

Well…the data suggest otherwise. According to my research, there was no correlation between age difference in the couple and marriage satisfaction.  In fact, guys who reported an age difference of more than 30 years were slightly more likely to report that they were ‘very satisfied’ than those with an age difference of fewer than 5 years.

The Main Reason Guys Weren’t Satisfied

It’s happened to all of us. We meet this beautiful girl, there’s great chemistry, and she seems genuine. All you can think is that you want to scoop her up before it’s too late!

Hold your horses, Charlie, when analyzing the data of the men who answered that they were less than ‘very’ satisfied’ there were various answers. But one answer, again and again, was ‘She dramatically changed after I married her’ (15.79%). Other commonly cited reasons were infidelity on her part (10.53%), tampo/silent treatment (12.28%), persistent nagging (8.77%), and her family always asking for money (7.02)% and persistent nagging (8.77%)

All these answers suggest to me that the guys who were less satisfied didn’t take to time to know their partner well prior to marrying her. People always reveal their true selves and intentions you just have to be patient enough to listen.

Conclusion: Filipinas Are a Good Bet!

I was surprised just how high the satisfaction rate was for Western men who are married to Filipinas. Given the amount of grumbling you see on expat forums, I was expecting something much different. I guess it’s true that the complainers are the loudest, and the majority is silent. That being said, there are things that you can do to protect yourself, most of which are common sense:

1. Don’t meet your wife at a bar,
2. Know her family well,
3. Take your time and,
4. Understand and be ready to contend with cultural differences.

Given that just over 50% of American/American marriages are successful, I’d say you have a much better shot with being married to a Filipina. Good luck!

Methodology:

I placed an ad on Facebook targeting male expats who were married to Filipino women. Additional screening questions in the survey itself eliminated respondents who were not legally married, female, and/or of non-western origin.  I then used ordered logistic regression to draw correlations between data points. For example, men who met their wives at a bar were most likely to report lower levels of satisfaction with their marriages than any other meeting method.