Warning Signs - is she using me for green card?

[honeybun]

Why was it a choice between either marriage or being together? You lost me. Just judging based on what I've read here, trying to make this distinction may have come across to her as you wiffle-waffling and having second thoughts, after you strung her along and slept with her.

 

How old is she?

[Imsoconfused44]

She's 28, never been married, no kids.

 

I can assure you I never strung her along.

 

I didn't give any context for the "either marriage or being together" thing. That would have added a lot of explanation, I think.

 

In a nutshell, early in the relationship, we BOTH agreed that we would not wait months or years to be together - married or not. It just wasn't an option for us - to painful and difficult. And, don't bust my chops too much. I am a teacher, so I am extremely limited to when I can go on vacation and for how long. So, visits to china would be very limited.

 

What you have to understand is this (and you can read my other forum question to see what that's about): she always told me that when I go to China to marry her, we can go directly to the U.S. embassy and get visa and she comes home with me. Perfect, I thought.

 

I believed that to be true until 2 weeks ago when I did a little checking just to verify. Then, when I find out that I won't be able to bring her home....OMG!!! The worst possible outcome occurs. I have to leave without her and wait for CR1 visa process - many months.

 

I think of ways to marry and still be with her: go to china and stay there (teach English) - only I find out I can't go on tourist visa and work (duh). I will get teaching job in Taiwan (she tells me she can't work - she becomes desparate housewife). She gets B2 visa while waiting for CR1 processing (remember, she already proved she is not a risk to stay in america, so who knows? It's an option, maybe). I could teach in Korea.

 

Anyway, bottom line is....I always married her in these scenarios. Today, I pitched the idea of waiting because none of these ideas were guarenteed, and I did not want to get married and find myself alone and waiting. That's it. She could not handle it.

[Randy W]

She's 28, never been married, no kids.

 

I can assure you I never strung her along.

 

I didn't give any context for the "either marriage or being together" thing. That would have added a lot of explanation, I think.

 

In a nutshell, early in the relationship, we BOTH agreed that we would not wait months or years to be together - married or not. It just wasn't an option for us - to painful and difficult. And, don't bust my chops too much. I am a teacher, so I am extremely limited to when I can go on vacation and for how long. So, visits to china would be very limited.

 

What you have to understand is this (and you can read my other forum question to see what that's about): she always told me that when I go to China to marry her, we can go directly to the U.S. embassy and get visa and she comes home with me. Perfect, I thought.

 

I believed that to be true until 2 weeks ago when I did a little checking just to verify. Then, when I find out that I won't be able to bring her home....OMG!!! The worst possible outcome occurs. I have to leave without her and wait for CR1 visa process - many months.

 

I think of ways to marry and still be with her: go to china and stay there (teach English) - only I find out I can't go on tourist visa and work (duh). I will get teaching job in Taiwan (she tells me she can't work - she becomes desparate housewife). She gets B2 visa while waiting for CR1 processing (remember, she already proved she is not a risk to stay in america, so who knows? It's an option, maybe). I could teach in Korea.

 

Anyway, bottom line is....I always married her in these scenarios. Today, I pitched the idea of waiting because none of these ideas were guarenteed, and I did not want to get married and find myself alone and waiting. That's it. She could not handle it.

 

There's no reason why you couldn't teach in China - more than a few of us have. If you get a job, the paperwork will be handled for you.

[Randy W]

It would seem that perhaps the question of why you all of a sudden want to NOT get married would be important in her mind. To her, perhaps being "alone and waiting" represents a state of insecurity that would be made that much worse by not being married.

Edited May 23, 2012 by Randy W (see edit history)

[A Mafan]

It probably wasn't that the marriage was more important than being together for her...it was that marriage represented the guarantee of future security.

 

I could write books and books and books about what I understand of the female mind, and the way it plays out in Chinese culture (in my opinion, men and women are extremely different in thoughts, emotions, motivations, etc...all women are the same, but the culture a person grows up in filters the way it is expressed...your culture tells you what behavior is acceptable, tells you *how* to achieve what you want).

 

One of the other points about it not being a binary choice is that it isn't just "She loves me and we will be happy forever" or "She is using me and doesn't love me."

 

Love and trust grow over time.

 

Everything you say and do either (and everything she says and does) either increases love and trust, or decreases them.

 

That's why you can get away with arguments and problems in your 40th year of marriage that you can't the day after you met.

 

So if you love her, you should be doing things that show her who you are, that she can trust you to do what you said you will. And you should be looking for indications of her character, her emotional reaction to different things, the way she releases emotional pressure, etc. It's hard, because EVERYONE puts on their best face early in the relationship.

 

Both men and women complain about the things that get dropped after you settle in to the relationship. Women complain about not getting the romance anymore. Men complain about not getting the sexual stuff anymore. (Crudely: I've heard dozens of men repeat this as if it were a fact: "when the marriage starts, the bjs stop")

 

So, basically, women are hypergamous. They want a man who is at least a little bit smarter, taller, more successful, richer. Women also think about a marriage as getting help in life. They want someone to help out around the house, help raise the kids, help earn money for a better life and retirement, take care of the lawn, and squish bugs. Women marry to improve their lot in life.

 

Chinese women marry because there is intense social pressure for them to marry and have children. If a woman makes it to spinster age (35 and unmarried), their mother WILL arrange a marriage for them. My wife had to beg her mom to hold off a year until she saw whether I would follow through on marriage or not. (Her parents love me...in no small part because they are grateful that she found a husband who loves her AND respects them AND supports her putting a high priority on taking care of them).

 

Also for Chinese women, regardless of your financial situation, getting to come to the US fulfills her hypergamous urge. Coming to the US puts her in a top class of Chinese women, better than the hundreds of millions that are stuck in small town, small cities, or the lowest economic rungs of the big cities. (plus, she probably doesn't have the capacity to understand exactly what your financial situation is...we tell them about mortgages and car loans and its almost like they don't hear it, because willingly and unconcernedly carrying debt loads like that don't compute for them...I think it is an instinctual cultural assumption that a Chinese man wouldn't even look for a wife until his debt was gone...this American man is looking for a wife, therefore he must not really have any debt he can't pay off immediately)

 

Because you already talked about marriage so much, when you suddenly started talking about being together and NOT marrying, you damaged the trust. From her perspective, you were not following through on your promises. You showed her you were not trustworthy anymore.

 

Because it isn't a binary choice, and because trust and love build over time, playing games like testing her to find out whether "marriage" or "being together" is more important too often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. The obsession with "red flags" or "warning signs" usually does that.

 

Humans aren't perfect. If you go looking for problems, you'll almost always find them. If you start to suspect her commitment, she'll start to suspect yours, and that never ends well.

 

Most of the trainwrecks of marriage that have been detailed in the breakup/problem section of Candle For Love could have been avoided if there had been more patience and more understanding at a crucial time. The problem is, it is very difficult to identify the crucial time. Most of the trainwrecks occurred years after the wrong choice was made...the problem festered out of sight...by the time it manifested, it was too late.

 

I'm sorry yours fell apart. If you try to get back together, remember that in her mind, this is all your fault for being untrustworthy. You will just about have to crawl across broken glass to get her to trust you again. If you aren't willing to go farther than you think is necessary to convince her of your sincerity, don't even try.

[tsap seui]

Anyway, bottom line is....I always married her in these scenarios. Today, I pitched the idea of waiting because none of these ideas were guarenteed, and I did not want to get married and find myself alone and waiting. That's it. She could not handle it.

 

Oh my, when you made that statement to the lil' darlin' did you notice the sky suddenly get darker, and the cotton all around where you were takin' yore happy and very private mornin' constitutional quickly shrink down to nothing all around you? LOL

 

Good luck buddy. Chiner wimmin is wonderful and the most most beautiful wimmin walkin' this here planet. I ain't writin' no books on Chinertuckian wimmins but if I can give you jes two simple things to remember about tryin' to set up and play house with a Chinertuckian woman...

 

1) Security

2) Do what you say, and say what you do

 

Love? ...That sucker is so far down the list I run out of fingers and toes to tell you where it is in their mind.

 

tsap seui

[haihai]

Anyway, bottom line is....I always married her in these scenarios. Today, I pitched the idea of waiting because none of these ideas were guarenteed, and I did not want to get married and find myself alone and waiting. That's it. She could not handle it.

 

Oh my, when you made that statement to the lil' darlin' did you notice the sky suddenly get darker, and the cotton all around where you were takin' yore happy and very private mornin' constitutional quickly shrink down to nothing all around you? LOL

 

Good luck buddy. Chiner wimmin is wonderful and the most most beautiful wimmin walkin' this here planet. I ain't writin' no books on Chinertuckian wimmins but if I can give you jes two simple things to remember about tryin' to set up and play house with a Chinertuckian woman...

 

1) Security

2) Do what you say, and say what you do

 

Love? ...That sucker is so far down the list I run out of fingers and toes to tell you where it is in their mind.

 

tsap seui

 

Bingo!!

[tsap seui]

Anyway, bottom line is....I always married her in these scenarios. Today, I pitched the idea of waiting because none of these ideas were guarenteed, and I did not want to get married and find myself alone and waiting. That's it. She could not handle it.

 

Oh my, when you made that statement to the lil' darlin' did you notice the sky suddenly get darker, and the cotton all around where you were takin' yore happy and very private mornin' constitutional quickly shrink down to nothing all around you? LOL

 

Good luck buddy. Chiner wimmin is wonderful and the most most beautiful wimmin walkin' this here planet. I ain't writin' no books on Chinertuckian wimmins but if I can give you jes two simple things to remember about tryin' to set up and play house with a Chinertuckian woman...

 

1) Security

2) Do what you say, and say what you do

 

Love? ...That sucker is so far down the list I run out of fingers and toes to tell you where it is in their mind.

 

tsap seui

 

Bingo!!

 

Thank ya haihai. No need to make it complicated, I always say.

 

I hope things are well with you.

 

tsap seui

[Guest ExChinaExpat]

Thank ya haihai. No need to make it complicated, I always say.

 

I hope things are well with you.

 

tsap seui

 

I agree. Avoid complicating things.

 

With all due respect to those involved here, I never fully understood the red-flag thing, or trying to figure out if she's using you. In my view, if you see a red flag, it's time to get good and honest with yourself. I think some of it is rolled into an unwillingness to accept that a woman who sleeps with you, pushes for marriage, and says she loves you, may in fact just simply not be that into you. A good rule of thumb is to remember the best person to have an honest talk with about relationship issues is none other than yourself.

Edited May 23, 2012 by JiangsuExpat (see edit history)

[DennisLeiqin]

'Wow, dern, damn, she will sleep with me? I had best try to keep her. I may never find another one like her.'

[Doug]

OK, I read both threads to try to get it.

 

Man it sounds like you found a dream girl. Why did you blow it? You are not willing to be lonely and wait for the visa? Well that is what is required. Ol T'Sapper there was one of the longest.

 

From the initial post of yours in this thread I was going to say that Yeah all that making love biz is beyond what most any of us have ever experienced here in the states, or at least me anyway. I was a love struck idiot. (Under old name here of: "SheLikesMe?" and I wouldn't read 90% of the crap I posted.) It ended in divorce, but Geeze I think the green card is not an issue for scamming with you. Maybe this is just such a huge thing for you and you are freaked out or somthing? I ruined a dang good situation once with a lady who was handicap. It was just so new to me I blew it.

 

I have no idea if you can repair this or not. I tried to slow things down a bit with an old gf once, and that ended it. A man can't hesitate about things like this. Popps the girls bubble for sure.

 

I may have ended in Divorce but I gave it a hardy Gung Hoe. And yep the best piece of ass you will ever find....

 

HELL hath no fury as a woman scorned. If I were you I would grovel, send flowers. Your about to be out of school - make a trip over. If you love her and want her, you better eat dirt for a while and see if she forgives you, marries you, you file th epapers and join all us idiots in the waiting game. Maybe you can stay there the summer? You can dang sure teach and get a visa for it. Once married you can get a one year or two year visa anyway. I don't know about working on it, but Randy W knows what he is talking about. Man has a memory like an elephant.

 

 

PS: Dennis sure has a point there. It is wonderful as all of us know. But, unless I am missing something, where is she to be suspected? They do have kind of an immature emotional outburst thing going that is way over the top of what you are used to, with lots of ugly things said that if an American woman said it would be the end, at least with some of these gals. AMafan has some good threads on this..........But if you are good about it ending then that is the best gutt call I know of. I found my ex to be emotional more fragile than anyone I ever met, something to consider.

Edited May 24, 2012 by Doug (see edit history)

[ChrisA]

'Wow, dern, damn, she will sleep with me? I had best try to keep her. I may never find another one like her.'

 

She committed herself when she slepted with him, unsure if he knows what that means to her. I understand his position, singel parent, three kids at home, it's not like he can just pick-up and go and live in China, travel yes. I hope he's able to re-connect with her.

[haihai]

Tsap

Thank you for asking, all is well, busy working and raising kids God hard to think that 10 years is coming up, it all goes by so fast, enjoy while we are here.

 

My best to you and family.

[DennisLeiqin]

'Wow, dern, damn, she will sleep with me? I had best try to keep her. I may never find another one like her.'

 

She committed herself when she slepted with him, unsure if he knows what that means to her. I understand his position, singel parent, three kids at home, it's not like he can just pick-up and go and live in China, travel yes. I hope he's able to re-connect with her.

My rhetorical post wasn't meant for anyone in particular.

[DennisLeiqin]

It probably wasn't that the marriage was more important than being together for her...it was that marriage represented the guarantee of future security.

 

I could write books and books and books about what I understand of the female mind, and the way it plays out in Chinese culture (in my opinion, men and women are extremely different in thoughts, emotions, motivations, etc...all women are the same, but the culture a person grows up in filters the way it is expressed...your culture tells you what behavior is acceptable, tells you *how* to achieve what you want).

 

One of the other points about it not being a binary choice is that it isn't just "She loves me and we will be happy forever" or "She is using me and doesn't love me."

 

Love and trust grow over time.

 

Everything you say and do either (and everything she says and does) either increases love and trust, or decreases them.

 

That's why you can get away with arguments and problems in your 40th year of marriage that you can't the day after you met.

 

So if you love her, you should be doing things that show her who you are, that she can trust you to do what you said you will. And you should be looking for indications of her character, her emotional reaction to different things, the way she releases emotional pressure, etc. It's hard, because EVERYONE puts on their best face early in the relationship.

 

Both men and women complain about the things that get dropped after you settle in to the relationship. Women complain about not getting the romance anymore. Men complain about not getting the sexual stuff anymore. (Crudely: I've heard dozens of men repeat this as if it were a fact: "when the marriage starts, the bjs stop")

 

So, basically, women are hypergamous. They want a man who is at least a little bit smarter, taller, more successful, richer. Women also think about a marriage as getting help in life. They want someone to help out around the house, help raise the kids, help earn money for a better life and retirement, take care of the lawn, and squish bugs. Women marry to improve their lot in life.

 

Chinese women marry because there is intense social pressure for them to marry and have children. If a woman makes it to spinster age (35 and unmarried), their mother WILL arrange a marriage for them. My wife had to beg her mom to hold off a year until she saw whether I would follow through on marriage or not. (Her parents love me...in no small part because they are grateful that she found a husband who loves her AND respects them AND supports her putting a high priority on taking care of them).

 

Also for Chinese women, regardless of your financial situation, getting to come to the US fulfills her hypergamous urge. Coming to the US puts her in a top class of Chinese women, better than the hundreds of millions that are stuck in small town, small cities, or the lowest economic rungs of the big cities. (plus, she probably doesn't have the capacity to understand exactly what your financial situation is...we tell them about mortgages and car loans and its almost like they don't hear it, because willingly and unconcernedly carrying debt loads like that don't compute for them...I think it is an instinctual cultural assumption that a Chinese man wouldn't even look for a wife until his debt was gone...this American man is looking for a wife, therefore he must not really have any debt he can't pay off immediately)

 

Because you already talked about marriage so much, when you suddenly started talking about being together and NOT marrying, you damaged the trust. From her perspective, you were not following through on your promises. You showed her you were not trustworthy anymore.

 

Because it isn't a binary choice, and because trust and love build over time, playing games like testing her to find out whether "marriage" or "being together" is more important too often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. The obsession with "red flags" or "warning signs" usually does that.

 

Humans aren't perfect. If you go looking for problems, you'll almost always find them. If you start to suspect her commitment, she'll start to suspect yours, and that never ends well.

 

Most of the trainwrecks of marriage that have been detailed in the breakup/problem section of Candle For Love could have been avoided if there had been more patience and more understanding at a crucial time. The problem is, it is very difficult to identify the crucial time. Most of the trainwrecks occurred years after the wrong choice was made...the problem festered out of sight...by the time it manifested, it was too late.

 

I'm sorry yours fell apart. If you try to get back together, remember that in her mind, this is all your fault for being untrustworthy. You will just about have to crawl across broken glass to get her to trust you again. If you aren't willing to go farther than you think is necessary to convince her of your sincerity, don't even try.

Nate's post made me think about my original foray into bringing her and her daughter here...

 

Always an interesting question; if I could do it over, how would it be done differently?

 

Although I am happy with the outcome and I have a good wife and marriage today, I sometimes wonder how things might have been today had my former SO and I not parted ways and I brought her and her daughter to America to be with me.

 

I doubt that I would have done anything different. I am who I am. I have learned a long time ago to be wary. I fell off that turnip truck, oh….round about 1970.

 

After traveling to meet her, exchanging rings and going off on a honeymoon - all in a matter of the first few days of arriving in Nanning - I remained skeptical. I kept asking how could this younger, (22 years younger than I) woman could love someone whom she didn’t know and could barely talk to. WTF? Was this some weird dream that I had entered? One moment I’m hunkered down, alone with my computer and in a seeming instant I am transported to Yangshoe, China with this woman who calls me her husband. OK. I go along for the ride….for the adventure.

 

After returning home, I continued to ask her ‘why does she love me?’ Today, I realize that love, as we know it, doesn’t always figure into the equation for a Chinese woman. To my good and naïve fortune, however, I did not know this and continued to ask and question her, even when she continued to assure me and tell me to ‘just believe’ and have faith.

 

It is not such a thin line that one must tread to choose to either throw ourselves in, head first, helter skelter to staying wary of red flags and questioning constantly. Yet, the question IS: were my constant questions warning flags for her that I was an untrusting and suspicious man, as she once wondered? Or, had I not questioned her would we be together today and would we have been happy together now? Who knows? Yet, I think this is the dilemma that many of us face when we venture down this road.

 

I still don’t have answers. Does one throw the dice and go at it with blind faith and hope for the best? Or, does one become an inquisitioner with the hope to find what lurks behind and underneath the soul of this exotic person who cannot talk to me and will forever be an enigma and run the risk of making her high tail herself as far away from me as humanly possible?