I’m writing about relationships here in the Philippines. I’m really talking about the extended family aside from your wife and your kids. Most readers and followers here on LiP are foreigners (male or female) married to Filipina or Filipino. I will make an example my husband Bob, when he married me he never thought of having to know all of my relatives. Believe me, its way too much for his brain to remember all the members of my family who are close to me. I had to remind him a lot of times who I was talking about or who I was introducing him to. It really gets confusing to him. Lots of time we just kind of laugh it off. LOL
When Aaron saw his grandfather’s side of the family, his great uncles and aunt were tracing how Aaron is related to their grand kids. Same thing happened when he visited his grandmother’s side of the family in Port Townsend, they were also talking about family history. Aaron at the end got so confused and he told them, hey I’m just going to follow the Filipino way. It’s much easier for me to remember. Ha ha ha… Of course he had me to figure it all out for him. LOL
I think with Bob living here in the Philippines for a long time, I think he is just adopting the Filipino way already. I didn’t ask him though, but I think he agrees with Aaron it’s much easier to figure it out here. Ha ha ha… He doesn’t mind being called GramPa by those grand kids of ours. He is just so happy seeing those kids. One of them comes over here at the house almost every weekend. She will call him on Viber a few times a week. She will text good night to us. She’s just a joy to be with. Honestly there was a story behind it. That girl is really special to us. She was staying with us when she was a baby. I think the connection was still there when she was away for years and years. She really likes to stay with us here now. She comes to GramPa’s office and talks and made jokes. Problem is, she usually speaks in Tagalog, sometimes GramPa had a hard time understanding with Tagalog.
Are you trying to figure it out too of your relationship to your next of kin? Hope it gets easier for you. :-). Good luck and have fun with your family.
Cheers!
Yes Feyma, it can be very confusing once we start counting extended family members past sanlibo (1000). Though in my case I was already well familiar with my (now) wifes’ parents, siblings, their respective asawa and kids and I well expected it would get increasingly complex once it got to the 3rd-cousin-twice-removed-grandson stage … if I’m lucky if they remember me years later and seems that most do.
As for more immediate “extended family”, I pretty well also know their assumed “tribal” names and their kids all know my affectionate pet names for them. 🙂
Get used to it – we must expect that Pinoy families tend to be larger. Had someone joked even after I was already here several years that I would soon have a new wife and *5* babies together I would have laughed, Today enough of this annual new-baby-event! “Salamat po, pero tama na!” (Thanks but enough now!) Plus my|bayaw” each have a few more too. As for all the others, meet and greet the constantly new as life flows and consider how much harder it will be for *them* when they grow up and the “family” has by then again increased exponentially. Even today, a family reunion of only those who can attend is an incredible overflow event not to be missed.
Hi Ed – I agree it gets so confusing later. Too many family members to remember. Lol. Going to be more and more babies, the next generation will produce more babies and keeps going on and on. :-).. Then too many names to remember again. Lol.. Can’t keep up, you know what I mean? Ha ha ha…
Have fun remembering the names of your family there and good luck.:-)
Have a great day!
Feyma just taught me a good lesson. Now I know why my asawa says I am a grandpa. My niece has a baby. Thanks for the lesson Feyma.
So true, Greg. When I learned that I am a grandpa, I was so happy! It brings a little more joy to life having the kids around!
I totaly agree. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my niece’s Shaira (8) and Krisha (3) around when we were home. They are my palanga’s
Same here, Greg! I have so many nephews and nieces and I love them all. They all treat me very good, and it would be impossible to replace them! Special people.
Yes they are special people. I love mine to death. Both of them would not leave my side while we were home. They said that they were my body guards (lol)
Ha ha… that is a nice connection. Yesterday we were in GenSan for a business meeting, and see my wife’s family. Had a wonderful time, and see all of the nieces, and they mostly all have their own kids now! Wow, the family is really growing!
So far only one niece has a baby. the other two are still way to young. Yes, families grow quick. I love them all.
My wife and I got married 25 years ago, Greg. I was sitting there with all of the family yesterday realizing that the young kids who participated in our wedding (ring bearer, flower girls, etc) are all in their 30s now! They have their own kids. The thought was quite overwhelming to me, realizing that so much time has passed, and like keeps going on.
Yes it can be overwhwlming. Unfortunately time will keep marching. All we can do is keep remembering the old days and hopefully have pictures to look at.
Well, Greg, having time move forward is certainly better than the alternative. 😉
Yes it is my friend, yes it is
Hi Greg – I’m glad you learned something new from our culture today. 🙂
Cheers!
When in doubt, use a Rolodex. 😀
Great idea Norman. 🙂 … Lol
when you marry a Filipina you marry the whole family…aint that the truth …my asawa has 13 bros an sisters so you can imagine the amount of nieces,nephews grandies etc we have,,countless..it aint easy remembering dem all by the sheer volume..but I try and they know it ,,so alls fine
..even have a couple of nephews who are now nieces,if you get my drift,,,gotta love em all tho
Hi bloodymal – Ha ha ha… So true. Do you remember the names of your sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws? Since you said your wife has 13 siblings. Yep, that would be too many names to remember for you of your nieces and nephews. We can relate with you, seeing my nephews and nieces with their kids was hard to keep up for me and Bob, too many names to remember. Some of them I didn’t even know their kids.
*** if you get my drift,,,gotta love em all tho *** — I agree!
Good to see you here. Have a wonderful day!
thanks for this articcle.
Thank you Violet, glad you liked it, but I doubt that you learned anything new! 🙂 You already know all of that.
Hi Violet, you’re welcome. I’m glad you liked my post.
I think someone should create an app for this…. LoL
Hi Scott – Ha ha ha, I never thought of that. Cool one though, to have I guess. LOL
Have a good one!
Create an “app”? Wouldn’t be all that difficult. A few seconds of contemplation suggests the +what+ to accomplish and how. Coding it would be just a matter of mechanics.
The problem though – for the user – exactly who will input all that data? Without that an app is useless. Would the wife do that? I can’t even get mine to input her business costs and income – no wonder she’s always asking for my earnings to support her “businesses”, for which I created an “app” years ago. In fact I started using it myself a couple of years ago to track how much I give her for her “business”, when, and the purported expenses that there’s strangely no income to pay for. Ask her to input all her relatives names and relationships? Hehehe, no chance, so who’s gonna do that?
Creating what’s essentially a simple database “app” is easy, but who will feed it so that it actually return do something useful?
For example, query Richard
(reports all Richards so you can select one) Ooooops all the Richards are missing! On the impossible chance even one does pop up so you can ask “kids” none of his are reported. I just keep it simple in my head and nicknamed his latest “little Richard” to which he answers now that he’s 2 when his mother brings him to visit. I keep “little Richards'” mothers’ name in my head too, because an “app” would just respond to an “asawa” query with “not found”.
Great idea, but unfed apps aren’t much use..
My life has been made slightly easier due to the fact that three of my wife’s sisters don’t speak to her any more. Perhaps one day all of the wounds will be healed and I will have more names to remember. To tell the truth though I will lose sleep over it. Very disappointing though as we paid for one of the sisters to go through college. Such is life.
The extended family always cause me confusion. If I see them often enough I will remember them but please don’t expect me to remember the name of someone I met at a family party when I first went to the PI.
Cheers
AJ UK
AJ,
Did you ever consider Vietnam or Cambodia?
I know a couple of guys who are pretty happy there.
Not really Palawan Bob. I feel at home in PI and enjoy my life there. I won’t let a few family disputes force me away. On the whole we get on great with everyone except the three sisters. It was a case of one jealous person poisoning the minds of the other two.
One sister has come back to the fold as she has realised what we have done for her and her three daughters. Her father opened here eyes when she rejected us and he made her realise what she would have been without us. Things will never be the quite the same but at least her daughters still love us.
Such is life eh?
My mum once said “God chooses your family but thank God you can choose your friends”
Hi AJ – Sorry to hear that. You know it really is sad when that happens. We had similar situation with us, only thing it was our niece that did that. It hurts when their’s a kid involved with it and you cared for that kid so much. It’s already water under the bridge now. Thank God for it. We now enjoyed having the kid to our house almost every weekend.
Hopefully time heals all wounds with your wife’s family soon. Take care and God bless!
Just too cute,, no not you Bob!
I wish my ex-girlfriend had been an orphan, it was her parasitic family that made our relationship untenable. They didn’t care about what I was going to do for my son’s future, it was always me, me, me, me, me. Unfortunately my ex couldn’t side against them.
Hi Murray – Sorry to hear that. That’s not a good situation to be in. Hopefully everything will be okay for your son’s sake.
Good luck to you. Have a pleasant day!
Thank you Fred. She’s really cute, I have to agree with you on that. Lol
This post had me smiling and laughing! Enjoyed it! Took me back to memories of my 3 weeks in Calanasan-Apayao and Claveria-Cagayan this spring. Was there to try to be sure about marrying a young Ilocano woman this year, did the family meeting – passed with flying colors.
That took it all further to being included in the family, her brothers started to call me brother, etc. I was very happy for a new family with my parents gone and having lived in France for the last 19 years not seeing family, extended family so often.
Thanks for posting.
As it turned out my bride to be, turned out to have a lot less character than I had perceived, issues being revealed in the months after I departed. By summer I had to tell her goodbye.
I have a young daughter here that needs me so I do not know how my hope to marry a Filipino will materialize or if it will. The best would be to live in PI, but for now, no way I know of to make that happen without separating from my daughter.
I have read enough and seen enough to know that there is some very beautiful about spending time with large families. Was glad to taste what you wrote about briefly.
Best regards,
Ron Regnier
Is your daughter with this lady that you just ended the relationship with?
Sorry I confused you. No my daughter and I are in France, my daughter never went to PI with me.
I am in contact with a Filipino family since 1986 (Olongapo- the couple worked at home for the children of people in jail), so I have had a medium range interest in PI, enough to know one must be wise if interested in relationship with a Filipina, which I had never been, till the end of 2014.
Since one year, I have spent countless hours researching Filipino history, culture, and Filipino-Western relationships- The anti-slavery/prostitution group Love 146 has a location rescuing children form prostitution in PI,
I will explore getting work with them or some other NGO (non-profit organization) in PI…..
and I will continue to develop contact with Filipinos locally, and keep researching what might be possible.
take care
After four years in marriage with my husband with 2 kids, he suddenly
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With all due respect, the “husband” is very UNlikely to seek anything extra-marital if the wife is a proper good wife with her husband. Even if not, the husband is not likely to look elsewhere unless the wife absolutely forces him to.
Life is hard, but I don’t have a girlfriend, just a not-so-good wife. People may call me stupid because I still love my wife even if she’s not a decent “asawa”.