JonnieK

Well, I don't know whether a marriage is successful or not because it can exist for 20-30 years or may be broken immediately after I declare that marriage is successful.

However, I study about the unsuccessful marriage to avoid the mistakes and to improve mine.

A study about marriage must go through factors affected and marriage status (broken or successful). You see successful marriages at the last part as above.

A marriage lasting a long time does not necessarily mean a HAPPY one! VNese women (the older generation) are well known for supporting their hubbies, at all cost. It's not very acceptable in the old VNese tradition to have divorces in families. That doesn't mean they're happily married.

Considering the time you've been in the US (for your own personal marriage), I doubt you've collected enough real life experiences on your own to make judgement calls on what "successful" and "happy" marriages actually mean.

The fad of native VNese gals marrying foreigners (of any race) just get started recently, and for a good reason (US Consulate in Saigon denies the other marital cases b/w Vnese and Viet Kieu too often so this method is no longer effective and desired). Good luck on gathering statistics!

OP,

Thanks for sharing with us about your investing experience and lifestyle. Although your info provided here is limited, but I can infer (from what you offered so far) the following 2 things:

1) You're a gambler, an inexperienced one, since the stock market is heading into the summer, which is well known as slumber time (stocks historically tend NOT to perform well during summer times)

2) The market is at historic high and with the instability in the Euro zone (due to banking problems), it seems quite "smart" to gamble your money with a banking sector stock!!!!!

Thanks for sharing again. I hope your wife/g/f in VN still not aware of this situation. Some women might not take bad financial decision(s) well.

PS. I sincerely hope once she gets here to live with you, you would consider changing your investment (or shall I call it, speculating) behavior. Bad financial moves will and can destroy marriages in a blink.

After passing the painful legal process of visa application, what can Asian women get in the US if they do not know the law? John Marzulli reports one case of a Vietnamese woman, Ly Huong, who did not know clearly about the law and overreacted to her broken American marriage by fleeing to Vietnam with her daughter. She was arrested and accused as a child kidnapper in the U.S. court (Marzulli). A mother can be accused as her own child’s kidnapper? This is a concept that a Vietnamese woman never knew. I think, in this case, she may have simply thought that living on her country is safer than the U.S., so she stayed in Vietnam with her little daughter until the day Ly Huong came back to the U.S. to watch her father’s martial art performance and got arrested. This is just one of the unfortunate cases of the Asian women who are unfamiliar to the new country, new tradition, and new law.

So, after passing the test at the interview of visa application, the Asian women must know about the law to survive on the new land. Some of these Asian women even cannot speak English, so they have limited knowledge about this immigration law. The issue is in the visa application process; the husbands have to guarantee and sign on an affidavit to support financial resources to their immigrant wives. Then, in case the divorce happens, the male American citizen has to pay for this guarantee. To avoid this expensive support to their ex-wives, the American husbands could try to accuse or set up their ex-wives for any crime or even send a complaint to USCIS to declare that their wives only use them for gaining an American passport. Under immigration law, if the wives who are only permanent residents are convicted, they will be deported. In many cases, the husbands were successful to convict their wives by their attorney’s help. So, the wives come to the U.S. as baby makers. They make the children for American citizen husbands, then are deported to their own countries, and lose their children’s custody right because of a prejudiced legal action that they don’t know about. This is not better than the tradition in feudal culture that the women have no value and are just baby makers for their husbands in Asia.

If these Asian wives do not violate the law and do not have any mistake in the first three years, what they could get in the US? The second issue is: In addition to the unfamiliar laws and traditions, the Asian women’s culture shock and English ability affect on their marriages. Homesickness makes these wives seriously depressed. Even though, a lot of Asians move to and live in the State of California increasing the population of Asians like the China Town (Chinese), or Orange County (Vietnamese), and some other concentrated areas to make them feel like in their home country, but California is just one state in the US and they are still the minority population groups. The change of weather, the change of food, and the change of language make the Asian women not able to go to work. They have to stay home with children or to study for a new degree that is accepted and credited by the new country.

Therefore, the requirements of the American labor force and educational system force these women to have to study again to have a certain English language and education level which is acceptable to work in the offices, or they have to work in the manual labor jobs such as nail technician, waitress, or even gardeners. Those jobs are not better than their jobs in their own countries before they came to the US. Studying or jobless mean that these women have no income and must depend on their American husbands, the sponsors.

For some Asian women, who are luckier with a good support from their husbands, these women can come to school to study for a new career or to update their educations. However, it still takes them at least three years of working hard in school to complete a college degree and at the same time taking care of a new baby if any. It means their life is relatively poor because only one husband’s income supports to the whole family.

For other Asian women, who marry to husbands with limited financial sources, these women have to work and take care of their children. Without education and language abilities, their jobs consist of manual work even if in their country, they used to work in business administration or own their own businesses. Some Asian women even used to work for the international companies or corporations on their country with a good salary, but they quit those good jobs to move to the US, then they must study and look for a job again.

Nobody "forced" those women to come here, the US, for whatever reason. Economic reason, as mentioned in your writing, hardly is a valid excuse. The majority of those women often come back to visit VN as early as the very first year they're here in the States. In this kinda hard down-turn economy, some ppl barely can afford to have proper nutritious food on their dinner table. Yet those women don't mind spending thousands of dollars going back to their birth country, for whatever reason. They're hardly "economically challenged"!!!!!

As I mentioned before in my first post in this thread, these women's "suffering" is miniscule compared to other VNese women who lost their lives on the Pacific ocean, some being raped like animals by pirates. Those women HAD NO CHOICE. If they didn't leave Vietnam, they would be put in prison (or their husbands already spent time in VC's prison, which was a violation of the Geneva Convention agreement in regards to treatment of war prisoners). Their children would not be allowed to have adequate education. And if they were lucky enough to survive their journey on the high sea (unlike your women who spent some 20 plus hours on A/C airplanes with food) and stepped their feet on the land of freedom, USA, they do not have the liberty to go back to Vietnam, their birth country, in the event they failed to adapt to the new life here. They certainly do not have the luxury to travel back to Vietnam a couple times a year for fun. They know failure is not an option for them. They MUST PREVAIL. They already know that when they drifted on the Pacific ocean for days, weeks, months. They know the true meaning of "life, liberty, and happiness."

And most importantly, they know those special, and precious items are NOT free and don't fall off from the sky. They've paid dearly with their lives once before and they know what it takes to preserve those items in their hands........................

Don't take things for granted!!!!!!

Which women deserve more sympathy now?

What do you base the statement "You WILL FAIL" on?

He actually is in a better position than most when it comes to proving the relationship if they have ben living together for as long as he says... I wonder how the House book documents it since its actually against the law in VN for them to be living together... The only hurdle I really see aside from the house book is the having somewhere to stay and work etc in the US if he does a DCF... and thats not a big hurdle...

Please see my post right above. Pay attention to what I highlighted in bold as part of the OP's post. With that kinda attitude, IMHO, I'd think it's a waste of time to input any further comment/thought towards the OP of this thread. I'm out.

We have been living together, but I actually didn't even mention that in my posting because I know it will have no bearing since it's not legal in the first place.

Her family is of average wealth. I've been teaching English in Hanoi for the last two years. Her family doesn't approve of her not being married at age 31, dating and living with an expat, etc. She really doesn't care and neither do I. I've never even met them and we're in the same city.

We're not going to lie or be dishonest with ourselves by having a big party and following traditions in that regard. We'd just fly to Bangkok to get married if that were the case; that way we could avoid this Vietnamese wedding issue. But that's not a good option for us right now.

She writes and speaks English better than most Americans. Honestly. My feeling is that her non-traditional attitude and sense of self will be really evident, so not having wedding and engagement parties will seem like the logical extensions of her personality that they are.

As far as DCF, based on my research DCF isn't possible in Vietnam anyway.

Dear OP,

Do you realize the US Consulate in Saigon does have employees who understand the Vietnamese traditional customs and WILL EXPECT people like you, petitioners and beneficiaries alike, to strictly abide them?

She (your wife/girlfriend/whatever you call her) might not care but they (the US Consulate officers) will and they do have the power to MAKE you 2 do the same, whether you 2 care to or not.

Start changing your and her attitude if you desire to put your hands on that Visa.

"Luoi khong xuong, nhieu duong lat leo." Chi hay la anh gi do, viet sai chinh ta nhieu qua'. Mat goc Vietnam roi :-((

Vay thi em thich noi sao cung duoc ma? Ai biet la yeu that hay gia? Dieu quan trong la cuoc song moi tren dat My co hanh phuc nhu nguoi ta mong muon hay khong?

Sure about that part Hien? He still keeps his VNese last name and so will his children, how about you? Will your children bear a VNese last name? Who will preserve the VNese heritage if every woman is like you?

First, can an international marriage give Asian women a better life and marriage?

Under Asian people’s point of view from poor countries, which are limited by media and the education level, they always see on television, in films, or even on internet that American citizens always move by car on large streets, stay in beautiful and convenient houses, and eat burgers all the times. That is very nice, convenient, and completely different from their countries, where the weather is very hot and dusty with unsafe vehicles as motorbikes and bicycles (like in India, China, and Southeast Asia). They don’t know that these American citizens pay for their houses and cars by mortgages, so if they lose their job, they can lose their cars and houses. Furthermore, these American citizens have to eat burgers because they have no time to cook at home. Unhealthy food seems convenient and delicious for some poor Asian people, who usually eat vegetables and rice.

Furthermore, on the other side of this issue, according to the statistics of American government, the US has the highest divorce rate comparing to European countries in the nearest time, from 2005 to 2008 (US Census); therefore, after the first or second marriage fails, many male American citizens want to look for a woman from another country with hope for a better marriage. In addition, a chance of mixed culture in their family sounds interesting. So, they aim to Asia where the tradition of men-dominated exists, and the Asian women might be more patient with their men. Knowing that this is a good business, international marriage brokers tried to persuade the women in the poor countries, especially the communist countries, that a marriage to an American man is the best option and best method to change their lives. These broker’s promises are very attractive to these communist countries’ women because they are dreaming to escape the communist legal system and poor economic environment.

However, from 2006, the US government issued and applied a new Act, Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act, to limit these marriage brokers and protect the immigrant women (http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Laws/Memoranda/Static_Files_Memoranda/Archives%201998-2008/2006/imbra072106.pdf). The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—USCIS—began to apply this process to check the background of the husbands for the purpose of immigrant brides’ protection. If these men pass the criminal background check, USCIS prolongs the process to make them have time to judge their relationship and marriage. The legal process requirements of the immigrant spouses are at least three years after the date of receiving a permanent resident card to apply for American citizenship. So, these immigrant spouses only can be sure that they can continue staying in the US after three years marriage if the marriage status is still good and if they are without a felony record. It seems like the immigration agencies try to protect both sides and their marriages.

The above regulations are the reactions from the authorities. How about the news, which affects American citizens’ thoughts? Until 2011, five years after the above Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act was issued in 2006, Victoria Thompson and Edward Lovett reported about the mail order bride and investigation about the American citizen men who play an important role in this adventure. Their abc News’s article showed how the American men were impressed in their tour searching for mail bride order: “Women outnumber men 25 to one” (http://abcnews.go.com/US/online-international-marriage-broker-promises-men-love-women/story?id=14326719). However, the men are portrayed as the vulnerable persons later.

Hien, you've left out the "other" important details of the "BIG" picture: all those women (VNese, I don't dare to refer to the other Asian ethnics) that came here in the US, then falsely accused their hubbies for domestic abuse (by setting them up with calling cops for false arrests, knowing the law is leaning on their sides. They sometimes intentionally created their own bruises and scratch marks, etc). Some women are decent and patient enough to wait til they've got their perm 10-year GC. Some just don't care. They hire pro-bono lawyers right after setting their feet in the US and start to legal process to put their feet on their hubbies' behinds.

Don't take me wrong. Your ESL essay is wonderful. We've got your point but your "survey" here is very heavily opinionated and biased.

PS> Hien, if honestly you think anyone should not take a chance to "gamble" by marrying someone from a country half the world away, (and this will apply to VNese perfectly), feel free to seek freedom on your own. You're a VNese, so you should be aware of the boat people of the 1980's. They risk their lives for freedom without DEPENDING ON ANY ANYONE ELSE. Heck as of today, there are still people who get stuck in a limbo in Thailand, waiting for their approval to come to the US (Con Dau people)!!!!!!

And I certainly don't see those boat ppl whining about their "miserable" lives, either on the high sea or here in the US. Their first few years here in the States surely were nothing but difficulties and obstacles. Their trip was nothing compared to your trip (on an A/C equipped airplane and someone was paying the cost for you)

You've asked our opinions. Here's mine: You WILL FAIL. Why? Spend some time reading this forum extensively.