B_J

And, by the way, I might have been just a little bit wrong on this one. But, to be fair, I definitely think she's getting some help from her "friend".

I agree that you did nothing "wrong" or at least what you did is understandable. However, nobody is going to ask my opinion. Again, we all hope we're wrong but read what people are saying follow their advice. You are in a really bad situation and things are not in your control.

This situation is not in your control and that is not where this is headed. We all hope we're wrong but this is going to be settled in the US legal system, it's a competition between the two of you, and she's got a head start.

You have to pay attention to everything people are telling you in these latest replies. Everything about this has changed. As they have pointed out, you have now admitted to being abusive and that you need to go to counseling for your anger issues. If you are putting this in a text, you are giving her documentation of these things. You also have no idea who is sitting next to her telling her what to say. Right now, even if you have the best of intentions, and even if we're all wrong about what's going on, you need to protect yourself. Do not text her and some will probably say not to meet in person without a third person that you trust. You have to protect yourself.

It has nothing to do with the difficulty of driving, it's about the comfort of not driving. I just sit back, relax, and I still end up where I want to be.

This is cool. We went from him only viewing his wife as a commodity that he's unhappy with to now she's an evil manipulator. Is there any chance their just two normal people in a bad situation who haven't figured out how to communicate with each other?

I'm grasping at straws here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23fisMIjELw

He acts Presidential?

I think it's really 38% who are just too stubborn to admit they messed up.

This is so important. Before my wife came here, I showed her how much I get paid and I showed her what my expenses are. She, of course, was totally unaware of what expenses are like here. She just thought of all Americans as rich. But she quickly found out different. But now she totally runs all of our finances. Every bit of it. And she does it much better than I ever could.

First, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you don't view your wife as a commodity. You're just in a really bad situation right now and it's going to take a lot of understanding on your part to fix things. Something none of us seem to be prepared for is the, I guess, emotional and psychological issues involved with leaving everything in your world and moving here to be with someone. My wife wasn't prepared for it and I wasn't prepared for how it would affect her. It is definitely a common issue that people face. You're coming home to a wife that is probably depressed in a way that we can't understand. It's not that she's immature, irresponsible, or lazy. She is depressed and alone in a strange, new country. When my wife first got here, she stayed home while I worked. When I got home, even though I didn't want to do anything except sit down and relax, we made it a point to get in the car and just drive around some. Get her out of the house and let her do something; anything. And even with me doing that, she was still lonely and depressed all the time. It wasn't until she started working and making her own friends that she started to get better. The fact that you hit her is an issue. It doesn't matter how lightly you hit her, if her Filipina friend puts ideas in her head (VAWA), then you've got a real problem ahead of you. Yes, she was wrong for covering your eyes while driving but this could still go very bad for you. Also, leaving her alone while you went to the zoo was another huge mistake. Don't call it some silly tampo fit. I don't like tampo either, none of us do, but don't minimize her feelings in this. A lot of what you write, you're belittling her, making her seem less than you, using words like silly and immature. If you're able to talk to her again, you need to apologize and take full responsibility if you want to fix things. Then start letting her be more involved in decision making, like with the finances. This can be fixed but it will take lots of time and a huge amount of understanding on your part. However, if she has VAWA plans, then you're in a really bad spot.

Agreeing with most of the others that it probably makes more sense for you to pay for them to go to a quality school in the Philippines. Many of us have already paid for our relatives to go to school. You can pay for them to get a good education all the way through college that will lead to them becoming independent adults and it will easier and much cheaper than trying to get them an education here.

Yeah, that makes sense. But where we're planning on living in a few years, it's really not going to be necessary for me to drive. It's a relatively small city ( we do have a Jollibee and a Dunkin' Donuts) so I can easily get around by trike. If we want to travel to Davao or another major city, we'll still probably hire a driver. Luckily, my sister-in-law married someone who is a driver, so he'll always be there to drive us in his van if we want to go somewhere. My goal when we move over there is to build a house with a front porch. All I want to do is sit on the front porch, watch the world go by, and be happy.

I've never driven in the Philippines and I plan to keep it that way. If we're just going somewhere in town, we grab a trike. If we're traveling, we hire a driver. Either way, I just sit back and relax.

Here's a quote from an article I read recently that was actually about the protests at the homes of supreme court justices, "As the American Philosophical Association said in relation to home protests over lockdown policies, ‘The tendency to personalise the political reflects our growing inability to distinguish between public and private’. And ‘when the distinction between policy and personality is effaced, life becomes more polarised and less civil’. Indeed. If you are protesting against a policy, you will challenge the policy itself. Sometimes with a flourish of invective, of course, but your outlook and your language will be political. In contrast, if you’re protesting against an individual – because you consider him or her to be fundamentalist, evil, a threat to your emotional safety – then your approach is more likely to be fueled by animus than civic opposition, by fear or hate rather than cogent dissent. " https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/11/why-you-should-never-protest-outside-someones-home/ This shooting, as well as others such as the 2017 GOP softball shooting, seems to represent this idea at its worst. I'm really not too sure what that says about our society but we are really not in a good place right now.

Of course you are. That's exactly what you said in your previous posts. Enjoy your journey. We're all here to help.

OK Palawan, Just to help you out so that you will enjoy this site, and this particular forum, better. We're really not a group of people looking to just bring someone over and then get rid of them if it's not working out in 90 days. We're not married guys looking for "boys trips" back to the Philippines. Most of the people on this site are looking for something different than that. We're focused on our loved ones. As Lemonslice said, we care about them more than ourselves and our assets. When we travel back to the Philippines, we're going to spend time with family and loved ones. We all know how some guys view the Philippines and the women there, but this simply is not that type of place. Good luck on whatever type of journey you're on. Maybe. I hope you will learn something from this site.