Advice on dealing with family in the province

[Nickleback99]

...and Gene's last comment is the hardest to come grips with but oh so true. Make sure family Knows you are only worth anything to them Alive. No talk of insurance or continued survivor benefits to her frm retirement etc. Ur gal as noted has a great heart and that is both good and bad for u, but very endearing quality overall. As noted, you marry her?...u marry her family. My wife said, and I agree, that we need take care of parents, but she is not going to shoulder her siblings and their too many kids. Well she how she holds I guess. As friend of mine in Angeles said to his," If you keep giving away our $ to all the family without making them work for it, we'll not have a pot to piss in.". He luckily has handicrafts manufacturing biz there and only offers them jobs for pay and some bennies. Again, best of luck. Best regards, Jay

[HVACman]

Reading the OP's post makes me feel very happy that my wife does not have any close family left in the PI. Having said that, she, and the rest of her siblings do help each other and their parents as best they can when the need arrises... and they've all been here in the states for more than 20 years.

I'm a Cano, and my uncle has lived in Philippines for the past eight years. The first time I saw him in about 10 years (last year) he asked if he could borrow $5K dollars.

How's that for irony.

OP I wish you luck. As long as you can afford to help then do so, but I would not 'help' to the point where it could effect my future financial needs and goals. +1 on what everyone is saying about getting tough. Do not feel guilty about saying 'no'.

[Gene and Viol]

Originally Posted by HVACman

Reading the OP's post makes me feel very happy that my wife does not have any close family left in the PI. Having said that, she, and the rest of her siblings do help each other and their parents as best they can when the need arrises... and they've all been here in the states for more than 20 years.

I'm a Cano, and my uncle has lived in Philippines for the past eight years. The first time I saw him in about 10 years (last year) he asked if he could borrow $5K dollars.

How's that for irony.

OP I wish you luck. As long as you can afford to help then do so, but I would not 'help' to the point where it could effect my future financial needs and goals. +1 on what everyone is saying about getting tough. Do not feel guilty about saying 'no'.

Just a note--I'm having fun reading the posts you guys. Life and attitudes really ARE different here in the "jungle"...

Hey, can I borrow $5grand too? Hahahahahaha...

Gene

[HVACman]

Originally Posted by Gene and Viol

Just a note--I'm having fun reading the posts you guys. Life and attitudes really ARE different here in the "jungle"...

Hey, can I borrow $5grand too? Hahahahahaha...

Gene

Get in line, Gene.

BTW, I said no, and all is good as long as i bring him a bunch pf Portugese linguisa whenever I visit.

[Gene and Viol]

Originally Posted by HVACman

Get in line, Gene.

BTW, I said no, and all is good as long as i bring him a bunch pf Portugese linguisa whenever I visit.

Linguisa- are you kidding? I'd KILL for some linguisa!!! I use to have family in the little seaside town of Pescadero California and would go there for and get linguisa. Absolutely the best stuff in the world and have never found it here in the Philippines. Was just thinking and remembering when I was a kid, there was a very small restaurant in Pescadero that served a great linguisa sandwich at lunch time. Man I can still taste it!!!

Gene

[Angel1403]

Hi,

As most folk have said its a common problem....I'm very lucky as my wife agrees with my opinion re sending money.

We send her mom a set amount each month, to be shared in the house, but they also work, mom, dad etc. They stop working and the allowance stops. We are not working to support lazy folk

I made it clear from the start that I married my wife, not the family....If my wife was after money, marry someone else.

Thanfully my wife was after love and married me

Of course at times we send extra money, all her sibling birthdays, parents birthdays they get a set amount for a party that the whole immediate family can enjoy.

We also give them nice Chrismas gifts....recent gift a 32inch lcd tv

However, I have also noticed they dont show much gratitude...strange....also sometimes the bros,sis, mom etc dont chat online unless they are asking for something or speaking about gifts they are getting...

That p****s me off big time

However, that just results in them getting less

It p****s me off that they dont chat to their daughter, sister enough, but my wife tends to ignore it, though I guess it hurts her a bit grrr

So my advice, set the rules and stick to it.....If they dont learn, send nothing, then they will learn fast

Also encourage them to work, maybe suggest if they work you will send an allowance, if they dont work, no allowance

Good luck, your girl sounds nice too

Originally Posted by starlightexpress

Dear all

This is my first post on this forum and I hope I found the right place. I wanted the viewpoint of some people more experienced with the culture there and I really hoped to benefit from your ideas.

Although I am not resident in the phillipines, my fiance is, and I'm considering either living there or moving her here. My concerns actually surround the way her family in the province behaves which I find to be a problem so please let me explain.

I realise that life in the province is difficult. However, at the moment we seem to be receiving demands for money on a weekly basis. We are now refusing to pay these, but this doesn't seem to stop the incessant hassle. Usually the demands are clearly bogus - 'we have no rice', or 'so and so is sick'. The most recent was along the lines of 'X is sick he has dengue fever we need 1000p for a blood test'. We replied 'ok what's the tel number of the doctor you saw and his name.' Reply: 'oh he is away'. After more pressing the true story is 'oh the test is negative'. You get the idea.

We recently paid for and bought a house for her parents to live in. I have no problem with that. However I do have a problem when there is no 'thank you for the house' and in an argument the most recent statement that REALLY offended me was 'That house wasn't even a million pesos. Our neighbours daughter had a foreign boyfriend and he did this and that...' It seems like there is just an expectation all the time. It gets very wearing to be treated as an ATM machine the whole time with no 'thank you'. I of course have no problem helping people who are hungry - or giving gifts - but it really upsets me that there is an expectation that I have to pay for them and they aren't helping themselves.

So far my policy has been so say 'no' to almost everything. However my fiance finds it difficult - so hard I am worried her head will explode. She has constant arguments with them on the phone with lots of shouting. The province believe that its her duty to support them, and support her siblings too. We have a situation where the mother and father aren't working, several brothers and sisters aren't working either, and the allowance that she WAS sending [she sent 4000 a month for the past ten years and basically sent everything she had to the province whatever they asked for] was being spent, I suspect mainly on alcohol and lavish meals, and then there were still always constant demands for more money. Since of course 'the forgeign bf' has come on the scene - the demands have worsened and become more frequent.

In the past she has send them money for a "rice business' - that lasted about2 weeks - money for 'a fish business' - that lasted a few weeks - money for medical conditions that I suspect weren't real - and the list just goes on and on. Although she is getting better she seems to have a real blind spot when it comes to her family who seem willing to say and do almost anything to just get money using any means at all. I admit that I'm at my wits end and alarm bells are ringing loudly.

I wonder have any people here had similar experiences? What did you do? This really doesn't sound like reasonable normal behaviour to me - is this because of a culture difference between myself (working in a bank, educated, western) and the province (not educated, living in bahai kubo) or is it just simply that this family is ruder and more idle than most? What are people's experiences?

I know the following:
a) Life in province is difficult.
b) Culturally a lot of people expect the kids to support the parents.
c) Everyone thinks that westerners have money to burn.
d) Filipina women are close to their familes.

But at the same time I'm finding it hard to match that to my own expectations that:

a) I don't mind helping someone who is working and helping themselves.
b) I'm not working to support people who sit and do nothing but drink red horse all day and constantly ask for handouts.
c) I do expect a 'thank you' and some gratitude for buying someone a house rather than 'that house wasn't even a million pesos' - I mean - am I being unreasonable when I think this is really very rude?

Any opinions, experiences would be most welcome - gleaned from either life there, or life abroad whilst dealing with the phillipines.

Thanks
John

[anahuda]

.be tough to say no.
.help reasonably but make sure they dont make stories if you find that its reasonable to help them.
.you taught them how to catch the fish but still they want to be feeded.
.give allowance or give gifts for special occassion and thats enough.
.they will survive even if you will not send money because they have survived even if they dont know you before.
God knows your heart if you will say no so dont feel guilty and you have to talk to your asawa what is your plan. you are the MAN of the house so think properly for your future.

[Nickleback99]

Another way to get ropes in is becoming Godfather to all the nephews and nieces...I am same to one child of each of my sis in laws , two of whom keep having baby after baby they cannot afford. Of course I know it means I and wife ate responsible for ea of those kids should something happen to parents. Such as it is! But that is all.

[huckleberry658]

alot of users in the phils, but on the other hand alot of us have fabulous extended family there.

my advice is to set a monthly allowance, and they must stick to it it or else. by the way, how did they survive before you and your money came along?

we send a set amount each month, modest amount.

my wifes family is precious. they are embarrassed to recieve money, and nanay makes her husband and brothers get on the phone each month and personally thank me for sending money.

i do other things when i can afford it, like buying them a boat, or tv or renuvating the house, but they have never asked for it.



i feel i have been very blessed to have such a wonderful extended family, and i did bring their daughter halfway accross the world and they miss her dearly.

set a boundery and stick with it, if they cant abide, skip a month or two of their allowance, and maybe they will be more gratefull.

This is how I truly feel about most of the people in the philippines who marry foreigners: the family feels entitled to things ... like we OWE them something. There is a saying that goes something like "if you marry a pinay, you marry her entire family." Give a finger, they want a hand. Give your hand, they want your arm. It never stops with many people. My pinay and I do help her family in the province, but they are grateful and do not push when they don't need. Truly good people.

Here's a story that I hope helps you deal with your situation more:

I once dated a girl whose family had truly nothing and lived in a shack. I felt bad that their family had no electric, so I bought them a generator (they lived away from the city). But I didn't help them actually, because they then had the problem of needing to pay for gasoline. The more I gave them, the more problems they had. So the lesson I learned from this is that sometimes it's best to not try to help them. In that case, I didn't give them a solution .. I only gave them more problems.

There is a loosely-related post on this site. You can find it as something like:

being-scammed-filipino-woman


Good luck with your situation there.