Redditors who married mail order brides from Russia or the Philippines, what surprised you the most when you started living with your spouse?

Throw away because family.

My uncle did when he was 65.

His bride was 37.

For a start.

It was weird and he tells how she'd cook meals and stand behind him so she couldn't be seen but could attend to anything he wanted.

She would insist he finish before a massage and being tucked into bed she seemed under the impression that a man was to be kept like a king and she was there for food and sex.

She would only eat for herself after he was asleep.

He tells us he had to metaphorically beat the submissiveness out of her.

Now, 14 years later, they have three kids.

She is fucking insane in that feel insane kind of way, and more a part of the family than most of the extended family I grew up with.

Cultures well and truly blended beautifully.

And when she visits, I get substantially fatter.

I used to coach a handicapped bowling league.

It was one of the most fun things I've ever done.

There was a blind guy though, in our group who bowled with help of a guiding rail to know where to aim the ball.

He was a funny guy who always joked about his blindness.

So I saw this really cool car this morning kind of humor.

If he played badly, he blamed me because I was the one who set up the rail and made sure it pointed at the pins.

Anyway, he admitted that he'd had zero luck dating girls and married a Filipino girl he found in a paid marital service.

He was the first person I knew who'd done this.

He visited her three times in the Philippines before they got married.

Then he married her in Manila and brought her back to Australia.

Honestly, she was the loveliest girl.

She was quiet when they came up together, but he said she was very loving and cared for him a lot.

I'd never seen him happier.

They have two kids and are still together.

This was 15 years ago.

Ensure it sometimes, maybe often, works out badly, but Bill and his wife are a great couple.

It made me appreciate how hard it can be for handicapped people to have relationships or find love and happiness.

Another guy in the group was Ivan.

He was 6 feet 5 and a fucking giant man.

He was mentally handicapped, 40 years old and strong as hell.

I always considered him like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

He was a great guy, just like a big kid.

When we bowled he used a 16 LB ball and would rocket it at the pins.

He'd smash the hell out of them.

He somehow broke 2 bowling balls, house balls during my time.

The best part was when he hit the pins he would hoot and scream like mad.

Even if he only hit 1 pin he looked like it was the best thing in the world.

He got a lot of strikes and it was deafening to hear him scream and sheer excitement.

I worked hard to try and slow him down but there was no stopping him.

He'd just launch balls at the pins.

I've never met anyone as strong as he was.

Last story is a girl called Louise.

She was 13 and had some kind of brain tumor.

Basically, it was inoperable and affected her brain's ability to function properly.

She didn't go to school because the tumor could apparently explode at any time and it would kill her instantly.

Her parents treated her like a Princess and she had the time of her life.

She even went to the Snee land with Australia's Make a Wish foundation.

Doctors said she'd never make it past 10.

She died when she was 15.

I was always a very good bowler and offered to coach the disabled league on a whim.

I really didn't give it much thought.

I just said sure, why not.

But it turned out to be one of the most amazing things I've ever done.

It was a fucking fabulous experience and I got to meet some amazing people.

For an acquaintance of mine, the biggest surprise was finding out that when his wife was sending money back home to her family, it was to her husband, not ex and kids in the Philippines.

I work in the oil field and a common themis divorce.

A Kawaka was divorced by his wife of 20 years and she took half of everything.

He later decided to get a mail order bride from Brazil.

He was working offshore there at the time.

She was smoking hot but 6 years later developed terminal cancer.

Before she died he ordered another bride from Thailand and she took over the regular house chores and took care of the Brazilian.

He told me the story when I was offshore talking about my girlfriend and confirmed it with photos and by other coworkers.

Welcome to the oil field.

I lived in Ukraine as a teen and I used to get flowers handed to me on the street stating that I could live in America guaranteed if I joined a dating site.

It was one of the most fun things I've ever done.

We had an elderly man, probably in his 90s, come to us to request a visa for his 20 year old fiance.

Turns out it was his 4th 20 year old bride and he just kept getting them because he was lonely and felt like he was helping them.

I used to teach us all and tefill and taught many women who had married through agencies.

They were all supporting people back home.

The husbands were by and large nice enough guys who didn't have the most amazing social skills.

A few ladies were past 45 and looking for a new adventure in life.

They spoke about sex the same way they spoke about housework or any task to be completed.

They were also doing it to have kids in safer, healthier places.

None of them were in love with the men, but they all loved them.

The men all adored them.

Just worship the very ground they walked on.

On average it seemed to work out as well as more traditional arranged marriage as we in the West think of as commonly happening in places like India.

Not me, but a guy I knew in the Navy.

He was a little socially awkward so he got a mail order bride from the Philippines.

When she showed up she was gorgeous, great body and a fantastic set of tits.

They got married as soon as he was able to route the paperwork.

He showed up the next day somewhat distressed and made the mistake of telling everyone in the division that she was a he.

We had to sit through two hours of command training so we'd stop making fun of him.

I worked with a guy that married a mail order bride from Thailand.

Guy was one of the creepiest, most disgusting person I've met since he rarely took a shower or brushed his teeth.

I saw his then wife a couple of times.

She was extremely attractive and I wondered how she managed to endure that guy.

Anyways, after several years of being married, she got the Swiss citizenship and divorced him.

He had bought tons of houses and property in Thailand but were registered in her name since foreigners can't legally own property in Thailand as far as I know.

She basically did a long term scam and got the best of him in the end.

Now he lives in single bedroom apartment while his ex-wife is back in Thailand.

Throw away because I'm ashamed.

In short, it surprises me how fake it all seems.

There was no emotion in anything she would do.

I could always tell she was uncomfortable.

It seemed like she was just doing a job.

I somewhat pitied her in a way.

She would cook, clean, offer 6, whatever.

Pretty much what you want from your wife.

But the passion, emotion, warmth, everything that makes a marriage actually work was lacking.

Looking back, I should have expected as much.

I was not naive to think it would be any different.

I thought it would fill a void, but it didn't.

I regret that decision, but I've moved on now.

You could liken it to a gold digger, but it was much worse.

At least with a gold digger it isn't painfully obvious and you might actually convince yourself she likes some aspect of you.

In a way she does.

She likes your wealth.

A mail order bride is just being paid outright.

A guy I went to college with did it.

He was a total neck bird, but a nice guy.

No social skills.

Sort of an Asperger's case.

She was from Ukraine or Belarus or something.

Fairly hot.

Anyway, she walked all over him as soon as she could.

She brought over one family member after another so they were all living in his house on his dime and he was too much a pussy to say no.

Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents.

Like a gypsy camp.

Eventually she brought over her boyfriend and at last I heard he was sleeping on a cot in his own garage.

I didn't marry a mail order bride that I used to work a job that required me to go into people's houses and one was obviously a mail order bride.

She did not speak English and just sat in a chair staring at the wall looking very depressed.

They had a ridiculous amount of humidifiers in the home so that it could be more like where she came from.

He hung a huge picture of the two on the wedding day above his bed and while he was smiling she wasn't even looking looking at the camera and just looked so depressed.

Reading through the comments I realized that my mom is slash was a mail order bride.

I think I knew that I never really believed it so thanks Reddit.

I just went through an entire cycle of acceptance regarding this throw away because my usual user name is literally my name.

After my dad's divorce from his first wife he did a lot of mixers and singles parties.

He was freaking out that he was almost 50 and was the only one out of his siblings without a family.

My favorite part of this story is that he said the last straw before he turned to dating magazines was when he went to a dance, 4 singles and had to escape out of a bathroom window from a very aggressive gay man.

So he sent letters to all the women he was interested in and then planned his trip to meet all of them in their respective countries.

The woman before he met my mom actually tried to trap him in a room when she found out there were other girls he was planning to see.

I'm glad he kept going after that because he went on to meet my mom in the Philippines.

They had a connection and began dating until he brought her back to the States and got married.

Reviewing this story now, I can't believe I didn't think it was a mail order bride thing.

For years I would deny it by saying it was a dating magazine, but I can see why my parents really love and work well together.

Reading about how most men that get a mail order bride are, I can confirm that my dad is kind of a socially awkward guy.

He has the goofiest quirks and he dotes upon my mom.

My mom is definitely not subservient, she is the one who calls the shots.

But there is give and take and I love them to death.

Similar story to the top post.

My dad married a girl from the Philippines years ago after my parents divorced and at first I was concerned about the situation and also felt angry about the whole situation.

Parents breaking up, him starting a new life and family ETC.

But they have been married for 10 or 12 years now, have three awesome kids and she does a great job at picking out gifts for us Anon birthdays and Christmas.

She's very nice and has done good at changing some of the bad things about my dad.

I'm very happy for them.

Pretty sure my uncle did this with a Romanian woman.

He owned a moving company and it was all under the disguise of he met her while moving her from the Romania to the Yusaha.

I was young at the time and didn't know what mail order brides were at the time.

I still don't know if he ordered her or not.

No one in my family has ever mentioned it and I'm in my 30s now.

They divorced after the two year mark where she was legal to be here in the states.

So my uncle awarded her was paid to bring her here under marriage agreement.

Or they really met while he was moving her and the marriage fell apart.

Coincidentally at the two year mark.

She was hot.

I have been told by many a German woman and German men would really like me.

I don't know exactly what this says about me, but if any German men aged 28 to 34 are looking to move to America and be my food and sex provider, I'm able to pay some patents that you're surely worth more than.

Don't worry, I'll wait for the applications to flow in.

First off, I realized I did male wrong 'cause I was clicking autocompletes on my phone but I'm too lazy to change it.

I'm.

The only thing I can think of is that she is very open about sexuality compared to most girls.

One of our first times out with my group of friends she was talking about how she sleeps naked and hates clothes.

My friends girlfriends did not seem happy about her bringing that up in front of their boyfriends lol.

It is not uncommon for her to talk about our sex life in front of others.

It used to embarrass but I just got used to it.

I'm 35, have mild moderate cerebral palsy.

Not bad enough to need a walking apparatus.

Anyways, when I was about 27 I started looking.

It took me like a year and a half and about 20 to chaos.

So to do it.

I have a decent job and make about 60 KA year.

She has lived in the US prior and her student visa got denied.

She was sent back home for four years.

So she spoke good English and was educated.

I told her that I would I was looking for a best friend type relationship when we started talking online and through Skype that I didn't want her to stay with me if that wasn't what she wanted.

We've been together 5 to 6 years now.

It is a couple's relationship.

She is very out of my league.

She does send money home to her mother and sisters in the proper trosc SP but it is all only income from the bank she works at.

It's not all her income either.

Usually she is talking to her sister and sends a bit here and there.

I probably actually spend more money on my nieces for Christmas than she sent back home.

She is unable to have children because of cancer when she was in her teens, which I was OK with.

She mentioned that in her profile.

Probably a turn off for many on those sites.

Not sure.

Most of our nights are spent sitting outside on the patio while drinking and talking.

Plus I like that she is independent.

I wasn't looking for a yes woman or someone who would act as if they liked everything I did or agreed with me on everything.

I don't know why, what else to say?

Maybe a lot of her customs were lost during her time here before she does cook.

Some odd stuff when she does cook.