Need to Change???

[LastViking]

My Mahal is coming to UK 1st September and I wondered with all you folk out there living with filipino/a partners what changes you felt you needed to make to your way of living to accommodate your partners. Or did you just carry on as before and let them make adjustments to their way of life.

There are obviously cultural differences I have to learn about and hopefully not get into too much hot water with. Any tips on things I should avoid doing or should do differently. I want to make her feel as comfortable as possible in her new country without trying to make it a mini Philippines.

Open to suggestions guys and particularly any funny stories you have about the differences.

Take care

[stevewool]

the best way is to be yourself the same person that your mahal fell in love with , in time you will both change , be understanding with her and help her to understand the diferance in things here , you may have to explain many many times but try to always smile and if you do fall out over a silly thing always say sorry and smile,

[somebody]

Well of course you have to accomdate your Mahal, they have or are just about to make the one single biggest change in their Life!

The person who may have never been even to a town with tall bulidings until sorting their visa and flying to come to you. I know that is an extreme example but I think we all know of the differences between everyday life in the UK and Phill.

Any partnership should be about give or take but from the Wife and mine experience we Brits need to burden as much as we can.

Phills of all social classes and backgrounds seem to love to chat abd talk about food. Of course in their own time they will hopefully find lots of easily avaiable foods which they grow to like and use sometimes instead of phill foods or as well as.. But ask many of the Phills on here and they will get withdrawal sypmtoms if they dont eat rice regularly, i doubt its physical but I have seen times where something as simple as a mouthful of rice after say a holiday where none was on the menu looked like the same as it is for many Brit blokes the first sip of a Pint after a gruelling day at work

Also you may need to be more patient your Wife maybe clingy or not want to go out without you she wont want you to leave her alone in the House. She has most likely come from an enviroment where simply people are rarely alone there is always someone around!!
You will need to accomdate her Phone calls home they maybe at times when you wanna relaxbut of course you gotta bear in mind the time difference and her Lola may not want a call very late at night like you may have called your Mahal

If you get your food delivered depending on your Mahal she is far more likely to want to go food shopping and any other type of shopping with you in tow..

You will need to point out the difference in culture and background ie in most places no haggling although in some smaller shops the Wife often haggles and gets better deals

You will need to be on hand to explain things which we all take for granted. Please be patient its not fun for your Mahal to have no Idea how to travel on a Bus in the Uk but it does give you a great chance to bond compared to a Partner you have from the UK.

Learning together about British ways and finding brands to replace brands she uses in phill all bring you closer

Of course you dont want to try and move Phill here but you need to understand what your Wife needs. My Wife was quite young when she moved over and has more friends who are non Phill than phill in the Uk and speaks like a local has adpated and sometimes seems more British than I can ever imangine she would be. FInding it very odd to compare things with her friends and family back home ie there lack of knowledge of the outside world etc.
But she still loves and craves her chippy chips, mango juice, singag, adobo, noodles and Rice etc

Plus however much a modern trendy globaly minded londoner she is, her highlight of Rome was discovering they sell new Tagalog Pocket books in Newspaper stalls in Rome