This is not something that normally bothers me - after all I have been married twice to Thai women and have had 99% support from people who know me. The 1% never caused any problems.

But now that I have let a few friends know that I have a filipino girlfriend the result has been 100% negative. Superficially the reason is that people have seen me hurt twice and don't want to see me hurt again. But behind that is an assumption that "she" must simply be after my passport and that I am simply being a fool to fall for it again. One person actually said that.

The fact is that neither of my previous partners married me simply to get a passport, and the reasons my marriages fell apart were pretty normal for any couple. I really cannot be bothered to explain this to my friends or family, or tell them of the dozens of happy Thai / English and Filipino / English marriages I know.

How can I explain what Mae is like? How careful she is? What her hopes and dreams are? What she sees in me or what I see in her? How happy we make each other or how well we know each other?

Right now it feels like a bit of a lonely road. An hour a night on the phone / internet to Mae helps a lot. Boy can she talk! I just love listening to her. Last night it was about visiting family graves on November 1st. The night before it was about her laundry! She seems so incredibly keen to talk and you can hear how much she enjoys it! I think she has been quite lonely for a while - she does not really like going out with her friends and co-workers.

Bit of a ramble, sorry, but I needed to get it off my chest.

Ian