The cat rant and rave

[mox 298]

we differ on this Mox. If I receive bad service from a business, for example, I feel it is only fair to tell them that I will no longer be using that business "because...." It is a service to them to inform them that they are losing money "because..." If I say nothing and go on to another business, how does that business ever have the opportunity to correct its problems. It frustrates me to no end when I must deal with the gvernment's poor service and have no choice where to go after that.

A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.

[visaveteran 1]

You recall correctly. I don't recall how much ranting I did about her here on VJ, and it's even conceivable that in my anger I might have even made disparaging remarks about "American women." I'm not perfect and sometimes impulsive in my posts. But one of the things that we're all here for is to provide support to other people, based on our own experiences. Based on my experiences, disparaging an entire gender in order to justify our own choices just creates negative energy. It is imho unhelpful. Better to concentrate on the positives.

Humor is good. I often partake in the humor myself, sometimes parodying some of the more misogynistic posting I see. But when the fun turns to nastiness towards an entire gender, it just creates a feedback loop of bitterness. We're all at various stages of starting a "new life" here, so why bring that kind of baggage?

This "baggage" costs men tens of thousands of dollars and long and difficult trips to distant lands...just to find a decent wife. When, ideally, we should find good women in our local neighborhoods. This is the pink elephant in the living room, IMO.

And Russia is only the tip of the iceberg...there are Chinese women, and Thai women, and Filipino women, and Colombian women. And on and on. American men are scouring the world for acceptable wives. Should we look to American women of today for some answers as to why men are undertaking long and difficult and expensive visa journeys?

Of course.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Humor is good. I often partake in the humor myself, sometimes parodying some of the more misogynistic posting I see. But when the fun turns to nastiness towards an entire gender, it just creates a feedback loop of bitterness. We're all at various stages of starting a "new life" here, so why bring that kind of baggage?

Agreed. It's just that it's difficult to keep my cool when I read post on here such as her's (HannahP). I mean some of the assumptions and generalizations from people...especially women on here that are made on this forum are too much to swallow. But then again I posted some broad generalizations in regards...and in my responses in regards to American women. I believe I did it for effect. From now on I'm going to try to bite the bullet and refrain from posting sarcastic reply's.

ah who am I kidding....of course I'm going to keep being sarcastic to posters such as her.....j/k

[SuperDuper! 230]

Technoviking says, Don't mess with the Mox.

[mox 298]

This "baggage" costs men tens of thousands of dollars and long and difficult trips to distant lands...just to find a decent wife. When, ideally, we should find good women in our local neighborhoods. This is the pink elephant in the living room, IMO.

And Russia is only the tip of the iceberg...there are Chinese women, and Thai women, and Filipino women, and Colombian women. And on and on. American men are scouring the world for acceptable wives. Should we look to American women of today for some answers as to why men are undertaking long and difficult and expensive visa journeys?

Of course.

I really don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm not telling you who to marry, I'm not even telling you how to marry. I think it's every person's right to find that "someone special" in whatever manner or locale they decide is best. Russia, Ukraine, China, Australia, Kuwait, or New Jersey, it doesn't matter to me, and you should never EVER feel that you have to justify your decision beyond "she makes me happy" to anyone else. And yet it just seems like the talk on this forum eventually always falls to justifying our decision, often in the form of trashing an entire gender population, usually American women. Why is that even necessary? When I married my American wife, I never felt like I had to justify my reasons or wax poetic about what traits set her above and beyond another nationalities. And the same goes with my FSU wife. We make each other happy, that's all anyone needs to know.

ah who am I kidding....of course I'm going to keep being sarcastic to posters such as her.....j/k

Ah...maybe I misread your tone then. Sarcasm in the face of attacks is approved.

[visaveteran 1]

It's about intentionality. If a man randomly meets a Russian woman and marries her, then who cares? Boy meets girl...end of story.

But when droves of American men shell out large sums of time, energy and money to intentionally look outside the USA for a wife, then we need to look at cause and effect. What social milieu exists within the USA to cause so many men to forsake American women? We all well know the hell we go through dealing with K-1 and CR-1 visas...the costs, the awful waiting, the difficult transition, the cultural differences, the language issues.

Why do we do it?

There can only be one obvious reason...those men keenly don't want an American wife. So any discussion of this phenomena is understandable. I don't think we can ever talk about ALL women, but we can talk about a preponderance of women. We can talk about trends. We can talk about social data and see what that tells us.

The emotional tone of some of these conversations--the anger or snide humor--is flowing out of wounds and hurt feelings and bad experiences. It is not unlike how so many men on the forum trash Russian men. Can we condemn all Russian men...no. Can we speak of trends with drinking, cheating, not caring for children...yes.

The topic of the US "gender wars" has been discussed for decades and many books have been written about it. It is still a topical issue.

[mox 298]

The reason more men are looking outside the US for wives is because of the internet. It really is that simple, because the internet has made it that simple. And looking outside the US is nowhere near as common as relationship services like Match.com or Friendfinder. The percentage of men looking outside the US is a pittance compared to more traditional methods and services. As proof, look at every person you knew before you ever became involved in the RU community. How many of them were married to Russians. I'm the first person I've ever known married to a Russian woman, and I've lived in some pretty urban areas. I can probably count on one hand the number of international/American couples I knew, not counting when I was in the Navy. (I have *never* known a single man stationed in Okinawa but didn't come back with a Japanese bride.) If the number of international/American couples you know amounts to any significant percentage of the couples you know (outside of friends you've made because of your situation) then you're the exception not the rule.

[mox 298]

The reason more men are looking outside the US for wives is because of the internet. It really is that simple, because the internet has made it that simple. And looking outside the US is nowhere near as common as relationship services like Match.com or Friendfinder. The percentage of men looking outside the US is a pittance compared to more traditional methods and services. As proof, look at every person you knew before you ever became involved in the RU community. How many of them were married to Russians? I'm the first person I've ever known married to a Russian woman, and I've lived in some pretty urban areas. I can probably count on one hand the number of international/American couples I knew, not counting when I was in the Navy. (I have *never* known a single man stationed in Okinawa but didn't come back with a Japanese bride.) If the number of international/American couples you know amounts to any significant percentage of the couples you know (outside of friends you've made because of your situation) then you're the exception not the rule. There is no flood of American men looking outside the US, and there is no gender war.

Edited January 4, 2010 by mox

[visaveteran 1]

You need a history lesson.

The internet dating scene did not exist in 1990 when American men started the movement to marry Russian women. I've heard about the magazines and newspapers devoted to match-making in Russia and here in the USA. And there were match-making agencies located in key spots in the FSU. And the first big US/Russian collaborative initiative to match American men to Russian women were the travel tours like "A Foreign Affair." Very expensive yet filled to capacity. Not exactly like shooting off emails to a dozen Russian women and hope you hit it lucky.

SAs to the data in the USA. The number of first time marriages between an American man and an American woman are the vast majority. Even second time marriages are most frequently between an American couple. But then you start to see more and more men marrying outside the US population. I doubt very few men marry a foreign wife the first go around. Yet that may be changing as the word of mouth reports about how great Russian women are spreads, we may see a bigger shift.

But this is nothing new...our grandfathers married many Japanese and other Asian women after the WWII.

[mox 298]

The fact is vv, there are no hard numbers to say either way. I'm not going to get into a guessing game about something that has no measurable basis. If you want to believe that there's some kind of gender war going on in the US and that men are getting sick and tired of nasty controlling overweight harpies en masse, then believe away. I think it's a fiction borne of misdirected bitterness.

In any case, I stand by my original point: there's no reason to run down an entire gender population in order to justify our choices. It smacks of insecurity, and it only serves to empower those who would label our relationships anything but the serious endeavors that they are. You didn't marry your wife because of who she's not, you married her because of who she is. Celebrate that and be happy. I really don't have anything else to say on the subject.

Edited January 4, 2010 by mox

[baron555 934]

But when droves of American men shell out large sums of time, energy and money to intentionally look outside the USA for a wife, then we need to look at cause and effect. What social milieu exists within the USA to cause so many men to forsake American women? We all well know the hell we go through dealing with K-1 and CR-1 visas...the costs, the awful waiting, the difficult transition, the cultural differences, the language issues.

Why do we do it?

VV, it sounds as if you are spending too much time reading and agreeing to the "hype" that these MOB agencies spew.

Large sums of time? YES

Large sums of money? YES

Large amounts of energy? (I'll take that to mean actually getting on the plane and then all the energy that comes after that.) NO

Very few men actually get on the plane; less than 5% by most folks who know about the real numbers.

So, why do we do it? I can't speak for them. Probably for all the "good" reasons.....unavailability of "adequate" women in their circle, poor luck with the locals, lure of foreign culture, lure of family values, lure of education, lure that these women will value them higher for their qualities then the locals, young hot & sexy.

I don't see the huge numbers of foreign women coming over to the US like many would like to see. We all are a very small minority.

[visaveteran 1]

Baron, I think you're pretty much right on the money.

I don't see an overwhelming influx of foreign brides...the numbers I found were around 12,000 foreign brides each year. In 1997 the number was 4,000, so it is growing but not really making a huge dent.

My thoughts on "the gender wars" is that this is just one manifestation...one symptom...of a decline in good relations between American men and women. The divorce rate might be another symptom or the growing number of women who cheat on their husbands. This is a newer phenomena. Now cheating is about equal between husbands and wives.

There is the growing tension at the work place as sexual harassment issues divide men and women, and create anger and resentment issues on both sides.

There is, IMO, universal confusion as to what is expected of a man and of a woman in these times? There are the bitter custody battles in court. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I think some of my reasons for turning to a Russian wife was a desire to get back to a more simple style of marriage and relationship.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Baron, I think you're pretty much right on the money.

I don't see an overwhelming influx of foreign brides...the numbers I found were around 12,000 foreign brides each year. In 1997 the number was 4,000, so it is growing but not really making a huge dent.

My thoughts on "the gender wars" is that this is just one manifestation...one symptom...of a decline in good relations between American men and women. The divorce rate might be another symptom or the growing number of women who cheat on their husbands. This is a newer phenomena. Now cheating is about equal between husbands and wives.

There is the growing tension at the work place as sexual harassment issues divide men and women, and create anger and resentment issues on both sides.

There is, IMO, universal confusion as to what is expected of a man and of a woman in these times? There are the bitter custody battles in court. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I think some of my reasons for turning to a Russian wife was a desire to get back to a more simple style of marriage and relationship.

As far as the "cheating is about equal between husbands and wives" quote in your post...negative. I read about this...in fact it was on the yahoo main page, and they did a study and the results of that study showed women were more prone (likely) to cheat then men. Of course I knew this for years, but now Iv'e read it.

[SMR 368]

The fact is vv, there are no hard numbers to say either way. I'm not going to get into a guessing game about something that has no measurable basis. If you want to believe that there's some kind of gender war going on in the US and that men are getting sick and tired of nasty controlling overweight harpies en masse, then believe away. I think it's a fiction borne of misdirected bitterness.

In any case, I stand by my original point: there's no reason to run down an entire gender population in order to justify our choices. It smacks of insecurity, and it only serves to empower those who would label our relationships anything but the serious endeavors that they are. You didn't marry your wife because of who she's not, you married her because of who she is. Celebrate that and be happy. I really don't have anything else to say on the subject.

I think Mox has a very strong point here. I guess I'm in the smaller contingent (according to VV) whose first marriage is to a Russian. I didn't marry her because she was Russian or because of what people said about Russians. I met her and liked her and after considerable effort convinced her to marry me.

The FSU woman/American man marriages are simply a matter of numbers. In the USA, there are more young men than young women. In the FSU, there are more young women than young men. I know that not only young people get married, but things are driven by these demographics.

I find the whole section of this thread about wife beating to be ridiculous. In every country and culture there are women who put up with being beaten. Domestic abuse is also a leading cause of divorce. I spent a couple years in the FSU and met many women who left their husbands who beat them, including my MIL. It didn't give them a sense of security or love.

[mox 298]

I've read the "women cheat more than men" studies too, and I call bullshit. What these studies fail to take into account are the single men who are cheating with married women. (one study I read said that the percentage of men who don't know the woman is married is almost insignificant, so ignorant men don't really come into play) If you are having sex with a person you know to be married, you are cheating too, even if you're not married. It's a moral thing, and you are by no means excused from being a cheating scumbag just because you're the half of the cheating scumbag team that's not cheating on their spouse. By that definition, cheating is almost exactly 50/50. It takes two to tango.