Do you personally know of any successful mixed couple marriage in Taiwan where the woman is a non-Asian westerner and the guy is a local Taiwanese who has not lived abroad?
Most relationship talked about in the forum is the other way around.
Yes, I know of one such couple - Sandman is acquainted with them as well.
I am? Refresh my memory. Oh, you mean the poster named pijiu?
I know of one couple who fit your description. They have both been married before and have grown-up children from their previous marriages.
Seems to work very well for them.
I know of only one, and they don’t seem too successful. They didn’t know each other long before getting married, and while the gal is a bright, interesting woman who wants to get out and learn and do new things, the guy doesn’t seem too bright, is utterly lacking in personality or interests, and wants his gal to stay at home to have his babies and watch TV with him.
The conflict doesn’t necessarily have that much to do with culture, though, as I also know a local couple (both locals) in pretty much the same situation, and they ended up divorcing.
Basically, people need to be compatible, and they certainly need to know each other well before marrying. My mom always told me that you should date for at least 2 years before making such a big decision – you need some time for some of the magic to wear off and to go through some episodes of difficulty together to see if you can handle those.
[quote=“Dragonbones”]The conflict doesn’t necessarily have that much to do with culture, though, as I also know a local couple (both locals) in pretty much the same situation, and they ended up divorcing.
[/quote]
However, everything being equal, the mixed relationships do have the culture aspect that is missing in the local relationship.
According to a local newspaper, the divorce rate for mixed marriages is higher than that of local marriages. Most mixed marriages in TW are with people from other Asian countries, where the cultures may be more similar than the Western countries. I would image that that statistic for the Western/TW couples may be even higher. In addition, in my experience, the relationships between AM-WF and WM-AF are very different.
But depending on the couple, that can either be something interesting, that is, an endless source of exploration and interest, or a barrier and source of frustration. For Dragonbabe and me, it is the former. Although we’re WM-AF, I think the point is relevant to the above AM-WF couple.
But if most of those mixed marriages are in one socioeconomic group, the divorce rate needs to be compared to that of local marriages among the same socioeconomic group. Has this control been implemented for the above statistic?
Not to be on the pessimistic side, but at least all the Latino woman-Taiwanese guy (mostly met and/or got married abroad) I know, the marriage is in dire straits or actually dissolved, mostly in practice if not already on paper.
The OP mentions the condition of the Taiwanese guy not having lived abroad. As usual, it depends on the guy and how his background/customs/adaptability index match his partners.
I still vote for the search of a marital Switzerland, meaning neutral ground for both parties. Most of teh above mentioned marriages were doing well until they moved to the Island.
Most mixed marriages are between very poor women from SEAsia and local men – many of them elderly, retarded, chronically unemployed or all three – who absolutely cannot find a mate and whose families basically buy them a woman from a country where women are cheap, so they can either work, have babies, or both. It’s not surprising the women are often not too happy with their spouses.
Most mixed marriages are between very poor women from SEAsia and local men – many of them elderly, retarded, chronically unemployed or all three – who absolutely cannot find a mate and whose families basically buy them a woman from a country where women are cheap, so they can either work, have babies, or both. It’s not surprising the women are often not too happy with their spouses.[/quote]
Not surprised. Wouldn’t be too impressed being forcibly married off to an elderly, retarded, chronically unemployable partner.
That’s not fair, Bismarck. Sandy’s not chronically unemployable.
tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/ … 135ox.html
整體而言，國人和外籍配偶的離婚率為千分之二八．四，其中和外籍新郎分手的離婚率為千分之四四．七，外籍新娘為二七．二，為國人有偶人口中男性的四倍、女性的三倍之多（加上和外籍通婚案例，國人男性離婚率為千分之一一．四一，女性為千分之一一．八一）。
Divorce rate for mixed couple = 28.4 out of 1000
Divorce rate for foreign men = 44.7 out 1000
Divorce rate for foreign women = 27.3 out out 1000
Divorce rate for men (overall) = 11.41 out of 1000
Divorce rate for women (overall) = 11.81 out of 1000
I agree that marriages to foreign women may not be a good match from the start for the reasons mentioned by sandman. However, the marriages to foreign men have a even higher divorce rate. Althought the article (and related articles) mentioned about difficult marriages to a Japanese man and a Korean man, there should be a much higher percentage of the marriages to non-Asian foreign men.
It is too bad that the stat doesn’t list the divorce rate for foreign non-Asian women. The number of such marriages should be much lower than marriage to foreign Asian women. I wonder what the divorce rate would be like. From my experience, it is not very good. So far it is 1.8 out of 3 - one is possibly on its way out (for AM-WF couples, locally educated). Of the 3 other mixed AM-WF couple whose marriages are OK, the men were educated abroad (me included).
At least one of our posters is in such a relationship and from what I know, the relationship is successful. I’ll let her reveal herself if she wants to.
At least one of our other posters is divorced from a local man. She might know of some couples in the category you are asking about.
What the statistics also doesn’t reveal is how many people on this island lives in misserable relationships, as once you’re married here as a woman, it’s supposedly a really bad thing to get divorced. My GF’s parents live together, but she even knows that her dad has a fling on the side and her mum is in general not all that happy. She’s saying that should’ve gotten divorced, but supposedly they’re staying together for the “kids” who are both grown up.
Statistics aren’t a good measurement for relationships, as many people stay in relationships they’re not happy in, sometimes because of kids, sometimes because they don’t know how to get out of it and sometimes I guess because they don’t know better or maybe even because they can’t afford to leave.
I think the important thing is that you find the things you have in common on build in that. And as Dragonbones said, spend some time together and get to know eachother, like really get to know eachother. Just seeing eachother once in a while doesn’t create a solid relationship and you don’t really get to know the other person. I know that moving in together is kinda frowned upon here, but where I come from that’s the done thing, people don’t really get married any more, they just move in together and become “sambo”.
I’m not sure what the OP is trying to find out, although I can’t say I know any couples of the kind she’s asking about, but I guess that could be becuase I don’t know a lot of western girls here.
[quote=“Tomas”]At least one of our posters is in such a relationship and from what I know, the relationship is successful. I’ll let her reveal herself if she wants to.
At least one of our other posters is divorced from a local man. She might know of some couples in the category you are asking about. [/quote]
I assume that both women are non-Asian and the TW men are educated locally. If so, please jump in with your opinion any time you feel like to:-)
[quote=“netuser”][quote=“Tomas”]At least one of our posters is in such a relationship and from what I know, the relationship is successful. I’ll let her reveal herself if she wants to.
At least one of our other posters is divorced from a local man. She might know of some couples in the category you are asking about. [/quote]
I assume that both women are non-Asian and the TW men are educated locally. If so, please jump in with your opinion any time you feel like to:-)[/quote]
I believe both are non-Asian. I revised my earlier post, as I indeed found it to be pedantic. Pisay.
Because this type of relationship is indeed not common, that is why I am asking here.
I agree the local relationships are not as prone to divorce for various reasons. One constant, however, is that at least one party involved is always TW. So the stat can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
I agree that a relationship requires love and commitment from both parties. But as we know, this requirement is already an issue with couples from the same culture/language. Now that we are adding the culture/language variable to the mix, it definitely complicates things a bit more.
I never said it was easy. I guess I’m kind of odd, as I never really had a relationship in Sweden, I’ve always been with people from other countries, cultures, backgrounds, whatever. But I think that as long as you’re willing to be flexible, it works out ok in the long run. Of course, if there are too many things that don’t work out, then I guess it’s not going to work out once you get married either.
One other difference and I don’t want to come across sounding like a twat here, but I find a lot of the local guys to be a bit nerdy, even friends I have here. I’m by no means Mr Cool or a Macho guy, but guys here to me, are either quite nerdy or look slightly too gay for comfort. I’m sure they have their views on me too, but in this case, I would think a lot of western women would have a hard time going for a guy like that. Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone and there are a lot of normal looking guys here too. I think some of it has to do with the Japanese influence and some with the culture and what not, but they’re not Bruce Lee in terms of coolness factor if you catch my drift… not even Jackie Chan 
Bruce Lee is a mixed kid:)
So the unscientific observation of the higher AM-WF relationship failure rate may have been tainted by selection bias. The AM (raised locally) whom the WF have selected may be too “cool” for stable interracial marriages. Maybe the WF should go for the more nerdy/gay-looking type. Just kidding:lol:
I’m not surprised that the divorce rates seem pretty high. I haven’t seen very many asian/caucasian relationships truly go the distance in all my years of living in Asia and the U.S. I know of exactly two mixed couples that have grown kids who haven’t divorced.
The most successful mixed married couple I know is a WM/AF couple in Thailand. The WM is almost a fully assimilated thai passport holder and a western executive. The woman comes from a very good family. They weren’t looking for a foreign relationship but it just happened and it worked out very well for them. My american born thai friend is dating their mixed daughter (who is gorgeous) and the parents are some of the most open minded people i’ve met.
Both couples were very successful people so that might have had something to do with it. Neither got involved for “fetish” purposes or reasons that were completely skewed in one direction economically or socially.
I really do think the reasons behind getting into these mixed relationships has a huge effect on their longterm success. If you just want an “exotic” relationship then I don’t expect it to last very long and that’s when people become jaded.