From a Japanese Woman Living in the Philippines for more than 10 yers
📌 In this article
- What’s genuinely hard about marrying a Filipino
- Remittance culture, paperwork, and the no-divorce reality
- What keeps our marriage going after 10+ years
- What my husband Ryan is actually like
I never thought international marriage had anything to do with me — and yet, here I am, living in the Philippines.
“Is marrying a Filipino really that hard?”
People ask me this a lot.
My honest answer: Some parts are hard. But marriage is hard no matter where your partner is from.
I’m Japanese, and I’ve been with my Filipino husband Ryan for 15 years. We live in Amadeo, Cavite — a quiet town about two hours south of Manila. I’ve experienced the remittance culture, the paperwork maze, and the culture clashes firsthand.
In this article, I’ll share what genuinely challenged me about marrying a Filipino — and what I’ve learned about making it work.
How We Met: It Started with an Online English Lesson
Fifteen years ago, I signed up for online English tutoring. I wanted to improve my English, nothing more.
The teacher I happened to book? The man who would become my husband.
My first impression of Ryan: flashy, fast-talking, way too smooth. His accent was clean and his words came quick — a little intimidating at first. But once we actually talked, I realized we had a surprising amount in common, and there was a warmth to him that felt oddly familiar.
Our first lesson was basically free conversation. “What’s your favorite ice cream?” “Chocolate mint!” “Me too!” — that kind of thing.
I had a habit back then of stretching lessons past the 25-minute mark hoping for free overtime. Ryan didn’t play along. Time’s up, “See you next time!” — done. No sales pitch, no lingering.
Huh. More professional than he looks.
That small gap between his carefree appearance and his quiet discipline caught my attention.
The Most Straightforward Pursuit I’ve Ever Experienced
The next day, the messages started.
“I like youuu~!! I really really like youuu~~!!”
Every 10–30 minutes during his commute. Phone calls from 10 PM to 2 AM, every night. Zero games, zero strategy — just completely, almost alarmingly, direct.
He was seven years younger than me and had the face of a teenager. I was more bewildered than flattered.
But somewhere in all that sincerity, something shifted. I found myself thinking: this is someone I could build a life with.
Why Marrying a Filipino Is “Complicated” — Honestly
1. The Remittance Culture
In the Philippines, it’s considered a basic duty for working children to send money home to their parents. This is one of the first cultural shocks many foreign spouses face.
In tight-knit families, the person with the most income often becomes the household ATM — not just for parents, but for siblings, cousins, and sometimes the cousins’ partners too. I’ve heard of cases where extended family moved into the couple’s home, with all expenses expected to be covered by the foreign spouse.
Ryan’s family is unusually self-sufficient. His parents occasionally ask us to treat them to dinner, and we’re happy to — but they don’t pressure us for money, and Ryan has no problem saying no when something feels unreasonable. For the Philippines, this is genuinely rare.
If your partner regularly sends money home, talk about a monthly limit before you get married. Leaving it vague is a slow-building source of stress.
2. The Paperwork Is About Three Times More Work Than You Expect
Getting legally married across two countries means navigating two separate bureaucratic systems — simultaneously.
Philippine side:
- Registration at the local government unit (LGU)
- Submission to the PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority)
- Obtaining a birth certificate (which sometimes arrives barely legible)
- Being sent from window to window for missing documents
- Foreign faces can sometimes cause extra complications at government offices
Japanese side:
- Filing the marriage registration (requires family register + certificate of legal capacity to marry)
- Obtaining the marriage acceptance certificate
Ryan handled all the Philippine paperwork himself while I was at the office — and he had the advantage of a lawyer uncle who was also a licensed solemnizing officer. Even with that connection, he came home exhausted every night for weeks.
If you’re doing this without an agent, build in extra time and, more importantly, extra patience.
3. “Filipino Time” and the Gap in Time Perception
Filipino Time is a real thing — the cultural acceptance of arriving late to appointments, sometimes by hours.
That said, not every Filipino runs on it.
Ryan is, somewhat ironically, intensely punctual. Growing up with a father who regularly showed up four or five hours late left him deeply embarrassed about lateness. Now he’ll leave without you if you’re a minute behind. He’s actually told me, with complete seriousness: “Don’t copy the bad parts of Filipino culture.”
We meet at the venue — never coordinate transportation. The night before any plan, we confirm with a quick “Tuloy?” (Filipino for “still happening?”). And if someone pulls a 👻 ghost plan — quietly disappearing from the commitment — we’ve learned to accept it as a cultural feature, not a personal offense.
Getting angry about it doesn’t help. Expecting it and planning around it does.
(Ryan and I have a longer story about Filipino Time — specifically involving his father being spectacularly late to our own wedding. That one deserves its own article.)
4. You’re Marrying in a Country Where Divorce Doesn’t Exist
This is not a small footnote. The Philippines is one of the only countries in the world where divorce remains effectively illegal.
The legal alternative is called Annulment — a court process to declare a marriage void from the start. It typically takes several years and can cost the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pesos. It is not a practical exit.
If you’re considering marrying a Filipino, this needs to be part of your thinking from the beginning — not an afterthought.
What Made Me Say Yes to the Philippines
One evening, Ryan said something that has stayed with me:
“In the Philippines, you can survive even with no money. Being poor isn’t something to be afraid of — even if you sleep outside, you won’t freeze to death. Papayas, bananas, and vegetables grow everywhere; you just pick and eat them. No matter what happens, we can still live happily.”
Objectively? This is a chaotic thing to say to someone you’re asking to move countries for you.
But something in it cleared away all my hesitation. We can start from zero and be okay. That was enough.
The Kind of People Who Do Well in Cross-Cultural Marriages
From my own experience and watching others around me:
It tends to work for people who:
- Find cultural differences interesting rather than threatening (“Huh, that’s different — why?”)
- Can let go of small things (the way dishes get washed, how laundry gets folded)
- Want to understand the culture, not just the language — because language fluency and cultural fluency are not the same thing
- Can set their own boundaries with extended family — Filipino family ties are intense, and how much you let yourself be pulled in is ultimately your choice
It tends to be harder for people who want to control most variables, or believe their way of doing things is simply correct.
What Ryan Is Actually Like
People often ask: “What’s a Filipino husband like?”
Ryan is — to put it plainly — not what the stereotype suggests.
| Ryan | Typical stereotype | |
|---|---|---|
| Punctuality | Leaves without you if you’re late | Chronically late |
| Pursuit style | Messages every 30 min + 4hr nightly calls | — |
| Conflict | “We’re one unit, let’s solve it together” | Avoids confrontation |
| Ego | Comfortable being exactly who he is | Very pride-conscious |
| Social life | Prioritizes home time with me and our dogs | Friends-first culture |
| Alcohol | Can barely handle a drink | Stereotype: heavy drinker |
What Keeps a Marriage Going (10+ Years In)
Money belongs to both of us
In Filipino culture, a couple is one unit. I don’t think of the money I earn as “mine” — it’s ours, because we both made it possible.
Hard times are shared
I have a short fuse. When things pile up, I want to throw everything away and disappear. Ryan is the one who doesn’t let me. “Let’s solve it together — we’re one unit.” Every single time.
The real test of a partnership isn’t how you enjoy the good days. It’s whether you can stay beside each other during the hard ones.
Small things aren’t worth the fight
Ryan folds laundry differently than I do. He lets dishes sit. He showers in the morning; I shower at night. I’ve mostly stopped caring about all of it.
Trying to fix cultural differences is exhausting. Finding them interesting is sustainable.
So — Is Marrying a Filipino “Hard”?
Yes, in specific ways:
- Navigating remittance expectations
- Surviving the paperwork
- Living in a country with no divorce
- Adjusting to different rhythms of time and family
💬 What matters more than the difficulty
Knowing what you’re getting into — talking early about money, family, and how you want to live — and asking yourself whether this specific person is someone you want beside you when things get complicated.
That’s the real foundation. Not nationality. Not paperwork.
📌 Quick recap
- Remittance culture is real — set a limit before marriage
- Paperwork takes longer than you think. Budget time and patience
- There is no divorce in the Philippines. Know this going in
- Filipino Time exists, but not all Filipinos run on it
- The foundation isn’t nationality — it’s choosing the right person
If you’re thinking about marrying a Filipino or moving to the Philippines, I hope this was useful.
🇯🇵Japanese article : https://pinashaponlife.com/culture/marriage-story/
