Age difference in international marriages.

Another question has been raised by one of my clients. Very often young Russian women write love letters to older men who could be their fathers or even grandfathers. Are these women truly interested in men who are so much older than themselves?
Of course they are not, and it’s strange that men don’t realize that. In these letters, men are being tricked, and it’s better to recognize that right away instead of building hopes and going crazy because a young girl fell in love with you. In 99% of the cases girls who write love letters to you, an older guy, are interested only in your money. Some men, however, simply refuse to believe this, and eventually lose their wealth. And they keep making the same mistake over and over again! But it is so easy to check if a woman is truly interested in you. Just change your profile information. For example, write that you are a clerk working in some small company, and that you have a plain, but decent life. You are not starving, of course, you prefer a healthy lifestyle, and once in a while you are able to afford to travel somewhere not too pricey. You cannot promise your future wife a luxurious lifestyle, but you do guarantee that you’ll care for, respect, and love her. Make something up, post it in your profile, and see if any young girls will be interested in you ))
It’s a totally different story when men understand exactly what these girls want, accept it, and play along. They want to have a young Russian wife or girlfriend, and they are ready to pay for it because they cannot get what they want any other way.

International marriages between people with great age differences do happen. I see it as a deal of some sort. And why not, after all? Poor, desperate young women often marry older guys. A man receives a young beautiful woman in exchange for his money. The woman is not suffering; her life improves tremendously, she doesn’t have to worry about survival anymore. She can turn out to be a nice person and become a truly great wife for this rich man. With time, she may even fall in love with her older husband. However, this doesn’t happen all the time, so men should be cautious.
It often happens that a woman doesn’t want to get married to her older admirer. All she wants is to get as much money from him as she can while being happily married to a Russian husband. It’s interesting that many men are willing to give their money away. It seems that they lose their wits while being with a young, beautiful woman.
If you are not a client of a dating or marriage agency that checks women and takes responsibility for both parties, it won’t hurt to ask your potential wife or girlfriend to send you her scanned passport pages. A clean family status page means that she is not married. Two stamps mean she’s been married and divorced.

Unfortunately, going to a dating agency doesn’t always guarantee that you’ll meet a woman who truly wants to create a family. Many agencies out there are scammers working with the women who are out there to trick you. This is why you should be careful when choosing an agency.

Going for a vacation with a Russian woman.

Very often after a first meeting a man offers a woman to meet again on a neutral territory. For example, if a man is from Australia or New Zealand and a woman is from Russia, it might be convenient to spend a vacation together in Thailand. Normally a man would take care of all the expenses, including those of a woman he wants to meet. It’s not because Russian women want to travel as somebody else’s expense and then pay off with their bodies. These kinds of girls exist too, but we are not talking about prostitutes here. We are discussing normal women who seek to create a family, who get a regular Russian salary, which is not enough to visit even Crimea, let alone Thailand! Most of these women have never been abroad. Some of them have traveled to Turkey or Egypt which are the most affordable places to go if you live in Russia. Men know all this and are happy to cover the travel expenses. However, there are cases when these journeys turn into nightmarish experiences for women. Thankfully, these cases are very rare.
This is another real life story. Please read this article if you are going to invite a Russian girl for a vacation abroad.

A man meets a woman, and a relationship starts. He offers to have their first meeting in Thailand. She cannot afford this because her entire salary is used to support her kids. Moreover, she’s already used her vacation time this year, and her next vacation is eight months from now, so she can miss work only at her own expense. This is unacceptable for her because she doesn’t want to lose money. If she takes a vacation, she’ll receive only one fifth of her regular salary once she is back to work. Her salary is composed mainly from the percent of the sales she makes.
The woman explains all this and invites the man to come to Russia instead, but he states that he is ready to pay for all the expenses, including whatever money she is going to lose while missing work. The woman agrees and for the first time in her life travels abroad. She is taking her credit card with her.

Three days later this woman contacts me in Skype, and, crying, says that she is always hungry because the food in the restaurants where they eat is served raw. Yes, people eat raw food in Thailand, and Russian people aren’t used to that. The woman has to eat whatever is given to her because the man doesn’t take her to the more expensive restaurants where the food is actually cooked. Of course, this is not the end of the world, and by the end of this trip the woman even feels fond of the raw food ))

One day the woman sees some body cream in the store and pays for it with her credit card. Right after that the card gets blocked by the bank. She didn’t know that she had to go to the bank and get a special permission to use the card abroad. As a result, she is now out of money. During the vacation she comes across various souvenirs and little things that she likes, but she cannot buy anything anymore. The man doesn’t even think of buying one or two inexpensive things for her, but it’s fine. He doesn’t really have to do that, right? She can survive without them.
But these little things are nothing in comparison to what she feels like when he insults her. She is young and beautiful, she attracts people’s attention, and now and then men ask if she is his wife. The man repeatedly answers right in front of her, not feeling a bit of shame, “Oh, no, of course not! My wife is in New Zealand. This is my Russian girlfriend!”

And this is done by a potential husband who is supposed to be looking for a Russian wife! The woman realizes that she is being used like a pretty toy. The man is flattered to be escorted by a young, beautiful, smart girl, and he enjoys seeing the envy in other men’s eyes! To feed his ego, he is ready to pay for the plane tickets and restaurants with raw food for the woman. It’ O.K. because he is rich enough, he can afford it.
After the vacation, the man walks the woman to the airport and says his good bye.
Arriving to Moscow, the woman calls me and tells me that she has no money to get home to Belgorod because her credit card is blocked. The man knew that but decided to ignore the fact, and the woman didn’t ask him for the money. There’s no need to mention that he never compensated her salary losses.

Dear men! If you invite a woman to spend some time abroad and say that you’ll take care of all the expenses, please, make sure that the woman has the means to get back home, that she can buy a plane ticket HOME, not just to Moscow from where she’ll have to take another plane or a train.
And, most importantly, if you call yourselves men, be them and behave like gentlemen. Don’t insult women even if you are only playing being serious, but in reality plan to just have a good time with a beautiful woman. A true gentleman would never act like this anyway; he wouldn’t use a girl who is looking for a husband and a family. There are other kinds of girls to use for mere entertainment, and you can find lots of them in the Internet. So, what is the problem?

Why do Russian women marry so early?

I asked one of my foreign clients what kind of articles he would like to read on my blog. He bombarded me with questions, and one of them was the following: Why do Russian women get married and have kids so young? He faced this issue while he was looking for a Russian wife. All the girls he would choose were either divorced or single mothers. 

The case is that it is traditional for a Russian woman to marry early. It has become a custom and is now a part of the Russian culture. There is a widespread stereotype that if a 24-25 year old girl is unmarried, she’s considered an old maid. However strange it may sound, but psychologically, Russian girls would feel better married and divorced than never married.

One of my “never married” acquaintances, a 31 year old woman who for some personal reasons refuses to use dating sites and agencies to find a husband, has admitted to me that it is very difficult for her to attend family celebrations and reunions. She cannot stand pitying glances and questions from her relatives about when she’ll finally get married.

For the most part, Russian women get married while attending a college or a university, when they are 18-20 years old. It’s easier to find a husband at school; very often they marry their classmates. Being children themselves, they form families and start having kids. The reasonable question to ask is how these young families support themselves if both parents are still unemployed students.

The answer is simple: they survive thanks to their parents. In Russia, parents help their children as long as they have the strength and the means to do so. This is also a Russian tradition. For example, my 80 year old neighbor is using his money to build a cottage for his good-for-nothing 55 year old son.

This is why young people don’t really bother to think about how their young family will manage, especially if they come from a well-to-do family. In this case, the wedding will be paid by the parents who will also give the young ones an apartment and a car. They will also pay for the university and take care of all the general expenses of the newlyweds.

But not all parents are capable of providing their children with such luxurious lifestyle. In poorer families, children live with their parents, staying in one of the rooms. If there is no extra room for them, they rent an apartment and start working part time while going to school, and their parents help them out as much as they can.

The Russian belief in “on the off chance” also plays a significant role in this. Young people don’t think seriously about contraception, hoping they’ll be lucky not to get pregnant, but of course the pregnancy does happen, and they have to marry, but these kinds of marriages eventually fall apart.

In the resent years the situation has started to change. Young people are not in a hurry to get married and take on all the burdens of the family life. They want to get an education, find jobs, and get a desired career. They save money to buy cars and houses, they date, but… they don’t marry, which also becomes a problem for women. Since young guys are not in a hurry to get married, women simply don’t have anyone to marry! It has become a saying that if you don’t find a husband while attending a university, you’ll never get married. ))

The times of the Soviet Union have passed. Back then students would have guaranteed stable jobs once they were done with school. The government would provide them with apartments, so it was much easier to start a family. Today it’s not easy for young men because they are the ones who have to provide for the family. That’s why they don’t rush to marry.

Because of all this girls try to marry as soon as possible, and, taking into consideration the divorce rate, later become divorced single mothers.

What is the best way to meet people online?

Despite the emergence of a wide variety of communication tools and the existence of the Internet, problems such as loneliness and lack of social interactions still exist in our society. People are still preoccupied with the question of where to find their true love, and they often turn to the Internet to solve personal life problems. It’s important to know how to socialize online and avoid being misunderstood or rejected.It’s hard to imagine that anyone in our society doesn’t have at least one profile in any of the various social networks, and many of us have already experienced being bugged by the online admirers. We usually ignore or ban these kinds of suitors, and there might be many reasons for rejection: bad grammar, lack of respect, dirty talk, cheesy compliments, or just lack of interest in making new acquaintances. To get positive results when looking for a potential partner, we have to take all these things into consideration and act accordingly. For example, a simple “Hello! Do you mind if I talk to you?” has more chances to get any kind of reply than something like “Hey, beautiful! How are you, how’s life?” The key point is that we should save compliments for later.

People are often disgusted by someone who is clearly looking for a sex partner. Everyone wants to be appreciated firstly for their inner beauty.How can we meet people in the Internet? The easiest way is to go to a professional cyber-matchmaker – a dating site. Here you can chat, send private messages, and choose a potential soul mate by looking at a list of profiles. The only problem is that fewer and fewer people turn to these sites to find their other half for a serious relationship. Many users are simply looking for short-term, frivolous relationships. Cynics offer one night stands, romantics – love that lasts just a couple of weeks. If two mature, free people want to meet and try dating each other, why not? This can work too, and it may grow into something more serious. Whatever the case, we should still remember about mutual respect, politeness, and proper grammar and spelling.Another way to find someone online without being taken for a loser or a pervert is to write on theme forums or in online interest groups. Here you won’t have to explain yourself or try to prove something because everyone is on the same page, united by the same interests. Every forum has a chat room or a place where you can socialize, congratulate others, share your thoughts and personal achievements. You can find your potential “victim” here. It is easier to get to know one another in the common chat room. Then you can move to a private chat room by asking a question about something that is interesting for both of you. It’s great if members of your chosen forum or an online group organize regular real-life meetings. This works wonderful for the shy, insecure people because it gives them a chance to meet in a group and talk to someone they are interested in while avoiding the discomfort of the first date in a café or a movie theatre. All the advices about making friends and looking for potential soul mates online will be useless if you don’t follow some important principles of a successful online communication. One of them is to be truthful, no matter if you are planning to meet in real life or not. Don’t lie about serious things and don’t use a fake biography. It’s even worse if you become too open and tell everything about yourself at once, including intimate details about your personal life. It’s best to find the golden mean. Then socializing will bring only positive experiences.

A foreigner's real letter to Russian girl.

Dearest Karina,
how are you?
I keep reading your last email, it really give me joy to read about your life and sometimes I imagine myself near you, doing the simple like task together with you.
Today I want to tell you more about my life, my job and my lifestyle; I do know that money and stuff are not the most important things when there is love but at the same time we are not children anymore so, in some way, also money are a little bit important so, I'm going to tell you everything and how I will imagine our life together, at least at the start.
As you already know I'm not rich and if I must say the truth I'm happy about it ... if I was rich I never would know if someone will love me for how I am or for my money and other than that ... I would probably be way more superficial ... in some way I think that money are like a curse (and this is why there are really few rich people with a happy family ... they always get divorced and they do not grow their own child because they are too busy to make money).
I earn 1000£ a month (more or less) and 220£ goes in the rent of my house; as you know I live with other 2 men and 1 girl (girlfriend of 1 of this men) and if you agree, at the start, I would like to keep living here all together, we'll be like a big family :)  This will allow us to have some few more money till you will not find a job here (a flat just for us will cost around 400 that's almost the double).
With all the bills I do spend around 400£ (so the rent, electricity, internet, gas and so on), 150£ for the food and another 150£ to go to restaurant with friends sometimes or just outside with them to have a drink; that's so a total of 700£ a month.
The other 300£ (and some more) it'll be just for you when you will be here with me; as you can see it's not much (well not few also) and I'm sure that with some sacrifice we will be able to do everything (hoping that you will find soon a job, I hope you will not need more than 6 months to learn the language and find a job you like).
The only thing I can guarantee is that you will always have a nice house, hot in the winter and cold in the summer (well, in Belfast it's always cold so...), good food and dress...maybe we can't buy the new dress from Armani or maybe we will need to wait for sales but we will be fine; I can promise that I'll always massage you when you'll be tired and I'll always cook for you if you will be sick but I can't promise you that we will travel around the world and see the most expensive place (also if I would like to see the Hawaii at least one time).
One or two weekend every year we can also go somewhere, maybe in Paris or Prague, I think it's quite romantic city (but I never been there) and we can have few holidays too, maybe to go back to Russia to meet your parents that I'm sure you will miss a lot.
Maybe I can buy them a little computer with the webcam so, when I'm at work, you can be in Skype with them (well also when I am not at work, just, as you wish) and if we will see that the money will not be enough I'll just wait you in Belfast and use the money to let you go alone to meet your parents (also if you know that I'm quite jealous so...I do not like too much the idea of my wife travelling alone but if it's just for the beginning and because we will not have enough money...if it's to meet your parents than it's ok, you can go I'll not give you problems ...not too much at least :P ).
I just want your happiness and I hope you want mine and so I know how important are your parents for you so, it's not a problem I'll do the impossible to make you happy ... and maybe it'll not be possible, not always at least, but I hope you'll be happy just thinking that I'm doing my best to always keep your beautiful smile on your face.
It's already few months that we write to each other and feelings are growing faster than I thought so I think that it's time for you to start to think seriously about our life together ... there will be many problems, I already knew but maybe you wasn't completely thinking about it; there will be some language barrier, you will miss your parents and friends (Skype will help a little bit but anyway...) and I do understand that this change of life can be scarry a little but I will never let you down and I'll be always here for you ... but you have to think about this things because I do not want that we will get married and after few motnhs you will understand that for you it's too hard to be far from your actual life.
In my idea you will need 6 months to learn well English and another 6 months you can spend finding a job you like but after this time you than will need to accept any job that will come (waiter maybe, or housekeeper) but I'll help you to find a nice job and anyway, if it's needed to be a waiter, we will keep looking toegether for a better job and than you can change it when you will find.
That's it, all for today, I hope I didn't scare you too much and I would love to say that love will be enough for everything but sadly like is not so romantic as I am and fairytales doesn't completely exist ... but I'm sure that a life with you near me will be a fairy tale, the most beautiful one!
If there is love we will always find a solution, in a way or in another.
Waiting your answer I'm wishing you a wonderfull day, full of happiness.
With feelings Ben.

The letter is published with Ben's permission. 

What do you absolutely have to tell your future Russian wife?

This is a real life story.

A man from New Zealand comes to Russia to meet my agency's client. They are not romantically involved, so I introduce him to another woman. I must make it clear that this young woman is not some sad, unemployed, desperate person in search of a potential husband who’d solve all her problems. Not at all! This woman is smart, beautiful, and educated. She gets a lot of attention from men, but she is looking for her true love. She is not poor either. According to Russian standards, her $1000 salary is not bad, but one cannot call her rich either. She has two sons. One of them is thirteen, and another one is two years old. She rents an apartment and lives from salary to salary, but her family eats healthy, dresses well, and goes to Crimea every summer. Her parents live in the countryside and help raise the kids. Her life is set, and she does have things to lose.    

The New Zealand man meets her and they immediately feel mutual attraction. I could call it love. Everything is well until the man asks her to move to New Zealand for half a year. He wants to know if she is ready to leave Russia and move to another country with him. He doesn’t want to marry a woman with two kids, so he suggests that she leaves one of her children with the grandparents. This is unacceptable for a normal Russian woman, but that’s not the point now. To leave Russia for six months, she has to quit her stable job. If something happens and the relationship doesn’t work out the way they hope it will, she’ll have to return to Russia. She won’t be able to find another good job easily. She cannot work for $200 a month either – this won’t be enough to pay for the apartment and to support her kids. For these reasons moving to another country is a serious step. It requires a lot of careful thinking.

That’s why the woman asks some innocent and very important questions: How will my children and I survive in another country? Where will we get the money? Will I be able to work? What kind of salary will I get? Will I be given some pocket money while I adapt to the new country, learn the language, and  find a job?   

The man is a very wealthy farmer. He doesn’t give any intelligible answers. He only says that the woman will be able to work. For example, she can work on his farm. The woman loves working the land, so she gladly agrees and asks her boyfriend how much he will pay her for work. He, in turn, wonders why all Russian women think only about money. “What does money have to do with anything? We are in love with each other, why talk about money?” The woman answers that she cannot go into the unknown with her two children. She needs to feed and dress them. They can get sick and may need expensive medical treatments. Her parents are growing older, and she needs to visit them at least once a year. Plane tickets are expensive as well. There are many other issues that have to be taken into consideration, and that’s why she is asking about what kind of money she can count on. Note that the woman doesn’t ask for money; she asks whether she’ll be able to earn it. She is ready to work, and she wants to know what kind of salary she can expect. The man doesn’t provide any satisfactory answers. He keeps saying, “You only have money on your mind, but what about our love?”

He also keeps calling me and writing letters to the agency, and I am trying to explain that women who decide to go to another country must know what to expect. They need to know how much money they will have, what kind of life they will live, how often they’ll be able to visit Russia, etc. These things are important to know in order to avoid problems and bitter feelings in the future.

The man describes the situation, their future life together, all the little details, and the woman decides if it works for her or not. The woman in our story has two children, and she has no moral right to risk their wellbeing by taking them into the unknown when they already have a descent life in Russia. The man, however, refuses to provide the answers. He only blames the woman for being crazy about the money. Of course, this relationship was destroyed because of lack of communication and understanding

You can draw your conclusions from this story. 

P.S.

The good thing is that the man didn’t try to fool his girlfriend. Otherwise the woman would probably find herself in a position of a slave on his farm. If she decided to return to Russia, she would have to rebuild her life from scratch.

Advice.

Dear men! Be honest and open about what kind of life and lifestyle the woman can count on. It doesn’t matter how rich you are. You must be truthful so that the woman can realistically picture her future with you in this international marriage. 

Where can we find love?

We live in the era of the Internet.!

When we need something, we connect and search for the information on the Web. We also use various dating sites to find love, and many men and women have found each other this way. But not everyone is fond of this method of looking for a partner. Many people are afraid of lies, of being cheated and used by scammers and frauds. Can we blame them for being distrustful and wary? Not really, because the Internet is full of the above mentioned liars, scammers, and cheats. However, there are plenty of unreliable liars and cheaters in real day-to-day life.

Let’s have a look at your regular weekday. You wake up in the morning. You get ready for work, and then walk to a bus or to a train station. You see people passing by, waiting for a bus next to you. You communicate with people at work. When you go home in the afternoon, you are also surrounded by people at the bus stop, in the supermarket, on the street… If we take into consideration all the people you come in contact with throughout your regular day, what do you think is the percentage of the good, trustworthy folks vs. cheaters and scammers? Just for the purposes of this discussion, let’s call them “good” and “bad”. You’d be surprised to find out that the percentages of the “good” and the “bad” people in real life are the same as in the Internet!

Yes, there are many more scammers in the Net. But there are many more good people as well simply because you can meet more people in the Internet than in real life. Your chances to find a soul mate are much higher than in real life because there are so many lonely hearts looking for love online.

We can compare it to a lottery. In lottery TV shows it seems that the winners are mostly people from big cities. Is it because they are luckier than people from small towns or the countryside? No, it’s just that there are more people living in the big city, and they buy more lottery tickets. As they purchase more tickets, there are more chances that they will come across the winning ones. The same thing happens with people who meet each other in the Internet.

Sometimes it happens that people spend weeks, months, even years looking for partners on various dating sites, but with no luck. Eventually they become desperate and conclude that it is impossible to find your true love in the Internet. But one should never give up! You should continue searching. Don’t give up what you have started. It is difficult to do, but the truth is that only a few people are lucky enough to find their soul mates right away, in the first several days or weeks. Many people need to walk a long way before they can find a loving partner and get married.

If they were able to do it, you can do it too! Not everyone is lucky from the very beginning, but consistency and persistence eventually pay off. The most important thing is to believe. Our dreams do come true. Don’t give up, and your love will find you!

You can contact me anytime if you have questions...