If I was to do this over ....

[rambler]

OK so much for what I did wrong with girls where "it ain't going to happen"
Moving on now to how I screwed up and made avoidable mistakes with my wife.


I set expectations way too high.  Spent far too much cash during courtship and engagement.


The two main killers are finances and sex. I will stick to finances.


Setting high expectations is dangerous and it is magnified by imbalances between what is cheap and subsidised  in the FSU and  what is expensive and not subsidised in the west.


Think of the main costs a western family faces:
Housing, education, car, child care, credit installments, medical care, pension contributions  and taxation levels at 42% ( international average of all in all types of tax)


All these are far less in Russia.  So if your fiance knows your gross income and it is over average, she is going to think that far more of it is disposable per month than is actually the case. If you overspend on courtship she will think that is sustainable when she gets back to your place after marriage. I keep saying it, but it bears repeating. Russians don't save money in the bank, they don't trust the banks. If they have any money they are expected to help a friend down to the last cent in their pockets and I have seen it happen again and again. So if you won't spend to the last dime every month you are GREEDY. You are condemned beyond retribution and for ever.


If you are going to give your wife a monthly allowance, don't discuss it, just do it.  Now a word about how you do it.  Credit cards and debit cards and joint bank accounts.  DON'T!  My wife isn't stupid but .... In Russia she worked for a big international western company. She was paid on a debit card with a ZERO overdraft capability. I have a bank account and debit cards with a very wide margin of overdraft capability. I f I get the bank to set her card with  a zero overdraft instead of the same as mine, that credit rating of Zero propagates into the credit checking industry files.  Not good. I don't use credit but I don't want what a setting of Zero infers in case I do need it one day.
Well,  there was a bank account with Mrs Rambler's name on it and a debit card. Not a credit card.  The card she had before in Russia just stopped spouting cash when it got to Zero. So Mrs R just kept going on the new card, refusing to believe me that it was way overdrawn. I had to tear it up and switch to a prepaid card with a real zero limit. She just would not believe the debit card dd not stop at zero.  And the proportion of my gross income that she thought we (she) should be allowed to spend was just incredible.  They have 15% income tax in Russia, maybe that's moved up now, but no one pays much  tax there anyway, Black  cash is the norm.


Add to that, that in Russia you only pay for university if you are so dumb they won't give you a place for free, that very few have a mortgage to pay,  houses most likely are cheap and / or subsidised by your employer or the state, doctors are cheap, US salaries sound huge, etc. It's very easy for her to think the streets are paved with gold. Your savings.

Back to the girl in Kharkiv that I never saw after the first trip. Maybe I did believe she did not speak English.  Her T shirt had two words on it in English. It said "Gold Digger". I asked her if she knew what it meant, she said no. There's that song that goes, "I'm not saying that she's a gold digger; but she ain't messin' with no broke *******. 
I think it is a common thing that western men spend more during courtship than they can after marriage, especially if you set your heart on a woman and try to impress.  It's very easy to over-do it. Don't! 

Housing - You might think, OK I am in this batchellor pad - not right for two people but when she gets here we can go choose something together.  Uh-uh. there is a saying in Russia, moving is like a fire.  (not a good fire) If you need to move to a marital home with rooms for a baby and mother in law to visit, cousins etc.  Get it done before hand.  of course you can share the choices with links to the realtors (Immobilier Pat) house details let her help choose, but have the nest ready so the only move is from her home to your home, she won't want to do it twice in one or two years, trust me.

PS - A filter - I can say from my own experience with girls who have a beef with being "abandoned" by their father through their parents divorce, it makes for very difficult relationships with men in later life. They say a woman marries their father. So if the father was the bad guy, the husband is going to cop the rap.  So if you are looking for a girl to marry- I'd say only go for one who is from an unbroken marriage. Since many men run two families at once in the FSU, that might narrow the choice. In fact the only girls I met that were really keen to get out of the FSU were from broken homes or from homes with an unemployed father. The ones playing the dating game but staying in the FSU, came from happy homes which they did not seem keen to leave. Quite an enigma for the man to cope with.

[Ooooops]

I didn't agree before leaving home that there would be such an entourage ...That's the point.

Then it is pretty easy - you say "Thanks!" to interpreter and driver and send them on their merry way, reassuring the you will take care of the rest yourself.   

[Ooooops]

If you are going to give your wife a monthly allowance, don't discuss it, just do it.  Now a word about how you do it.  Credit cards and debit cards and joint bank accounts.  DON'T! 

Ouch!  What a tyranny!  But then CC debt is a huge problem in US, so even if people are born into reality with mortgages, high taxes, education costs etc. etc. they still live beyond the needs.

[ML]

I don't know if knees have jerked enough lately . . . so let's see.

This header is subjunctive mood and should read:

If I were to do this over ....

[GQBlues]

Batman,

You know Galyna.  She has posted here before.  Go to her blog and look at her numbers.  I have no other source - the numbers just struck me as a pittance compared to the number of men who try their hand at international dating through the various methods.   And pathetic for all of those women who are in the 'Cottage Industry' of Ukraine....

No need really as I was just curious. Usually when it deals with visa issuance, information is found in the Travel.gov site. DHS's info is when it directly deals with immigration. K-visas rests solely with Travel.gov.

Happy summer.

You, too man.

P.S. - Noticed you did away with your Laker avatar.  Perhaps you could find a Clippers one?

Never. I can never belong to the Clipper nation. Like the Lakers, they're one and done in the playoffs this year, and the Lakers were without Bryant. Those Clipper boys are way over-rated especially BGrif. The guy's a multi-million dollar player with regular season stats of 20/11 (pts/reb). His career playoff stats is a misearble 13 and 5. Talk about choking. He should make less car commercials this summer and work on his mid-rage jumper and moves from the elbow instead. Free throws, too.
 
D12 and CP3 will look much better in a Rocket uniform for next year. D12 is a 30-million dollar a year man who can't shoot freethrows. I can shoot a much better percentage than that dude by shooting free throws backwards. Chrissakes, the goal's 15 away and no one's guarding you.
 
Dodgers - they're called the Lakers in Blue, except Puig. The best Cuban import since their illegal cigars. The Angels are just as miserable if it wasn't for Mike Trout. Without Beckham and Donovan this year, they Galaxies are not as feared as they were from their back-to-back champsionship years.

At least my Kings made it to the 3rd round before choking. Defending champs and they fall 3-1. Quick wasn't as quick this year. Kopitar's a bust and really wished King, Brown and Richards were't hurt when the playoffs came around. Oh well...

[rambler]

Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.