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China Elevator Stories
How Common Is Divorce in Relationships Between Chinese Men and Western Women (Amwf Couples)?
When we read happy stories about AMWF couples, we might not consider that divorce is common, but it is.
31/10/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
A lot of information is available online about happy couples consisting of Chinese men and Western women (AMWF couples). You might wonder, as I did, whether these couples are happier than others. While many happy couples certainly exist, some may not be as content as they appear (based on my own personal experience of not sharing all the negative aspects of my relationship at that time).
As bloggers or vloggers, we tend to share the happy stories and leave out the negative ones (if you read my story, you will see that this is what I initially did). When it comes to stories we read online, we always have to consider that people don’t tend to write as much about their negative experiences as they do about their positive ones. Sometimes, this is due to feeling ashamed when we experience difficult events; other times, it’s simply to protect another person’s privacy.
One blogger who shared her experience of getting a divorce from a Chinese man is Ember Swift, a Canadian singer, author, and mother of two. However, there are others as well, some of whom have gone offline and have not shared their divorce stories on their blogs.
I have heard that AMWF marriages are said to last longer than marriages between people of a similar cultural background. Does this suggest that Chinese men are good partners?
I believe we should be cautious about making generalizations. While some Chinese men can be excellent partners, others may be quite the opposite. Some may initially present themselves as great partners, only for their true nature to become evident over time. Many Chinese women assert that Chinese men do not make good long-term partners, citing various reasons; one of the most common is that a significant percentage tends to cheat on their wives.
A lot of the Western women who married Chinese men have also had children, and would therefore not consider divorce as easily as those who don’t.
I believe that once you decide to marry someone from a completely different cultural background (and nationality), you may be less likely to consider divorce so easily, especially because there are additional factors to weigh when living abroad and facing a divorce in a foreign country, such as China. An international divorce is more complex than a divorce between people from the same country, especially when you add language barriers or, in some cases, the complication of the couple living in two different countries by the time they are getting divorced.
Because my divorce was international, I encountered many problems—one of which was not having my ex-husband’s current address in China. Three years after our separation, he initiated divorce proceedings in Austria and provided an address at that time (not the actual address he lived at, which he has kept private to this day). As part of these proceedings, Austrian judges needed to send judicial letters to China. However, my ex-husband refused to accept the letters, causing months of delay in Austria without progress. I filed several motions, but the judges were unwilling to proceed without his acknowledgment of the letters. Later, he admitted that his lawyer had updated him on the content, making his acceptance in China a mere formality.
Initially, the address he provided to the court was inaccurate, and to complicate matters, it was misspelled due to a translation error by his lawyer (who speaks fluent Chinese), creating additional confusion. I translated the address back into Chinese, realizing through some guesswork that he had provided his parents’ old address (he later claimed in court that his mother still lived there), where the pinyin for the character “yu” (于) had been miswritten as “ning” (宁). I then provided a corrected version to the court. Despite having his parents’ correct address by the time the letters were sent, he still refused to accept them. It appears he intentionally orchestrated this months-long “lock” to freeze or possibly halt the proceedings altogether, initially hoping the judges would believe his claim that I had simply moved to Europe without notifying him, abandoned our children in China, and had no intention of reconnecting with them—which the judges eventually stopped believing when my lawyer presented evidence to the contrary.
For one of the divorce hearings, it seems he had no intention of participating. He claimed he was planning to move to Austria with our children (again!) so the court would believe he intended to reunite them with their mother (though he did not). As a result, the hearing date was set for much later. I tried to inform the court that this information was inaccurate and that he hadn’t even applied for new Austrian passports for our children, which showed his lack of genuine interest in moving to Austria with them.
Once the hearing began, it was already clear he would not appear in Austria. He had been invited to participate via a WeChat video call and had provided the court with an email address, which the judge used to keep him updated on the progress of the divorce proceedings. However, on the day of the hearing, he was nowhere to be found and later claimed he hadn’t checked his emails and was therefore unaware of the status of the proceedings.
Eventually, while my lawyer, the interpreter, the judge, and I were waiting for him to participate in the hearing via WeChat, his interpreter called his private phone number (which I had provided). My ex-husband answered, claiming he was currently driving but could pull over to participate in the hearing.
I don’t know if anyone else has experienced their ex-husband complicating divorce matters. If you’ve had a similar experience, let me know! I was relieved once the hearing was over and the divorce could finally be finalized.
On WeChat, you’ll find a group for Western women who are dating or married to Chinese men (most of whom live in China), but there’s also a group for women who are divorced or getting divorced.
Many of these women decided to get a divorce once they realized that their ex-husbands were narcissists who wouldn’t change. Some reported experiencing abuse, gaslighting, cheating, disloyalty, and neglect from partners who did not take care of the children, instead handing them over to their mothers. From my own observations, narcissism is as rampant in China as it is in many other countries, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise if you discover that your husband is a narcissist.
Some of the experiences they share are similar to mine. One American woman, who was married to a Chinese man in China and has two children, shared how her ex-husband installed a GPS tracker and a camera in her car that not only filmed the outside but also the inside (with audio), allowing him to track and watch her at all times.
Others have experienced similarly extreme situations. Once you’ve gone through something like this, it won’t come as a surprise that certain men act this way, but if you haven’t, you might not realize that these experiences are more common than one might think. These aren’t the stories we frequently hear, but they certainly happen!
Have you ever divorced a Chinese spouse?