L D R - Long Distance Relationship

Betty Tenaja & Alfred Nigel Bruckner

"Long Distance Relationship"

This is very often practiced in the Philippines ... and so more than ten percent of the Filipino population live in one in which a partner is in "overseas", working or living in a relationship.

While Betty was in Bacolod, I was mostly in Munich

Well, since Betty and I got engaged on 18th May 2014, and celebrated "honeymoon" in May and June, we also lived in such one ... until I finally moved from Munich-Schwabing to Betty's house in Bacolod on 8th December 2016 ... to end the "Long Distance Relationship".

We really wanted to get married. But there is still my first Philippine marriage "as a hindrance" because Catalina and I married on 23rd June 1987 in Quezon City. Ina was at this time still Filipina and became Austrian 1989.

In short:

Ina was with me in Munich when I took 1993 an early retirement in Munich in 1993 and wanted to move to Ina's homeland, where I got in "record time" my status "immigrant" ... But, Ina prefered to remain in Munich for living and she was working in a large US airline. She would have had hardly any similar opportunities in the Philippines. There was a "long Distance relationship" in the Air, because I had very quickly "to do something" - at the Badian Island Beach Resort and Hotel in Cebu.

Ina, however, soon applied for divorce in Munich. Because if you are separated for more than a year, a divorce is very easy - and so we were therefore divorced on 21st December 1995 in Munich. In the whole "affair" I was not at all - I was in the Philippines. But we remain – according to Philippines law - still "married" ... because there is no divorce in the Philippines.

Well, in 2015 applied Caeser Distrito, my friend and attorney, city council deputy in Bacolod and president of the Bacolod City Host Lions Club in which I am a member since 1995, in the court in Bacolod "the recognition of the Munich divorce" in the Philippines.

In short:

I "invested" about 5,000 Euros - a quarter million Philippine Pesos - in attorney fees, translations of documents and the necessary official confirmations, court costs, travel expenses, etc.

After several meetings and negotiations, the court in Bacolod has "decided" on 29th December 2016 that it could not decide anything, because the divorce of “foreigners” in a "foreign" court can not be "recognized in the Philippines”.

That's it!

And it was no result in the attempt of a marriage with Betty and myself. Then there was a little "crisis" it in our engagement and otherwise was in our relationship "the worm splashing around", because with "visits" during the "Long Distance Relationship" is it just still a little to quite "different" than living together permanent in a marriage which led to Betty's "opinion "on 16th March 2017, that our engagement was almost "ending "... and I did not" contradict".


And then it "happened"

Friends in Kirschner Reisen Cologne, with office also in Manila, could offer a short-term booking for a flight to Munich ... for the Holy Week, because my brother Christian and his wife Maria in Hofkirchen offered me to be there until I can find an own place for me.

This happened very quickly on the "Tabor" in Steyr and I'm living in a very nice "single" apartment since 25th April 2017 - very quiet location and with nice neighborhood.

But just alone ... and I remembered the beautiful time with Betty in our "Long Distance Relatiponship", where we already lived like "Husband and Wife".


Why not again?

Well, it took a while until Betty and I "met" us in the Facebook chat ... more and more, we wrote ... until Betty found the “magic word” and called me as her "Husband".

That's it ...
and so we have revived our "Long Distance Relationship".
 



 
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