My Three Wedding Ceremonies in One Marriage with My American Husband

I have a multicultural marriage; my husband is born American and I am a born Filipina. I had lived all my life in the Philippines, my country of birth until my life had undergone through a lot of changes initiated by meeting my husband for the first time in the website, Tagged particularly.

My British fiance and live-in partner for three years had died of cancer before we can get married three years ago at the time I met in Tagged my American husband now. I had no idea about meeting men in the net, my biggest conviction at the time my British fiance died was that I will never marry again considering that I was already 53 at the time of his death. I actually did not need to marry, I had a good job teaching College in SPCC and both my two children were already successful in their career and marriage, they have their own lives which both do well and I only had myself to support which my salary from my stable job can very well afford.

A month before my British fiance died his sister bought me a laptop as ordered by my fiance, with the reason that he did not want me to be lonely when he's gone and that he wanted me to write down our love story.

Having a laptop and an internet connection started it all. When my British fiance died I started writing the story and while doing that I noticed a lot of messages appearing on the screen asking to be friends; then I joined some group in the net which I really enjoyed contributing my opinions until one day someone suggested to me to get an account in Tagged so that I can have regular friends to talk to about certain matters. My husband now, Greg, is among those I had met in Tagged in 2010, September. At first we discussed about politics and economics, comparing our counties under the subject. I have a degree in Economics minor in Political Science so that it was easy for me to converse with him along these lines. Other than friendship in this sense, Greg and I had nothing for each other, no flirting and so-called romantic connections; I am straightforward and would have nothing of any foolish behaviors.

Then one day he asked if I would meet him in the airport if he would come to the Philippines to visit me; my initial reaction was disbelief. I was wondering why but he was true to his words, he actually came at his designated date because he said he wanted to see me in person to judge for himself if I was really as beautiful as he thought I was in my pictures.

It was Valentine's Day of 2011 when we first met in person at the NAIA when I met him on his arrival. He stayed at a hotel in San Fernando for two weeks; in those two weeks we had learned and admitted to ourselves that we had something real for each other and that was true.

He came back in October that year and on October 5, we married. The ceremony was officiated by a Lutheran Pastor. During the ceremony Greg and I were holding back temptations to laugh because of how the Pastor speak and the phrases he used...we held each others hands tightly and when the ceremony was over that we started to laugh freely; it was like a funny wedding.

That wedding was not registered by the Pastor because we lacked the necessary papers for it to be legal, but for hubby and me and in the eyes of God and those who witnessed we are already married. I may have been separated from my original husband for 18 years but the authenticated national record showed that we were still married. That was the reason why we started to straighten things out; I got a lawyer to file an annulment from that marriage. The marriage was still binding because there is no divorce in the Philippines. My original husband had another woman his life with whom he had two children aged 11 and 9 at that time.

It took us three years in that annulment process but no result had come out; but then Lady Luck came knocking, Lamurin, my original husband died, his death certificate gave me freedom to marry another. Hence hubby came back to me in 2013 and we started preparing for the second wedding ceremony, this time with the Judge in the Tarlac City Courthouse.

The wedding ceremony was really exciting, my sister and my daughter with her husband and children were there plus my longtime best friend Engineer Veronica Malano Miguel as the Principal Sponsor and witness and another witness, also a best friend. Another funny thing in this wedding was hubby kissed me too long like he never had kissed before that the young Judge had to say “that's enough” everybody was laughing, another wedding full of laughter.

That second wedding was already binding even for the U.S, government. I then resumed the processing of my visa for the US; there were a lot more things to do and another papers to be straightened such as the spelling of my name at birth which was different from the one I am using all throughout my whole life. To correct such mistake needed another lawyer and series of government bureaucracies that took us two more years for me to finally get my visa.

I am in the US finally and I need more papers and identification to process such as my green card and state ID and driver's license; then comes the requirement of my hubby's company of a marriage license from the state of Indiana for me to be the beneficiary of his insurance in the company and to avail of the tax exemption as a married person;hubby was single for more than ten years and he operated in that status, now that he's married he has to avail the benefits of a married man.

Well, that's the story why we had this third wedding ceremony...Hahahaha...I can laugh now but it's not really funny, hubby and I just happen to be weird and this what happens to weirdos...hubby never gives up on me, he will marry me as many as the opportunities demand.