What is a Mail Order Husband and How to Find One?

What is a Mail Order Husband?

Most people know what a mail order marriage is. After all, the practice of men looking for women for marriage from another area is quite old and traces back to the age of the American Frontier. A more recent term that often catches people off-guard, however, is “mail order husband.” And, indeed, women looking for a mail order husband, as well as men applying to become a mail order husband are both quite real.

So, just like mail order wives looking across the internet for a potential husband to marry and move in with, a mail order husband seeking a pretty lady from another area to move in with and form a family with is an equally valid form of international love. Of course, the former is still generally much more common than the latter; however, with gender equality becoming more and more common in different cultures and countries, mail order husbands are becoming a more common concept too.

Cost of Online Dating Services

While free apps like Tinder can be used to search for a perfect match in another country, they come with a higher risk of encountering scammers and generally have lower success rates. Therefore, many singles prefer specialized dating websites that often operate on a credit system instead of premium plans, with costs varying based on user activity. Here are a few examples:

Although SofiaDate is slightly cheaper, the cost of live chatting can vary. On average, users spend around $100 per month on these platforms. Therefore, the total cost will depend on the time spent on the website and the number of users contacted. Most people spend at least six months on these platforms, making the approximate cost of services around $600.

Cost of Trips

Travel costs will vary depending on the destination country, the season, and the frequency of travels. Below are approximate prices for a two-week trip to top mail-order groom countries:

Total Cost

Assuming six months of activity on the dating site and two trips to the Philippines, the total estimated cost would be around $5,600. Additionally, the groom will need to obtain a visa, which may involve extra costs to be decided by the couple. Other optional expenditures, such as gifts and wedding expenses, should also be considered when planning your budget.

What is the difference between a mail order husband and a mail order bride?

In principle, there is no real difference between a mail order bride and a mail order husband, other than the gender of the person seeking to travel to a partner abroad – in the former case, a lady is looking to move abroad to a new husband, and in the latter, a man is looking for a foreign bride to move to.

In practical terms, however, due to the various gender norms and dynamics across the whole world, the different economic circumstances that are still present between men and women around the world, as well as the different preferences of men and women, there are some other key differences between a mail order wife and a mail order husband.

The main ones relate the presence and nature of the economic or social circumstances of the mail order spouse. Here’s how we would break it down:

• It’s very common for a mail order wife to be strongly motivated by economic factors, i.e. to look for a man with more money from more economically developed countries, as such a man can offer her a level of support a local man rarely could. For a mail order husband, it’s also possible to look for a wealthy wife abroad, however, it’s not as common.
• Another common focus of a mail order wife is to move to a place where it’s normal for people or the law to treat women equally, as this isn’t the case for women in most of the developing world and many young girls are going through hell in the places where they live. A mail order husband rarely (or never) has such a focus, however, as men aren’t really the socially disadvantaged gender anywhere in the world.
  A possible exception would be for a man from a disadvantaged minority in a certain area to look for a partner in a place where his minority wouldn’t be mistreated. However, again, this isn’t exactly common for a mail order husband.
• With mail order wives, the woman is almost always from a less economically developed country, with fewer education and job opportunities. For a mail order husband, however, this can vary much more. It’s not uncommon for the mail order husband to actually be from a country with a stronger economy and to even be more monetarily stable than the woman he is talking with online.
  In such cases, the focus of the mail order husband often is that he just wants to move to a different city or place for personal reasons, and is looking to start his life there with a partner from the get-go.
• It is quite common for a mail order wife to be of a significantly younger age than the husband she is moving in with. Such a woman is also usually expected to be interested in having children, being a housekeeper, have an interest in looking after the family, and so on.
  For a mail order husband, there are usually much fewer expectations of this sort. Such a husband can be young and less economically stable than the lady he is dating, or he can be older and with a bigger budget.
  A mail order husband can be looking for children and life as a stay-at-home dad looking after the house, or he can still be interested in taking the traditional breadwinner role in the household – it all comes down to how the two people want to arrange their relationship.

How to find the best dating site for mail order husbands?

While there are thousands of international dating websites working with mail order brides sites, there are much fewer specializing in helping mail order husbands find ladies abroad, and the ones that do are fairly new.

When looking for such a site, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

• Do plenty of research on the site and its functionalities.
• See if there are proper communication tools – not just for chatting but for video calls too.
• What are you expected to pay monthly and is it a flat fee or a credit system that scales based on the features you’ve used? Also, which users are the ones paying for the site and its services – the men, the women, or both?
• Are there adequate matchmaking tools to help you find the perfect match for you?
• Are there good verification tools to ensure there are few-to-no scams and everyone on the site is a real person?
• Is the customer support good, is it available 24/7, and are there different ways to contact customer support, or would you have to settle for just a chatbot feature?
• Is the user base sizable enough, and what is the ratio between men and women?

Reading reviews from users is just one part in doing such a research too, and you’d probably want to put in a little extra effort and delve a bit deeper.

One site we’d recommend as of right now is FindYourLove. It has a very large database of both men and women looking for marriage and life abroad, it has a very smooth user interface with great communication tools, and it has amazing security features. However, the membership costs, especially if you want to use the site’s premium features, can be a bit too costly for some.

Pros and Cons of mail order husbands

As with mail order wives, this type of mail order relationship also has its advantages and disadvantages. Being aware of both is crucial if you want to make such a relationship work and not stumble in an overly obvious – in hindsight – mistake many others have done before you.

Pros:

• Looking for a life partner internationally is a great way to broaden the scope of your search by a thousandfold. After all, finding the perfect match can be tricky if your whole dating pool consists of just the guys at work, your friend circle, and whoever else is in your area on a dating app.
• Marrying a mail order husband is a great way to add some extra spice to your life, a different perspective, or broaden your cultural experience without having to leave the confines of your hometown.
• Through a relationship with a mail order husband, you can get a man from a culture with drastically different gender norms and dynamics. This can be perfect for women who aren’t satisfied with how they are treated by the men around them.
• Do you want a young and more subservient man who would stay home, look after the kids, and cook for you whatever you feel like you want to eat that night? If you do, but the society around you doesn’t offer such a relationship as readily, a foreign mail order husband can scratch that itch as easily as mail order wives do for men.
• If, on the other hand, you want a relationship with an older and wealthier man who would be willing to come live with you rather than the other way around, this too can be arranged with a mail order husband.

Cons:

• As this is a fairly new niche, it’s easy to imagine that different people can have drastically different expectations toward the mail order husband experience. This means that both the guy and the gal in such a relationship should be very careful during the online communication phase and make sure that they are aware of what the other wants, expects, and offers and are both on the same page.
• As with any other cross-cultural relationship, there can be certain language and cultural barriers that can get in the middle of things. Such stuff is normal and easy to overcome in most cases, but is something to be aware of.
• Scams and fraud are as common with mail order husbands as they are with mail order wives. So, as with any other online interaction, it’s important to stay safe until you are 100% sure you can trust the person on the other end of the line as you would a dear friend.
• Since this niche is still new, there are fewer websites for mail order husbands, and therefore – fewer good and trustworthy sites. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for a mail order husband, but just means you should be careful while doing so.

Why should you look for a mail order husband – are the reasons the same as for mail order brides?

Everyone understands the usual dynamic between a mail order wife and her husband. Men who look for mail order brides usually do so because they want a younger spouse from a specific foreign culture.

However, why should a lady look for a mail order husband to come to her instead of a local man? As it turns out, the reasons here are much more and quite diverse:

• A local lady can have the exact same motivation to look for a young guy from abroad as a man’s motivation for a young foreign mail order bride. After all, especially in developed countries, a lot of women can be very monetarily stable and interested in being the matriarch of the household.
  For such a lady, a foreign guy who would be happy to stand by her, won’t try to get in the middle of her and the household’s finances, or try to take control of them can be the perfect option.
• A even more common motivation for ladies to look for a mail order husband is that they want to add some foreign magic to their life. Cultural diversity in a relationship can be incredibly beneficial, not to mention that a lady can also be interested in having a husband from a specific ethnicity, just as a guy can be.
• A mail order relationship can also feel very easy and simple for many women. For them, especially those living in smaller towns and who have had unfortunate (or even dark) previous dating or marriage experiences, don’t feel like they have the patience to date any more local guys or feel like they have exhausted the dating potential of their circle of friends.
  For them, the idea of chatting with a foreigner, developing a relationship with him, and him eventually coming over and moving in can feel much more simple and tempting.
• Just as mail order brides are often motivated by a desire to move to a country where both men and the law would act better toward them, a local lady can place an equal importance on finding a foreign partner who would be better to her than the local guys around her.
  A simple example of that is South Korea, where many women are so tired of how the local South Korean men act toward them that there is an outright broad social movement of women refusing to marry and have kids with South Korean dudes.
  In such cases, the woman’s motivation isn’t in stuff such as money, law, or a specific patriarchal/matriarchal relationship dynamic – she just wants a husband who would be her equal partner, a friend, who won’t keep her in the dark or try to gaslight her and take away her voice, and with whom she can feel heard and can speak her mind.
• A local lady can also have the same motivation as a mail order gal, but just not be interested in moving abroad. Such a lady can want a husband who is from a stronger economic background, who can take care of her, buy her small gifts, a car, finance her education, and so on – she just wants him to come over to her rather than the other way around.

There can be many other reasons to want a relationship with a foreigner too. This is one of the beauties of this emerging trend of mail order guys looking to travel to live with a foreign gal – the motivations behind such relationships seem to be much more diverse than the traditional mail order wife marriage model.

Which countries do most mail order husbands come from?

With mail order wives, the most common countries tend to be less economically developed – usually from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South America, or Africa. With a mail order husband, however, such a man can be from anywhere around the globe.

The most common countries include (but are not limited to) Britain, Canada, Japan, Australia, Germany, Ukraine, Ireland, Mexico, and others. As you can see, these countries are very diverse in terms of laws, societal norms, economic circumstances, cultures, and more.

A man from Canada and a man from Mexico can have drastically different reasons for wanting to move abroad, as well as a different consideration driving their interest in online dating.

In conclusion

The niche of mail order husbands is fairly new and rapidly developing, so, chances are that the trends highlighted in this article will keep evolving too.

As of right now, this niche is much smaller than that of mail order wives, but – paradoxically so – it’s also more diverse, as it turns out that women tend to have much more diverse reasons to look for foreign partners than men.

So, while it’s exciting to see how this niche would develop, the other key factor to mention here is that this niche is quite real and functional today. So, if you’re a guy who wants to move abroad to a foreign lady or you’re a gal who is tired of the dudes around her and wants a foreign husband to move in with her – there are definitely ways to accomplish that.