Episode 30: Is Finding Love Abroad Worth the Price?

Brandon Held shares his personal journey of finding love internationally and marrying a woman from Brazil, discussing the realities that dating shows like 90 Day Fiancé don't fully capture. He explores the challenges and rewards of cross-cultural relationships with honesty and vulnerability based on his own experience.

• Dating internationally completely reverses American dating dynamics - men receive abundant messages instead of competing for attention
• Video calls are essential to weed out scammers who use attractive photos and eventually ask for money
• Language barriers create misunderstandings even when both people speak the same language due to cultural connotations
• Cultural differences regarding family relationships, financial support, and lifestyle expectations require significant adaptation
• Immigration processes are brutal. Fairly expensive, time-consuming, and stressful with little transparency about timelines
• Finding your perfect match internationally can be worth every obstacle if you're prepared for the challenges

Intro

Transcript

Introduction and Podcast Overview

Brandon Held: Hey, this is Brandon Held and welcome to Life is Crazy, episode 30, the Big three. Oh. Gonna talk about international dating today, but before I do, I gotta get the plugin. Go to Brandon held.com, check out my site and if you haven't already, please start from episode one. Go through one from one through 25.

It's the story of my life. It's the whole thing that started this podcast, and from there you can jump around and maybe look at different topics. That you might like, but also if you go to my website, I have a blog and a space for you to give me topic ideas that you'd like to hear about. I have so much life experience and so many [00:01:00] different things.

It's almost even hard to fathom myself. 

Starting the International Dating Journey

Brandon Held: So today I am gonna talk about something that I feel is relatively unknown unless you've gone through it. People have an idea how it's gonna go, myself included, and that is international dating. Just to start this from the beginning I am married to.

A beautiful woman from Brazil and she was in Brazil when I met her. It's not like she was in America. And I met her and we got married. She was in Brazil. So let me start with that. And then also just the very beginning. So I was dating someone and it wasn't really going well. And I started watching 90 Day Fiance and it really turned me on to the idea of [00:02:00] dating someone outside the country for multiple reasons.

And I. So that's really where this whole thought process even began, where I even started dating outside the country. 

Challenges of Local Dating

Brandon Held: I got out of an ugly breakup and I knew I didn't want to jump into something right away. And I also, had been married three times and, some girlfriends along the way and.

I was also, trying to do dating apps for local dating and just nothing was just really working out, Tucson. It's actually a pretty small market. I would say that because I was in my, mid forties and there's a bunch of college girls and, married people and not a lot in between.

So the market's pretty slim [00:03:00] and Americans typically don't want to move. From one city to another they usually have their roots and they're grounded, especially around my age. And when I started this venture, I was looking for someone around my age. So I decided, from watching 90 Day fiance, if you don't know.

If you haven't watched that, it's a show about, Americans that are engaged to someone from another country and they come to America on a 90 day fiance, K one travel visa, and they have 90 days to get married. And if they don't get married in 90 days, then the other person has to move back to their country.

And or also if they leave the country within that 90 days within the marriage they are also not allowed to return to the country without getting approved for another I. [00:04:00] Visa potentially. I understand that's not a hard and fast 100% rule, but it's the general rule. So I'm gonna discuss this today because I've had other people ask me questions about this because they've thought about doing it as well.

And like me, they don't really understand just how difficult it really is. And this is not to turn anyone off or push anyone away from this idea. It's just simply to be straight up with the facts of what it's about. You go online. 

Exploring International Dating Platforms

Brandon Held: Which is really the only way you're going to meet someone from another country, unless you're trying to do it organically and travel around the world.

And some people do that, they travel and then they meet someone local while they're traveling. But for me personally, I went online I [00:05:00] used international cupid.com and I used specifically brazilian cupid.com because. I particularly was interested in Brazilian women. And so between the two, I was talking to women from all over the world and it's, it was wild.

If you ever look at. American dating apps, for example, and you're a man, you really have to pursue. American women and American women are just flooded with messages and they have to try to weed through the flood of messages and decide who's worth talking to and who's worth spending.

Time on. And it can be frustrating as a man trying to date an American woman, just the way things go. So in international dating, it's completely reversed almost. [00:06:00] Whereas I would get flooded with messages from women from other countries. I had to try to weed through those women and decide who I wanted to talk to and who I wanted to spend, my time with to get to know.

And I'm fairly particular. I know everyone thinks that, and everyone says that, but when I say that, I genuinely mean, 90% of the female population is out for me. I'm picky. I need, I need a pretty face. I need someone who's athletic and fit. And I need someone who's educated.

So those are just non-negotiable starters for me. When you start looking at everything else that has to fall into place, personality, morals everything that you need to connect with someone and fall in love. Yeah, I need those first three [00:07:00] upfront and that knocks out a huge portion of the population because, not very many people are fit or and care about fitness, especially American women.

I'm sorry, I know that sounds mean and rude, but, walk in any Walmart, Costco, anywhere you want to go and tell me how many people you see that are not overweight or. So that's just the reality of that situation, at least where I live in Arizona. I know it could be different if, say you live in New York City or la, whatever.

There's other cities where it'd probably be different, but where I'm from Ohio and where I've lived, Ohio, North Dakota, Texas, while for a little while, and Arizona, it's just generally the case. That I can't find that unless I'm in a gym. The gym is my only atmosphere [00:08:00] and I have tried talking to women in gyms and almost every single time they are with a boyfriend or married.

When I say almost, I think maybe once out of dozens of women I've approached in the gym was actually single. And she turned out to be like a stripper or something and she wasn't interested in dating and trust me, I wouldn't have been interested in dating her once I found that out. But I didn't know that prior to the approach.

So that's how I got on this journey. I started talking to all these women from other countries. Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, Philippines, Columbia, Canada korea. There were more I was genuinely giving. Many people a chance to just talk and connect and it's difficult to [00:09:00] do online, right?

Navigating Scammers and Authentic Connections

Brandon Held: Because you're texting, you lose tone when you text. You can't understand when someone's joking or serious unless they use emojis there's a lot of scammers out there and so that's one of the things that I want to make sure that everyone knows and understands, that when you try to date internationally online, the scammers are real and there are a lot of them, and they are not dumb.

They use really beautiful women's pictures. Because obviously that's what men go to, whether or not they should, they are the right connection for a beautiful model type woman. Men will still go for that. Shoot their shot. Why not? And a lot of them are scammers and you should think about that and be real about that.

You know how many super beautiful [00:10:00] 10. Level women are on international dating sites looking for a man. They don't need to look for someone. They've got more men beating down their door, than they need. One of the prerequisites I had when talking to anyone was being able to get on a video call with them right away.

If they gave me some kind of lame excuse of, oh, my internet connection is bad, or oh, my phone is broken. My phone camera is broken. These are all the scams and all the excuses they use. And you would realize this because they would want to keep, they would urge you, practically beg you to keep talking to them 'cause they're so interested in you.

But then, eventually they'll ask you for money or something. Oh, I need a little help. And it may not even be much, depending on [00:11:00] your life and financial situation, but you'd think people would be, I. I am trying to scam you out of thousands and thousands of dollars. But if someone asks you for a hundred bucks and you could swing it, you think that's no big deal.

But if they're getting a bunch of people to send them a hundred bucks, that's a pretty good chunk of change for them. So I would never, send anyone any money or anything like that. Because I had a personal rule. If I can't see your face and talk to you, you are not real. And even if that ended up excluding, I.

Some women who were legitimate and maybe had legitimate excuses that they couldn't get on a camera phone and do a FaceTime type meeting, then so be it. It knocked them out. I had to protect myself first and foremost, so that would be my first recommendation for anyone who wants to do that. [00:12:00] And then once once you get over that you, you meet someone you're maybe clicking a little bit in, you're texting back and forth, and you get them to set up a video call and you agree to the video call and you see them face to face and that they are real.

You still have to figure out after that if they are real. What do I mean by that? Are their intentions real? Are they. Talking to you because they legitimately want to be with you. They legitimately want to, they wouldn't know that right away, but they legitimately want to meet someone that they want to have a real relationship with, and eventually a future.

And just because you can see someone, that doesn't mean the scamming is over. You could meet someone who's not genuine, not legitimate. [00:13:00] Yes. They're talking to you. Yes. You can see them. Yes. They're pretending to like you. So they start asking you for money, and that is red flag number one. Is if. You barely know someone and immediately right away they're asking for help. I need help financially. Okay. Don't fall for that. That means they're not real. They're not there for the same reason you are. They're there to get money and you could be one of, several men they have on the hook and that's how they make a living.

So you have to have some kind of common sense to. What is realistic in that situation? And I'll get to that eventually because that's not an unrealistic situation because cultural differences aren't the same as Americans. But we'll get to that. [00:14:00] So when you get through that initial phase of video call, met you, you're real.

Overcoming Language and Cultural Barriers

Brandon Held: Then you have obstacles like language barrier, right? Maybe you don't know how to speak another language. I met my wife, she's Brazilian. They speak Portuguese. I don't know how to speak Portuguese. I have no clue how to speak Portuguese. I know some very. Basic words to basically say thank you and good morning and good evening, and a few other things.

But, that's it, that's all I know because a I had her and she could always translate for me. So language barrier is huge. She was really new at learning English. She's, incredibly hard worker and she works really hard at, everything that she does. And learning English was one of those things.

She was only a few years into learning English when we first [00:15:00] met and first started talking. And when you consider that her English was pretty incredible it's, much better today, four years later, and she still works on it daily. She still every day is trying to perfect her English.

So it, but it's still a language barrier, right? Different words in different cultures mean different things. And even though the word translates, that doesn't mean. That it means the same thing to them, that it means to you. And these are all things you have to learn. And these are things that you can only learn over time.

And the reason I tell you this upfront is because we had arguments early in the relationship because. We basically just misunderstood each other. She was saying one thing. I was saying one thing, and her [00:16:00] translation of it from Portuguese to English was maybe offensive to me. And my translation or her translation of my words from English to her Portuguese brain was maybe offensive to her.

And we both thought we were right, but really. We just didn't understand what the other person was saying, and so that takes time to learn. That takes time to get to know and it's still taking time four years later. We've been together four years, three and a half. I. Married and we still have language barriers.

It's still something we have to overcome on occasion, not clearly. Not as often, and then there's cultural differences, the way you. Individually might be used to handling a relationship or being in a relationship maybe isn't the way that the person you know, from the country that [00:17:00] you're speaking to is used to being in a relationship or not the way they handle relationships, 

and so those are things you have to think about and that's just your relationship. There's plenty of other factors with that, family and friends, and just how you interact with those and how those things go. Those are all factors, multiple factors. There's no way I could get into all of them.

I will get into some of them. For example most cultures are just closer families than Americans. They just are. They live together. They rely on each other. The kids take care of the parents just as much as the parents took care of the kids. The kids financially support parents, which is.

Something almost unheard of here in America. I know it happens. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but [00:18:00] generally our parents are more successful than we are and or at least can take care of themselves financially and typically have to help the kid. But in other cultures, it's the other way around. The kid is the one with the energy and the strength and the youth and the vigor to go out and.

Get an income and provide the income to help take care of the family home. And that's something you have to consider. And you also have to look at distance and travel in this case, my wife lived in Brazil. I live in America, and I had to go to Brazil to meet her. She can't come to America. Right?

Getting an American tourist visa. I. Is incredibly hard and time consuming. It takes a long time. If we meet and then within three, four months of [00:19:00] meeting and talking and getting a feel that we really like each other and we wanna see if this can go somewhere. The only real way that's going to happen is if I travel to her or you travel to a neutral destination.

But again, either way, you're probably going to be. Footing the bill, which is something you need to be realistic about. 

Meeting in Person and Falling in Love

Brandon Held: So when I met my wife, I did meet her in Brazil the first time I met her. And I didn't just fly to her home and meet her and her hometown and and her family and all that because it's the first time we are meeting.

So we are still trying to figure. This out, what this is, what can this be? What's it going to be? And I would recommend you do the same. It's too much pressure to go to someone's hometown and meet their whole family and get out into all that when you don't even really know what you are just yet.

I flew her [00:20:00] to a different part of Brazil. Yes, I paid for the ticket. And then we met in a different part of Brazil and we spent eight days together alone discovering each other, learning each other, figuring out, is this something we wanted? And in my case, which isn't.

Necessarily relevant for this podcast, but in my case, I knew immediately the first time I met her, saw her, hugged her. I just knew I wanted this woman for the rest of my life. I knew it. It's uncanny. I've never felt that way before. It's not. Something that I didn't even know I could feel.

It's something I didn't even anticipate feeling on the whole flight to Brazil. I was genuinely worried if it was going to be a [00:21:00] disaster. I was genuinely worried. I spent, all this money on travel to Brazil for, all inclusive resort, her travel, and this was for eight days. And was this going to be a waste of money?

And the moment I saw her, the moment I hugged her, the moment I kissed her and saw her beautiful face in her sweet, kind, loving personality. I was in, I was all in. And I've never felt that way before. So that's how that went for me in that time. In Brazil, we both consider the eight greatest days of our life and it was a beautiful, amazing trip.

And for me, I proposed to her four days later, I think five days later, something like that. Because I just knew, I knew I had been married [00:22:00] three times before. I waited two years, twice and five years to get married, and I never felt as comfortable and ready for marriage to them as I did to her. After talking online and four for four months and meeting for five days, I was more sure of her than anything I ever was.

And it was great. And it was amazing. And if you're lucky enough to experience that, it's a beautiful thing. But it changes everything. It changed everything. So I went to Brazil. I met her. I knew her personality. I could tell who she was. We both fell in love. And so the part that I didn't anticipate and the part that really got me and her.

Was, we met someone from another country, which is cool, right? It's casual. You can talk online, you can talk on video, and it's not too strenuous and it's not too [00:23:00] serious because you don't have this need to, be going out with them or, staying home with them. 

The Struggles of Long-Distance Love

Brandon Held: All the things that come with a super serious relationship, but when you have a connection like that distance all of a sudden becomes hell.

Now this thing that you thought you wanted becomes torture. It becomes hell. Now, I have this person that I love very deeply. I enjoy their affection. I enjoy their. Touch. I enjoy their kiss. I enjoy their smile. I enjoy their hug. All of those things. Of course sex is a part of it too, but that's not really even, you know the point here, all those things you now don't get on a regular basis or not even close and you love this person.

It's just, it's [00:24:00] not like this person you just casually know and you just casually see you love this person, right? And love changes everything. So it definitely made. Being a part brutal. It was intense. And I'll tell you what I mean by that here in a minute. And, we're, we are both very what's the word I'm trying to look for here?

We're both very. Sensitive, right? So we both love deep, we love hard, we love strong. But we can easily be hurt or offended or upset as well by someone that we care so much about because their words and the things that they do carry so much weight on you. And when you're far apart and you have cultural differences and you don't quite speak the same language, even though [00:25:00] we're speaking English, we're not quite speaking the same language.

It creates problems. 

The Struggles of Long-Distance Relationships

Brandon Held: And we did not have. The same relationship at all. It from a distance as we had up close, not at all. So

wasn't even the clo wasn't even close to the same thing, so what we had in person, it was so magical and so beautiful. That if we didn't have that in person, we probably wouldn't have made it to the point where she got into the country because our long distance relationship was tough. It was really tough and it had a lot to do with our personalities and the way we were.

We met, we got engaged right away. We split up, we go [00:26:00] back to our separate ways, but now nothing's the same. The excitement of just getting your evening video call, working your day, going to the gym, or whatever else you'd like to do after work. And then getting your evening video call to talk about the day and say goodnight.

That excitement of that, or just waiting for that now becomes torture because you miss this person so much that the video call is just, it's not enough. And so we evolved over time. We evolved into. 

Balancing Priorities and Communication

Brandon Held: Less about just a nightly call because also initially when I met her, and this is my experience, not everyone's, she was studying for the bar exam in Brazil because she was going to become a lawyer.

She had already passed all her school and everything, and now she was studying for the bar [00:27:00] to be a lawyer. And so that was, it's something that was prohibiting us from talking as much in the beginning, but she made that clear. I'm super busy, I'm studying for the bar. And I felt like that was genuine and I felt like that was real.

I didn't feel like I was getting blown off, except for some days when, there was less time at the end of the day to talk. Because we all know how time works, right? We. There's not anything you don't have time for. It's just priorities. It's. What you prioritize. You make time for what you prioritize.

We all know that. So I'm not the kind of person you can ever tell you don't have time for something. I don't care if it's going to the gym. I don't care, what it is, spending time. I don't care what it is. You can't tell me you don't have time for something. You're just telling me you don't prioritize that thing.

You don't have time for, I've been [00:28:00] married, I have three sons, anything I prioritized, I had time for it. It was just a matter of me prioritizing it, whether it's the gym, whether it's time with my kids, whether it's time with my wife, whatever the case is, it was all about me and the decisions I was making and what I was prioritizing.

And so I truly believe that. And sometimes it was a little bit of a struggle early on before I met her because. I just felt like I wasn't a priority and frankly I probably wasn't. I was just this guy she was talking to and we weren't committed to each other in any way prior to meeting in Brazil.

So these are all things you have to consider. I know I'm giving a lot of personal experience here. But it's all things you have to think about, right? So you have to think about the finances of distance and travel and being apart, and you know what all that is [00:29:00] going to cost you.

And so you also have the online relationship versus the in-person relationship. I already hinted at that, right? What you have online, maybe yours is even the opposite of what we had. Maybe you, get along great. When you're far away from each other, everything's casual, everything's cool, everything's friendly.

You call each other at the times. Each of you is good for each of you. You have all these dreams you talk about together and it's great, and then you get together in person. And then your personalities conflict and you fight about things and you discuss things you didn't really discuss on the phone 'cause you didn't get deep enough and then you start having fights, and so it can go either way.

Ours just happened to go the way where it was magical in person and not as magical, far apart because of our personalities and the way we are. So yours [00:30:00] could go either way. I'm not saying one way or the other that it's definitely going to be that way. They're just all things to consider. 

Aligning Intentions and Future Goals

Brandon Held: And then, intentions and future goals.

Again, same thing you want to meet someone who. Aligns with what you're looking for. So what do I mean by that? So people say, oh, you don't want to mean someone that just wants an American and wants to be taken care of. If that's what you're looking for, say you're a man that's well established and you want a wife, and you want a wife that's gonna be home and she's gonna be there for you and she's gonna be available when you want her to be available and she's, going to do things that a stay-at-home wife would do.

Maybe that is what you're looking for. Maybe that is what you want. So you can't worry about other people saying, oh, she's just trying to use you or whatever, [00:31:00] because you have to look at what you want. I personally could've gone either way. I could've had someone that wanted to be a stay at home wife and.

Wanted to cater to my needs. But that's not what I got. That's not who I connected with. I connected with someone who was a lawyer in Brazil and she wanted to come to America and also be a lawyer and be an international lawyer. And she made it very clear that if we were going to be together, I needed to support her and her career aspirations and goals.

And I do I. So you have to find what's right for you. You have to make sure you talk about these things, and you have to make sure if you don't want someone that's just gonna be a stay at home life, you want someone who has a. Career aspirations and wants to work. Don't just take this, I wanna work stuff.

[00:32:00] And you gotta truly dig into what do they want to do? Do they have real career aspirations because maybe they catch on and read that. You want someone that's going to work. Oh yeah, I want to get a job. Okay, great. What does get a job mean to you? Dig into that, find out what that means. 

If that's important to you, find out what that means. Talk finances, learn. Maybe you're someone who's terrible with money and you spend everything you make. Maybe you're someone who's great with money and you don't want to be with someone who blows money and throws money out the window, like it's nothing.

Those are all things you need to learn. That not just for international dating, but for any relationship. Find out how you are about finances, find out how, if you're similar in what you, each of you view, [00:33:00] financial works together.

Family Dynamics and Acceptance

Brandon Held: And then, families of course. We had a very. Weird situation. My, my wife lived with her mother and she didn't live with her dad and she wasn't. Super close to her dad. Close enough I guess. But they had some rifts in their relationships since, her, him and her mother split up when they were younger.

And so when we were going to get married, which was the next time we met three months later in The Bahamas, she told her mother that we were getting married and I wanted her to tell her father but she just didn't wanna do it. She refused to do it. It was because she just didn't want to hear her father trying to talk her out of it, and be a naysayer because obviously she knows him and she understands his personality and she felt that was the best thing to do.

[00:34:00] Whereas I, as a man was like, no, you need to tell him, he's gonna hate me forever if he doesn't find out till after the fact that we're married. And, he wasn't told before. She's an intelligent woman and I let her follow her instinct even if I didn't agree necessarily.

And it all worked out. I don't know that her dad loves me or anything, but it seems like he's pretty cool with me and. That's all good. That all ended up working out in the end. But maybe she comes from, maybe the person you meet comes from a family where their family has to accept you because from, from watching 90 day fiance, that's the majority of people, right?

Majority of people need someone to meet their family, and their family needs to like them. Both sides, American and otherwise. Before they can even, take the idea of marriage in a future. [00:35:00] Seriously. It wasn't our case. I don't have a close family like that. I never knew my father, and if you listen to my podcast, you know my story.

And I just don't have that close of a relationship with my mother who lives across the country. So for me, I just needed to be happy and satisfied. And I also had to believe she was going to be someone that would be kind to my kids. And so I had all those. Boxes checked. And so that was good enough for me and she handled it her way, which was good enough for her.

And by the way, a man that had been divorced three times with three children was not on her list at all. As a matter of fact, she said that she would typically, if she. Someone reached out to her from a profile and they had even one kid, she wouldn't even talk to them. She wouldn't even give them the time of day.

So [00:36:00] she said, for some reason with me, she overlooked all those things. She overlooked the three divorces. She overlooked the three kids. And she just wanted to get to know me and give me a chance, and I'm sure she just I am so glad that she did that because we wouldn't have what we have today had she just check these boxes, you have kids and so you're out.

So those are all things that you have to consider as well. So there's a couple other big points. I usually stop my podcast at 30 minutes, but I'm gonna talk this one all the way through because I want to just finish the story and finish the everything you need to consider. 

Financial and Immigration Challenges

Brandon Held: So after I have met my wife and we became engaged and she became my [00:37:00] fiance and she finished.

Studying for the bar exam and she wanted to be a lawyer, right? We were now in a situation where, and then we got married actually. I think she found out she passed the bar exam when we were getting married in The Bahamas. She found out at the same time. So anyway, we split up from our second time being together, going separate ways.

Now we're married. Now she's my wife living in Brazil and now I'm trying to get her to America and now she can go get a job and be a lawyer, but. All we're trying to do is get her to America. So how is she going to go somewhere and ask for. An interview and asked to be hired, knowing that as soon as her American visa drops, she's out [00:38:00] of there.

It's just, it's not ethical. I'm sure, some people would be okay with it, but she wasn't okay with that idea of doing that to a company and I wasn't okay with it because, I believe in treating others the way I'd wanna be treated. Even though, I don't always get that same respect, it doesn't really matter.

It's the way I live life. And so this is where financial support had to come into play. She was done studying. She needed an income to live day-to-day life. Yes, she lived with her mother, but she also helped her mother. To an extent. And so now she's my wife. And so yes, I was helping, I was providing support and that's okay.

Someone doesn't have to be your wife to do that. They could be your fiance, they could be your girlfriend, whatever they are. But you have to assess that situation, and you have to [00:39:00] know and feel in your heart that what you're doing. It is genuine and it's the right thing to do that you're not being used, and I knew I wasn't being used. I knew I was doing what I should do as a husband, which was take care of my wife. If she was here living with me, we'd be under the same roof and I'd be buying the food and paying the bills, et cetera, et cetera. But that wasn't the situation we were in, and that has to be considered, and if you're not in a position where you can afford to travel and you can afford to, I. Pay for your potential partner's, travel and, afford hotels and eventually the financial requirements that it takes to get someone into the country, which I'll get to next. This isn't something you should even consider doing it's just, it's not right for you.

So you should be financially in a [00:40:00] place. Where this is something that you can do, you're okay to do. And that's what I'm gonna finish off with, and that is the immigration portion of trying to get someone into this country. It is a incredibly brutal process. I can't emphasize the word brutal.

Because not only are their costs associated $500 here for a fee, $300 here for a fee. The government, believe me, is not hurting when you are trying to get someone into this country lawfully. They're making plenty of money by you doing this process, and that's why they're so big on this process.

They want to talk about, oh, we need to keep bad people out of America. Yeah, I'm not [00:41:00] saying that they're, that's not. What they're doing in this process. 'cause they are, but every time someone gets into this country and they didn't do it, the quote unquote legal way, the government's losing out on thousands and thousands of dollars for every single person.

So that's a big expense cost to the government of funding that they lose. Now, you can feel how you want about this either way. I have my feelings about it. I'm not I brought someone into this country legally, so that should tell you all you need to know about what I think. I didn't just sneak her across the border.

I brought her in legally, but at the same time. The process is so brutal that I can understand why people do it a different way. If they don't have the means or whatever, I'm not excusing it, Chris Rock once [00:42:00] said, I'm not saying it's okay. I'm not saying I agree with it.

But I understand. And that's how I feel. I understand why people do it. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand. So the cost, the fees associated with getting someone in the country are thousands of dollars. Not all at once, chunks of 500 here, 300 there, 500 there. The chunks just add up.

And it goes into the thousands and. And so then there's that part. But really that part isn't even the hard part for me personally. On a personal level, I could deal with that. I could live with that. The hardest part is the process. It's the process. So you get, you go into ucs and you apply for your visa, whichever one you need, whether it's a fiance visa or whether it's a spousal visa, whatever it is, and [00:43:00] it's just.

A brutal process where you have to upload and submit these documents, and they're very incredibly specific about how it needs to be done and how it needs to happen, and things have to be scanned just perfectly. Documents have to be not only filled out perfectly and correctly, but then also scanned in perfectly and correctly.

And between those things, they constantly are catching quote unquote errors, what they consider errors and they're denying packets and sending people to the back of the line. You put your packet in and you get this general. Window of this is how long it takes us to process this, and it really just depends on where the [00:44:00] packet goes.

We were really lucky that our packet happened to go to a location Lincoln, Nebraska, a smaller processing center, and smaller as in they don't take on as many cases, so therefore they move faster and our process moved a little faster. But if you are someone that gets processed out of California, their wait time was anywhere from 24 to 36 months.

That's just to get through step one. That's step one. Step one is nothing. Step one is okay, we've accepted your paperwork. Now you have to go to doctor's appointments. You have to get an appointment to get interviewed by the embassy to, see if this is legit, if you're gonna be accepted, and all the other things you have to complete to do that.

And so once you've, you get this window of where they're going to accept you to [00:45:00] move to phase two. Phase two is literally like I. Boom falls into a black hole. Like you have no idea how long it's gonna take. You don't know if they're gonna get it done in 30 days, six months, a year. And the stress and anxiety associated with this, just not knowing is brutal.

It was brutal for us because, we're the type of people that. We like to somewhat be in control of our lives. We like to somewhat be in control of our destiny and what we're doing. We're not just, the laid back hippie types. That's not what we are. And so it was really tough for us, and at the end of the day, it only took, I say, quote unquote, only took 10 months to get her into the country because at that time that was.

Way faster. There were people [00:46:00] that were two, three years into the process and they still weren't here, and that 10 months for us was just absolutely brutal. Ultimately I ended up visiting her three times in Brazil. We got married in The Bahamas. So the cost of those trips, for. The hotels, the food, the travel, all those things.

When you add all those up and then add up supporting your significant other, and you add up the cost of uses that you could be spending easily. $50,000 in this process. I don't know. It's not the same for everyone, but I'm just saying it could happen. You could do it. And these are just all things I want you to understand and be realistic about in your approach.

Reflecting on the Journey and Final Thoughts

Brandon Held: If you decide this is something you want to do, I'm not telling you don't do it. [00:47:00] I met the love of my life. I. Love her more than I've ever loved any other woman ever. I didn't even think I could at this stage of my life. I was a little jaded with relationships and love, whereas when I was younger I was more open to it and more, just feeling like love was just this amazing great thing that you know when you have it.

It's unbeatable and to some extent that's true, but there's a lot of pain that can come with that when you're not with the right person. And so I'm glad I went through it and I'm glad we came out the other side and we are where we are and I don't know if I could have this with someone else.

I genuinely don't know. I've given it a lot of tries. In the end, everything I talked about, that [00:48:00] was the difficult part of this process. You have to ask yourself if it's worth going through. If you're at that point in life where you feel like that, I'm just not doing it here in America. It's just not working out for me.

I've got to go another route. That's all well and good. Do it, and I hope you find the person of your dreams, but you also should understand. There's a lot of tough parts to that, a lot of difficult parts, and I could say more, and I could go on forever. But I could see we're, 53 minutes into this episode.

And this is going to be my longest episode to date. Maybe, hopefully forever, because I don't like to have too long of episodes. I feel like that turns people off and they don't want to listen. But also, this is a marker for me because. The last three episodes I recorded, they have not been getting any traction.

When I [00:49:00] say any, any, they have not been listened to at all. Zero people have listened to them. I've had every episode of, the first 26. Listen to at least once. I think the minimum is twice. Some, for whatever reason, get more downloads than others. People aren't starting at episode one, which I don't particularly understand, but whatever.

This is a test to see if this is a topic someone would wanna listen to, and B is the fact that it's almost an hour. Intriguing because someone has an hour to kill, or is it a turnoff? Does it make people not listen because it's too long? Obviously I won't know that part, but if I do get more listeners, even though it's a longer episode, that either means it was a good topic or people don't mind the time of recording, thanks again for joining me, [00:50:00] the Big three oh, episode 30, and until next time.