I met Mayette through Ted Fisher in the early eighties who operated an introduction agency and charter flights. Personal introduction tours were also organised and created good opportunities to make friends from both worlds. Me and my friend Gary considered her a nice girl who would be good at making a nice coffee...
After some months we arranged to meet and I stayed in a Davao hotel just outside town for 3 weeks. Usually she visited me there although once or twice I wouldn't see her for 3 days. It was a lot of waiting.
Mayette told me she was living with her uncle (nicknamed 'Baldie') and that she had a job in the bank (later she showed me a photo of her sitting at a very clean desk but nothing to suggest it was a bank or that she had a job there.
Towards the end of my visit we decided we would marry on my next return, which was some months later. That provided enough time to apply for her Permanent Resident visa so that we could leave on the day after the wedding. For our honeymoon I booked a round flight from Manila, staying in Honolulu for a few days, hence to Auckland (open stopover) and back to Manila. We anticipated that her return leg to Manila would not be used.
We married in 1983. The wedding was held in the same hotel I stayed in before, where I also booked a double for two nights.
It was the same evening that I discovered about her 'uncle'. She insisted to attend a party without me (no idea why) and during that time I made a copy of a note she quietly wrote earlier in her own language, using a sheet of carbon from the hotel on the imprint on the next page of the notebook.
I had the note translated by hotel staff which revealed the real relationship with her 'uncle'.
I should have left her there and leave by myself but decided to give her a chance.
- The uncle she lived with turned out to be her live-in boyfriend.
- There was no job in any bank
- Left me alone in the hotel for three days
- The secret note to her 'uncle' (boyfriend) on the wedding day
- During the first two weeks she told my sister she did not love me
First of all, I never laid hands on her in anger. Yes, in love I laid hand on her a lot... lol.
It should be said that during the two weeks she stayed with my sister In Christchurch awaiting visa approval, she told my sister that she did not love me... but my sister told me nothing.
Soon on arrival in Maroubra (Sydney), she told some of the neighbours that she only intended to stay for five years "so that she could get the house"... strange enough, nobody told me anything. Later the same neighbours testified in Court to that effect.
We actually had a good marriage, and she had all the freedom without the need for her to get a job. I went out together to buy her a new car (manual Ford Laser) but which soon was not good enough... as she was driving it she got the shits, complaining it was not registered in her name. When in Melbourne we traded it for an automatic (same model), registered in her name.
Our first child (Lovelyn) was still born, due to a stuff-up with a 'Private Gynecologist who was not available when the waters broke early (no other doctor was allowed to treat her). Mayette had to be kept on potent drugs to combat high blood pressure but which killed the baby.
Even during the marriage, she visited her grave with her secret boyfriend Brian Hill.
In August 1985 we were blessed with a healthy boy (Danya).
I had a business account with a wholesale firm (Campbells Cash & Carry), Mayette used to buy stuff on account but sell the goods to her friends and quietly pocketed the money... (this I learned later from Anton my older son from a previous relationship).
She had some friends (unknown to me) who knew 'a good lawyer'. Soon I was served with a summons to attend a hearing where she applied for an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order). If undefended, and with her address shown as our matrimonial address, the effect would be that I would be visited by police and ordered to leave my own house (I learned that most such applications are undefended), which was her intention and would mean she could move in without me.
Mayette proved to be an anti-social backbiting evil cunt without any ethics. Nothing was open for discussion, she simple wanted as much as possible. She told me "I get the house and you keep the business.. I think that's fair". In addition to that she wanted a fancy amount for spousal maintenance over and above a most generous child maintenance.
The preliminary hearing resulted in joint custody with Danya to spend every weekend with me.
I was totally drained of funds and child support had to cease, knowing that by that time she had a job with income and more cash then me, and the boyfriend Brian Hill.
Despite a Family Court Order not to apply for a Passport and not to take him out of the country, she applied and obtained a passport based on a false application. Then took a holiday to Philippines taking Danya with her.
Danya had many friends in Maroubra, and many weekends were spent in the livingroom playing interactive linked up computer games with 4 or 5 kids. Our favourites included Doom (& the WAD variations like the schoolyard), Need for Speed, Indy, etc.
Later he took a keen interest in bodyboarding at Maroubra Beach getting up before sunrise bringing along his friends.
