“True. Of all the good women I know here in the US, pretty much all the best ones are taken already. Of the ones that are left, at least past their twenties that is, it’s a given that a bit of some baggage comes along with them. Some much moreso than others, mind. The ones from non-US locations tend to have much less, and are therefore the more interesting to one such as I, to be sure.”
The key thing is to get to know their family. If virtually all of their relatives get married once and stay married your chances of a good marriage increase by an order of magnitude. If not, then you have a lot of angry relatives (and friends) telling your wife to dump you, the first time you complain about the extra pair of shoes she bought.
“The key thing is to get to know their family.”
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That may help but it is no key.
I knew my first wife’s family quite closely from teenage days.
I married her at age 36, after she divorced her first husband.
There is no magic bullet.
I just recently married my Philippine girlfriend that I met on my first trip here in 2008.
I moved here and we have lived together since Jan 2009.
We married at the end of last year.
Yes, I know her family quite well. They live in the same town, and our baby boy spends much of his daytime at their house.
It's not just their family that you need to look at. When you have gone past all the usual, you suddenly realize that getting involved with them means sort of inheriting their parents, siblings, offspring, and extended family. All of who will try to have a say in matters, sad to say.
THEN we get into ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands who are mandated time with the kids (not you, there or not), and all their friends -and consider it a given that not all of them will like you for one reason or another and will try to negatively influence the relationship in so many different ways. (especially if one or more of her friends turns out to be a vindictive ex-girlfriend).