Tampo, The Filipina Silent Treatment
Tampo is the Filipina way of dealing with a stress in the relationship. From a western perspective it is a nightmare. This is because we are not used to dealing with women in this way. But you are in a relationship with a foreign woman and it is something that you must deal with.
The Filipina will exhibit Tampo by giving you extreme silent treatment. The first time that you experience this it will come as a big shock. She will completely shut down and not talk to you or even acknowledge your existence.
This is very much part of the culture in the East. Understand that in the East saving face is a big deal. People do not want to disrupt the harmony of the household by throwing a fit. This would bring discord to the household and others that are living there.
Tampo is a way for a Filipina to deal with her emotions in a private setting without disturbing others in the house. She is essentially cutting you off and depriving you of her affections.
You will know that she is in Tampo when she completely stops communicating with you and ignores you when you attempt to engage her in any conversation. She will not even communicate about things that are important in the long term.
The worst part about Tampo is that you probably will not even know why she is upset. Usually it is because she thought you were interested in another girl or because of some really simple misunderstanding.
There are different strategies for dealing with Tampo. One is to force her to talk about what is wrong. In the West this is what we do when there are problems in a relationship. This generally does not work very well. It forces her to deal with the problem now which is alien to her culture and she is likely to say things that she doesn’t really mean. She might tell you that she wants to go home to the Philippines or even that she does not think the relationship is working. She really does not mean these things but she is thinking all kinds of things when she is in Tampo.
Forcing her to confront her feelings before she is ready will cause her to say things that will make you as a westerner angry and perhaps even hurt.
When she goes into Tampo it is best to let her get her emotions under control before you deal with the situation. It is best to wait for her to calm down and give her some space before engaging with her.
Another way of dealing with Tampo is to give her what she wants. This is basically to be really sweet to her and to confess whatever it is you did wrong that caused her to be hurt. The problems with this are you may have no idea what you did to hurt her and could end up confessing to things that did not make her upset to begin with. The other major problem with this method is it is what she wants you to do.
Tampo from a western view is really immature and will cause serious long term problems with your relationship. As a westerner you will truly never understand this process and you will become frustrated with her not talking to you and withdrawing her affection from you.
I have found that the best solution is one that prevents the Tampo from occurring on a frequent basis, but allows her to get her emotions under control and allows her to save face.
She wants you to act like a Filipino guy and give her affection and beg for her return. This is simply unacceptable to an American Man. It is not the way we are used to dealing with women or people in general. We are used to dealing with our feelings and confronting problems that we are having.
The best solution is one where she will not do Tampo in the future because it does not achieve the outcome that she desires, but she is still able to save face.
The best thing to do when she does Tampo is to simply ignore her and act like everything is fine. This allows her to get her emotions under control and to save face without causing a scene. She does not get her desired outcome of having you grovel and she learns that this behavior simply does not work with you.
After a while, sometimes days, she will communicate to you the reason that she was hurt. Now you do not have to guess as to why she has shut you out. You can then deal with the reason that this all happened, which is usually the not the reason that you would have anticipated. This allows you to be a man and not put up with this silliness and it allows her to get her emotions in check.
Fair warning that you have to be stern in ignoring her or this will not work. No matter how much you want to fix things and figure out what you have done wrong so that you can fix the situation, you simply cannot budge if you want to prevent this in the future.
Remember that her goal is to get you to beg for forgiveness from her and to show gestures of sweetness towards her. This is not the western way. If you want to live like that for the rest of your life, go ahead. But it will cause you to be miserable in your relationship. An interracial relationship is about give and take and she must be willing to meet you half way.