Liberal western man and conservative Filipino woman

gosh probably, whatever lol ... I am a music teacher, I should stick to what I know, ... good call mate hehe!

Good post Tom If the culture you were brought up in pays lip service to whatever but its not your personal experience its easy to adapt

thanks keith and ... I agree with your point too.

My loved one is more liberal than most Filipinas and I am more conservative than most English men. Neither of us is particularly religious but have no adversions to attending church.

My loved one actually told her friend to find a man who is kind and responsible. When her friend told me that, I took that to mean that is what my loved one had found in me. Her family seem happy with me too, telling her they are glad she has found someone who is good to her.

Luckily, it seems I am nothing like her soon-to-be ex-husband, who is perpetually drunk. Me, I have been teetotal all my life and have never smoked either. I think my father treated my mother the same way and my mother only found happiness after my father died and she married someone who was not only good to her but to my sister and me too.

My stepfather was much older than my mother and I am much older than my loved one. My loved one also has many friends living overseas - all happily married to much older men. For us, at least, everything bodes well for the future, should we manage to overcome the visa hurdle.

I guess in any relationship it's OK to transform but not OK to reform.
That's just my thinking anyway.

you gotta find a compromise

The liberal view can be overlooked for the moment, as long as you do not try to force anything upon her. Also take in consideration when with her family and friends not to show too much of your liberal views. Even when they ask.it could be very embarrassing, because for them a "good man" is certainly a conservative one. I assume your mission not to start a new sexual revolution singlehandedly there.
Similar with the atheism. In general the Filipinos do not even understand the concept of another religion, how much harder it must be to understand a concept of no religion 9as mine) and furthermore of no god at all.
Now i hang around a lot with Doctors here, mostly surgeons (no wonder they don't believe in god anymore) an observed closely as well as asking them, how they manage this.
Simple, they said- we don't talk about it, we play by their rules, we go to the church and pray with them. Why discuss and convince them, its all they got...
i think you can handle it that way ; You tell your folks that you try and even go with them to the major masses at christmas and new year. Kinda nice too from the entertainment point. that will satisfy them and they won't further pester you, because one thing they are - TOLERANT!

Now, if your love goes further and you want to commit to marriage, you could not make a bigger gift to your beloved one and her family than marrying her in church. Temporary catholic is possible, you can get baptized again easy, if you are an official atheist, like me, but simply believing in superior being isn't a religion in Germany, at least it saves me taxes, LOL. so that is what i will do when i marry my third wife, i get myself baptized at the local church, safes paperwork too, and marry her with all the dingeling around it.

Conflicts with your conscience ? Why, you can neither go to hell or heaven, so play along a bit. You also pay taxes and don't want it, right ? this is not a silly example, here not paying taxes is not considered bad, but not going to church is almost a crime.

Remember, religion is so not important to you, that it hardly would give you a hard time to please them.