Bean married Magdalena Falfán de los Godos, a lady of "fine family", intending to return with her to the United States. However, in 1816 Bean was nearly captured by Royalists in Veracruz. He managed to get back to New Orleans, but by mutual consent his wife remained in Mexico. The details of this escape are not given in his memoirs. He stayed in the Neutral Ground (between the Louisiana Purchase, belonging to the United States, and Spanish colonial New Spain), working on his memoirs. In 1817 he decided to visit relatives in Tennessee. There in 1818 he married Candace Midkiff, daughter of Isaac Midkiff, either assuming his Mexican wife was dead, or simply not mentioning her. In 1820 the couple moved to southwest Arkansas, where their son, Isaac Bean, was born in 1821.