Her Family Destroyed My Life in Thailand

Here’s your post broken up into natural paragraphs (2-5 sentences each, where it makes sense). No words changed.

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Sometimes I think my life is cursed and that there is something wrong with me. I never seem to have been able to catch a break, always being one step behind everything going on in my life that felt like it was getting in the way of me being able to achieve great things.

Anytime something fantastic felt like it was happening, when I found out something new and exciting, it always had to turn around into being a nightmare instead of the dream that I thought it was going to be.

Things like this happened to me on more than one occasion. Yet, what happened to me in Thailand was considerably worse than everything else. And it left me baffled that something like this could actually happen and leave me in the position I’m in today.

I always thought of myself as being just a normal, level-headed type of person, someone who wouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him, someone who wouldn’t take big risks on crazy ideas. But perhaps I was someone who convinced himself that something that was risky wasn’t risky at all.

Early Life: The Trap of Commitment

I think that’s why I just lived a very dull life. From the age of 16, when I left school, I landed into a profession that wasn’t chosen by design or by desire, just by the fact that I found myself doing it.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t able to continue with my education. I just saw the value in getting onto the workforce sooner. And as soon as you find yourself doing your first job by pure accident, you’re always thinking that something better will happen again by accident. But for me, it never did. By the time I was 22, I was already married.

If I look back at what I did then, that makes me really upset because I kind of felt like I was signing my own future away by doing what everyone seemed to be doing at the time. The guys who didn’t get married, who kept to themselves, were considered to be strange. They were considered to be unusual individuals. And I think the idea that these people were strange was forced upon us so that we didn’t see the light.

I often wonder what would have happened if I just remained free and single, earning money for myself and saving money for myself. I could have jumped the queue. But instead, we bought our first house with a big mortgage and steadily continued to pay it while at the same time taking on more obligations that meant we could never get ahead.

I feel for the younger people today because when I was doing this, house prices were a lot more reasonable, but still it was a big commitment to take on at a young age. And I would tell younger people today to consider the fact that perhaps you can’t get on the housing ladder as not necessarily a benefit, but it should tell you all you need to know. And this dream to own that little piece of your country is nothing more than a trap that will seal your fate.

The Missed Opportunity That Changed Everything

The reason I talk about this is because when I was about 28, my wife and I had big commitments. A young son, a house, two cars, and we went on holiday regularly. A friend of mine of a similar age was just starting out in business and he asked me if I wanted to be his 50/50 partner.

I really wanted to—I really wanted to do that with him because it felt like it would be the best thing in the world. The problem was I had too many commitments and because I had those commitments I wasn’t able to join him. He sold his business 5 years before I went to Thailand for about $2 million, the equivalent of.

And at that point, I was divorced with nothing but the small house I lived in. It was the inability to be able to take risk, the inability to be able to follow my dreams because of commitments I felt stifled before. Yet, I had to do what was safe. And because I was now divorced, I got divorced at the age of 49. Luckily, my son was already in the workforce.

I felt like I’d wasted every single year since I left school. I had wasted every single year since I left school because I took on commitments that I didn’t really want. I missed out on opportunities because of the commitments that I had and it got me thinking that the system itself was designed this way to make sure that most people aren’t able to succeed.

I was bitter and I was angry. And this was in the year 2012. Some people will just think I’m making excuses. Maybe I am. But every time I had a fantastic idea, I didn’t fully grasp it and take advantage of the ideas I was having because of commitments.

I had ideas over the years of things I wanted to invest in. But I never invested in them because of commitments. And you would later find out that what you wanted to invest in could have made you a lot of money, but the commitments got in the way.

One time I did take a stab in the dark at something and it didn’t work out and I lost some money. I never felt like I could catch a break. Like I said at the start, I felt like I was cursed.

The Decision to Leave Everything Behind

When I was divorced, many of the things that I committed to were removed from me, which made the whole thing even worse, and all I could think about doing was leaving my country and going somewhere else. This was after I’d already used my proceeds of the divorce to buy a very small house, thinking I would get back into a better mental state.

But as the weeks and months dragged on and I’m endlessly going to work, I’m starting to feel like I want to be anywhere other than where I was.

I didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know what to do. But I did know that if I stayed where I was, I would drink myself to death.

I needed a fresh start, a clean slate, and I needed to do it as soon as I could before it was too late. One day I just decided I’m going to sell up. I put my house on the market again with no idea about where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. And I just thought it’s now or never.

I continued to go to work until my house sold. And one day it just felt like it was time. I told work I was leaving. Told my son I was leaving the country. The only advice I left him with was under no circumstances, under absolutely no circumstances, forget about your own dreams and ambitions. Your dreams and ambitions have to come first in front of everything else.

And if you meet someone and you feel like you love them, then the best thing for you to do is to try to forget those feelings. Because statistically, you will be better off by being single until you’re at an age when you already have enough to survive in a way without having to do things you don’t want to do in order to maintain the relationship that you felt was everything.

I guess I wasn’t very good at taking my own advice. I gave it to my son, but maybe I shouldn’t follow it myself because I did some stupid things. The thing was though, it didn’t feel like it was the same thing. And I will talk about what happened because it wasn’t meant to be the same.

I found myself not quite yet 50, no job, and about $150,000 to my name. That was it. And it was time to go and find my place in the world where I felt like I could have another go, a second chance, and be able to put to the back of my mind the fact I just wasted 30 years of my life going down a path that I shouldn’t have gone down.

The Layover That Changed Everything

The only place I was sure I wasn’t going to go was anywhere in Europe. I wanted to cast my net wider. So I decided to go first to Australia. The only reason being I had a friend of mine moved there a number of years before this moment. Wasn’t my plan to live there. Just look there and take stock of things, decide what I wanted to do from there. It was the furthest I could go right at the other end of the world.

When I was looking at plane tickets to Australia, there were a number of airlines that I could fly on, but it just so happened to be a good price on Thai Airways direct from London to Bangkok and then from Bangkok to Sydney. I thought that would be the best option. I’d never left Europe before, so this was something very different for me, and I was excited to get to Australia and see what it was going to be like there.

When I was investigating the tickets even more, I found a special price that had a big layover, and it seemed like it would be possible to leave the airport for a day and return for the other flight. I bought the ticket because it was a bit cheaper than the other one, thinking I might as well spend the night in Bangkok because the timing was perfect.

I’d already arranged that my friend would let me stay at his place in Sydney for a few days. What I was hoping to happen was I would get there and I would have an epiphany as to what I wanted to do. I just wanted to be somewhere else so badly that I didn’t have any other plans than to hope that the ideas would start to come to me as soon as I left.

I made my way to London. Didn’t have anything apart from a small bag with a few essential change of clothes and my important documents. And it felt like it really was a fresh start where I could concentrate on myself for a change instead of everybody else.

Arriving in Bangkok: A City That Felt Alive

I wasn’t ready for how long the flight actually was. This was the first one to Bangkok, about 11 and a half hours, and the most I’d spent on a plane before was 3, and 3 hours felt a long time. So, it just seemed to drag on and on and felt like we’d never get there.

When I arrived, it was still a long time to the next flight. I could have got one for the same day, which would have been a 12-hour layover, but that was more expensive. So, when I got to Thailand, I wasn’t overly excited to be there because this was only meant to be a stopping off point. But, as planned, I was able to enter the country. And then it’s a question of where do I go now? I didn’t know where you were meant to go in Bangkok if you were a tourist.

So, I found a place to get a taxi from inside the airport. And I asked them to take me to the main area for tourists. Typically, they said, “Where is that? There isn’t a main area necessarily. What am I interested in?” I don’t know. What does Thailand have? Thailand wasn’t a country I knew anything about, and I just said anywhere close to public transportation. I just thought that made sense.

So, they dropped me off at the Asok intersection. I didn’t have a hotel booked, which was a mistake. I should have thought about doing that. But when they dropped me off, it was apparent that I could just walk into any hotel I wanted to.

As soon as I got out of that taxi, I felt alive in a way I’d never felt. I’d not felt this way for a long time. It was such an energetic place. Everyone seemed to be on the go. Everyone seemed to be grinding. And where I was dropped off, right next to me was the BTS station.

I walked back down the road just in a sense of amazement, like I was being controlled from outside my own body, completely numb to the fact that the following day I’ve got a flight to Australia. I was oblivious to that fact. And even though I didn’t have a hotel yet, I didn’t care because I was just in a state of shock. I only walked for 10 minutes and there was a sign that said Sukhumvit Soi 13. And I noticed that there seemed to be a hotel very close. So, I walked in and asked for a room for the night.

I’d changed some money at the airport, and I can’t remember how much the hotel was, but I remember thinking, “That’s so cheap.” And I went up to the room where I had planned to just relax for the remainder of the day and night before going back to the airport the following day. I wasn’t there to experience Thailand. I was just there to save a bit of money on the flight. And we’re talking about a few hundred.

But all I could think about doing was going back out and walking around more. I had the quickest shower I ever had. Part of me expecting to go downstairs and go outside and it wasn’t the same as it was when I was dropped off. Kind of like I was dropped into an illusion of what the perfect place would be like.

But when I exited the hotel, it was exactly the same. I looked right and there didn’t seem to be many things going on up that street. Looked forward and there was construction going on everywhere. And as someone who had no knowledge of Thailand, I had no idea where to go. I decided to walk back in the direction that I came from when I was dropped off in the taxi.

And I found myself feeling really nervous yet excited at the same time because this was one of the most exciting places I’d ever been. We were approaching evening time and it was starting to get a little bit dark. I noticed some signs in the distance when I got back to that intersection where I was dropped off. I would find out soon that that was the famous Soi Cowboy.

The Bar: A Chance Encounter

I decided to go and have a look at it, not knowing what to expect. And because we were still early evening, it wasn’t as mental as it gets. But you see all these girls walking around. You see all the lights from the bars. And I couldn’t believe that this was right in the middle of the city. You’d be standing there looking for 30 seconds and a family would walk past, not even acknowledging that it was there. A family wouldn’t walk past such a seedy place at home, but all I could think about doing was walking further into the street.

And before I knew it, a girl grabbed me and took me into her bar. It was really loud music playing, only a small bar, but in the middle was a stage with three metal poles on it. And there were girls stood on there in a state of undress.

I was ushered to a table in full view of everything, and the girl that dragged me in sat next to me and asked if I wanted a drink. I just ordered a beer. She asked me which beer I wanted and just said the cheapest because I didn’t know what else to say. I had quite a lot of beers in that bar. I was approached by a girl, but I still didn’t really know what exactly was going on.

But she actually spelled it out to me. If you like me, I like you kind of thing. I thought that was a bit too much. So, I just had a few more drinks and left. Went into another bar, had more drinks in there, and then another one. Because I was drinking so heavily at home before I left, I felt like I could drink a lot and not get drunk. But I must have had way too much.

I woke up in the morning and there was a girl with me. She wakes up and she starts telling me lots of things that I can’t remember saying to her. I must have opened up about my whole life story, but she kept saying that I wasn’t like everybody else. She kept saying I was really different. I was special and she can’t believe she’s met someone as amazing as me.

The way she spoke to me, the way she looked, everything about her, and the fact that she was here with me made me lose my senses. I started remembering bits about the night before, how we left that bar together, how we went to a club, how we went for a late night meal, how we went to another bar, and then now ended up back at the hotel.

She just kept saying she wants to spend more time with me. She can’t believe how I’m so different than everybody else she’s met, but that I need to go to the airport in 5 hours to go to Australia. I told her that that’s what my plan was, and she looked like she was so upset.

And in that moment, I thought to myself, I’ve never taken a big risk before. I’ve never followed anything that I wanted to do before, apart from one time and it went wrong. But all those times I didn’t do things I wanted to do. All those times I held myself back. Why don’t I just forget about that and stay a bit longer in Thailand? After all, I did have 30 days stamped into my passport, so why don’t I do that? The way she spoke to me, the way she seemed to know exactly how to make me happy, it was enough to make me change my plans.

After all, what were my plans? It was just go to Australia, stay with my friend for a few days, and decide what to do from there. But I felt like I’d already decided what to do, so let’s stay a bit longer in Thailand and see where things go. I told her, this girl, that I didn’t even know what her name was at the time. Didn’t know how old she was. I didn’t know anything about her. But I told her I’m going to stay a bit longer and she just seemed to be excited and happy that I was going to be doing that.

I didn’t know anything about anything other than the fact that I felt great. I just felt like now I would need to get to know her a bit better because the previous night was a blur.

Falling for Her: A Dream That Seemed Real

That’s how I found myself, I would say, falling for that Thai girl. I found out not long after that she was 37, she had two kids, and she said she’d been working for only 2 months. That’s what she said to me at the time, and I believed her because there was no reason for me not to because I didn’t know anything about Thailand.

She told me she’d only met three or four people in the bar before me, and she was always looking for someone just like me. At that moment, I wasn’t looking for anyone. But I felt like a type of thing would be so much easier and better than a similar type of thing at home. I knew by the very fact that she was working somewhere like that meant she mustn’t have a lot of money.

Everything she said to me seemed to show me that all she wanted was to have someone to spend her time with until they grew old together. And I’m thinking all these things without really putting two and two together, thinking that I just met this girl in a bar and she’s using all the tricks in the book in order to get me to fall in love with her.

But I was starting to feel that after I decided I’m going to stay and we relax a bit more and trying to get over the hangover, I start to think that this is the best thing I can do. I didn’t know how Thailand worked in terms of meeting a girl in a bar. I just thought if she started talking about money or something, then that would be a sign that this wasn’t real and it was fake. But she never did.

And the time came and went when my next flight took off and I’m in Thailand. I spent those 30 days that I had in the country with her every single second of every single day. And during those 30 days, I decided that Thailand would be my new home and she would be my new wife because we’d already got engaged to be married.

I knew in terms of my money, I didn’t have a lot of it. Though I was excited by the fact that I had someone local who was able to help me with things because she had all kinds of ideas that were exciting and fun and I wanted to be part of them with her. I felt like I just fell on my feet completely in Thailand purely by accident, purely by coincidence.

I’d found a one-in-a-million girl who liked me for me and who wanted to spend her life with me. I wasn’t about to throw that away because I felt so different to how I saw all the guys going into the bars. I felt like I knew what the game was and I’d done it properly. That’s why I’d managed to find someone as special as this, not knowing that I didn’t know anything about what I was doing. I didn’t know anything.

The Wedding and the Visa

Because we were engaged to get married, I found out I could get a visa just by putting some money in the bank and I could do that every year. We weren’t married yet, so that would be something we would need to do. But she even said that because I had 30 days, I could extend that for 15 and then after that leave the country to get something better.

It was after the 30 days that I felt I was inseparable from her. And we went to her hometown to get married quickly so that I could leave the country and get a marriage visa. Her parents were very different to her. They seemed to be very traditional, a bit wary of me. They smiled, but not a smile that felt very warm. It was as if they were just going through the motions and getting this out of the way.

She told me that it’s normal for people to give money to the family for a dowry. But she said that because I’m new to Thailand, she thinks it would be better if I could learn about things and do things later because she didn’t want me to do anything that would make me feel concerned or uncomfortable.

The way she was saying this was like she was really on my side. Everything that she said to me seemed like she wanted to protect me and she wanted me to understand how things worked in Thailand because it was so different to what I was used to. She wanted to make sure that she didn’t tell me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with. We had a very basic ceremony. It didn’t cost me a lot of money. And in Bangkok, we registered the marriage and left together to Laos where I got a non-immigrant visa.

The idea was to extend that because I’d already opened a bank account and sent some money in. A few months of living in Bangkok and I found myself with a new life that I wanted so badly. I had a visa to live in the country, an amazing wife who at this point was everything that I wanted in a life. And it was as if my life had done a complete 180. I was bored, miserable, and unhappy. And all of a sudden, now I’m happy, excited, and looking forward to the future.

Planning for the Future: Moving to Her Hometown

The only thing that I needed to sort out was how I was going to sustain myself and make money. That was the only thing that was missing. And I still had most of my money. So, it wasn’t like this was a big rush. We would just need to do something. And after we got married, we weren’t even living in the place close to where we met, and we were only spending $1,000 a month. And the thought of only having to make $1,000 a month seemed very easy.

I hadn’t told her yet that I wanted to do something to make money. I mean, it’s not that I wanted to. I needed to do something to make money. But I did start to talk about it during the time when we were in the early stages of our relationship.

If anyone is listening to my story, I bet none of you listening could guess what actually happened to me in the end, cuz it’s not what you’re thinking. And I’ve never heard anyone have something similar happened to them like me.

A little bit into 2013, after we’re spending more time together, not spending a lot of money. She’s not wanting a lot of money from me. She just seems to want to be with me and that’s what she said she wants just to be with me. I’m talking more about the fact that we need to make some money and I started looking at possibilities in Bangkok but everything was so expensive. If you wanted to start a business you would need to rent somewhere to do the business from then you would need to buy equipment. Then you would need to hire staff would require a big investment and I didn’t want to put a big investment into something that could be gone if it went wrong.

The thing that is quite similar to what many guys do in my story is that we started talking about going to do something in her hometown because things there were a lot cheaper. This was in terms of the cost of living and also the cost to acquire a place to do any kind of business from. She was from the province of Korat.

I’d already been there when we got married and it wasn’t like I didn’t like it. I just didn’t know anything about it. And all I’m really thinking about is as long as I can spend my time with her, I don’t care where I live. I feel like I exhausted Bangkok as a place where I could actually work from because I just didn’t have the sort of money to invest in anything that I was interested in in Bangkok.

I’d never had a business in my life. But when you get to Bangkok or Thailand, you quickly understand that when you’re in Thailand, even if you’re married, you can’t just go and get a job because it doesn’t work like that. Teaching some extremely specialist type of job or starting your own business were really the only options. And this was before many people worked as digital nomads.

The more we spoke about it, the more we decided that we would go and have a look in her town and see what we could do there. With the money I had, it was my plan to invest a certain amount of it and leave enough money in the bank to live for 2 years without any income. The hope then would be within a year we can start making money but always have one-year living expenses in the bank at all times. That’s what the hope was and this was before we even decided what to do.

When we went up we gave up the place that we rented together in Bangkok. We got the bus to Korat and went to go and see her family and tell them of our intention to move to the area. To start with, we rented a very small place right in the city, but where she was from was about 20 minutes away. So we also bought a small motorcycle so we could ride there easily.

The Land That Was Meant to Be a Gift

The first time we went to see the family now we were living there father said something to me which I thought was a really nice thing. He said there’s some land in the family that we can have and you can do what you want with it. It was only a small plot of land but it was big enough to have a house on it or even some kind of business. I hadn’t even thought about building a house yet but he just gave this land to, as he put it, my wife and I.

He was always a bit wary though. I thought this was a kind gesture, but it felt in a way like he was being forced to do this even though he didn’t want to. This land was actually transferred to my wife. And we’re spending time in a really cheap place in the city. I mean, really cheap. Maybe a hundred a month. And we’re thinking of possibilities.

We decided we would build a very cheap house to live in. Maybe $20,000 all in. Just a living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. Everything very basic. This is before we’re thinking about what to do to make money. Because we had the land, it did seem to be the best first step. We started building the house and about a month after it started, after I’d paid the biggest chunk of it, we’re at the family’s house just chatting and her father starts talking to her.

I asked what was going on because he looked a little frustrated. The conversation looked to be a bit heated and she turned to me and said, “He asked, why haven’t you paid for the land yet?” I thought it was a gift. I mean, it was a gift. And she said, “Yes, I know it was, but he’s saying that you need to pay for it.” I didn’t know where this was going. And I asked her, “What do you think?” She said she didn’t know. I don’t want to have any problems with my family, but he did say it was a gift. I just said, “How much does he want for it?” Thinking it might be a small amount of money, so I’ll pay it to keep the peace.

He said he hasn’t asked for a price yet. Then they start talking and she looks a bit shocked when she hears something and she turns to me and says he wants 600,000 baht for it. That was nearly $20,000, nearly the price of the house. And this land was meant to be a gift. We’d already started building and I’d already spent $10,000.

And I was quite shocked by that. My wife seemed to be in a bit of a heated argument with her father. She told me that she said this was too much. It was unreasonable. And she said he’ll take 500,000 instead. She said she was sorry. She didn’t know what to do. And I said, “Can we go away and talk about it?” We left together on the motorcycle to a little restaurant close by.

And I said, “I’m really confused about this because I thought it was a gift.” She said she thought it was a gift, too. And she said she was so sorry. She didn’t want this to happen, and she was scared that I would think bad about her. She said this wasn’t her plan, and she really doesn’t want to have any problems with the family, but she also doesn’t want to have any problems with me.

I said, “Is there any way we can give him the money when we’ve already got a business working? Can we work something out so we can give him some first? I don’t really want to hand over that amount of money because we’re building the house and then this and then we want to do the business and we need money left in the bank to live on while the business is getting set up.”

She understood everything she said and she’ll go back and talk to her father, maybe talk to her mother to see if they could come to an arrangement. I waited for her at the restaurant for a few hours and had a few drinks, just keeping out of the way while she was trying to sort something out. She came back looking upset. In fact, she was actually crying, saying he’ll take 500,000 and that’s it. It was never meant to be a gift. He was expecting to be given some money for it, even though he didn’t ask for money. And my wife just said she felt so bad. And she even said, “If you want to stop building, I’ll understand and we can go and live somewhere else.”

It seemed like she was completely on my side and she was supporting me through it. I just thought perhaps to keep the peace, I should just give them the money for this land. So, I told her I would and we went back together to speak to them and say, “Okay, I’ll arrange to get the money as soon as possible.” We left that day and my wife was very apologetic.

She kept saying she was so sorry. She can’t believe that her parents did this. It wasn’t what she wanted, but she thinks it would be better if we saved the money together. But her parents were looking after her two kids and her parents were people in the village and they would speak to other people in the village and if we were doing something there and we weren’t on good terms with her parents, it would be bad for us.

She said it’s very bad what happened, but because we’ve given them this money for the land, everything should be okay. I hoped it would have been because that was an extra amount of money that I hadn’t budgeted for. And after the house was ready, I found out I would need to spend another $10,000 for furniture because I hadn’t even considered that. I just assumed it would be included in everything, but it wasn’t.

The Business Ideas: Fruit Distribution and Food Cart

While the house was coming together, we started thinking about what we could do to make an income. I knew based on what we were spending, and you have to picture this at the time, we’re spending 30,000 a month. 3,000 goes to her parents to look after her kids, 3,000 on the rent that we were paying, a little bit on utilities, and the rest on living expenses. I felt like I was having an amazing time with her for only this small amount of money. So, it felt like being able to make this was more of a certainty than anything else.

Throughout the whole time that the house was coming together, my wife was telling me how lucky she felt that she’d met me, how grateful she was that we were moving forward with our lives together. And I basically felt exactly the same way that she did. It was such a chance thing. I think that’s why it felt even better than it should have been because it was like we came together purely by chance.

We had that hiccup with the land, but aside from that, everything else is coming together and we’re giving so much time and consideration to what to do to make money. My wife always said it was her dream to do something like this. The only reason she was in Bangkok was because she didn’t have any money to be able to do anything. The father of her two kids was from a different town altogether, had met someone younger than her and gone off and left her with the kids, which is why she was in Bangkok.

So the fact that she met me and we could hope to have some kind of family life together when everything settled down, it felt like we were made for each other. We talked about all kinds of different things to do and it was when we were at her parents’ house. I think her parents liked me at this point, but probably they didn’t. They seemed to be acting okay with me.

But her father mentioned the possibility of going around and buying fruit directly from farmers, then driving them to the markets in Bangkok. I had seen lots of pickups driving around regularly that seemed to be completely laden with particular types of fruit. And I even discussed this with my wife and she described it in the way that her father was talking about as this idea.

What it would entail would be buying a pickup, going around and speaking to farmers in the area, saying, “When your harvest is ready, when the crops ready, we’ll come and buy it from you at a certain price, and then it can be driven to Bangkok to the market and sold for a profit.” This was the first idea out of many that we’d had that actually excited me.

It made sense to me. Everything that was being said made sense, and you can even go to farmers before they’ve planted and guarantee you’ll buy it from them when it’s ready. My wife gave me more information about it, saying how things would happen and what it would entail. And her father seemed to be the one who knew most of the things about it.

Her father said he would be able to drive the pickup. He would also be able to go and find people to buy things from, and we could work in the background of the business. Her father wasn’t typical to many of the other people you saw in the village. He didn’t have a lot of money, but he always seemed to have a little bit more than everybody else did. Not a lot more, which meant that he could help his daughter out, but just a little bit different. And I felt like while he had this land issue, maybe this would be a good thing to do because we’d have a local contact who knew people and who would be able to help and do this for us and we could work together and we’d be in the background taking profits.

When we’re talking about this, I’m speaking to my wife in English and she’s speaking to her father. Her mother said she thought that’s a good idea, but she’s interested in another business that we could do as well. She said that she had a food cart before where she used to sell things and she wants to start doing it again. However, she wants to expand and go and sell food at a certain location in the city about 20 minutes away. It would only be a small investment. And what it seemed like was both her mother and father were really keen to do business with us. And if I invested together with my wife, they would do things to help us and everything should be shared together.

My wife’s talking to both her parents and we decide instead of going through things together to take a bit of a step back and actually think about how much we would need to invest in this and what it’s going to look like in terms of the money we will get. We spent about a month trying to come up with the calculations as to whether these two things could work.

And how we did this was take 30,000 baht, which is how much we wanted as a monthly income. Then we worked it down from there. How much of this would need to be bought? How much of that would need to be sold? How much food would she need to sell? And she actually, we found out, had got a place at an evening market to sell food, which involved a bit of rent.

It seemed that for about a $30,000 investment for two businesses, that should give enough income for us—30,000 baht—and also should give an income for both her parents who were at this moment in time just working in the small shop that they had attached to their house as well as farming. It seemed like it would be a great family operation.

The pickup would be about $15,000. A place to park the pickup about $5,000. The computer to do all the business expenses on the food cart as well as a stock and a deposit for the place to rent as well as a few months rent about $30,000. It didn’t seem like it was too much in order to be able to get back the income that we needed.

My wife was doing all the talking with her family and she always seemed to be on my side about how I’m helping everyone out and how it’s great for us. She’s always open and honest about things. Around the same time as the house was ready and we were able to move in, we agreed in principle to invest in these two businesses.

We bought the pickup that was registered in my wife’s name. We upgraded the food cart and did everything in that direction, and her mother was now selling at a market about 20 minutes away in the city. Her father then started to follow down the path of the business that we’d already talked about.

The First Signs of Trouble

I made a silly mistake once we’d invested in the business. Once the house was ready, I did spend some more money on a second pickup, probably more than I should, about $15,000, and that was for me and my wife to use. Again, that was registered to my wife.

Things just progressed quite quickly. Her father seemed to be doing well, finding people who wanted to sell their fruit. Already found some people who we could buy things from, and her mother was now going and making money at the market, and money was coming in.

The first time her father actually went to buy fruit from people who agreed to sell it to him. I fronted the money. He had two of his friends there who were doing the work for 300 a day to help him. And he bought it, drove to Bangkok, sold everything and came back. Minus his two friends and the diesel. It made money about 15,000 baht profit and it was exciting. He’s speaking with my wife about how happy he is that we’ve made money. My wife seems happy and I’m just waiting for our share.

My wife then starts to look a bit confused and they start shouting with each other. I wanted to know what was going on. My wife said to me that he said that this money is his and he will share the money next time. We’d already agreed to 50/50, but my wife said that he did all that work. He thinks he doesn’t want to share it. He said he’ll share it next time.

I was really cross. But I managed to keep my cool because I didn’t want to look like I was angry. I just said to my wife, “What about the pickup? He’s using the pickup that I bought. He used money I fronted to buy the fruit. He did give me that back, but the profits he refused to share. I’d taken all the risk and it was a bit disappointing. I mean, it was extremely aggravating. My wife is getting very upset, too, saying that we’d already agreed.

We decided though to let that one slide because he said he was going to go buy more fruit from some other people in a few days time. See what happens then. And I even fronted the money for that. He made about the same amount of money, but again, he refused, saying he needed the money for something, but it wasn’t exactly clear what.

I told my wife maybe we’ll just have to tell him he can’t use the pickup. And my wife said she’ll probably say that to him if it happens one more time. Meanwhile, her mother is going to the market, selling things, maybe making about 800 baht a day. I’m paying for everything. I’m fronting all the upfront costs. Yet still, although this was meant to be 50/50, she’s not sharing it with us, saying she needs it.

My wife really did seem like she was getting quite upset with both her mother and father cuz it wasn’t what we agreed to. But both of them just seemed to be adamant that what they thought was going on was I was just giving them some money and they could have their own business. This came out after saying we’re going to share it soon after the first time and the second time. Let’s wait for the third after that. Now they’re not saying we’re going to share it soon. They’re saying this is our business and we need the money from it.

And then my wife starts to get really angry. She was actually shouting at her father now, saying, “This isn’t right.” I mean, I didn’t understand what she was saying, so I had no idea what she actually said, but she told me, she said that this isn’t fair. It’s not right. And she’s going to take the pickup back because it was registered in her name.

Then something weird happened. Just as I’m starting to get really angry that I’ve put all this money in and my wife and I feel like we’re both not being treated properly by her parents. They say from now they’re going to share the money. They came up with some excuse and my wife came back to me again saying she didn’t really understand properly what they said. Apparently they had a few debts that they needed to pay off and now they’ve been paid off. It’s going to be okay in terms of sharing profits. They were sorry.

I asked my wife was there any indication that meant this before and she just looked at me and said no no indication but I think it should be okay now. I felt a relief when she told me this and sure enough about 2 weeks later he returned from Bangkok with about 12,000 baht profit and gave 6,000 to my wife and her mother was giving about 300 a day when she went to the market because we were investing in everything. We were paying for the ingredients, the rent and everything. So we were already getting that back. But now we’re actually making a little bit of money and finally things start to look like they’re coming together properly.

I just took it as being a miscommunication between my wife and her parents. And also because I’m not understanding anything that they’re talking about. Perhaps it was just a miscommunication and they really did need to pay back those debts. Now they’ve been paid back. Now everything is going to work properly. That’s the thing. Her father did seem to be quite good at this business. He seemed to have been unleashed now. He had a bit of capital behind him to do something.

And probably once things seemed to be okay after we moved into the house, we weren’t getting 30,000 a month, which was the target, but we were probably getting about 18, which felt like it was a really good start, and it meant that we’re not eating into more of my savings as quickly.

I’m really happy together with my wife. Her youngest kid moved into the house with us because the eldest had already left for university. I did pay about $3,000 for that, but I didn’t mind because I hadn’t given any other money to my wife. Okay, I built the house and bought the pickups, but the pickup was for us to use for the business and the house for us to live in. So, I didn’t mind for the university. Her youngest was 17, so she was going to be leaving in a year or two as well, and I’d already agreed to pay 3,000 for her university as well, just a government one.

In terms of my money at this moment in time after everything, the house, the land mishap, the pickup, and the investment into the street food store at the market in the city, probably talking about $60,000 left.

The Expansion That Led to Ruin

I’m finding that when it comes to living expenses, we’re not spending a lot. Sometimes only 20,000 in a month, but the expenses really start to add up every time I need to renew my visa. Granted, it’s only once a year. Anytime the car insurance comes up. When you add up all these other things, I am still eating into my principle. The thing was though, I’m reasonably happy with things.

About 8 months of having the money shared with us, not really eating into the money I have, thinking that life is now moving in the right direction for the first time ever really. I’m with his amazing girl who I love more than anything, and she seems to be on my side at all times.

We’re still in 2013 and we’re at the family house discussing things and her father says he thinks we can expand the business, get another pickup, and then we’ll find a driver and we can do more of this. I didn’t really know exactly how this would work because he didn’t seem to be going and buying fruit all the time. But apparently if we had a second pickup, he’d be able to try and buy things three or four times a month. Her mother still was working doing the street food store and seemed to be happy with it. She always wanted to do that apparently, but just didn’t have the funds in order to actually do it properly. But now she did.

It felt very strange when I turned 50. It made me feel a lot older than I felt when I was 49. And at this moment, my wife was around 37 or 38, I think. So, in terms of the differences between us, it wasn’t too wide. But when I was 50, it made me feel that, okay, by the time I’m 60, I want to be fully retired. I want to be in a position where I don’t have to think where’s money going to come from anymore. Her parents were both in their mid-50s. So it also rang true that maybe in five or 6 years time they would want to start to calm down, not do the business anymore. So I thought that I needed to invest more to make more.

That’s why we decided to buy a second pickup. And it was agreed upon that this would go into her father’s name because he said this would make things easy for the business. Huge mistake. But that was bought about $15,000. And that was when literally the day after we bought it, her mother said that she was getting tired and she no longer wanted to sell things at the market anymore.

We couldn’t force her to do it, but that would mean that a portion of our income would dry up, which meant that we would need to try and think about replacing it. I don’t want you to think about this in a way that they’re working and giving us money just like that. That’s not the case. I invested a lot of money for the ability of her mother to do those things in the market. A lot of money that I could have lived on for maybe two years. So to get a little bit back was only really like they were paying back a loan. Although we still had what we invested in.

She said though she can sell everything. Someone else will want to take over because it was in a good place in the market and it made sense and that should give me some money back. The thing was she kept all that money for herself about 200,000 baht and we couldn’t do anything about it.

One thing this is meaning though in the meantime the income is dropping because we’re not getting the money from the market. We’re getting about the same from her father who is still doing that. He’s got a number of friends that work with him, a guy that drives a pickup, but we’re not getting extra even though we bought another one. So, money’s going down. And that was when I’m thinking, okay, we really need to make sure that we can have something a bit more stable.

Her father seemed to be doing well with things though, saying if we just had one more pickup, then we had a fleet and we could do multiple things at once. And because it was making money, I agreed to buy another one for another $15,000. And again, that went into her father’s name. Things did seem to be going okay. He was very well known in the village and the wider area. And he’s getting people calling him often saying they want to sell things. And it does seem to be good.

We have one pickup that belongs to my wife, another one that we’re both using that belongs to my wife, and two that belongs to her father. And we’re getting an income in and covering living expenses for a number of months well into 2014 until I found out some very uncomfortable truths about her father that I’m not even sure my wife was aware of.

The Gambling: A Father’s Betrayal

One day, one of the pickups wasn’t there anymore. Her father wasn’t being forthcoming as to what happened until finally we found out he was gambling. I mean, I saw him gambling occasionally with people even though it’s illegal in Thailand, cockfighting, other kinds of things. And he borrowed money against this pickup and he lost it and the pickup was gone.

That was a heart-stopping moment. It was terrifying. What about the other pickup? I quickly suggested we should get that transferred to my wife immediately, but we found out he had a loan on that. He’d taken out a loan equivalent to about $8,000 on it and all this money is going to pay back this loan and that I’m not getting as much money back because we’ve lost that one pickup. And it’s just a ridiculously stupid situation.

I felt like I had no choice other than to pay back this loan. So, I did. That was $8,000 gone, and he promised he would never gamble again. My wife was getting very upset about everything because she feels like this is meant to be a benefit for me and her as well as her family. But now, what her father’s done is caused us some big problems. He lost a pickup because of gambling and nearly lost another one. That was what the debts were that he needed to pay back before when we weren’t getting paid anything at first.

I just hoped things would settle down and come good. The problem was it was as if he just didn’t want to do it anymore after that. He went from doing quite well to I can’t be bothered in a very short space of time. The thing was he was capable, but he couldn’t be bothered. And that’s the thing though, if you think about it, he was from there. He lived there his whole life. Aside from gambling he had which had already been paid back, he could live on 100 a day. He could live there and that would be his normal existence.

That’s when you realize that I need so much more just to have a normal existence than the local people do. And maybe putting trust into them is a very bad idea.

I probably only had about $30,000 left. We’ve got three pickups, one which belongs to her father, and my wife asked him to sell it and give us the money or just give it to my wife, but he refused, saying he’s been working a long time, he wants to keep it for himself, and there was nothing we could do about it.

So, not only had I paid back this loan that he’d taken out, thinking it would be good for the business, now he doesn’t want to do the business and he’s keeping the pickup and I can’t do anything. We did sell the pickup that had been used from the start. The problem was it had so many kilometers on it now that we didn’t get much money for it, maybe $45,000, but it came in handy.

And now everything we’d invested in, which was meant to last indefinitely together with her parents, it appeared they’d be the ones who had benefited considerably and we hadn’t. And now they wanted to not do it anymore, even though we weren’t ready for them to not do it anymore. And it’s like all that money had just evaporated.

While we did get some living expenses out of it for a while, we weren’t adding to savings. We were removing from savings. And now I had after we sold this about $34,000 and no income whatsoever. I felt so let down by her parents. I felt that my wife felt she was let down by her parents and my wife did feel the same way because now we didn’t have any money and if we spent what our budget was that money would be gone in 3 years. 3 years is still a long time. So we just kind of had to think okay we need to do things for ourselves now instead of relying on anybody else. They were the ones that asked to do business with us, though. When we were talking about things, they brought up the ideas, so they should have committed to them.

The Final Blows: Loan Sharks and University Fees

We did take a bit of a step back to try and take stock on things. We’re not desperate yet. We’ve got time. Then we found out that her eldest, who was at university, had borrowed some money from a loan shark at incredibly ridiculous interest rates, and they were threatening to harm them if the money wasn’t paid back. That was 200,000 baht—half a year living expenses. And I had to pay it. So, I did.

Not long after, her youngest needs to go to university. So, I paid for that. And now, that was like one year out of 3 years living expenses gone on two things that I didn’t want to spend. My wife said to both her kids, “If they borrow money again, there’s no way that we’re going to be able to pay it back.” We had to put our feet down and saying, “It’s impossible. We just needed to make sure we could do something to make money.”

I’m starting to really worry about things. I really feel like her family has destroyed our chance by doing things that they did. Losing a pickup, paying back a loan on a pickup, now her kid borrowing money, and having to pay back. And the thing is, my wife’s not getting anything from me. Out of what we spend, all she’s really getting is what she needs to sustain herself. And that’s all I’m using for myself, too. It’s like me and my wife are a team, and everyone else is conspiring to try and rip us apart.

I’m starting to get depressed again. Although I’d managed to cut back from drinking excessively like I was before I arrived in Thailand, I’m starting to drink excessively again.

By 2015, the only thing that’s keeping me going is the fact that I have my wife. She’s exactly the same as she was when we met. And although she sees her family and she’s on speaking terms with them and she’s not falling out with them and everything’s normal, she talks to me like she’s very sorry about what happened because it shouldn’t have happened like that. We can’t do anything though. It’s just we have each other and that’s all that matters.

Then we get the news that her father had driven the pickup that shouldn’t have been his while extremely drunk into a motorcycle and that motorcycle driver is very hit and miss whether they’re going to be okay or not. Thank god the motorcycle driver was okay. One in a million who just so happened to have a helmet on in that area because 99% of people don’t wear helmets there. It wasn’t a good helmet but it saved his life. But her father had nearly killed him while being so drunk that he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a car. He didn’t have insurance on the pickup either, so it was a write-off and a complete loss.

And her mother came to my wife saying, “We need 250,000 baht, otherwise he’ll be in jail for a very long time.” I could see my wife was so angry, but also it’s her father. She didn’t want to ask me, but she had to. I don’t know what to do. I know it’s too much money. I know we need to save this, but he’s going to spend years in jail if we don’t pay the police.

Again, I felt like I had no choice. But if I gave that money at that moment, it would be about 12,000 left, and that’s it. But what was I meant to do? My wife said, “At this point, we’d already decided we were going to do a business of which we would invest that money.” But my wife said to her mother that she doesn’t want to give this money to her father, but we will give it if we could get some land from them, and then we could sell the land.

They had a small plot of land, probably worth a slightly more than that. And she said to her mother, “At least that’s what she told me.” She said, “If we give this money, then you have to give us some land so we can sell it because we need it for our business.” Her mother agreed.

Everything was arranged, and I gave them the money so he didn’t have to go to jail. Basic bribery, really. I guess that’s the price of driving drunk and nearly killing someone in Thailand. I wonder how much it would have cost if they actually killed him.

It was all agreed. Everything set in motion. Her father comes back. We go and speak to him. Her mother’s there. And he point blank refuses to give her the land. My wife that is. Now her mother is angry with her father. And they’re shouting and my wife starting to cry saying, “We need this. We’ve helped you. We need this.” But he wasn’t having it. He refused. And because it was registered in his name, there was nothing we could do about it.

I suggested he’d take a loan out against it and give us the money. But the problem was he’d only be able to get a loan from a very high interest place and he’d come to us for the money anyway. And that was the moment in time when I started to think I might not be able to live with my wife anymore properly.

The Return Home: Separated by Circumstance

When this happened, the business that we wanted to do now, we didn’t have the money for it. I started desperately looking for a job as a teacher, but I couldn’t find one. My wife is looking for work, but she can’t find work, and money is dwindling away. And by the end of 2015, it was quite apparent that I had to return home with no money left.

My wife and I were devastated by this because it’s not like she could just join me at home because the visa would be extremely difficult and I didn’t even meet the requirements for her to get the visa. So, it was an awful time for both of us.

At the end of 2015, I was returning home with nothing left. Feeling like not only the biggest failure in the world, but also feeling like I’m being separated from the love of my life, who when I left said that we would speak every day and we would see each other as soon as we could. My wife stayed on in the house in the village.

I returned and got another job, found a place to live, and I’m not making enough money to save any money. I’m still sending money for my wife because she doesn’t have the ability to make money. And after I’d paid all my bills, there’s nothing left. So even if I have a holiday from work, going to see my wife would be difficult. Throughout all of that year, I didn’t see my wife once.

We spoke every day though and then she started selling crepes in the village halfway through 2016 which meant I didn’t need to send her as much money. Some months I didn’t need to send her anything because she just told me to save. By the end of 2016 I had enough money to go to Thailand, only the plane ticket and I would stay in our house. I hadn’t seen my wife for a year and when I saw her that made everything worse because I knew I would need to leave again soon.

We continued on throughout the whole of 2017. I’m seeing a therapist because of the wicked depression that came over me like I’d never felt. In 2017, my wife’s making enough money to look after herself so I don’t have to send her any money. And I’m getting older, but not any wiser because all I want to do is be with my wife.

My life felt like it was ruined. It was ruined. Her family destroyed my life. And it’s cruel because we were meant to be together. And I started thinking about trying to get her to come to my country because the requirements were and could be met. I thought I would talk to her about it when I’d went to visit again. This time at the end of 2017, another whole year when I didn’t see my wife.

When I’m there, I see her family and I look at them like I should be here if you’d not done what you’d done. I should be with my wife. She’s speaking to her family as normal because they’re her family. But I’m starting to really hate them for making my life so much worse.

A New Beginning: Working Online and Reuniting

2018 was meant to be a better year. My son had started working remotely, still at home, not in a different country, and he actually told me that I could do something similar. That kind of gave me something to hold on to that perhaps this is something I could do. So, in 2018, while not sending any money to my wife because we’re trying to save money, I am saving a bit of money, I did find an online job that paid how much I thought I would need to live in Thailand, $900 a month.

I was earning $35,000 at home, but I wanted to be in Thailand with my wife, so I took it and moved to Thailand at the end of 2018. That was the first time living together with my wife for 3 years, and I was so happy again. My wife had waited for me. My wife was always there for me, and we were now together again. We’re still together now, living in that house.

I’m feeling a lot older than I am based on all this stress that’s happened in my life. I’m working online still at the moment. I make the grand total of $1,050 every month. I have no insurance. The only savings I have is for my visa, 400,000 baht, and about 3 months of living.

I’m happy that I’m here with my wife. My wife is the best thing to ever happen to me, but also she’s the worst thing to ever happen to me because loving her and wanting to be with her means I’m in such a precarious financial position. Her family destroyed my life for such a long time. They ruined it because I didn’t consider my life now to be what my life should be.

That business was working. It was meant to continue to work. Then the stupid things her father did. Her mother deciding she wanted to stop. Then her father deciding he wanted to stop. We should have had a huge fruit distribution business. Now I should have a work permit, a pension, but instead I work very bad hours for a small amount of money just so I can be with my wife.

Final Thoughts: A Warning to Others

What I would say to anyone is while you can lose everything when you find out that the person you’re with isn’t who you thought they were and it hurts. But it’s an immediate ending. I’m still with my wife. I’m happy with her. We’re good together. We’ve never done any bad things to each other. I know her well enough to know what she does and what she doesn’t do.

But it’s an ongoing struggle for every other aspect of my life. It’s an ongoing torment because I can never just take a step back and relax knowing that I’m okay. If I get taken sick, that’s it. If I lose this job and I can’t find another one in three months, that’s it. If something happens to my wife, that’s it. And it’s no way to live.

Her family destroyed my life and I’m still living it today. I’m just thankful that I have her because without her, there would be no point at all.