Chiang Mai Love Story

Like so many others, I was bored of my life at home. Failed marriage and a mundane job, and I desperately wanted to get more out of my life. I always felt like life was for living, but I hadn’t lived a life in years. The only problem was I didn’t have enough money to actually do and live the life I wanted to live.

I wanted to move to Thailand. I used to holiday there once a year and it was my escape from life. I was lucky enough to have been able to go for 1 month a year. When I say lucky enough, I don’t mean I was lucky. I wanted to be there 12 months of the year, but I know some guys could only go for 2 weeks, so at least I could go for a bit longer than them.

Thailand was my escape, and I hoped to one day make Thailand my home.

Meeting R in Chiang Mai

I’d been visiting Thailand for at least 5 years when I met R. I had many a wild night in Thailand, so I was no stranger to the girls in Thailand. But R, to me at least, was different to all the other girls. I know that’s what everyone says that their Thai girl is different but I think what they mean when they say this is that their girl is different in their mind. That’s why we fall for them, isn’t it? Because there’s something about them that’s different to all the other girls that we’ve got to know over the years.

I met R in a bar in Chiang Mai. It was my first trip to Chiang Mai, although I’d been to Thailand many times before, usually staying in Bangkok and Pattaya. That trip up north to Chiang Mai was to celebrate Songkran there. That’s the Thai New Year celebration where everyone throws water on each other. I’d heard it was a blast in Chiang Mai and I had a great time.

Songkran The Festival That Started It All

If you’re into that festival, when I was there, that’s when I met R. She was from Isan a part of Thailand that I had visited in the past, but only for a few days with an ex girlfriend. I was always interested to learn more about that region because it was the least well traveled part of Thailand and where lots of girls come from that end up with foreigners.

R and I kind of hit it off straight away. I met her on the first day of Songkran. She was stood outside her bar with a water pistol next to a big blue bucket of water. The water was full of ice. I was walking past early on in the day. I don’t remember exactly what time it was, but I do remember coming out of my hotel, which was further down the street. By the time I got to her, I was already drenched with ice cold water multiple times, and I was enjoying the festivities.

When I walked past her bar, she took a small bucket and dipped it into the large bucket and poured it all over me. We had a laugh, and I snatched the bucket from her and did the same to her. Didn’t really leave her bar for the rest of that day drinking and playing from outside, throwing water on everyone that went past.

What it was about her, I don’t know. But in my mind, I felt differently about her than I did with all the other girls I’d met in Thailand. And that was after seeing her. The feeling came straight away.

A Different Kind of Connection

She stayed with me throughout Songkran. We actually spent most of the time at her bar. It’s so wild if you’ve never experienced it. But if you’re one of those guys that is a bit uptight, I don’t think you’d like Songkran. But if you’re up for a laugh and an excuse to have three days of drinking all day and partying well into the night, you would love it.

The whole situation with R was different to any of the other girls I’d gotten to know in Thailand. Although she worked at the bar, I never gave any money to the bar when we went out together, and she sort of clung on to me during my time in Chiang Mai. When that was coming to a close, I had a week booked at a hotel down in Hua Hin. I’d never been there before, but I wanted to go and see what it was like.

On my last day in Chiang Mai, I asked R if she wanted to go with me, and she joined me in Hua Hin for that week.

The Long Distance Relationship Begins

That week turned into a long distance relationship. I don’t know what she was getting up to when I wasn’t in Thailand, but it was agreed that she would go back to her village, which was in Roi Et, and I would send her a small amount of money every month just to cover her living expenses.

I honestly believe that she was where she said she was. She always put one of her family members onto the phone when we spoke. She always answered the phone when I rang. I never heard loud music in the background. And we were in touch every day for 11 months until I could go back to Thailand again.

Our Ages

I think it might be worth pointing out how old we both were. I don’t know if this would make any difference, but I was 45 and she was 38. She didn’t look 38. When she asked me to guess how old she was, I thought 28 and I thought that was maybe too old. So, she aged well.

I really wanted to be able to live in Thailand. That was everything I thought about when I was at work.

Reunited at the Airport

11 months later, I was met at Bangkok airport by R. And that was the happiest moment I had in my life up until that point. We’d been speaking daily for 11 months and she was meeting me at the airport, and I had a month to spend with her and see if we could think about anything we could do to start along the path to me permanently relocating to Thailand.

I didn’t have anything booked for this holiday. The reason being I didn’t know what we were going to do. We stayed in Bangkok for three nights, but as soon as we were in the taxi together going to the hotel, it felt like we hadn’t been separated for 11 months and like we belonged together.

Learning About Her Life

She was telling me about her life up in Isan and how she helped her family with some of their farming work, but not too much. She never had any children, and I thought that was a blessing. But I did ask her if she said she wanted children, and she said she does if she can find the right person.

We’d been in Bangkok a day or two, and I felt like I was in my real home. I belonged in Thailand, and I knew that. But I had to sacrifice 11 months for one month of being where I should be.

Meeting the Family in Roi Et

R started to talk about wanting to take me to where she’s been staying for the past 11 months, up in Roi Et. I’d heard enough stories to know that her wanting me to go and visit the family should be a good sign as long as nothing comes up there with me having to hand over any money to get married or anything like that.

We went on the bus and made it up there about 9 hours later. We were met at the bus station in Roi Et by one of her family members that owned a truck. They gave us a lift back to the village. I’d guess it was 15 minutes away, so really not so far.

My immediate reaction was that I just arrived in the real Thailand and I loved everything about it. Her family was so kind towards me. Money was never discussed. It was even offered that I could stay in their house, which wasn’t much. And R told me it was impolite to decline. So, we ended up staying in the family’s house that night. And that was an experience I will never forget.

Discovering Rural Thailand in Roi Et

The next day, we went to the local market, and it was so different to most of the places I’d been in Thailand before. It was like a whole different world. That’s the only way to describe it. In a way, places like Bangkok and Pattaya the two places I’d visited the most were a fake version of Thailand. The Thailand that changed the most over recent years. But where we were here, it just felt good and like somewhere that I could live.

It amazed me how affordable everything was in the village. If you were prepared to go local, you could live so much cheaper than if you wanted to live somewhere else in Thailand. And I took that as a good sign that perhaps I could move to Thailand sooner than I thought.

Deeper Connections

We spent 5 days in her hometown. The last four we did stay in a hotel, but exploring where she came from the things she did as a child she’d like to share with me. She showed me the tree she fell out of that gave her that scar on her back, and I felt a deeper connection to her than I had before.

One of her members of family could speak English not as well as her, but enough to communicate with me. And they said to me that R had been waiting for me to come back and talked about me every day. Was it just a show? I didn’t think so. I honestly didn’t think she was lying to me because we were just so compatible. A similar age, similar ambitions, and both with a hope of settling down with someone that they loved.

Koh Samui and a Sudden Proposal

The rest of my holiday, we were just going to spend somewhere I’d never been before on the island of Koh Samui. It was beautiful there, but it wasn’t more beautiful than where R came from, apart from having the ocean.

We’d been on the island for a week, and the more I spent with R, the more I felt like I was falling in love with her. And I had two weeks left of my holiday. We were out one evening drinking some cocktails and out of the blue we started talking about marriage. I don’t know how the conversation started.

I had a failed marriage before and she had a failed marriage that didn’t last long because her ex husband got involved with drugs and ended up in jail. I didn’t ask her to marry me, but we were talking about it and decided that we should get married. So that when I went back, I knew she would be my wife. And when I went back, she knew that I would be thinking about her and would come back.

The only problem was how we would do it. We should have been staying in Samui for the next two weeks. “Do you want to get married?” I said yes. And I went to the embassy to get the documentation that I needed. Luckily, I had thought ahead and brought all the documents I needed from home so I could get the paper easily just in case. So we hurried to Bangkok, got everything we needed, and got married on Samui a few days before I had to go home.

Back to Reality

I didn’t want to go home. R didn’t want me to go home. But I had no choice. I had to go back to work on the following Monday and go back to my normal existence.

I wanted to know what the bare minimum would be the absolute bare minimum for me to be able to live in Thailand and experience the life in her village. She told me that if I wanted to come to Thailand sooner, that’s where we would probably need to live. We’d need a house. We’d need a car to be able to get about. And I thought if I could have £1,000 a month, that would be more than enough to live and not just exist.

We talked about it together, and I told R that I’d go back home and work out the figures and see what I could come up with.

Planning the Move

Leaving Thailand was extremely painful, but instead of thinking about how amazing a time I had just had with my now wife, I was thinking about the future and the time we could have together when I made it back.

I didn’t own a house at home. I rented somewhere, but I had a car, a small amount of savings, and personal effects of which I had a bit of value. I worked it out if I sold everything apart from the clothes on my back, I could raise around £70,000. That wasn’t enough to live in Thailand, but it would be enough to build the house and get us started.

That’s all I thought about. I just got back into working another 11 months until I could get back to Thailand.

The First Large Request

I was married now and I was still sending money every month for my wife. She told me she didn’t want me to send a lot, just enough for her to be able to live. The sooner I could get back, the better. And that’s what we were talking about.

Then one month I’d probably been back for three months at a guess she said she had an emergency and she needed 50,000 baht. She had never asked for large sums of money before. Not once. So, I did believe her that it was real. The excuse she came up with for needing the money was that the rice crop had failed and they didn’t have any rice to sell or eat.

When I researched, it did look like it was the rice season and did look that they had more rain than normal. So, I chose to believe her and sent her the money. She was thankful, but she was also apologetic, saying she was so sorry that she had to ask for this money because she knew that would make it more difficult for me to come back to Thailand sooner, and all she wanted was to be with me.

I accepted what she was saying at face value, and when I wasn’t at work, all we did was speak. We’d speak for hours a day, sometimes go to sleep in the evening with the phone on and it would be left on all night. Thank God for video calls and the internet. I don’t know how the guys went through this 30 years ago with just a normal phone. That would have been worse.

A Surprise Visit

Things picked up when there was a small possibility of me being able to leave work for 2 weeks 6 months away from when I thought I would be able to return to Thailand. My work knew I wanted to go, and because I was working really hard and had worked for the company for decades, they granted me two weeks of extra leave for that year. I had worked for years and years and years, so it was kind of them to do that.

When I told R that I could go back to Thailand and visit her for 2 weeks, she was delighted and said she’d come and meet me at the airport and asked if we could just spend the time at her home in Roi Et. I liked the sound of that. I didn’t want to spend too much money, but I just wanted to see her because I missed her so much.

Apart from one night in Bangkok, we spent the whole two weeks with her in the village. We had to stay in a hotel close by to the village, but it was good enough for me. I was happy to go in the daytime to her house and I was loving it. I could see myself living there sitting in a hammock, reading a book with a beer by my side, going to the local restaurant and spending a hundred baht on a meal and a beer. That was my kind of living.

A Sign I Missed

One little incident that happened during those two weeks I think should have given me more cause for alarm than I let it. Looking back, when I was there, probably a week into the trip, I was in the hammock thinking about how good it would be not to have to return home, and two guys walked into the yard. Burly guys. My wife quickly ran over to them and greeted them. They seemed to be a bit on edge, but they left 5 minutes later after they arrived, and my wife had handed them what looked like an envelope.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But looking back, perhaps I should have.

Another Request

When I was due to leave, R asked me for a huge favor. She said she was still struggling because of the rice harvest failure and could I help out with some money up front, and then for the next 6 months I could send her half the amount of money that I would normally do. I thought that sounded fair and I gave her 60,000 baht.

I went back down to Bangkok myself and caught my flight home, and life continued. We’d speak all the time. If I wasn’t working, we’d be speaking, and it made separation bearable.

The Tractor Emergency

3 months after I’d been back, there was another emergency. This time, she needed 100,000 baht. The tractor had broken, and that was a big source of the family’s income. I had seen the tractor when I was there. I had seen people coming over and renting the tractor from them, and I had seen her father driving the tractor and being paid by other people for it. When she showed me the tractor on the video call, it all looked real and I believed her and I sent her the money.

I chose to look at it like this: she was spending most of her time speaking to me. She could have made more money than I was giving her even with the extra bits by working. So I didn’t think much of it and just wanted to help.

The Decision to Build a House

A month before I was due to go back, I decided to solidify my connection to the area where she lived. I was going to tell her we could build a house. I could put half my savings into a house. She’d be able to live there and I’d have somewhere to stay when I went to visit. I was missing her so much and I just wanted to be with her in Thailand. And I thought by building the house that would take me one step closer to actually being able to be with her forever.

I don’t know if anyone else has been in a long term relationship for years and made it work, but I thought this was the best way to make it work and to make her appreciate that I loved her more than life itself.

Returning to Roi Et and Planning the House

When I got back to Thailand, I noticed that R had put on quite a bit of weight. I didn’t care. I loved her for her. And she seemed to have aged more than in the last 6 months since I saw her. I didn’t think much of it, and we went straight up to Roi Et and into our usual hotel. Felt like I was going home, and being back there was where I wanted to be.

We can’t have been back for more than 15 minutes, but I’d already told her that I wanted to build a house. I wanted somewhere we could live together in the future where she could live when I wasn’t there, and where I could stay when I was visiting. I had no desire to be anywhere else apart from there. I didn’t want to be in Bangkok or Pattaya. Didn’t want to be anywhere else apart from there because I loved it. It was the best place in Thailand.

I was thinking R was elated when I told her I wanted to build a house. Where she was living now was basic with her family. By family, it was her mother and father. She was an only child, which was quite uncommon in Thailand.

Her Parents Give Us Land for the House

When everything was discussed with the family, her mother and father gave her a piece of land in order for us to build a house on. This was a complete gift. No money was exchanged. I even went to the land office and watched as it was changed into her name. The name on the back of the deed matched up to the name on her ID card. I was checking everything just to be ultra careful, and it did belong to her.

It was a gorgeous piece of land. Wasn’t big, but it was beautiful. Just sat back from the main road with no houses next to it. There was electric going past, which was good. And we started to think about what the house we would have on this land.

I think that visit to Thailand was one of my happiest. Planning ahead to a future that I had envisioned. We’d had some land given to us for free, and I was going to pay for the house. We set a budget at 2 million baht and that should include everything inside the house. I wasn’t bothered about a western style kitchen. As long as it was clean, had air conditioning in the bedroom, I was happy. Oh, I wanted a bathtub as well which was also quite uncommon in Thailand but those weren’t expensive.

We found someone to build the house, and I agreed that as soon as I got home, I would transfer the money in incrementally to pay for the house build. We were both so excited and happy. We’d been together for quite a few years now, but most of that spent far apart.

Another Emergency Before Leaving

A few days before I was due to go back, another emergency happened. Those same guys came back again and me thinking nothing of it. But another envelope was handed over, and as soon as that happened, it was asked that could I help her out with 100,000 baht and I could send her less money monthly for the next year.

When we said “the next year,” that felt awful to be away for so long. It was heartbreaking. But I agreed to give her this money, and she seemed to lighten up and feel relieved when I did. And so I returned home again.

The House Is Built

I transferred an initial 500,000 baht for the house, and she showed me all the time the progress on a video call. It was coming along brilliantly, and I felt so proud that we’d have our own house soon. And 6 months later, the house was ready. It was furnished and decorated with air conditioning and the bathtub that I wanted, and it had just come in under budget at 1.9 million baht.

I thought about just packing everything in and moving to Thailand and hoping for the best, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. I still had 6 months to go before I could even go and see the house that I had just built. And those 6 months just dragged on and on.

I had to send her another 50,000 baht for reasons unknown. But she was my wife and she didn’t really ask for much money, and what I sent every month wasn’t a fortune. It really wasn’t. But I didn’t pay close attention to the reason that she needed this extra money. She didn’t ask often and I just wanted to help her.

Distance Before the Visit

A month before I was due to return, I was starting to get really excited to go and see the house. R said how excited she was as well, but she was feeling more distant than before on the calls like she had something in her mind that she wanted out of her mind. I didn’t try to say anything to her. I was just asking if she was okay. “Is there anything wrong? Anything I can do to help?” She said everything’s fine and she can’t wait to see me soon.

The years are really going by. I can remember flying to Thailand that time, excited to go and see the house. Our house that was going to be where we lived hopefully in the future as soon as possible.

Seeing the House for the First Time

Meeting her at the airport in a normal way and she’d really put on a lot more weight. It’s hard to tell on the video call the way she held the phone, but I’d say she put on 10 kilos since I saw her last. I didn’t care, but I wondered if there was a reason behind it.

She’d borrowed a truck from someone, so we didn’t need to get the bus this time, and we just drove up to see the house straight away. I can remember my heart pounding when we pulled up and saw it for the first time. It was amazing. It was only small, but it was everything that I dreamed it would be. Walking inside and she’d made a little welcome sign hung over the TV. Those small balloons, each one an individual letter. I thought that was a nice touch.

I can remember just hugging her and telling her how much I loved her and her telling me the same. It was so great to be there. And that was the closest I got to thinking about packing everything in at home. I could have lasted three years, maybe four if I needed to. In Thailand, surely I’d be able to pick up some work on the internet or even teach English.

At one point on that trip, I’d actually come to the conclusion and made my mind up that I wasn’t going back. I even told R and she said, “Please don’t go back.” She even begged me not to go back, saying we could make things work here. We didn’t need a lot of money. But something was telling me it just wasn’t sensible and I might regret it later in life.

And when the time was up, I flew back to England. That was November 2019. The decision I regret more than any ever. The worst decision I’ve made.

COVID Changes Everything

COVID happens and everyone’s locked out of Thailand. I am able to work from home, which I would have been able to do from Thailand. And the thought that the country closed down and I don’t know when I can go back and see her was scary.

I made my mind up then that as soon as I could, I would go to Thailand and I’d worry about everything else later. I’d take my chances. I wanted to enjoy my life and wanted to be with my wife. And this told me that that’s what I should do.

It was even worse because R was asking for more money than before. She asked for 100,000 baht once and then two months later another 100,000 baht again. I was giving her the money, but I was telling her that I’m going to be going to Thailand soon and we’re going to need to save everything we can. She said she was sorry. It was just an emergency. But I didn’t ask what the emergency was too much like I should have done. But that was an amount of money that should have been saved.

Finally Back, and the Truth Comes Out

When Thailand did open up, I was still working from home and I asked my work if I could go and do it from Thailand and they actually agreed. I couldn’t believe it. I had to spend 2 weeks in quarantine. But it was worth it when I finally saw R. At least until I found out something that completely ruined my life and hers.

I remember leaving the hotel after the quarantine and she was waiting outside, and I immediately knew something was wrong when I saw her. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. But we went to the hotel that we had booked and I asked her what’s going on and what’s wrong.

She said she had to borrow some money against the house and if we don’t pay it back, we’d lose it.

I couldn’t believe what I heard. “What did you need the money for?” I asked. But she didn’t want to tell me. When she finally did, my whole world came crashing down.

The Gambling Addiction

She’d been gambling. And she’d been gambling ever since she met me and even before. And all the time she’d asked for money, it was because she owed money to a loan shark. This time she borrowed half a million baht using the house as collateral, and they could take it from her if she didn’t pay it back. A 2 million baht house they could have a quarter of the price.

I didn’t know what to say. I’d not seen her for over a year, and part of me just wanted to hug her and tell her how much I love her and everything’s going to be okay. But this came as such a shock. I think it was the first time I was ever angry with her in the years we’d been together.

I asked her how she could do that. How could she borrow money against the house? That’s our future. And she just said she was addicted to gambling. At the time, I didn’t know gambling was an actual addiction. I knew people like to gamble and some people gambled more than others, but it was an addiction just as strong as an addiction that drug addicts have. I didn’t know that.

I stormed out of the hotel, leaving her there. She was in tears and I went for a walk around Bangkok. Just taken this huge plunge, a big life decision, and it had taken me such a long time to be brave enough to do. And my wife I just found out had gambled away half a million baht. If only it was half a million baht.

Making a Difficult Choice

When I calmed down and went back to the hotel, she was still crying, saying she couldn’t help it. I thought gambling was illegal in Thailand, apart from the lottery. But there are so many places people can gamble illegally.

I didn’t want her to lose any more money. I didn’t want to lose her. Didn’t want to lose what we had and the house that I had put half my savings into. She said she tried to stop, but she lost some money the 100,000 baht that I sent her. She lost it. But she didn’t want to lose it. So, she thought if she borrowed the money against the house, she would get the money back. Instead, she lost it all.

Now, the question was: do I run for the hills, or do I pay back the loan sharks, get the house back, and somehow make sure she never gambles again? It was such a difficult time. My first day out of quarantine felt like I’d been hit with a brick.

I can remember asking her what she wanted me to do. What should I do in this situation? And she said, “Can we pay the money back?” And she would never gamble again. I saw the sincerity on her face when she said it. I truly believe that she wouldn’t gamble again.

And I agreed to pay back this money. What choice did I have? If I’d cut the losses there, yes, I’d have been better off, but I would have been reeling from the loss of a house. At least in this sense, we’d still have the house and I could still get on with trying to make a living in Thailand and make it work.

I was able to work from home now with the company I work for, and that was thanks to COVID. Maybe I could keep this job indefinitely. And that would be really good because the money would go so far in Thailand.

Moving Forward Or So I Thought

The next day, I’d calmed down. I could tell how sorry she was, and that’s the upsetting thing. She was so sorry. And she told me that she’d been putting on weight from the stress of losing money. I felt sorry for her, but I also felt sorry for myself. We got back to the house and it was those guys again who came around. Those guys who I’d seen two times before that I didn’t think anything of. Although it wasn’t an envelope she was handing over this time it was a big wad of cash. My cash.

I thought that was the end of it. Within a few days I’d already forgotten about it. I was performing better at work than I ever had. Maybe because I was just happy to be somewhere I wanted to be. And they told me when COVID had settled down, they were happy for me to continue with this arrangement. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was making around £3,000 a month. How good would that be in rural Thailand?

The only negative was I had to work UK hours, but I didn’t think that was much of a negative. I was so happy to be in Thailand with my wife actually living with her and we were getting on so well. I’d forgotten all about her gambling problem before, and thought she’d given it up for good.

She didn’t go out often, and when she did, she’d go to the market, and she’d be back in an hour or two. Occasionally, she’d go and visit friends, but not for long, and she’d be back. And life went on, and I was so happy with the decision I made. Things did fall into place because my job let me work from Thailand and I was saving at least £1,000 a month. I’d never been able to save that amount of money before, and I was really enjoying my life with the love of my life.

A Trip to Bangkok Alone

I needed to renew my passport. It had 8 months remaining on it and I needed a trip to Bangkok to do that. So, I decided to buy a car. We would need a car anyway, and I’d saved some money from work and I spent 250,000 baht on a decent secondhand one.

When I was due to set off, R said she wasn’t feeling well. It was only going to be a quick there and back, so I decided to go myself. Another huge mistake. But I got everything sorted out and got the new passport in a few months.

She Wanted to Work

It was around this time, if I can remember, that R said she wanted to do something to work. She was bored of staying at home too much. She didn’t want to do much, but she felt like she wanted to provide something as well. I told her it wasn’t really necessary. I was making good money. But she wanted to have a purpose and do something, and I didn’t want to stop her. I told her it was up to her.

And she said she was going to go and do something like sell food in town on the street. That was fine by me. She was a great cook. I was happy for her to use the car as well. The car was in my name. She could use it.

When she started doing that, I noticed her starting to change again. I tried to tell her to stop working, but she said she was enjoying doing it. But she was always a bit distant and starting to put on weight again. And I asked her point blank, “Have you started gambling again? You need to tell me if you have.” But she denied it.

I didn’t believe her, though. I knew her too well. But by this point, I knew something was wrong, even though she said nothing was. She promised me though that she wasn’t. And for the next week she went back to work supposedly, and I got on with working as well.

The Second Bomb Drops

That’s when she came to me. She’d done it again. Only this time she’d borrowed one million baht against the house and lost all the money.

I simply could not believe it. A momentary lapse on her part has cost me a million baht. I didn’t have a million baht in cash lying around that I could pay. I just didn’t have it. I could have scraped it together, but I wouldn’t have any emergency buffer.

I had no idea what to do. I knew that the person she borrowed the money from was charging interest that was illegal. Couldn’t she go to the police and explain this? But she said, “No, it doesn’t work like that. It might be illegal, but she still had to pay it back.” I asked her how she managed to gamble away such an amount of money, and she just said she couldn’t help it.

I started looking into things and found out that gambling indeed was a shocking addiction that ruins many people’s lives and it had just ruined mine as well as hers.

Two Choices Neither Good

I had two choices. Pay back this debt or lose the house and not have anywhere to live. Being faced with those two choices was dreadful.

Things just seemed to be moving in the right direction in my life in a way like they’d never had before. I was working my job, but I was doing it from Thailand and I was saving more money every month. But my wife, who I loved more than anything, had just gambled away a million baht in the space of a few days.

I was angry, but I was also sad and started to feel sorry for my wife because I could tell that it was an addiction that had grabbed hold of her and wouldn’t let go.

Saying No

I ultimately decided that I wasn’t going to pay back that 1 million baht because the house would still be there and she could do it again. I told her, “I can’t pay it. I don’t have the money. We’re going to have to lose the house.” And I could see how heartbroken she was at that prospect, but we had no choice.

Where were we going to live now? We could rent somewhere, but it wouldn’t be the same. Not once did I think about breaking up with her. I understood after looking into the situation that the rush of winning comes over some people and makes them do crazy things. But I would need to change some things in our relationship and she would have to be happy with that.

I thought about it for a long time a few weeks. We had until the end of the month to pay this back. Otherwise, the house would be gone. They had the deed, and if they didn’t pay it back, it was theirs. Even though they were charging an illegal interest rate, I didn’t get it. But Thailand.

A Proposal to Move

I came to the conclusion that if we didn’t have the house in this part of Thailand, we couldn’t live there. It just wouldn’t work. We’d need to rent a condo in one of the bigger cities. But where? I thought back to the fact that we met in Chiang Mai. Maybe we could just go and live up there. It wasn’t as hectic as the cities further down south, but it might be a nice place to live.

After I thought about everything, I told R what I wanted to do. I was expecting her to be thankful that I was still happy to stay with her even after everything she did. But she said she didn’t want to do that. She wanted the house and she wanted to live here.

I told her that there’s no way I can pay back that 1 million baht without jeopardizing my stay in Thailand, but she wasn’t having it. I’d never seen her like this before. I’d never seen her being so defensive or argumentative after a mistake that she had made. I was just trying to be able to stay in Thailand. That’s all I wanted to do. And be with her in a way that I thought was possible.

But what she wanted was unrealistic. And if I did pay it, she could do it again. We argued about it and argued some more, and she expected me to pay back this debt, but I wouldn’t do it. She didn’t get it into her mind that if I paid it back, I would have to leave Thailand. And I’ve waited to live in Thailand for so many years, and I’m finally here.

I told her we can move to Chiang Mai, spend 10,000 baht a month renting somewhere, and I can continue working and we can move forward with our lives.

She Hit Me

That was when she hit me. She’d never done that before. But she said, “It’s my house. I want to live in my house.” She couldn’t get it into her mind that she was the one that borrowed money using the house and land that their family had given her as collateral. She just wouldn’t get it.

She even said, “You can pay the money back and then put the house in your name” knowing full well that as a foreigner, I can’t own land in Thailand. There was no way for me to protect the house. I’ve since learned that I could have got a lease on it, which could have prevented her from borrowing money again, but I didn’t know that at the time. Would that have changed things? I don’t think it would.

Anyway, I desperately wanted to stay with her even after everything she’d done. And I told her, “We’re moving up to Chiang Mai.” I even told her it doesn’t have to be there. It could be anywhere in Thailand Bangkok, Hua Hin. “Where do you want to move to?” And she just didn’t want to move anywhere. She wanted to stay where she was.

The Ultimatum

We fought for a week, and there was no way I was going to pay that debt of hers back. I was just not doing it. I wanted to stay in Thailand and I didn’t want her to do it again. But in her mind, there was no way she was moving anywhere else.

I put an ultimatum to her, thinking she would see sense and do what I asked. I packed everything into the car and said, “Are you coming with me? Yes or no?”

She said no.

My heart sank, and I knew then no matter how much I loved her, how much I wanted to be with her it wasn’t going to work out.

Driving Away

I drove myself to Chiang Mai with all my things and I rented a condo like I wanted to do. A few weeks went by. I didn’t even speak to R once. But she called me to say that she’d lost the house and she blamed me.

“You should have paid the money back,” she said. I told her, “It’s not my fault. It’s yours. You borrowed the money. You still have a chance. I love you more than anything.” I remember telling her that. “Get yourself up to Chiang Mai and live here.” But she just hung up.

I tried to call her and couldn’t get back in touch.

Searching for Her

After a month of not being able to contact her, I still had strong feelings for her. I wanted to make sure she was okay. So, I drove back to the village. Her mother and father were there, but she wasn’t. And I managed to find someone in the village who could speak English to translate the same person that I spoke to before and they said she left and went down to Pattaya.

I knew what that meant. I thanked them and told the mother and father who had not once asked for anything from me and who were fantastic people I told them thank you and goodbye, and drove away from the village never to return.

Should I Find Her?

The only thing in my mind was: do I go back to Chiang Mai and get on with my life and forget about it, or do I try and find her in Pattaya? I knew a few of her friends. I had their contact information the ones that spoke English from her previous life and I called around to them to see if they knew where she was. They knew she had a problem with gambling and they knew how much I loved her and wanted her to be okay.

I think it was the fourth friend I spoke to that told me she was working at a bar in Pattaya. She gave me the bar’s name, and I decided ultimately I had to go and see her and try to get her to see sense.

Finding Her

I drove down there and when I arrived it was like 4:00 a.m. and everything was closed. But the following day I went to the bar that her friend told me where she was and she was there. She looked so embarrassed that I found her. It was still early on in the day and luckily there was nobody in. I could have a proper conversation with her.

She told me how embarrassed she was that she’d lost the house and lost the land that her mom and dad had given to her, and that she blamed me for not paying the money back. It was all about face according to her and that’s just the Thai way.

I tried to explain: if I paid this money back, I wouldn’t be able to live in Thailand. But she could not get it into her mind and wasn’t having it.

The Final Plea

I begged her to come with me to Chiang Mai. I told her that I’d been to the village and spoken to her mother and father and said that I loved you and I will try to find you. They said they didn’t care about the land as long as she was okay. They knew that we were great together. But for whatever reason, she couldn’t see sense.

I left the bar and went back in the evening. She was there chatting to a guy with drinks. I went inside for another go at trying to convince her, but she wasn’t having it. So, I told her I wanted a divorce and she said, “Okay.”

We did get divorced.

Life After R

The positive that came through it all is that I’m still doing the same job from Thailand. The negative is I haven’t found anyone that I love anywhere near as much as I loved R.

I still can’t get over the fact she blamed me for not paying that money back. She didn’t see sense. She could have been living together with me in a nice condo in a beautiful part of Thailand. I was prepared to write off what she’d done and the money she lost. I still loved her even though she did that. But she lost face in the village, and to her that was worse than death.

I don’t know what she’s doing today, but I often think about her. She was the real love of my life and still is. But I have to look at the positives that at least I’m living in Thailand.

Do I Go Looking for Her Again?

I do wonder if I will meet anyone else. Sometimes I think I want to go looking for R again and try and have another go. I don’t care what she’s been up to in the meantime. But then I realize that that’s not the best idea.

And sorry for dragging on with this one. I wanted to get it all off my chest because it’s been with me ever since.

Gambling is a real addiction. It ruins people’s lives and the lives of their families. I bet she’s still gambling today. And with debts that she shouldn’t be taking on. But that’s not my problem anymore. And I’ve moved on with life.

To anyone who has any experience with somebody with a gambling problem, let me just say: don’t get angry. Understand this is a real addiction that grabs hold of people and often doesn’t let go. So, be kind.

That’s my Thailand story. I hope it was interesting for people to listen to. And please don’t give out my name.