The Friend Who Showed Me the Way to Thailand

To the guys who have shared their stories, I feel your pain. I am no different. We all took a leap that most people only fantasise about, but most people do not have the courage to make it. We went for it, but we did not succeed. In my view, the reason came down to our Thai wives having expectations that were not grounded in reality, along with many other significant factors.

The biggest thing was how they would always prioritise their family over you, every day of the week and twice on Sunday. That is what happened to me. I thought I was part of her family because I was her husband, and I expected her to prioritise me. Little did I know that I would always come last, even behind the family dog, which barked incessantly and had never been taught how to behave.

Twelve years ago, I packed everything up and moved halfway around the world to Thailand. I had had enough of things at home, and Thailand was my fresh start. My savings were not substantial, but I thought they would last me for the rest of my life. I was never someone who wanted to save money for the sake of it. If I thought I had enough, that was good enough for me.

My plan sounded straightforward, at least on paper. I wanted to spend my final years somewhere I felt I belonged, and for me that place had always been Thailand. It had become my escape from the monotony of life at home. I never anticipated getting married, although I was open to anything that came my way.

When I married a Thai girl, I honestly had no idea what I was signing up for. I had no idea I would support her entire family as well. That reality did not hit me until after the wedding, when it was already too late. I am sharing this because I want other men to understand that Thailand is not a shortcut to an easy life. Holding on to that fantasy only made things worse for me.

The Beginning in 2003

My first trip to Thailand happened a full decade before I retired. Retirement was not even on the cards at that time. I would have loved to retire there and then, but I did not have enough money, so I had to make do with visiting. This was in 2003, a long time ago now, although it still feels like yesterday.

It was my first trip abroad since I came out of a relationship the year before. I was 42. I had thought I would be with her forever, but she thought otherwise. We were never married, but we had a child together. My child was only ten, and I would have preferred him to stay with me. He did not, and that tore me apart.

Everything seemed stacked against men at home. When I arrived in Thailand, though, it felt like a breath of fresh air. It was not merely different. It felt like the polar opposite of what I had known.

The Friend Who Showed Me the Way

One older friend changed my plans. There was an older man in my rural area whom I used to drink with at the local pub. I loved the countryside in England, and my local pub, where I had been going since I was 20, was tiny. He moved into the area when I was 22 or 23. He was about 20 years older than me, and he became a very good friend.

He got divorced and somehow managed to keep his house. In the early 1990s, he went to Thailand, got married, and brought his Thai wife back to England. He always said that marrying someone from Thailand was the best thing he had ever done because there was far less stress than in his marriage at home.

Because of him, I decided to visit Thailand after my relationship collapsed. If it was good enough for him, surely it would be good enough for me. He was a realist, and although he has sadly passed away, he stayed with his Thai wife until the end. He must have done something right.

Thailand in 2003: A Different World

I immediately liked Thailand. It was everything my friend said it was and more. When he said everything was easier there, he was not lying.

Back then, the bars were quite different from how they are today. Over time they became more commercial, more transactional, and more focused on numbers. In the older days, everyone understood the game and what the girls did, but money was not always front and centre because the amounts being discussed were so marginal.

None of the girls had mobile phones in their hands. A few had phones, but they were only for calls and texts. There was no internet access or real knowledge of how different life was outside Thailand. Beers cost pence rather than pounds, and a decent hotel cost eight quid. A whole night, including meeting a girl you liked, might cost about 40 quid.

I spent those two weeks in Bangkok living what felt like the life I had missed. It was the best time of my life.

The Long Distance Relationship (2008 to 2013)

Over the next ten years, I returned to Thailand several times. I worked hard, saved hard, and made sure I met all my obligations. About five years after my first trip, I met a girl who became my girlfriend.

She worked in a bar, but I decided to become serious with her because the bars were changing every time I went back. Thailand was changing rapidly, and I was not used to returning to a place and finding that the things I loved had become more expensive and more transactional.

I became serious with her in 2008 because I thought I would be entering a very different bar scene by the time I retired. I was about 47, and she was 20. I believed I was getting her love, respect, kindness, and willingness to be with me for myself.

After that, I became one of those men who sent money every month. I believed she had moved back to her family village. I did not know when I would be able to move to Thailand, but I hoped to get there as soon as possible.

Instead, I went once a year to see her, spoke to her every day, and sent money each month. This continued for five years. When my child support payments stopped and I received an inheritance, I sold my house and calculated that I might have enough to move. I had sent her the equivalent of 15,000 baht a month, about 900,000 baht in total, or roughly 20,000 pounds.

I loved her. We were not married, only boyfriend and girlfriend, but she was what kept me going through difficult months at work and everything at home. We spoke at least twice a day, and I saw her for two weeks each year. I had nobody else and did not want anybody else.

The Red Flag I Ignored

When I could finally move to Thailand, we were both excited. I arrived in 2013 with about 250,000 pounds at the age of 52. She met me at the airport, and it felt as if I had seen her the day before. It was mesmerising to be there after all that time and finally be together.

I proposed after I arrived. She said, “I thought you would never ask,” and seemed genuinely happy. She was 25, and I thought she must have loved me because she had waited from 20 to 25 for me.

Two days later, I had a chance to change my path. We were out with two of her friends at a club beneath the hotel on Soi 11. Everyone was drunk when one friend said, “We come here one month ago and get so drunk. Have good time.”

I looked at my girlfriend. I thought she was meant to be in the village, and she had told me she was always there. She said she had come to Bangkok for a birthday. I should have understood what that meant. She was probably in Bangkok all the time, still working as she had before I met her.

The Village and the Wedding

Now that we were engaged, it was all systems go. We went to the village, which was my first time there. I met the family, and she showed me where she stayed when I was away. Nobody else spoke English, so there was no way to verify her story.

It was primitive, but the countryside reminded me of home and made me feel comfortable. It brought back the feelings I had on my first trip, as if this was still Thailand in a way that Bangkok was not. I felt a huge draw towards the countryside.

Getting married was amazing. All I could think about was living somewhere like that in a proper house. I did not notice straight away that her mother stood out from other women in the village. She wore a lot of gold, which I later discovered had been paid for with money I had sent to support my girlfriend, who was supposedly living there instead of working in Bangkok.

Life in Bangkok

Life finally felt settled. We spent several weeks looking for somewhere to live in Bangkok and took a six month lease so I could settle in. We rented a high unit on Soi 13 with great views of the city.

Once we had moved in, my life in Thailand began as someone living there rather than someone visiting temporarily. Because we were married, I arranged to get my non immigrant visa in Laos at the embassy in Savannakhet and later extended it in Thailand. Having that visa made me feel secure.

I thought I had enough money to last. I was getting some interest but eating into my principal. Apart from that, life was great. It felt wonderful to be retired and finally be with my girlfriend after all those years apart. I thought we had waited for each other and would do everything to make the relationship work.

In reality, I was the one who did everything. I had built my whole life around her from 2008, spending five years apart and supporting her. It hurts to realise that she may have been doing something very different.

The Land Purchase That Cost Ten Times Too Much

As our six month lease ended, I wanted to look around the village. I had not told my wife that I liked it there or that I could see myself living there so soon.

We found what I thought was an amazing place for a house. It was close to the family home but within walking distance of the main part of the village. I did not realise that the land belonged to the family until my wife said it belonged to her father.

They offered to sell it for 1.5 million baht. Someone who knew Thailand would have understood that the price was ten times too high, but I did not. I withdrew the money, transferred the land with my wife and her father, and had it put in my wife’s name.

Thai families do not normally sell land to one another like that. A father’s land would usually pass to his daughter or another sibling. They do not sell it outside the family unless they have to. At the time, I did not see that it was simply a money grab.

Building the House

After we got the land, I felt it was time to move quickly. I calculated that once everything was ready, I would spend less. I was also attracted to the idea of opening a small business, not to make a lot of money but to keep occupied and settle into village life.

We chose a small, single story, three bedroom house costing about 2 million baht. I soon realised that I needed a car, so I bought a Toyota Hilux pickup and registered it in my name.

We chose a builder and I spent a lot of time on site, checking the work. We selected the tiles, fixtures, taps, paint, and furniture together. When we finally moved in, I woke up thinking, “I’m home. I’m here. I’m with my wife, and we have this house.” I had spent about 100,000 pounds and had 150,000 left. I thought I could live on eight or nine thousand pounds a year.

The First Direct Request

Unfortunately, reality was different. Only a few days after moving in, my wife directly asked me for money. She said she was happy with the house, the car, and village life, but now she wanted to help her family with a business.

“What business?” I asked. She meant a farm. She wanted 100,000 baht for irrigation on a field so the family could grow more crops. Instead of asking why they did not use some of the 1.5 million baht I had already paid, I said, “Okay, that sounds great.”

I thought I was part of the family and would share in the benefits. I liked how everyone seemed to help one another. After the irrigation was installed, I handed over another 50,000 baht for a small shed so her father could spend time there.

The Sister’s Shop

After that, nothing happened for a month. Then I found my wife with her sister, discussing a new business. Her sister had moved back from Bangkok and wanted to start a small shop in the village.

My wife asked if her sister could borrow 300,000 baht to buy land and build the shop. I was still on a high, so I agreed to look at the land. I thought I would get the money back with something extra because I was making an investment.

The land was about three quarters of the way from our house to the village. It cost 100,000 baht. I asked how our land had cost 1.5 million when it was the same size. My wife said the land was different, with good land and bad land. I did not want to question anything that might spoil my happiness, so I lent her sister the 300,000 baht.

The Brother’s Business

About two months later, my wife’s older brother wanted help with a much larger business. He had worked in a Thai shop selling tyres and wheels and wanted to open his own business on the outskirts of the village.

My wife said he needed 2.5 million baht for machinery and equipment. I knew I had already spent about 10,000 pounds, and I was meant to spend only eight or nine thousand a year, but I agreed after seeing the proposed business. I expected a return on my investment.

For about six months, I was not asked for anything else. I watched the business being built and did not stop to think that I had less than 90,000 pounds left. I was now relying on the business working.

The Money Never Comes Back

The business seemed to be doing well when it opened. People used it and money came in, but none of it reached me. My wife once said she had received a 20,000 baht share from her brother’s business.

I asked why the money was not reaching me when I had paid for everything. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. She said she thought the investment was for her brother and that any share belonged to her.

That was the first time I realised I might have misunderstood everything. I had invested because I expected money back. The following month I received 10,000 baht from the takings, which was not much but was something.

Then my wife wanted to open a cafe next to her brother’s shop. Customers had to wait for their tyres, so she thought they would buy drinks. She asked for a million baht to set it up. I agreed because she said I would no longer need to give her 15,000 baht every month and could keep my share of the tyre business.

The Collapse

About a year later, I was down to 30,000 pounds. Her sister had closed the shop, saying it did not make enough money, and was living in it as if it were a house. The irrigated field was empty. Her brother had moved to Chonburi for a better opportunity, leaving the business behind. Without customers, the cafe next door no longer worked.

I spent money trying to make things work, but my wife wanted even more. Everything I had was going to other people and not benefiting me as I thought it would. When I said I could not give her any more, she replied, “Okay, no problem. I go back work bar.”

She explained that she had stayed away from the village while I was in England because she needed money. I understood that she may have done exactly that, but she had admitted it and used it to hurt me. I tried to salvage the situation by asking for the land and businesses to be put in her name and for someone to run the tyre business properly.

She simply said, “That is not going to happen.” She wanted 15,000 baht a month or she could not stay because she had bills to pay. I stayed a little longer, but it was no good. Driving away in my pickup, knowing that everything I had built was there, was shocking because living in Thailand had been my dream since 2003.

The Aftermath

I met my wife in 2008, sent her money every month for five years, and saw her only two weeks each year. She meant everything to me, and I believed she was living in the village. She used what she had to get me to overpay for land, build a house, and give money to her sister, brother, and parents.

I spent about a week in Bangkok selling the pickup and did not get much for it. When I went home, I got a new job that was awful but earned enough for a large deposit on a cheap house with a short mortgage. It was not a great house, but it put me back on the housing ladder, and the mortgage was paid off a few years ago.

I still wonder what life would have been like if we had simply stopped after building the house. Everything had been perfect there, and I really loved my wife. I did not get divorced when I left, so I do not know what is happening with that now.

What I would say to anyone is do not do what I did. It is easy to say there is no chance you would do something so foolish, but strong feelings and love can make anyone act stupidly. I hope my mistake helps someone else think carefully before making the same choices.