The Financial Reality of Thailand

Going to Thailand was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And I had absolutely no idea that by doing the things I did, I would be signing away my future. I didn’t start out that way, though. I started out as being the best thing that happened to me and I felt like I found my place in the world. Thailand for me started back in 2011. It feels like a world away now and the things that happened since then don’t bear thinking about. I’d spent 2 weeks in Pattaya two of the best weeks that I ever had in my life. I found myself at the end of those two weeks dreading the thought of going home. I was 52 years old at the time and I got to the point in time when I was just about ready to give up completely because my life never went according to plan.

I’d been married once upon a time. I had three kids. I raised them together with my wife until my youngest was 12, only to discover that my wife wasn’t the person I thought she was. There’s no point getting into too much detail about what she did or why she did it. But what happened to me was divorce, losing custody of my kids, and ruinous child support payments which I wouldn’t have minded paying if it only went to my kids. But going to her as well after everything she did to me was difficult to accept. I was 43 when I got divorced. And from that moment up until that fateful trip to Thailand, life didn’t seem to move forwards. If anything, it just seemed to trickle along sideways, never progressing, never achieving anything, and always wishing that I was someone else.

I didn’t go near another woman after my wife left me. And perhaps that was why Pattaya in Thailand became such an important fixture in my life pretty much from the day I arrived. Because here I felt like I was me again. I was an actual man as opposed to someone living in obscurity. I’ve heard it so many times before from guys whom I met when I was in Pattaya and also from a mate of mine whose encouragement saw me going to Thailand in the first place that leaving Thailand is the worst thing you will ever have to do. It’s the worst experience you’ll ever have to endure outside of losing someone near and dear. If you hear that without having to experience it, you might think it sounds like complete nonsense. The thing is, though, it rang true.

I got in a taxi from Pattaya after waking up from an absolutely wild night I had the night before along Soi 6, which became my favorite place to go. I was severely hungover. When I got to Suvarnabhumi Airport, I can honestly say I felt like I was about to be served my last meal before I was about to accept the final punishment. Thailand really does some very strange things to you that many people will struggle to understand unless you’ve been. Perhaps it’s just guys like me. Guys who had bad things happen to them at home. Guys who never felt like they go theirs at home. And guys who felt like finally they were the person they thought they always were. Understanding that you’re no longer going to be able to be that person for God only knows how long is a fate worse than death. And as the plane took off and I was watching Thailand appear smaller out of the window with every passing second, I was really starting to clutch at straws and starting to come up with ideas that no sane person would ever even entertain. Thailand had me and I really, really wanted to get back here as soon as I possibly could.

The Financial Reality

I suppose I need to talk about how much money I had at that time. And if I tell you I’d saved up for 2 years for those 2 weeks in Thailand, that should give you a very accurate picture about my financial well being. Basically, I had nothing absolutely nothing. And I never really cared too much before because I just got on with my life. I had things when I was with my wife, but ever since the divorce, I didn’t have anything and I’d kind of already accepted my fate. Now, the very fact that I had nothing was what was keeping me away from Thailand.

When I arrived back at home I’m from the UK, by the way, from a little town about half an hour away from Birmingham I have never felt such a severe depression in my life. I’d flown into Heathrow, almost in ears as I got the rain to Birmingham, frantic because I just didn’t know what to do. I had to get the bus as well from the rain station to my house. Why I’m telling you this is because when I got off the bus and walked the 15 minutes it took to get to my house, when I opened the front gate, that’s when it hi me like a brick. I had my house, didn’t I?

the thought of selling my house hadn’t crossed my mind, but all of a sudden, as I was walking up the path to the front door, it was like I’d been hi with a new lease of life. This house could see me getting back to Thailand, and I could move here for good. I often think back to that moment of my life. I mus have been really miserable. I mean, I know I was, and I accepted that, but now I felt like I didn’t need to be miserable anymore. I didn’t need to just go through the motions of living an awful life anymore. And the feeling that I felt when I realized that I had about 200 grand in my house which I knew all along but the feeling that this is where I could get the money from to make it to Thailand.

I didn’t even take a step back at the time to think that this was a bad idea. I didn’t take a step back and remember my mate talking about people he knew who lost everything in Thailand. the thought of losing that money, the thought of things going wrong it didn’t cross my mind. I was so sure that things would go the way I wanted them to that I never even thought about what if. I just wish I could tell my old self to do anything else instead of this, do anything other than sell your house. But we can’t fix things that are already broken. We can’t change the past. And what I can do is warn other guys who may be entertaining the idea of doing what I did. I’m no going to try to stop you because it might work for you. The only thing I would say is make sure you have some kind of backup plan just in case things go wrong. I didn’t have any backup plan. I didn’t have any Plan B. I was either my life was going to be exactly like I wanted it to be or I would never have a chance to do anything ever again.

The First Steps

Quite literally, the moment I opened the front door, I threw my suitcase to one side, ignored all the post that had piled up since I was away, and charged my phone because the battery had died on the layover in Doha. As soon as that came back to life, I called my local estate agent, advising them I wanted to sell my house and could they come around and take pictures of it as soon as possible. That was the first thing I did when I walked through the front door. And as soon as that conversation came to an end and I pu the phone down, I felt like I’d taken the first step and now I could relax. I’d arrived back home on Friday morning and I was dreading having to go into work on Monday. But now I didn’t feel so bad because it was just a question of playing his waiting game until my house sold. After that call, I did what I probably should have done before. Had a shower, freshened up, and checked up on things since I left. And then I reached for the phone again. I’ve been avoiding talking about this up until now, but one of the reasons that I felt so drawn to Thailand, especially Pattaya, was that on my fifth night here, I’d actually me the most wonderful girl ever. I met her in a bar along Soi 6. I guess that was why the street was my favorite. The bars there were the most amazing places I’d ever been in. And when I met her, it just felt like we were made for each other.

She was 23 years old when we met. That didn’t feel too bad because ever since I arrived in Pattaya, I saw guys that were considerably older than me with girls of a similar age, and I still looked quite young for my age. I wasn’t fat like many of the guys you saw walking around Pattaya without their shirts on. I was relatively healthy, reasonably looking, and I felt that we really complemented each other when we were out and about. When I called her and told her the good news that I was hoping to be back in Pattaya within the next 6 months, I remember her shrieking on the other end of the line, saying she can’t wait for me to get back. I had promised her that I would be going back, but I hadn’t even come to a decision as to how I was going to make that a reality when I made that promise no even thinking about my house. But now I would be able to keep that promise as long as my house sold, and I expected it to. I’d left her about a grand before I returned home. And embarrassingly, that grand that I gave her once it changed hands mean that she had more liquid cash than I had at that moment in time. But I didn’t care because I was due to be paid soon from my job, given the fact that I was using holiday allowance for that trip. I promised her I would send her money at the end of every month until I made it back to Thailand. And she promised me she would wait. We’d also agreed that she would stop working in the bar, and that was very important to me.

When I met her, she was wearing extremely provocative clothing. She was actually on the street and grabbed me into the bar. I wasn’t even planning on going into that bar. And she just told me when she saw me that she just had to speak to me. She just had to spend time with me because she’d never seen anybody like me. I hope you are aware that I am shaking my head as I’m writing this, wondering why I was such a buffoon. Going into work the following Monday wasn’t too bad knowing that it was only temporary. The thing was, it was like I had an epiphany that you didn’t have to do this. All my colleagues who were still working they hadn’t had that epiphany yet. And they were just like cogs in the machine of his company, ye I felt different. I felt like while I was probably still a cog doing the job I was here to do, I felt like I knew I didn’t need to do that anymore, whereas everybody else felt like they had no alternative. I got a call from the estate agent saying they could got and take pictures of my house the following day. They gave me at the time and the following morning I just called in sick. I’d only just returned, but I was sick. I blamed the flight. I didn’t care. I was just a case of getting as much money out of that job as I could until I could leave.

I took around 10 weeks to get an offer on my house. The offer was for 5 grand under the asking price. I didn’t think that was too bad, so I accepted it. I probably took around the same length of time for the sale to got through. And when the money hi my account, that was when it felt like it was all systems go. I’d given my girlfriend 500 quid a month in the meantime, which was quite a stretch for me given the fact that my salary only just allowed me to cover this. But I was quite happy to do that because she had become my world. I spent so much time daydreaming back to Thailand, back to being with her, knowing that this was going to come true soon. Now the house sale had gone through, the only thing left for me to do was go. My first port of call, though, was to get a non immigrant visa. I was over 50, therefore I could extend that for retirement in Thailand and I should be able to use that visa for the rest of my life. So that was what I needed to do first. I was a pretty painless process. And once that was stamped in my passport this was about a week before the house sale was going to got through so I didn’t actually have to do any odd jobs when I had nowhere to stay. But once that was done, I got rid of absolutely everything else that I couldn’t take with me and got my worldly possessions down to a suitcase and a backpack. And that was a very liberating moment. What I couldn’t sell, I just gave away.

And if you remember me talking about my mate who introduced me to the idea of Thailand in the first place, he was quite jealous of the fact that I was going to be moving here. But for some reason, although he had his house and he really wanted to be in Thailand, he just said that was one thing he wouldn’t do. The thing was, though, he said he wished he could. he wished he would do that. But it was his idea to continue paying off the mortgage on that house and then once that was paid off, that could be part of his income, renting it out. I could have rented out my house which is why I’m saying this, and I could have probably got 750 quid a month for it. But 750 quid a month doesn’t go very far in Thailand when you want to do certain things. I wasn’t going here to scrimp and save. I was going here to live my best life. I was going here also with £197,000 in my bank. And I was the happiest I’d been in forever. Quite literally, nothing that happened to me in my life before that moment in time made me as happy as this. And I was feeling that when I was on the way back to Thailand, it was only going to get better when I arrived because my girl was going to be meeting me at the airport in Bangkok. I’d not spent a single day in Bangkok, but it was my plan to spend a week here with her before going down to Pattaya. I didn’t spare one thought for what if. No thoughts for what if this isn’t a good idea? What if something goes wrong? What if my girlfriend didn’t stop working in the bar? What if I don’t have enough money? What if I spend too much money? What if I lose everything? Those were the thoughts I wasn’t having. I should have been, but I wasn’t. The thoughts I was having when the plane was coming in to land in Bangkok were pretty immediate and focused. I can’t wait to see my girl. Can’ wait to see Bangkok. And I can’t wait to start my life in Pattaya. I really felt like I’d made it.

Back in Thailand

She was here to meet me just as promised. And that smile that she smiled at me when I walked through arrivals was exactly like I remembered it. The way she hugged me, it felt like she’d missed me so much. And I felt exactly the same. And I couldn’t believe that I was actually in Thailand again. Only this time, I had no plans to ever leave. I was quite eager to get to the hotel. Very tired after the flight. Pretty bad turbulence, so I wasn’t able to sleep on the last leg. And I’d been traveling around 20 hours. I made the mistake of booking a flight with a very long layover something I wouldn’t advise. We walked down to the public taxi area on the bottom floor of the airport, and we took a taxi together to the hotel I’d booked in Bangkok. We didn’t have any plans other than to just enjoy ourselves. I wanted to experience the nightlife around Bangkok and see how it compared to Pattaya. And my girl loved going to the bars, and I think that was one of the reasons that I loved her so much. I really loved her at that moment and I guessed I loved her from the moment I saw her.

When we arrived at the hotel, she said she had a surprise for me. She’d actually brought me a brand new wallet. She said she remembered that mine was old. I thought that was a really nice gesture. I felt like she really cared about me and maybe this wallet was only worth 5 quid, but still it was a though and it counted. I didn’t even think to bring a gif for her. Didn’ think once about it. Although there is something that I did bring for her, but I’m going to talk about that later. That was something that I would only give to her if things went according to plan. Quickly, though, I said to her, “I didn’t bring you anything because I wanted you to choose something for yourself. Is here anything that you would like?” I was expecting her to say something like some cheap new clothes, maybe a cheap bag, and I’m thinking cheap fakes that you see all over the place in Thailand. Nothing expensive. She didn’t ask for anything like that, though. She just said, “Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I would like a new phone.” I wasn’t expecting her to wan a phone, but I felt like I was pushed into a corner, so I didn’t have a choice. Maybe I brought that on myself by asking what she wanted.

I said, “We can got and buy one tomorrow. We still have the whole day ahead of us.” But 20 minutes later after I’d had a shower, we were leaving the hotel because she really wanted to get that phone right now. The reason I’m saying this is because while she got me something, probably valued a 5 quid with money that I had sen to her, she was wanting something valued a 500 quid. And at the time, I just didn’t care. I was happy to help. I was happy to make her happy because making her happy made me happy by what she did. And that was the first bit of money I spent over what I expected to spend 500 quid on the first day. Aside from that, though, we had a great the time in Bangkok. I was so amazing to be back with her and the way she was with me. The way she old me how much she loved me and how happy she was that I was here. I felt like I was the luckiest guy in the world. I was excited to get to Pattaya, though. I really loved Pattaya. I’m not trying to take anything away from Bangkok, but it just wasn’t as good.

I booked us into a hotel for a week. I thought that would be enough time for us to find somewhere to live. And as soon as we arrived in Pattaya, I really did feel like I was home. The thing was, I was home, wasn’t I? Because that was the place I was going to spend the rest of my life. As we got on to Beach Road, I looked over towards the beach, and she was sitting here next to me. I had everything I could ever want. An amazing girlfriend a beautiful girlfriend at that. And not to mention, I was in the place I wanted to be. The hotel I had booked was a little bit further up Beach Road, which mean we had to drive past Soi 6. When I saw the street, I had goosebumps again because that was the street where I feel like my life really came together. She saw me looking a it and said to me, “Do you want to get back to the bar and see friends?” I told her, “I can’t wait.”

We spent a few hours in the hotel waiting for the evening to roll around. I was having a shower and she was getting ready. When I walked out and saw her, she just looked like perfection. I loved the way she was really dressed up. I mean, she used to work in a bar. She was a bar girl. And the fact that she was wearing clothes that made her look like she looked when I met her I felt, and I have to say this again, like I was the luckiest guy in the world because she wasn’t a bar girl anymore. She was my girl. Before we left, I put my arm around her shoulder and we both looked at each other in the really tall mirror that was built into the wardrobe at the hotel. We really did look like the perfect couple. I mean, just because I was older than her, that didn’t matter. We were made for each other, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the bar where I met her and catch up with some of the girls that I had the pleasure of speaking with before. I was never a guy who judged people for what they did. As long as people were nice to me and friendly, that was fine.

And when we finally made it to the bar, there were about 10 girls working here, I think, in total. And the way they all said “Ooh” no “oh” as in what’s going on, but that long drawn out “Ooh” as if to acknowledge that I was back. I definitely made my way through a lot of beers that evening, and it felt so great buying drinks for her in the bar that she wasn’t earning a commission on. She was just drinking with me as my girlfriend. I looked over to another guy who was in the bar speaking to one of the girls and she had a drink, and I felt like I’d already cracked the code because she would have been making a commission on those drinks. Yet my girlfriend wasn’t. We left when I was quite drunk and a few of the girls said to her this is what she translated to me “Come back tomorrow.” So I couldn’t wait.

The First Warning Signs

The following day, back in the bar, something happened. I was maybe on my third beer and she said that one of her friends who worked in the bar was having some problems with her family. She wasn’t able to get enough money together to help her family. Would I be able to lend her the money and she would pay me back soon? She wanted to borrow 50,000 baht. I would never have lent money to anybody usually, but my girlfriend said she could vouch for her. She said I had nothing to worry about, so I agreed. But I never, ever go that money back. After the week, we found a place to live in Jomtien. I’d no been to that part of Pattaya before, but it felt like a great place to actually live. Very close to all the action in Pattaya and also the action around that area as well, but mainly it felt a bit more laid back and a bit more conducive to long term life. I was only 9,000 baht in rent only a one bedroom, but it did have great views of the ocean. And where else could you get a one bedroom condo with a pool and a gym with a view of the ocean for less than 200 quid a month?

One thing I hadn’t expected, though, when I was living with her. I mean, we were living together, I wasn’t expecting that she would wan money from me. I was happy to send her money when I wasn’t here because where else would she get money from and she had to live somewhere and pay for things. But when she was with me, I was expecting that because I was the one paying for the place to live. I was the one paying for our food. I was the one paying for our excursions everything I was paying for. That’s why I didn’t expect her to wan money directly. I understood I got that wrong, though. But she didn’t actually raise this until the end of the month that we were in, about 10 days after we’d moved into the condo. And she said to me, “Would it be Okay if I gave her her money a little bit earlier this month because she had some commitments with her family that required the money?” Now, naively, I said to her, “What money do you mean?” I told her I didn’t remember talking about any money at this moment, and she just said, “I know you usually give it to me at the end of the month, but I would like to have my allowance now because I need it now. But don’t worry, I’m happy to get the money at the end of next month, but this month, I need it early.”

The way she talked about this was as if she was fully expecting me to continue giving her 500 quid a month. I mean, in baht, that was over 20,000 closer to 25,000, maybe more than that. I wasn’t like she was asking for this. I wasn’t like she was saying, “Would it be Okay if you gave me this?” I was like, “I’m expecting you to give me the same as you were giving me when you were in England.” When I told her that I never actually though I would be giving her money since I arrived, the first thing she said was, “Okay, I go back to work at the bar because I need money. I can still stay with you if you want, but I need to make money, so I will go back to the bar.” Quickly, I just old her it was my mistake. It’s not a problem. I can still give you the money. I was just not expecting it. Don’t worry, of course I can give it to you. So, I quickly rushed to the ATM, withdrew the money, went back and gave it to her. She said, “Thank you.” And that was the end of it. Now all of a sudden, I’m finding I’m having to give her that same amount of money. And this wasn’t expected. I mean, imagine what kind of luxurious place I could have been living in if I added that money on top of the rent money I was currently paying. But all I was thinking about was that we were in love and I convinced myself that she wasn’t working. So, if she has commitments and she’s not working, then I’m going to have to step in and help.

So, that became a regular in our relationship. I suppose her actions since I’d arrived should have old me everything I needed to know. I lent money to her friend, which hadn’t been mentioned since. bought her a brand new phone. Probably spent another couple of grand on her for other things I haven’t mentioned. And now I’ve committed to giving her the equivalent of 500 quid a month. I haven’t even been here for a month, and I’d spent all that money. I guess the worst part of it was I wasn’t even spending the money on myself. Some people would say I was spending it on myself because I had this beautiful girl with me. But I didn’t see it that way because I loved her and she loved me. And if someone tells me they love me, I believe them. Nothing made me think that she didn’t. More days go by and they turn into weeks and a few months and I’m still so happy with the decision I took to move to Thailand. I’m really in love with my girlfriend and she wasn’t one of those girls that would go out all the time and see friends. If she went out, we went out together and she made sure of that. She always used to say that she felt proud to walk around with me and she wouldn’t want to walk around without me. I guess she knew exactly what to say to make me feel good.

But if you remember when I old you that I brought her something to Thailand that I wasn’t sure about giving her yet. This is quite difficult to admi to, but I was now sure that I wanted to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her, and I thought it was only fitting to give her my mom’s engagement ring. Sadly, my mom had passed away quite a few years before this. And that was, of course, one of the worst things to ever happen to me losing my mom, and I know it’s the same for everyone. And that’s why admitting to this is so hard, because I never got it back. But it was my plan to propose to my girlfriend and give her my mom’s engagement ring. I didn’t even give it to my ex wife when we got married. My mom old me no to. And I felt like I was saving it for the right girl. And now I had the right girl. On the one hand, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m spending so much money so much more than I should be spending. On the other hand, so happy that I’m with this great girl living in the present for a change.

The Proposal

I booked a little getaway for a few days to an island quite close to Pattaya called Koh Larn. I was quite close to booking to go to Phuket, but that would have involved having to go to Bangkok and flying down or going on the bus, and it just felt like so far to go. This way, we could have a break, and we could get here easily, and I was excited to go and see what the island was like. I surprised her by telling her about this trip, and she was excited to go. Most of the time that we spent since I arrived in Thailand, we were just living a normal life and hadn’t been anywhere together yet. We probably went to the bars three times a week, maybe four. But I’m thinking one of the reasons for getting married is because I want to cut down on the amount of times we go out because I want to cut back on the amount of money I was spending, which was considerable. On the second day of us being on the island, that’s when I proposed to her. I did it on the beach at sunset, and the proposal went exactly as planned, and the answer was what I wanted it to be. Yes. I was now engaged to the love of my life. I hadn’t thought about what would come next that evening when we were celebrating with a nice meal. She talked about how things worked in Thailand in terms of getting married, in terms of visiting the family, and in terms of sin sod and what would be expected of me. Some of the things I already knew after speaking to other guys who had married in Thailand, and some of them were new to me, but I was really looking forward to going and visiting her family for the first time, which would also solidify our relationship.

I guess my foray into an Isaan village is quite similar to all the other guys’ experiences of going here for the first time. My fiancée was from a town called Roi Et. I was kind of slap bang in the middle of that part of Thailand, and her village was probably the furthest away from the town in that province that you could have gone. We spent the first night in the town after we arrived. I was a long bus journey to get up here, and I wasn’t quite ready to go and rough it in a Thai village house, but it was great seeing a different part of the country. The following morning, we se off early after finding transportation to take us and wait for us when we were here. And I probably would say it played out like it would for everybody else. An introduction to the family her mother and father. Again, they were slightly younger than I was, but that didn’t feel weird. I saw her brother, who was a lo younger than her. I mean, I thought it was her brother. She old me she had a younger brother, but when we were here, as if she planned it perfectly so I couldn’t make a scene, she took me to one side and said she had something to tell me. She doesn’t have a brother at all. She has a son a 5-year-old son and that was one of the reasons she needed support from me was for her son, and also one of the reasons why she went to work in Pattaya to look after him.

She old me when we me that she didn’t have kids. That was one of the things that made me become serious with her. But now I found this out quite literally when I’m standing in front of her parents. All I could think of saying to her was, “I understand why you didn’t tell me. Don’t worry about it. I’m here for you. Next time, anything like that, just tell me and I won’t mind.” Somehow she got away with lying to me about not having kids without any repercussions. And that brought on the conversation of sin sod. I’d spoken to a few guys ever since I was engaged about how much they had paid, and usually it was around about 100,000 baht. Some guys paid a lo more than that, and some guys didn’t pay anything. So, I was expecting around this figure. I was actually expecting it to be a bit less when I found out about her son. I was informed that their family were expecting half a million. I nearly fell off my seat when I heard that.

Before I had a chance to say anything to my fiancée, she said something to me first. She said, “I think that’s too much. I don’t wan you to pay so much. It’s too much money. I will talk to my parents.” She’s talking to them in the Isaan dialect that they spoke here. I didn’t sound anything like the Thai I’d heard in Pattaya. After about 5 minutes of that going on, she said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve managed to sort it out and they will happily take 300,000 instead.” I even though that was a lot of money. And I didn’t take a step back and think that she was manipulating me by starting high and coming down to what was a less ridiculous amount. I actually felt relieved because it felt a lo better. But I just said, “That’s fine.” Insane to think about, but that’s what I agreed to. I can’t got back and change it. And then probably another five minutes later, hey’d already picked a date and it was only in 5 days’ time. I definitely wasn’t expecting that, but I thought we were getting married, so let’s just do it. So, we actually spent more time here waiting for this, and we did everything. A very different experience, I think, is the only way to describe it.

And when we returned to Pattaya as a married couple, registered the marriage, I actually had to go to Bangkok to get some things I needed from the embassy. And it was quite a painless process. I guess about 3 weeks after arriving back from the village, that was when we were officially married. I felt really great being married again. This time to the right girl. This time I’d done the right thing. I picked the right one. And life was only going to get better from here. I was kind of expecting that we would feel let down a bit now, not go out as much. And of course, because the money I arrived in Thailand wasn’t enough to live in Thailand forever. I mean, it would have been enough if I stayed single and didn’t spend a lot of money, but it wouldn’t be enough as it was. A few more months go by and nothing’s changing, though. We’re still doing the same things, and I’m so happy to be doing them that I don’t want to destroy what I feel like we have. I want to keep up with what we have, so that’s why I’m allowing this to happen. But I am getting concerned about how much money is going out every month.

What I had been doing ever since arriving was sending chunks of money to Thailand. And when I went to transfer the next load of money in, that was when my account dipped below 100 grand. That was like I’d been hi in the face. I was really concerning because I spent basically that amount of money ever since I’d arrived. And how long I’d been here, I should have only spent 10% of that. I tried to work out where all that money had gone. But it was quite easy to see where it had. 500 quid a month for her. The phone and all the other things I bought for her probably over a grand. The money that went to her friend some other money that I’d given her for a family emergency that was probably six grand. All the living expenses for going out all the time, all the drinks for her friends that I was buying everything added up to a considerable amount of money. That was when I changed from “Okay, I’m living kind of semi retired mode for the time being and living in the moment and enjoying myself, no thinking about anything else” to “Okay, I actually need to do something now before it’s too late. I still have some money, so let’s pu it to use. Let’s actually do something so we don’t run out of money.” I knew I couldn’t stop giving money to my wife. And also, I knew that I couldn’t just pull her away from the thing she enjoyed so much, which was going out and seeing friends. And going out, of course, was what cost money. The thing was, though, I loved going out. I loved that part of Pattaya the most. That’s why I fell in love with the country. And that’s why I fell in love with the city and with her. And how was I meant to drag myself away from that if she enjoyed it, too?

The Bar

When we were out one night along Soi Buakhao, I noticed a sign on a building that said “Business For Sale.” I thought that could be the answer to my money problems. The business was a bar. I’d spent so much time in the bars that I felt like I knew how they operated. My wife used to work in a bar, so she could understand how things work, and I felt like we were the ideal candidates to become bar owners in Pattaya. I honestly saw the fact that I liked the bars and I spent time in them as meaning that I was the perfect candidate.

I remember mentioning to her in passing as we walked past. I said how amazing would it be to have our town place. She quickly said that she agrees. She even said almost straight away that she knows a few girls that will be able to come and work here. This was before we even talked about anything like she was already planning how it was going to go. We were out that night, so we didn’t talk any more about it that night, but it was all I was thinking about when we were drinking with her friends and also when we were eating at a Thai style barbecue place that my wife and her friends really loved. I really was the guy that was paying the bill for my wife’s friends to ea with us regularly. And even though it was only a cheap barbecue, when you’ve go yourself, your wife, and five of her friends, and you’re all drinking, that adds up. But I found even just having the knowledge that the bar was available for sale that made me loosen up and say, “Don’t worry about it to myself. I can spend because there are so many things that I can do.”

The following morning, the first thing my wife said to me was how excited she was feeling about having our town bar. I was like she’d already decided that we were going to have it. The thing was, I was also thinking about it. I went to bed the night before dreaming about it, imagining having our town place and drinking a our town place a cost and making money from people drinking here. As I said, in terms of the bar side of things, I felt like I knew exactly how things should work. I honestly believe drinking in a bar or drinking in lots of different bars was the equivalent of having our town place. But in terms of the business side of things, that was where my knowledge was lacking.

From that morning, it was like it had already been decided that we were going to open a bar. I hadn’t agreed to anything, but it was like we were moving forwards doing this, and if I was going to change my mind, it might make my wife upset. I didn’t want to risk her being upset, and also, I was very keen on the idea myself. I mean, I was the one who pointed the bar out in the first place. So, from that moment on, everything was about learning about this, learning about what I needed to do to make sure we did things properly. And things move fast.

Before even going to look at the bar, I thought the first thing I should do was work out how it would work if we liked it. I didn’t want to get here falling in love with the place only to discover that there was something stopping me from actually buying it because I was a foreigner. I didn’t wan any obstacles getting in the way. I regularly walked past one company that had a huge sign outside saying they offered assistance to people when it came to visas and work permits. So, one day I just walked in. I old them of my plans, asked what I could do, and they basically gave me all the information I needed, telling me how much everything would cost. I would need a company. I would need to change from my retirement extension to an extension based on marriage because I couldn’t get a work permit on the retirement visa. And of course, I would need that work permit to be able to work. This came with certain stipulations such as how much money you actually had to invest in order to be able to get the work permit, how many staff you needed to have in order to be able to get it. But everything made sense and his company charged I think it was 80,000 bah to do all the work for me.

With that hurdle out of the way, that was when we actually went to go and look at the bar. I felt like it was really perfect. I belonged to another foreigner. he said he’d only had it for 6 months, but it wasn’t for him. he said he just finished building a house in his wife’s town and they were going to live here, but the books showed that it was making money. he just renewed the lease for 3 years and the price he wanted for it seemed very reasonable. I was 2 million baht. That was for taking over the business. In Thailand, it’s known as key money. On op of that, the rent on the building was about 40,000. I’m no giving away the actual location of the bar or anything like that, but it was only a smaller building wasn’t one of these big ones but everything sounded manageable. And if we invested that money and we worked out that we would probably need to spend a bit on renovations, the operating costs because we would need Thai staff for my work permit and that couldn’t be my wife but we expected rent and staff and utilities and everything like that to run to around 100,000 a month. We’d have stock to pay for as well, but the way I worked this out was if we sold maybe two to three hundred drinks a day, including drinks from customers that come in as well as lady drinks, that should cover the costs. That was all the due diligence I did. It’s like it’s such a great opportunity and it was too good to miss. So, I took on that company to assist, paid them the money, bought the bar, renovated the bar. The girls that she said she knew that would work here came good, and we opened in March of that year. Not the best time to open, but that was the least of my concerns.

The Night Before

I feel like the night before we opened should have been the moment I saw it as a sign that bad things were coming. We went out together to celebrate the fact that everything we worked for was now finally coming good. And we were sitting at a nice restaurant having a meal overlooking the ocean. I can’t remember what we were talking about before this, but she said something to me that stunned me. She said she can’t wait to get more salary now that she will be working again. I didn’t really understand what she mean when she said that. So, I asked her to clarify. She said that now she gets the money that I give her. And then she said she can’t wait to get his as well as what she does from the bar. That really took me by surprise. The way she called what I was giving her a “salary,” the way she was expecting to still get money from me even though she would be earning as well. Also the way I was just oblivious to what she though and what she did. I didn’t want to appear angry. I didn’t want to do anything to upset her. So, I quietly pushed a bit and asked her what she was actually expecting to get. She said she was hoping to get about 50,000 bah for everything, she said. Maybe, though, I should just give her 45,000 a month and then I could get the money from the bar because we would make more than that and therefore it would be better for me. That really pu a bit of a damper on the meal we were having. But I guess I was just too caught up with the bar, too in love with her to understand what this was. As we were leaving that restaurant, I agreed to give her 45,000 a month from now on, regardless of the fact that I expected to stop giving any money to her and she would just get what she earned at the bar.

So when we opened the following day, I was already committed to 45,000 for her. The rent on the building, all the utilities, and everything else mean I was spending way over 100,000 a month before bringing any money in. I often wonder if she’d been more reasonable or if I’d been stronger, if we would have had a better chance with the bar and made some money. Because that first month we were open, which was supposed to be the start of low season, I lost about 80,000 baht. I should have been a 35,000 loss because she shouldn’t have had anything from me. That was a thing that I can point back at as being the moment in time when I should have known that things were only going to go downhill from here. I still don’t understand her mentality, but even though we were losing money hand over fist and things were going wrong, at that moment in time, I was still madly in love with her and I was still under her spell. The next month was even worse. After the first week, my wife said she wanted to go out to celebrate being open for over a month. She said she wanted to take all the girls that worked here out for a nice meal. I should have declined because I was losing money, but I didn’ttt. And that night out cost me over 10,000 baht on top of the money I was giving her which I felt she shouldn’t be getting and all the other costs. And at this moment, I was just spiraling out of control.

Things didn’t get any better from here, unfortunately. And I think it was about 6 months after opening when I had the first though come through my head that perhaps my wife didn’t actually love me because she was making the problems worse by expecting money. That’s what made it worse. Another thing that made it worse: one day after I’d paid a really big bill, after I’d come to erms with how much money I lost that month, she said she was going out with friends to celebrate the month. She was taking money that I was giving her money that I was losing that I shouldn’t have been losing and she was going and spending it and having a good time with it while I was quite literally burning through so much money that wasn’t being replaced by any profits that the bar should have been bringing in. I just had to talk to her about it once. She’d done things like his ever since we opened, but at that moment, it felt like it was too much. I really had to tell her if this continues, my money will be gone and she won’t get anything. I told her that from now on the bar needs to make money. If the bar makes money, you can have money, but if the bar doesn’ make money, you can’t have any. If I keep giving money to you, then it’s making everything worse.

She looked so upset when I said that. She said, “I working. I need money.” I told her, “I was working and I need money, too, but I’m just losing money.” But she couldn’t seem to understand that us losing money was actually worse than her no getting it because here would come a point when she couldn’t get anything. That was the thing I never really understood about her. You never could understand what the bigger picture was. You never understood any kind of ramifications that would come if things went wrong. I was always living in the moment and enjoying the moment and worrying about anything going wrong later. I told her I was really worried about things and I needed her to change. And if she doesn’t, the bar will close in less than 6 months and I would have no money left. When she said, “6 months, don’t worry. High season is coming and everything will be good,” then instead of putting my foot down and telling her how things should go, I just looked at their. The way she felt so confident about what she was saying, the way she seemed to understand things, and also the way that she didn’t appear to be scamming me. She didn’t appear to be taking money from me knowing I would actually lose all my money if I continued. So, I just chose to believe her because she’d worked in a bar, and I probably fell for it and just though that she knew that the money would come soon because high season would be as good as she said it was.

The thing I hung on to the most was when she said, “If everything go wrong, I still love you. I still stay with you. Don’t worry.” That happened and that actually made me feel better. If things did go wrong, at least I would still have my wife who was the most important thing in the world.

The Collapse

Needless to say, from here things were quite swift in terms of how quick the downfall came. We didn’t have one profitable month. I was burning through so much money just keeping the place open. I just didn’t understand why other bars seemed to work and mine didn’t. But then again, I was giving my wife such a lot of money. And months we could have been profitable if I didn’t give her anything. She was actually eating all the profits and spending it having a good time with her friends and I was left losing money. I was about 10 months from that moment until everything came crashing down. I was just hoping that my wife would be true to her word if my money ran out. Maybe she could get a job, even if it was only making a bit of money, and we could go live in her hometown. I was even thinking that she would tell her parents that we needed to live in the spare room that they had a ached to the house. I thought she would do everything she could to make sure we could be together. Of course, I was wrong.

The moment I couldn’t give her the money that she’d grown accustomed to, when I told her that I’d run out of money and we need to do something, all the little suspicions that I’d been having, all the niggles that I’d felt thinking I was doing something stupid by giving all that money to her they were all for a reason. The first thing she said after I told her was, “Why didn’t you tell me we had a problem?” All I could do was say to her, “I old you so many times, but you kep wanting money from me.” She then said, “It’s no my fault. It’s no my fault. I need that money.” And she just couldn’t understand that by her taking that money was the prime cause of things going wrong. As far as she was concerned, that was a non negotiable that we needed to pay for. That was more important than the rent we had to pay to keep the business open or the stock we needed to buy so we had things to sell. We lasted another 2 weeks spending through the last bits of money I had. When I really couldn’t do anything else, and she really understood that there was no more money coming in from me, that was when she changed from my dream life to a nightmare. She demanded we got divorced after I told her I needed to leave. I was hoping she would have waited for me, or she could have got a job to support me for a change, but that wasn’t going to happen. She’d had enough, and that made the whole thing worse, as everything I’d done up until that point counted for absolutely nothing. That’s the thing that still haunts me today.

What I should have done is look at all that money she had from me up until that point and understood that that was probably too much for someone like her to have had in the first place. So, she should have though a year without money and I will still have more than I should have had but she wasn’t going to do that. After the divorce, that’s when everything felt so real. And having to book a plane ticket to get home was the final nail in the coffin. I would be returning home with nothing. No house, nowhere to stay, and no prospects of a better future. the thought about having to do that was one thing, but actually returning and being back there was so much worse. My mate, who still had plans to move to Thailand, still hadn’t moved here yet. Throughout the time I’d been here, he was basically putting his plans in order, but he did let me stay at his house, and he just shook his head, saying, “How did you manage to do that?” I didn’t know.

Ever since then, I like to keep in ouch with Thailand. I watch a lot of videos about Thailand, but I don’t go. I just feel that Thailand isn’t mean for some people because it makes them do stupid things, and I definitely did stupid things. getting married in the first place to a girl that worked in a bar that was a big mistake. Giving her money when I knew I shouldn’t have been giving her money that was a mistake. Opening the bar that was the biggest mistake of all, but I didn’t expect it to be. I thought it was going to be the answer to my spending problems. Giving her more money when I shouldn’t have been giving her anything after we opened that was the final straw. And even though I was starting to pick up on the fact that it was only about the money, I continued plowing all the money I had into it, hoping for a miracle. I could have go out and saved something, but I didn’t and it’s too late. I wish I could got back in time and have my time again because I feel like I belong in Thailand. That’s where I should be in Pattaya with my wife. Or if no with my wife, with another girl. The difference, though, should be the girl I was with should be just happy to be with me. She should be happy to be supported, happy to have food to eat, and happy that she didn’t have to work. I think that’s all I ever expected and wanted from a wife. Just be happy to do things my way because if you do things my way, we will have a better chance of things working. But I guess I was just delusional, thinking that just because I met a bar girl in Thailand, that meant she would put my interests first due to our financial positions. But I was wrong.

I will end this by saying don’t think like me, don’t do like me, and don’t end up like me. I can promise you the amazing times I had in Thailand while things were good don’t make up for the lifetime of suffering that I’ve been feeling ever since. Be careful. You have been warned.