Thinking Thailand Is The Answer To Your Problems

I was sitting on the edge of the bed putting my socks on after taking a shower, ready to go to work. I remember this like it was yesterday because my wife started shouting at me like she had done so many times before over the past few months. This time stood out because I just felt like my world was collapsing around me. I was there about to go to work, put in the hours for my family, who incidentally were able to listen to my wife shouting. She was going to be staying at home and not really doing anything, but she was shouting at me yet again. I’d managed to ignore these incidents time and time again while it had happened, but this time I felt like I couldn’t ignore it. I just took it. Didn’t say anything back. Can’t even remember what the problem was. Perhaps I put the towel in the wrong place, or I didn’t fold my sleeping clothes in the correct place, too.

Whatever it was, it’s irrelevant. I just thought enough is enough. I took it on the chin, went downstairs to where my children were already waiting for me to take them to school because she didn’t even do that. We had some breakfast, and off we went, dropped them off at school, and I said to myself, “Enough is enough.” I told myself I wasn’t going to take this anymore. I’m going to do everything I can to fight for my children, fight for myself, to be in a position where I don’t have to take such crazy things from a woman who has no right to behave that way. She was so self-centered. She was just the firm understanding that she was the most important thing in the world, and I had had enough.

My First Marriage

That was the moment in time when it all came crashing down for me, my first marriage. When I got home that day, I told her how I felt. She started shouting again, as you’d expect, telling me it was my fault. But no, enough really was enough. Unfortunately, I was the one who had to move out, which is not how it should have been. She should have moved out, but the children stayed with her. To get to the end of what happened, unfortunately, she got custody, even though she had no rights to. I found myself at 42 with large payments to make every month, the ability to see my children only once every two weeks, and the understanding that the whole system was stacked against me. I lost my house. I lost a lot of money.

And after that was all said and done, I might have had approximately 100 grand to my name. She ended up with a lot more than me. All those hard years that I put in, all that work I’d done and everything that I tried my best for to give my family a good life and to build a good future, it all felt like it was for nothing. I entered a really dark place at that moment. I didn’t know what to do. I was still going into work, returning to a very small, bad quality rental unit that I didn’t want to live in. having to put up with that while at the same time she was living a life of not having to work because I was supporting them. It just didn’t feel right. I saw my children when I could, but unfortunately it got to the point when she was obviously brainwashing them into believing that I was a very bad person. It was all my fault and they started to be very curt with me.

They started to not like to be like they used to be when we lived together and they blamed me. I was the one who wanted to bring this to an end because of her behavior. But it was my fault apparently, even though clearly it wasn’t. It got to the point about five whole years after this when I wasn’t moving ahead with life at all. At this time, my eldest had left school. My youngest was still 2 years away. But I wasn’t speaking to them. I hadn’t seen them for a long time because it got to the point when I felt like enough was enough and I can’t take this anymore either. What am I actually living for? That’s one of the things I started to think about long and hard.

I started to develop opinions about my country and how you’re meant to do things the way you’re told to do them. They say you go to school to get a job so you can work. But why aren’t you taught at school how to retire as quickly as possible so you can get to a place of happiness so you can fulfill what you want to do? Is it because they need workers out there? They need people to do things they don’t want to do. Otherwise, the whole country would collapse. If everybody could do what they wanted to do, you wouldn’t be able to go to a shop and buy anything because there’d be nobody working there. It’s like they don’t tell you that. That’s the real reason. They tell you getting a job is respectable.

You put in work and all your days of work. But why? I was doing all this work and I felt like I had absolutely nothing to show for it. Enough really was enough.

A Few Months Away

I decided I wanted to go away for a few months to get my head together and I quit my job entirely. Then I wouldn’t have to pay any more money to my ex who had actually managed to meet this other guy who had quite a lot of money. Still taking money from me living a life of opulence. It just felt like she had no business to be able to do that because she’s a woman. Is that the only reason why? Why does she have such an advantage? But I quit my job and that was it. She didn’t like it. Just there though. She was nothing she could do and I wasn’t working anymore.

A bit of savings and I wanted to go away as far away as I could. Quite a close friend of mine had been living with his wife for a few years. And incidentally, he happened to go to Thailand where he met his wife and brought her home to the UK with him. Everything seemed for him like it was like a marriage should be. She seemed to be respectful. She seemed to fulfill the job of a woman. She seemed to not nag him and be angry at him all the time. Of course, you don’t see what’s going on behind closed doors, something you can’t do. But on the surface, they appeared to be in a very loving relationship. The fact that she really was a sight for sore eyes helped things for him too, I suppose.

And he kept saying, “I should go to Thailand. I should go and look myself.” It took years for me to actually pluck up the courage to go. He told me about the things I should be careful about but what to look out for. Don’t do this and don’t do that. And I took it all on the chin, not really knowing what to expect. Half thinking I’d arrive in Thailand and it wouldn’t necessarily be like I expected and wishing I could go back home. But it was something I allowed to give myself a few months away. Approaching 50, the past years of my life had been for nothing, apart from working to pay for things that didn’t benefit my life in any way, while at the same time my kids drifted apart from me. But now it was my turn for a change. I was really looking forward to it and I just hoped that something would come good.

Not going to lie and say that I didn’t feel like I wished I had something with me and wished someone was with me too because I missed company. I missed being able to come home after work and she’s there and we can laugh together and have dinner together and spend time together. I missed that. I miss companionship. And I suppose many guys point to that companionship as something that you shouldn’t seek because companionship is what ruins you at the end of the day and it’s going to not put you in a better position. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I just thought that that’s what I wanted to do. I knew it was going to be taking me out of my comfort zone to go somewhere that might be so far away and so different. My friend doing what he did allowed me to have the confidence to say that yes, I’m actually going to do it and I’m hopefully going to make everything come good.

On My Way to the Airport

I can remember the time when I was on my way to the airport. I’m not from the perfect part of the country. Don’t really like where I’m from, but by the time you get to the airport, you completely forget about that. Parked up in the long stay car park, which was miles away from the terminal, but you get the bus there and you get there eventually. I was nervous when I arrived. Remember being nervous, thinking that in a way this was hopefully going to be my salvation, hopefully going to be the time in my life when I could actually start enjoying myself. I had enjoyed myself in the past when my wife was reasonable, but at this moment in time, she wasn’t. She was just vindictive and awful for years, and that’s why I was there in the first place. Now, I felt like I would go back in time to my younger days when enjoyment seemed to be something that you were able to have. I hadn’t enjoyed myself for years.

I hadn’t had a good time for years. I hadn’t taken a step back and just relaxed. For years, I’d been fully on the go. And when you do that for such a long time and have nothing to show for it, that really is the moment when it was now or never. I had a huge rush of adrenaline as I walked into the airport and saw the check-in desk in front of me thinking that yes, this is finally it. I didn’t know anything about visas or what to do in Thailand. And I was going for three months and I booked three months. Didn’t know how long you could stay there and apparently you could only stay for 30 days. Found out later you could extend that to 45. They were telling my tickets were too far away.

I quickly called up my friend and asked him what to do. He told me to book a ticket to somewhere like Cambodia or another bordering country. That would be sufficient. So, I found myself going online, booking a ticket to Cambodia for a month’s time, not expecting to use it, but it was there if I needed to. With that, I was allowed to check in, dropped off the bags, make my way through the airport until you’re actually in the airport proper, waiting for the plane and a few hours to kill. That was a very pivotal moment in my life because in a way it was going to be taking me away from my old life to my new life. Although I didn’t know that a new life was going to be coming my way anytime soon. I had no idea. I can just remember sat there and the time was going by so slowly. I’d look at my watch and then feel like an hour had passed and look at my watch again and only 30 seconds had passed instead.

So slowly the time was going by.

Waiting for the Flight

I decided to go for a few drinks to kill the time. and

The Flight to Bangkok

eventually I get on the plane. Even remember the airline I was flying on, Emirates, stopping off in Dubai, two or three hours there and then going to Bangkok. That felt like it was going to be a really big ordeal. I hadn’t been anywhere near that far before. And when you’re on such a big plane, it’s very smooth. You’ve got the TV in front of you, unlimited drinks within reason. Find yourself taking it all in, and before you know it, you’re in Dubai. Then before you know it, you’re on the next plane on the way to Bangkok. Have a sleep, wake up, look out of the window, and you see Thailand below. And all of a sudden, you’re nearly there.

All the thoughts I had about going there, and the dreams of what it was going to be like, were coming to fruition right in front of me. That’s a point in time when excitement gets taken up to a whole other level. I was actually in Thailand. Well, not yet. I was nearly there. The plane came in to land, touch down, and that’s it. All the thoughts of the journey had gone. I suppose when you’re going somewhere like that, at least for me, where you haven’t been such a long distance before, although you imagine what it’s like when you get there and the things you’re going to do, most of the thoughts I had was the journey to get there, wondering what it was going to be like because it was such a long way. Now that was out of the way, I had a full head fully to think about Thailand and what I was going to do. Based on my friend’s recommendation, I was going to be spending time in Bangkok and in Pattaya.

He said he met his wife in Pattaya. He didn’t want to talk about the bars and meeting his wife there. I don’t think he met his wife in a bar, but he talked about Pattaya as his place to go. He met his wife. Now he’s working at home and their plans are to retire to Thailand in the future. I was going to be heading down to Pattaya first. Didn’t really want to go to Bangkok to start with. But he said to go and have a look at that and then after that Bangkok would be the second place. Take it from there after that too. I had three months after all and I would need to do a bit of juggling with visas.

Didn’t get too concerned about that. I’d taken a huge bag with me, which was my first mistake waiting for that on the carousel. Granted, it was there quite quickly, but it was huge. It barely fit into the taxi boot because in Thailand, they have the conversions to gas in the taxis. The huge cand of gas in the back, and my suitcase hardly fit because of that thing, and it alarmed me in a way. Needn’t have done, but I managed to cram it in anyway.

Arriving in Pattaya

The taxi took me down to Pattaya and drops me off where my hotel was right on Beach Road where all the action was apparently when you get there. That’s when you start to feel a bit uncomfortable. I must admit, I had all these pictures of what I thought Thailand was going to be like, and it really wasn’t like I thought Thailand was going to be like at all. It was different. Very different. I’d seen a few pictures and I saw a few programs about Thailand. And I suppose now I’m seeing it firsthand. And it’s not like to me it’s like a normal country. That’s what it is. Just a normal place.

It didn’t feel like it had this special allure like it did to many people. Many people seem to claim it had. It just felt like a normal place. Apparently, on every corner of every street around where I was staying, there’s going to be fun. There’s going to be action. There’s going to be things to take your mind off your shocking life at home. That’s what I kept thinking about. I arrived quite late, though, and I wasn’t up for doing anything that evening. So, I went to bed. But I woke up in the middle of the night, already wide awake, and looked out of the window.

It seemed to be quite dead really. Most of the places that I saw seemed to be closed. But I decided to go for a walk in the street in the middle of the night. Everyone said Thailand was safe and I thought that was probably going to be true. I walked outside and the first thing that happens after I’ve been walking for only 10 m were people surrounding me on Beach Road. Or should I https://talesbeyondhorizons.com/a-lesson-in-what-bar-girls-say/https://talesbeyondhorizons.com/a-lesson-in-what-bar-girls-say/ approaching me on Beach Road. I was walking right next to the beach. You see the sea, but it’s dark so you can’t really see it. But you’ve got the beach there. And I was walking on the pavement.

But there were so many girls approaching me and I wasn’t really interested because I knew what their game was. After I had been approached, no less than 20 times by all these girls, every time you’re approached, you’re getting this little bit more excited and a little bit more well. I know that other things are available in other places, but this could be something fun. By the time I made it to the bottom of Walking Street, just before you get to Walking Street, where most places seemed to be closed, about 3 or 4:00 a.m., still on the beach, and this other girl approached me. She just didn’t seem like she was sort of like the other girls had approached me talking to me and you know that’s when you meet a girl like that before know it I’m saying do you want to go for a drink? She said she knew a place. I’m finding out that in Thailand they’re meant to close at specific times but she knew where to go and if you know where to go you might find a place. Oh, go and find somewhere with shutters and kind of knock on them and they’ll open them. I wasn’t really interested in her like that. That wasn’t it.

It was just I wanted to see this famous Thailand night life and what it was all about. So, she leads me along and she’s talking to me about things, you know, where you’re from and everything you’d expect from a conversation in Thailand like that. She walks with me up walking street a bit and the places there were closed, all shuttered off. Still quite a lot of foot traffic walking around. But she walks up Walking Street and takes a left up one of the so there went a bit further and takes a right and I believe somewhere around there there was this small bar and they did have shutters in front of it. You could hear the faint sound of music from the inside, but it wasn’t that loud.

The Nightlife in Pattaya

Then she called someone and the shutters are opened and then you hear this quick blast of music. I walked in and then they closed them again. There weren’t too many people in there, mainly girls, couple of guys. Everyone very drunk at that point. I hadn’t had one drink yet, and all of a sudden, you’re seeing all these exciting things around you. Was it a bit taboo? It was a bit meant to be closed, but it was open. You’re doing something you’re not meant to do. And I’m with this girl, not necessarily thinking anything’s going to happen. Before long, I start drinking and she’s drinking.

Then apparently they had a pool table upstairs. Asked me if I wanted to go and play. That sounded fun. Always like to play pool at home. What I’m trying to get across is there was more excitement that I’d had in five hours than I’d had in five years at home. That’s not exaggerating things. You have to understand that. Thailand does that to you. In those five hours, I’d had so much fun, so much thrill, so much exciting feelings that all of a sudden the thought of going back home was like, who in their right mind would put themselves through such torture going back? Five whole years.

I couldn’t point to one time that was better than this. And that’s Thailand for you. It really is Thailand all over. We’re playing pool and it’s starting to get light outside. I’m not that drunk because I hadn’t had that much and she’s not that drunk. And I wasn’t really feeling anything with her. But I knew what the game was. I just wanted to go back to my hotel and just relax a bit. And I gave her a bit of money and off she went. And I wasn’t interested in that.

I was just experiencing it. Not going any further. Wasn’t really at the time what I had interested in. I got back to my hotel and I’m sat there and I really did this as a kind of rite of passage remembering how my life has changed when I was sitting on the edge of the bed at home literally putting my socks on and my wife started shouting at me believing enough is enough now I’m sitting there on the edge of the bed and okay you couldn’t quite see out of the window to the view below because he needed to stand up to see it but I was in a different place started to believe that perhaps everything that happened to me at home was for a reason it took me way too long to understand what the reason was Now I had finally found it. I was not yet 50. Could be here for three months and let’s see where things go from here.

My Introduction to Thailand

That was my introduction to Thailand. Pattaya, I would say, is the city of angels. Obviously, there are other cities called that, but this is what Pattaya seemed to be like at the time. It was like this place was purely there for guys who were down on their luck at home and who wanted happiness and who wanted to meet people and have a good time, see different things, and take part in things which were kind of taboo but accepted in Thailand because people paid money for them to be acceptable. I’m coming to these conclusions that I’m sat there thinking, “What now? What next?” Leave the hotel, go for some breakfast, walk around, and Pattaya is completely different during the day. In the early morning, the bars aren’t open. You walk past places, and you can see the remnants of the night before, what had gone down. I found myself walking around, looking at things, taking it all in, and getting to the point where the place is somewhere that you could actually be yourself for a change and actually enjoy yourself. I was really enjoying myself.

And what really got me to this level of sheer excitement, putting yourself through all that stuff at home when this is here, it’s what was I doing that for that night after I’d spent time by the pool waiting for things to open. Went out quite early and yeah, things were already open around about noon, probably find somewhere then. And when I went out, I went to some of the famous streets taking everything in and I ended up that night on Soy Buka, which seemed to have a different atmosphere to other places. That was where I ended up. met a girl there who seemed to be quite exciting. Spent time together that evening and throughout the rest of the following day, too. And at that point, I suppose I started to make one of the cardinal sins. I felt something for this girl that I hadn’t felt since I had my wife. I felt like we were both down on our luck. I was in Pattaya to escape my bad life, and in a way, she was in Pattaya to escape her bad life.

At least that’s what she said. A typical story of what girls have to go through in order in their hometown. Not much money, not much opportunity there. go to Pattaya to make money to have more opportunity. It was like we connected together. I actually spent two weeks with her. By the end of those two weeks, I was in love with her. I know that’s crazy, but that dream was completely shattered when she said that she had something to do with her family and I couldn’t go. You find out that that’s not really the case. She was just meeting a guy who was coming to the country who was sending money to her.

And that’s when that illusion gets shattered. Makes you understand. Yes, perhaps a place like this isn’t a place where you meet something for something serious. It took me a good week or two to get over that. And it really did. That was when I left up to Bangkok, taking in a different side of Thailand and still enjoying the nightlife side and enjoying it for what it is. But it’s a wakeup call to the fact that life is here for living and you’ve got delivered. And Thailand, you know, there for about a month. I’d already got over that girl. Hadn’t met another girl since.

I had to extend my stay for 15 days. After that, I would have to leave and changed my plane ticket. decided I would fly to Cambodia to leave the country and come back in for another 30 days, extend it for 15 more before returning home. Throughout those two weeks, I met another girl. Nothing happened that was leading to me anything serious. I’m getting to the point where

Starting to Feel Alive Again

I’m starting to feel alive again. I’m starting to feel like I have the desire to go back to work and to do things and to move forwards in life. It was like a reset. It wasn’t yet ready to go home, though. I had lots more enjoyment to do. Eventually, I flew to Cambodia. My plan was to spend a few days there. see what that was about. I found myself around the Seisawat area where they had a number of bars. That’s what seemed to I always found myself attracted to places where you could go for a drink and meet girls and chat and have a good time.

I met a girl in Cambodia who I felt something for, too. After a few days, you think, “Nah, it’s not what it’s meant to be.” At this point, what I’m trying to get at is I’m meeting girls, it always seems to have something in a way that doesn’t make it feel real, something you find out about. Okay, she’s working in a bar, so perhaps that’s not right. Back in Thailand though, I promised myself I would try and step away from the nightlife scene. I would try to join a site where you might be able to meet a normal girl and see if I could do that before I would have to go home and get to the point where perhaps we might be together. That’s what I thought about. I didn’t want to go home single. Perhaps I would have to go back alone. I knew that. But I didn’t want to go home single.

It was that experience in Cambodia that taught me that yes, okay, you can have a great time with these girls, but perhaps it’s not the right thing to do. Back in Thailand, I decided I was going to spend time in Pattaya. I love that place the most. Joined a famous website. Before long, I’m going on dates. The day after I joined, I got dates lined up for four days, two dates a day. That’s how easy it seemed to be. I will say it as it is. One of the girls I met, I felt something for her, and she just seemed to be the sort of person who would go hand in hand with what I wanted in my life. She was so special to me.

I suppose that’s what I gathered from her and how we had had first times together, and that’s what it felt. I felt so great. I wanted to pursue her. She didn’t go to stay with me because she was working. She worked at a restaurant in Jomtien and I started going to Jomtien and she really was working there. She actually was at the restaurant. So, it was 100% true. And it was yes, a foreigner restaurant where foreigners went, but she worked there and it didn’t seem like she wanted to stop and move in with me because she had to work. She showed me where she lived and it was like we were connecting in a way where she’s got her life and she can’t just give it up for me. I felt that was right because every time I met a girl in a bar, she was able to just at the drop of a hat like come and live with me.

Not live with me, but move into my hotel. That gave me the sense that she’d just do that for anyone. The fact that this girl didn’t want that, the fact that she still wanted to work when we were together, that gave me a sense that she wanted a bit of independence and a bit of self-respect, and that mattered to me. That was something that I felt and I felt something for her because of that straight away. And her position with being what it was was true. It wasn’t like she was lying. Wasn’t like she was working in a bar. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a restaurant and it was a proper restaurant.

This Could Be It

I found myself feeling that this could be it here. That was just after I’d known her for a week. Don’t have that long left. Three or four weeks at the most. Probably 3 weeks if I think about it. That’s all I’ve got to do. Just found myself over those 3 weeks trying everything I could to get to know her more. Spending all the time I could with her. And I’m starting to believe that she’s thinking the same way about me. That we could be right.

we could fit together, be together, and we could make a life. How that was going to happen, I didn’t yet know. I didn’t have enough money to live in Thailand, I didn’t think, and her going back home with me was a no-go because of the visa. So, it was like how we were meant to make this work. She was 24 years old when we met. I was 47 at that point, and this was 2015, so a while ago. She was 24 from a place called Buriram. She was very down to earth, very easygoing, laid-back, and things didn’t phase her.

Learning to Stay Calm

For example, I remember this distinctly. We went out for a meal together one evening after we’d known each other for maybe two weeks. I’m dreading the thought of going home. We went for a meal. The meal didn’t go according to plan. Some things weren’t cooked properly, and I was disappointed. But I could see on her face that it didn’t phase her at all. It didn’t matter. No problem. We can get more food.

I found myself relaxing into things in a way where I wouldn’t have done before. I’d have been really upset before, and I would have let it ruin the evening. But for her it was like I was taking how she behaved to heart and wanting to be the same. I didn’t want to ruin anything because of something like that. I suppose she changed me in a way which made me think that I needed to calm down. I needed to stop bothering about things that didn’t matter so much. As times going by where spending even more time together, wonderful nights together, daytimes together when she’s not working, I managed to convince her to have a few days off work and go to Kotamu with me. I wanted to go to a nice place and be with her and see what it would be like. spent a few days there. And at this point, I decided that I wanted her more than I wanted anything.

And I felt that she had a reciprocal feeling. She could go back to work. I would go back home. And I tried to think of something that we could do. I’d speak to my friend. How did he go about doing what he did when he met his wife? What happened? How long did it take to sort things out? He kind of told me before, but when he told me, I hadn’t paid much attention because it wasn’t something that interested me. Now it did, so I needed to rack his brains.

I just felt like

Thailand Had Opened Up Something for Me

Thailand had opened up something for me that I didn’t know was available up until then. It allowed me to be happy. It allowed me to re-evaluate my life entirely. It allowed me to get to the point where I didn’t want to do the same things that I did at home and exist day by day, ticking over doing those things. Always miserable, always bored, never happy, never having companionship, never feeling love, never feeling anything. Thailand gave you everything that you wanted. Everything you’d missed out on, it gave you. And I wanted it. If I had her with me at home, that could be something that could happen. and it would be like having happiness with me.

And that’s what I wanted. And she seemed to like me just as much as I liked her. Because of that, when it was time to go home, I gave her a little bit of money as just as a way to say, “Take care for yourself. Maybe move to a better or a nicer place.” Because where she lived wasn’t nice at all. She lived with a few friends. Maybe you can move to a nicer place and continue working. That’s fine because she liked that independence. She said that she didn’t want to stop working because it’s something to do and she likes doing it, so she doesn’t want to stop. But I’ll go back home and I’ll try and work out how we can be together and she said she wanted to be with me. She said being with me would be everything to her and I believed her.

Suppose she believed me that I wanted that too because I did.

Leaving Thailand

When I was leaving Thailand though, I’d spent three months there and had some incredible experiences. I’d been and seen wonderful things and I had the time of my life. The first five five hours as I said when I went from walking street up on Beach Road to that place that wasn’t meant to be open. Those five hours were more fun than the previous five years. everything that had happened in them combined. That’s what Thailand was. That’s why you allow yourself to really let loose and really settle into this notion that Thailand is fun. You’re allowed to enjoy it and you’re allowed to enjoy yourself. You are allowed to enjoy yourself and that was so important. Because of that, I’m going home thinking that I don’t know what’s going to feel like to get back to normality.

Didn’t have a job to go back to because I quit my job to go to Thailand. Finding another one should have been quite easy. Then you arrive home and the first thing you see is letters from your ex-wife demanding money for this and people complaining about that and all of this nightmare stuff that I couldn’t be bothered to deal with. I wasn’t working so I shouldn’t have to give her any money but she didn’t see it that way. She didn’t need any money from me. She had too much from me anyway and she destroyed my life. Seeing these letters demanding this and you arrived to the place that you’re renting and she’s not having to live in a rented place because she’s met this other fool who’s somehow not seen her for who she is. I didn’t want to do any of this. As soon as I got back, although before I arrived, the idea was what I had going to do is find a job, keep in touch with her regularly, and find a solution to get her with me. Maybe go to Thailand, get married, spend a few months, come back.

All the thoughts of that was what I had going to do was like, “No, I’m not. I don’t want that. I want to go back to Thailand and I want to live there. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to deal with all this nonsense. I don’t want all this pressure and all this stress and strain.” Yes, I miss my children. I hadn’t had a chance to see them, but it was my ex-wife doing that that made that a reality. It was a sad reality though that it was her fault. That’s what I thought as soon as I walked through the door and saw that post and saw all these things and the missed calls and answering missing messages from her being abusive. I just didn’t want it anymore.

Why do I have to deal with this? What I found myself doing is calling up my girlfriend and she answered straight away. She said, “I miss you first. I want to see you.” And I told her, “I can’t wait to see you and I’m going to come soon.” I told her, “I’ll see you soon. I want to be with you.” I suppose it was seeing all that that made me feel this love for her beyond any other sort of love I’d felt. She was the answer to all this nonsense, all these problems that I was having that shouldn’t have even existed because of how my life was.

Choosing Thailand Over Home

I didn’t even want to look for another job. That very evening, I went to go and see my friend, talk to him about Thailand. He had a look on his face when he saw me as if to say, “Thank me later.” It was like he knew I was going to like it and I did. I asked him how he met his wife and everything, and he didn’t really go into much detail, but it didn’t matter for him. He didn’t have any baggage in the UK that would see him have problems like I had. He didn’t have an ex-wife who was vindictive and cruel and demanding and abusive and everything like that. He didn’t have that. His reasoning is he’s living with his wife here. He was happy. Everything’s okay for him. And because of that, he wants to build up some savings and retire to Thailand when he hits 55. That was his target.

He was the same age as me, 47, so he was 8 years away. He said his plan is to go and live in his wife’s village, build a house there, and just live the quiet life. That was his dream. He didn’t feel it was a rush because he had his wife with him and his wife was happy. Because of that, everything seemed okay. I told him I was thinking about going back to Thailand and living there. He’d been going to Thailand for years and he knew how things worked. And he said, “Well, how would you plan to live there?” Initially, I said, “Maybe I’ll find a job.” And he had to break the news to me that getting a job in Thailand was quite difficult unless you wanted to teach or unless you were a very big specialist in a particular field. Then I said, “Maybe I’ll start a business.” He didn’t try to push back, but I think he could tell that I know he perhaps didn’t think it was a good idea, but he could also tell my mind was weighed up and I wanted nothing more than to be in Thailand. At this point, I had about 100 grand, which I’d had ever since getting divorced, which hadn’t gone up, but it hadn’t gone down either. But it hadn’t gone up in five years. It should have gone up by at least 10 grand a year, but it didn’t.

It was stable. All that money I earned was just going going to my ex-wife. What was I doing that for? What was I working for? What was it meant to be? Why do people do anything? Why do people go to work? You go to work so you can stop working as quickly as possible. That’s what I thought it was like. But no, you don’t teach it that in school. You’re meant to retire at 67, but who wants to retire at 67 when you could already be close to death. Who wants that?

I wanted to live now. I had enough. I’d worked in essence for five years for nothing. All the years before that when I was with my wife, that was for nothing, too. Because if she’d just been normal and we’d been together, we could have together had a combined maybe five times the amount of money. But and I would have been better off. I put my foot down though because it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t want and yeah, I said to myself, I didn’t want this anymore. I didn’t want to pay off anyone else’s mortgage. Didn’t want to pay all these bills just to keep me alive and pay for food to keep me sustained. I wasn’t going to do that. I could see that.

My friend could see that, too. And he felt it was no use trying to talk me out of it. 100 grand. I was going to go and make it work. No questions asked. Nothing could stop me. three months later, after I’d managed to get rid of some things that I didn’t need, I even thought I was going to send a big container of my stuff to Thailand. But that was going to be a ridiculous idea. Managed to get rid of lots of things, not really like it was worth a lot of money. Couple of,000 in all, which paid for my business class ticket to Thailand because I wanted to arrive in style. I wanted to arrive the right way. My idea was that as soon as I got there, go and spend time with my girlfriend, have a good time with her, get to know her better, and see what happens from there, transfer my money into the country, have it all there, and decide what to do from there. I was open to doing anything.

I just wanted to be able to do anything, just to live. Didn’t need a lot, just needed happiness. That was what it was all about.

Returning Home

When I got back though, and I went down to Pattaya and kind of surprised her in the restaurant where she was. I told her that I was coming back. She just didn’t know exactly when it was going to be. But she was there in the restaurant exactly where she was meant to be. No secrets happening. That gave me or let me breathe a sigh of relief. She saw me and was happy. The restaurant let her have the rest of the day off, and we went and talked about the fact that no, I’m living in Thailand. I’m here for good now. I want to be with you.

I want to get married to you. Do you want to marry me? And she said, “Yes, I’d love to.” I just felt like everything was coming together. I felt like at least I had at least ten years I’ve got to be able to make something work. I only need to make a bit of money. If I spend ten years trying to make what, 1,500 a month in Thailand, surely that can’t be that difficult.

The First Night Back

The first night back though, I’m talking about my plan, staying there and wanting to do something. But I don’t know what it was. I just wanted her to be involved. I wanted to have a family with her. I even said that, and she said she might want that, too. But that didn’t happen. But I felt like it was something that should. We both just seemed happy. Let’s leave it at that. Thailand had, I felt, fixed me.

It had given me a new life. It had put me in a new position. Okay. I didn’t have enough money to retire. I didn’t have enough money to never work again. But I felt like I had enough money to give myself enough time to be able to sort something out and to make something work. I think I suppose that’s where every guy makes a mistake. Everyone thinks that something will work eventually. I decided though that now we were going to get married, staying in a cheap hotel, and I wanted to move quickly. Told her I wanted to leave her job.

Now we were engaged. I wanted to get married soon because I wanted her to be able to work together with me. I knew that as a foreigner, I couldn’t do things easily. I would need her involved because she spoke the local language. She would be able to translate things and help me out. It was just something that was going according to plan, I felt. Before long, I had a bank account and all my money in it around five million baht. That gave me a really big sense of relief. Felt like a fortune. And from there, I went up with her to Buriram go to meet the family to get married.

I remembered my friend talking about how his plan was to move to his wife’s village, build a house when he had enough money to retire. I could see exactly why that was the case. Why would I want to live in the busyiness of Pattaya and Bangkok surrounded by all that when I can live somewhere like this, surrounded by tranquility? I was falling into the traps that many people fell for, not understanding how things operated, making the mistakes. Believing if you lived somewhere like that, money would last even longer, thinking perhaps if you spent £5,000 a year or whatever it was, you could last 20 years. believing that where she was from, her family was about 15 minutes out of the city. If we lived in the city, wasn’t thinking about the village yet. I was thinking about the town. It was such a peaceful place, but they still had things going on. Still had bars there if you wanted to go for a beer.

They had lots of things. I could live there and we could do something together and build a life. It was such an exciting time. Just as when you’re at home, you build a life, too. And things fall into place, though. And usually at home, you find yourself happening across something, maybe even by chance, and it falls into place and everything just moves ahead. I just assumed that the same thing was going to happen in Thailand.

Getting Married in Buriram

I got married to her. That cost me some money. I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t give money. It cost money, but it was an investment into my future with her. The fact that she wanted to get married to me made me believe that we were meant to be together. We were. She wanted to marry me. I wanted to marry her. We were married. Yes, it cost money, but it was an investment.

and I still stand by that. We immediately moved up to Buriram town, only rented a small place for 5,000 a month. I bought a motorcycle so we could travel around looking into different things. She brought up the idea of living in her village and building a small house there, maybe doing farming, but I wasn’t really interested in that. Although I saw the appeal of a house in the beautiful, tranquil location, I guess that’s what I had attracted to. I didn’t believe at the time that farming was something I could do. I pushed back against it, and she didn’t have any problem with me pushing back and said no problem we don’t need to do it after we’d been in Buriram probably six months though I already had my extension of stay for marriage which felt great it felt amazing but we’d been in Bor ram for six months hadn’t found anything to do and it was I don’t know I was just getting bored I must admit because I wanted to do something we weren’t spending a lot of money so it wasn’t like it was urgent the thoughts of what Buriram would be like living there when we first went a beautiful place different why would I want to live in Pattaya around Bangkok because of the hecticness. But after six months, it got to the point where I know why people leave somewhere like this. I know why so many girls from here leave to the likes of Bangkok and Pattaya because there’s a lot more going on there. There’s more to do.

I was missing being in, I would say, the tourist version of Thailand, the Thailand where tourists go. I was missing being there. I felt I should be somewhere where there were more people like me because I might have more success. I didn’t know what it was I was going to do. I’d worked all my life up until going to Thailand doing the same thing. I worked, I wouldn’t say a boring profession. I was an engineer and I made okay money, but it wasn’t something I could do in Thailand because of reasons I’d already known. It wasn’t like a skill that was in demand there, so I couldn’t do it. I felt like I was a reasonably clever person, and surely I should be able to put my hand to anything. That’s what I felt and that’s what made sense.

Life in Buriram

After six months in Buriram, we decided to leave originally go to Bangkok. She’d never lived in Bangkok before, but we thought we could spend six months there to see what was what. It’s not like we’re spending a lot of money. The place we rented in Onut was only 8,000 baht a month, and we were spending all our time together, always together, and always happy. We’re not fighting. And it’s not like she has secrets because she didn’t have time to have secrets, no opportunities to have them. And I’m just in love with her and happy in Thailand. But in the back of my mind, I knew we needed to do something. The problem in Bangkok, at least I’m finding, because I wanted to originally open an office. Maybe I could teach engineering or be an engineering consultant.

I thought about that, but at the time, I’m looking into office space for rent and company formation. It would have been a huge investment. And I kind of shied away from that because I didn’t know how to actually do that in business in Thailand. I didn’t know what it was about. It sounded on paper like it was a good idea, but it came to the point where no, it’s not going to work. I didn’t know what else to do there. Been in Thailand for a while at this point. things okay I’m not spending a fortune but I’m just missing an income all we need is an income it’s important very important so we decided to go back to Pattaya where we met actually in Jomtien just seemed to be the might be the best place to do something idea was something targeted at tourists which surely means it would be easier for me to be able to be involved I didn’t need to try to learn the intricacies of business in Thailand because you’re doing business in Thailand but targeted at people like you naturally you start thinking about a restaurant she worked in a restaurant and she had experience. You start thinking about a bar because you’ve been to the bars, you’ve drunk in them. Okay, it’s a very different thing drinking in them and owning one.

I know it is. I’m not stupid. But that’s what you find yourself moving towards because what else is there? A tour company? Well, you can’t work as a tour guide as a foreigner, even with a work permit in Thailand. You can’t do that. That’s off the cards. She wouldn’t want to be a tour guide. Not interested. What about an agent that sells tours?

And okay, you’d need to rent somewhere. You’d have to pay for that and staff and advertising and every single thing that would crop up would have taken millions of that of investment. At this point, after getting married after spending over a year in the country, my five million baht, give or so, was round about just under four. It’s not like we’d gone through a lot of money or not being sensible or I’d bought gold for her or anything stupid like many guys do. That wasn’t the case. It was like we were just a genuine couple who were in need of something to do. We had reserves in place until we did find something. But everything I’m finding would lead need at least a two million BAT investment. That would have been half of the money that I had. And what would have happened if it didn’t work?

If it hadn’t didn’t work straight away, you could either lose that money, close it down, or you’re going even more out of pocket, eating into more money. It was probably six months in Pattaya, though, when I came to the conclusion that I really had to do something regardless of the fact it might take a big investment.

Starting a Business in Thailand

We found this place just on the happen chance for a little bar in Jam. They wanted 800,000 for it. It was only small but in a reasonable location and 800,000 didn’t seem a lot. Need to sort out a company and pay for that so I could get a work permit. The lease needed sorting out because it needed extending for 3 years. And all in we actually went for it. Spent about 1.five million. We decided that we’d pull the trigger. This point we were a married couple doing everything together. Never had a bad word to say to each other.

And she’s just like I believe her to be. And I suppose I’m the same for her too. We decided to go for this place, a small bar. I had the work permit and everything. 1.five million baht. There were about when we took it over six girls that were working there. They would continue. There was a mammothan too. They weren’t salaried apart from the mammothan who was salaried. It got to the point where we take over this place. I used a lawyer and I believed everything was okay.

Paid for the lease. It was 3 years and it was coming to renew when we bought it and we managed to extend it for three. So that made us feel comfortable. Everything seemed okay. Seemed hunky dory. would say the outgoings rent was about 70,000 costing and other things I suppose a couple of hundred,000 baht a month that went out and we’d need to bring in that and a little bit more just to cover everything and a bit of profit to live on and it seemed to make sense and seemed like it would work according to plan suppose we did take it over at the worst time right in the heart of low season but I knew it was low season and I thought it would be okay I thought you’d probably have to pay more if we bought it in high season and when we open up though we’re getting to the point it’s not making much money as we thought The reason we were happy to do it was that it cost 1.5 million baht, and because we thought originally two million would be the thing we had 500,000 to play with because you know that was the limit. The fact that we could do it for less and have this to play with 500,000 for eventualities kind of made us comfortable. That’s where certain things though start happening after we’ve been open for a few months. You weren’t expecting the police to come in one day. We had all the licenses and everything you needed but the police come around and the mama says you have to give them some money.

The mammothan said that and I’m said what do you mean? Why do we need to do that? Apparently, you’re meant to close at a specific time. No one did. And you had to pay to be able to. And if you didn’t, you’d have a problem. Nobody else would because they’re paying. Lots of things start happening like this. You do not realise these things as a tourist. You don’t see them.

You’re not a tourist though and you’re seeing this as someone living there and you feel uncomfortable. I mean, I felt uncomfortable with all this. We’re starting to pay money for this and it’s a regular thing. Then one of the girls takes some drug and you have to pay money for that and you got to get rid of that girl. Then another girl came on, and lots of things happened, which meant that by high season I’d probably spent 500,000 on little things that not knowing what was actually happening with them. Perhaps I didn’t use the right lawyer to help me through it. Or perhaps I didn’t know the right people. I don’t know what it was but The bar operating next to me was foreign-owned too. I went to speak to him and he didn’t want to talk about certain things but why was he okay and managing to make a profit? I suppose he was completely close-lipped not wanting to share how he managed to navigate things.

He said though he’d run a bar for a long time, been in town for a long time. Perhaps he owned the building. That could have been the case. Perhaps his rent was less, or perhaps his arrangements were different. I don’t know. Why was his seemingly operation going according to plan? Then he found out that he hadn’t had a bar for very long at all, and he’d only had that bar for a year, and before that, he’d taken it over from another foreigner, so perhaps he was doomed to fail, too.

Bar Problems in Thailand

I wasn’t panicking, but I’d used that 500,000 up until high season on bribery, bribing police officers, having to pay for this girl doing stupid things in the bar, going to have to close the bar. I didn’t know what she was taking that stupid drug. I didn’t know what she was doing. Then you have to, you know, close the bar down or pay money. Well, I was really quite disillusioned. And my wife was taking it badly as well, but she was always trying to avoid problems. She didn’t really like it. She wasn’t a bar girl, too, and never worked in a bar and didn’t really want to spend time there. When she goes in, she doesn’t like it. And I don’t really know.

It’s like all these things are happening and we both weren’t the sort of people that could deal with things like that. I’m finding though that I’m not happy with this investment. High season comes around and hopefully it’s going to be great. It wasn’t great. We had a guy come in and he didn’t pay the bill and one of the girls attacked him pretty violently and of course it’s captured on CCTV and the guy’s angry and I don’t even want to talk about it. Ended up losing some money there and the bar is a complete nightmare. A complete nightmare. I don’t know how guys do it. I see guys running bars now in Thailand. How do they make money?

Is it because they have a YouTube channel and the YouTube channel brings in more custom that’s what allows them to make it work? Is it because they know the right people? I don’t know what’s going on is I’m spending money to fix problems. Money is coming in. It’s not like if we didn’t have these problems, it wouldn’t work. It’s just like I don’t know how to navigate it. Tried to find a lawyer to assist, but he’d want hundreds of thousands to be able to help me navigate it. And I didn’t have that money to spend. I just didn’t want it.

Selling the Bar

I wanted to get out. Wanted to sell it. Put it up for sale quickly. And I did manage to get rid of it, although for quite a big loss. What that had done was completely reduce how much money I had. Now it was just under or just over about two million bad. It was a scary time. It cost a fortune. Understanding the bad problems in Thailand and how things go wrong. Suppose my wife and I drifted apart slightly through that because I’m stressed all the time and drinking and she’s not really bothered about it because it’s like she didn’t care.

But I loved her and I wanted to be with her. We made the decision to go back to Buriram and try up there. Get away from this madness. It was madness. It was pure madness. I couldn’t handle it as a person who was used to following the law and the laws were on your side. It wasn’t like that in Thailand. It was used against you.

Building a House in Her Village

We went up to Buriram and as soon as we’re up there, my wife’s happy again. She’s feeling like she’s able to relax and she’s content. And I took that contentment in a small rented house in Buriram as her idea of what she had originally said: to live in her village and have a more peaceful life and try to make a little bit of money because we don’t need to make a lot there. I took that as being what we should do. I suppose that was when I made the next mistake, the biggest one of all, had about two million back, give or take, and if we invested one and a bit million into a small house, have some land that her family given to her, we can invest that. We don’t need to make much money to spend. And because of that, I can keep my visa and we should be okay. Keep enough money to live for a year, start doing things. Whatever it was, going to leave it up to you, I said to her, because she knows what she was doing. About two years later, all the money was gone.

Embarrassing, isn’t it?

The House Was Built

As soon as that house was built, it was like a switch had flipped. Whether it was in her mind or what it was or whatever, as soon as that house was built, it was like she now had what she’d wanted all along, a bit of security in the village. She didn’t really want to leave the village to work in Pattaya. She wanted to live where she was from, but she didn’t have the money to do that. Now she had this house, and it was like I was just tolerated. And it was remarkably shocking how quick that transition happened. All the happiness, all the times in Pattaya, all the ups and the downs and everything that we’d been through together throughout all the time we’d been together, which was a number of years, just seemed like it was for nothing. It was just for nothing because now she’s got a house and now she’s not telling me to leave and throwing me out, but she’s asking for money more than she ever asked for money before, even though we’ve got so much less than before. Like I said, it ran out in 2 years because before long, I dipped below the visa money. It’s coming up to renewal in about six months time.

She says, “We’ll sort it out. We’ll sort this out. we’ll buy something and make some money and she managed to get more money out of me comes up for renewal and I can’t renew it. I thought when I’d moved there to the village before we started building that the worst case scenario is I go home, get a job and get a visa for her to go and live with us and we can come back and live in the future in Thailand. That was the worst case, but it wasn’t. The worst case was me having to leave and her staying there. The best case for her was that, I suppose. I can’t believe how she transitioned as soon as that house was built. I can’t believe it. Whether it was her getting older, whether it was her getting bored of me, I don’t know what it was.

But how everything we’d been through together, it was like she was on the clock for years or a few years worth of being with us. It was like I was a business for her. As soon as the house was built, she didn’t care if money went down. I’m not saying that she didn’t behave like a wife. I’m not saying that she did that. It was like she really didn’t need me or want me. She had what she wanted and that was it. It was so shocking because it was like my perfect wife wasn’t perfect anymore. I don’t have any money. I’m completely nearly broke and I can’t stay in Thailand because number one, I can’t even extend my visa.

Number two, we can’t make any money there. Number three, she doesn’t want to go to the UK with me and work and help me work there and do anything like that. It was like it was soul destroying, completely soul destroying this understanding that all this had been for nothing. It had all fallen apart. I didn’t have my wife behind me to back me up. I went into yet another completely depressive state of sheer despair. Sheer devastation not knowing what to do. Well, I didn’t know what to do. I begged her, “I’ll go back home and I will speak to you and you can come and live with me if you can’t work here and, you know, we’ll sort it out.” But she didn’t want it. She wasn’t interested.

And I suppose that takes us to, you know, where it is at the moment.

Returning Home Without Money

I met her when I was 47. She was 24. And I took the fact that she worked in a restaurant to mean that she wasn’t like the other girls. She didn’t work in a bar. She worked in a restaurant. I don’t know why, but I thought that was meant for everything. We had such good times together. We went places and we did things and we started things. We were happy. Didn’t have much money. But I took her idea on board. We moved to the village, built a house, and I’m giving her money to do things.

And she’s doing things and money comes in and money goes out. But as soon as that house was built, it was like she was able to ask for more even though I’d got less. And that’s it. I suppose that’s how you could sum it up. As soon as she was able to ask for more, knowing that she already had something, she did. Even though I had considerably less five million in the bank to start with, and she didn’t ask for anything, she didn’t want anything. When I had less than a million, now she wanted everything because of the house. I felt like it was mine, too. And that’s why I suppose I was willing to give her more. I think that’s where I want to leave it. That’s how I’m going to have to leave it because I had to go back home. I went home not long before COVID, a year or so before.

Got another job but had lost all my money. I was still married. I tried to contact her and she answered occasionally and we would talk. Sometimes we’d talk for hours. She said she’d already met someone else and she wants a divorce, asking me to go to Thailand to get a divorce. I said no, I don’t have enough money. The whole thing was awful. I really did not understand. I got back to work and I started making money. But then COVID happened and I could work from home which I suppose was a blessing. I’m not saving anything though. My children were growing up.

I haven’t seen them since all the problems from before and I miss them and I regret it. But I didn’t feel like I could do anything about it. I’m not really in a better position today. Don’t know what I’m going to do because I’m getting older and I’m going to at this point never get over this depression. I’m just upset and miserable. I want to go back in time and try and have another go. I want another go at life. I want another go so badly. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. I can promise you that. That’s where I am today. Still at home, not really with that much money to my name.

I have some money. I have the ability, I suppose, to travel. I do have a pension that I cashed in when I was 55, and that’s something. I’ve already cashed that in, and I suppose it is something I have to cling on to that. But in a way, I don’t feel like trying again. I would love nothing more than to be with someone that I love and that loves me, and that we’re together and through the thick and thin. I want it. I’ve been thinking about this for the past few years, thinking about having another go, but I don’t know if I should because most likely what would happen is everything would go wrong and I’d be depressed again because the same would have happened again and again. My advice for what it’s worth to anyone going to Thailand is don’t put yourself in a position where your wife or your girlfriend can have so much say and so much control over your life. Don’t let her have so much over you that she’s able to get away with more even though you have less. That’s where it went wrong for me. Throughout the whole time when we were together, when we didn’t have the house, she was a nice, sweet wife, happy, content with me, and we were good.

As soon as we had that house, she was asking for more money, even though we had less. And I was giving it to her because I didn’t want to ruin what we had. When it came to nothing, and we had nothing, she didn’t want to go home with me. She wanted to stay there, and she eventually wanted a divorce. It was my mistake that I let her have that over me. But I didn’t realize, why would you realize the love of your life? And she was the love of my life. Why would you realize that the love of your life all wants something to have over you? Once she has something over you, it’s going to ruin your life. Why would you think that? You wouldn’t, would you? But that’s exactly what happened to