My Thai Girlfriend Hid 4 Years of Her Life From Me

Call me Martin. I’m 51 from Newcastle, and I’ve been coming to Thailand since 2018. I’m divorced, my kids are grown-up, and I work offshore. So, I tend to get decent blocks of time off rather than normal holidays.

A couple of years ago, I met a woman I’ll call Joy in Pattaya. She was 39 and worked as a cashier in a restaurant near Jomtien. Nothing glamorous. We got talking because I was in there regularly and eventually I asked her out.

Joy had been married to a Thai man years before and had one daughter who was 17. She wasn’t looking for someone to rescue her, and she certainly wasn’t impressed by foreigners just because they were foreigners. In fact, the first time I offered to take her somewhere expensive, she said she would rather have moo ga ta.

Meeting Mew in Chonburi

That suited me. We were together for about 18 months, although because of my work, I was in and out of Thailand. When I was away, we would video call most days. When I came back, she would stay with me.

The strange thing about Joy was that she had this whole group of Thai friends who seemed to know absolutely everything about me. I would walk into a restaurant and some woman I’d never met would say, “Hello Martin, Newcastle.” I’d ask Joy who she was. “Friend.” Apparently, Thailand has one woman called Friend and she lives everywhere.

Then one trip, Joy asked if I’d go with her to visit an old friend in Chonburi. Her name was On. I’d heard about her plenty of times but never met her. We drove over on a Saturday afternoon.

On lived in a fairly ordinary townhouse with her husband and two kids. Her husband was Thai, worked in logistics, a nice bloke, and had very little English, but enough for us to sit outside drinking beer and pretending that we understood each other.

Everything was completely normal until another Thai woman arrived. I’ll call her Mew. The second she saw me, she stopped dead. Not subtle, either. She looked at me, looked at Joy, then looked back at me. I smiled and she didn’t.

Discovering Joy’s Four Years in Melbourne

Later, I went inside to use the toilet, and when I came back, Joy and Mew were having a serious argument in the kitchen. So, I asked Joy what was wrong. She said, “Nothing.”

Anyone who has spent time in Thailand knows that when someone says, “Nothing,” while two women are arguing at approximately aircraft-engine volume, something is definitely happening. The atmosphere was awkward after that, so we left early. In the car, I asked her again, and Joy said Mew didn’t like foreigners.

So, I said she seemed to dislike one foreigner in particular. Joy laughed but wouldn’t explain, so I forgot all about it. About a week later, I was sitting in a bar with a friend when a Facebook message appeared from a woman I didn’t know. It was Mew.

The message said, “Hello. Sorry disturb. You know Joy before?” I read it about four times and replied that Joy was my girlfriend. Five minutes later, Joy told me everything. So, I asked what Mew meant. She wouldn’t say. Instead, she wrote, “You ask Joy about Australia.”

And that was it. I called Joy immediately and said, “What’s Australia?” Total silence. Then, she asked who told me. Never a comforting response. So, I told her that Mew had contacted me.

Joy went absolutely mad, but interestingly, she was angry with Mew rather than worried about what I knew. She said we would talk about it after she finished work.

Why Joy Hid Her Melbourne Past

That evening, she came to my condo, and I asked her straight: had she had an Australian boyfriend? She answered, “Yes.” I didn’t care. She was nearly 40 years old. I wasn’t expecting her to have spent the previous two decades waiting in a temple for a Geordie to arrive.

Then, she told me it wasn’t exactly a boyfriend. Years earlier, she’d been engaged to an Australian man. Still no problem. Then, she said they’d actually gone to Australia together. Now, I was interested because Joy had repeatedly told me she’d never travelled outside Thailand.

So, I asked how long she had been there. She told me nearly four years. I believed it. This woman I’d been with for 18 months had lived in Melbourne for nearly four years and had never mentioned it at all. Then, it got even stranger. She spoke much better English than she had let on.

With me, Joy’s English was decent but basic. We’d misunderstand each other occasionally. Sometimes I’d simplify what I was saying. Apparently, she had worked in Australia, had Australian friends, and could speak English perfectly well when she wanted to.

I said, “Why the hell have you been pretending that you can’t understand me?” And she denied that she was pretending. So, I deliberately spoke quickly using normal English instead of the slowed-down version I had got used to. She understood every single word. I sat there looking at her, thinking, “Who exactly have I been dating?”

Then, she finally explained. The Australian relationship had been a disaster. She had met him in Thailand when she was in her late 20s. He persuaded her to move to Melbourne. At first, things were good. Then, he became extremely controlling. According to Joy, he monitored who she spoke to, checked where she went, controlled most of the money, and constantly corrected her English in front of people.

She stayed because she was embarrassed to go home. Eventually, she left him and moved in with a Thai friend. She worked for another year, saved money, and returned to Thailand.

Joy’s Misunderstanding About Moving to England

So, I asked her why she’d never told me any of this, and she said, “Because I don’t want to be that Joy again.” I didn’t really understand. Then, she explained that when she’d returned to Thailand, she’d basically erased Australia from her life.

She stopped speaking English unless she needed to. She didn’t talk about the relationship. Even some of the newer friends didn’t know that she had lived overseas. Mew knew because she’d been one of the https://talesbeyondhorizons.com/unbelievable-encounters-with-thai-women/https://talesbeyondhorizons.com/unbelievable-encounters-with-thai-women/ Joy lived with in Melbourne. That’s why she’d reacted when she met me. She thought Joy was repeating the same mistake with another foreign man.

So, I asked why Mew had contacted me rather than just talking to Joy. Apparently, they’d already had that argument. Mew thought I needed to know because Joy was considering coming to England with me. That was news to me. I said, “She’s considering what?”

Apparently, Joy had told her friends I’d asked her to move to the UK. I hadn’t. I’d mentioned that she should come over for a holiday one day and meet my family. Somewhere between my mouth and Joy’s friendship group, a two-week holiday had become immigration.

Now, I was annoyed for a completely different reason. When Joy came back the next day, I asked her about it. She admitted she’d been thinking about whether she could live in England. So, I said, “That’s a fairly major conversation to have with just yourself.”

She said she hadn’t decided anything, and I reminded her that neither had I. Then, we had probably the most useful argument of our entire relationship. Joy thought I was slowly preparing to take her to England because I talked about meeting my family, showing her photographs of my house, and once joked that she’d hate Newcastle in January.

I thought we were just talking. She’d apparently spent months worrying that eventually I would ask her to leave Thailand, and because of what happened in Australia, she was terrified of becoming dependent on another foreign man overseas. Meanwhile, I didn’t even know this was a problem.

How Honest English Changed the Relationship

I asked her if she’d actually want to live in England. “No,” she answered immediately. Not even half a second. So, I said, “That’s settled then.” She looked shocked. She thought that I would genuinely be disappointed. I wasn’t. I didn’t particularly want her living in England, either. My plan was to spend more time in Thailand as I got older. We’d both managed to worry about a future neither of us actually wanted.

But the English thing still bothered me. I started noticing it constantly. I’d say something complicated, and she’d answer before I could explain it. We watched a film without Thai subtitles, and she understood it. One night, I said, “You realize you’ve conned me into speaking like an idiot for 18 months.” And she burst out laughing.

Then she started speaking to me in almost fluent English with a slight Australian accent. I nearly fell off the sofa. I’m serious. For 18 months, I’d been saying things like, “Tomorrow we go shop, okay?” So, I asked her why she never corrected me. She said, “You look happy.”

After that, our relationship actually became much easier because we could finally have proper conversations. It also became more argumentative because she could no longer pretend she didn’t understand when I was complaining about something.

Staying Together in Pattaya After the Truth

Mew eventually apologized for contacting me. I told her I was actually glad that she did. Joy wasn’t. Those two didn’t speak for about two months. They’re friends again now.

Joy and I are still together. I spend roughly half my time in Thailand now because of how my work rotation falls. She is still in Pattaya and still working. No plans to move to Newcastle, which is probably best for both her and the local heating bill.

The Australia thing doesn’t bother me anymore. What bothered me initially was that somebody could have such a huge part of their life that I knew absolutely nothing about. Four years isn’t a weekend in Phuket, but after meeting some of the Thai friends who knew her back then, I understand it better. She wasn’t hiding another man. She was hiding a version of herself she didn’t like very much.

Although, I’m still not letting her off for the English. A few months ago, I caught her talking to an Australian customer at the restaurant in full-speed English. He asked where she’d learned it. She pointed at me and said, “My boyfriend taught me.”

I nearly choked on my food. I thought I was going to discover my Thai girlfriend had a secret Australian husband or some bloke sending her money. Instead, I discovered she’d lived in Melbourne for four years and had been secretly listening to me speak English like a children’s television presenter. I still haven’t decided which is more offensive.