Meeting My Future Wife on Soi 6 in Pattaya

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anybody. I never thought it would get to the stage it got to. I didn’t realize people could be as disgusting as I found out that my wife was based on the thing that she did to me. I had to reduce her monthly allowance that I gave to her when a few of my investments dipped and therefore I couldn’t continue to give her the same amount. It’s not like I completely stopped giving her an allowance.

But according to her, getting that allowance was more important than me being able to pay for the electric bill of the house that we were living in. It was another huge mistake I made. When everything came to a head, I had no choice but to leave with nothing left. I had a bit, but not much. I may have been able to stay, but what she did was inexcusable. It was a visceral reaction which showed me all I needed to know about her.

I didn’t know she was that kind of person. I had no idea that she was that kind of person. I just thought we were in a loving relationship and we would be with each other through the good times and the bad. But it didn’t happen like that because I was blind to the situation that I was in with her.

When I say my investments, you might be picturing a guy who made some great choices, put his money in the right place, but that wasn’t exactly who I was. So perhaps you should take the term investment with a pinch of salt because they weren’t really investments. I suppose they were just crazy things that I did because I thought I was in love with someone. I was in love with someone.

It really pains me to have to talk about this because it still haunts me to this day, thinking about what happened, thinking about what she did to me in order to make me think that losing everything I had was better than staying with her. I wish she cheated on me. I wish she hit me. I mean, she did. And I mean, I wish she did something awful to me. But what she did was far worse than anything you could even imagine. And it made me realize that I’d fallen in love with the devil in human form.

I think it’s important to stress that I haven’t witnessed this type of behavior from anybody else in Thailand. So I’m not saying that this is a Thailand thing. This is a person thing and it could have happened anywhere. It happened to me though in Thailand perpetrated by a Thai girl. I highly doubt many people would do what she did because nobody would sink to such lows. Nobody would be so vile in their character and so consumed in that greed for money and status and face.

Face is the most offensive thing of all because it doesn’t make sense to me how she could think like that. There were no face concerns when she was parading herself around Soi 6 in Pattaya. No concerns how anybody would think about her for taking that life path because when I met her, she had the usual sad story about how she needed to look after her family and her child who were living with her family up in the village where she was from. How her ex was a bad man, him no good.

Yet, it was as if she was trying to tell me that she was forced into this life, that she was brought up by hardship and misfortune, and she would rather do anything else than work in a bar in Pattaya. But while I believed her when I met her and fell in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, I have since learned that what she meant to say was that there was nothing else she could do to make the same amount of money because money was more important than self-respect and dignity.

I didn’t care about that, though. I looked beyond that. I looked beyond where I met her. I looked into the future as opposed to the past. And I quickly came to terms with the fact that when I met her when she was 23 and she’d been working there for 3 years, 3 years is a thousand days. I think that’s when you start to actually understand more about things. It’s one thing to say 3 years and your mind kind of knows that that’s a long time and can understand that yes, 3 years is a long time.

But when you say that’s more than 1,000 days, when she claimed that she hardly ever had any days off, maybe once a month, then if I’d looked at it like that at the time, I guess I wouldn’t have thought, “Ah, 3 years isn’t that long.” I’d have thought, “Damn, what happened during each and every single one of those thousand days before I decided to take that trip to Thailand?”

Meeting My Future Wife on Soi 6 in Pattaya

It was my third trip to Thailand, and I knew what I was getting myself into by going there. I’d spent a number of months in Thailand just getting to know the country more, falling in love with the country and feeling like I found somewhere where I was at my best. From Chiang Rai down to Phuket, Bangkok, a number of the islands, and of course, Pattaya, Thailand seemed to have a bit of everything. You never felt like you had to go without when you were there.

I didn’t develop any feelings for any of the girls that I met during those first times when I was there. But I don’t know what it was. And I think that’s what everybody says, isn’t it? Because we don’t know what it is. But when I stumbled into that bar already drunk on Soi 6, she was the one who actually grabbed me off the street and coaxed me inside. I didn’t think that that was meant to be just a nighttime of fun. I mean, I did. What would become, though, was so much more than that.

I was 49 at the time and I was just moving forwards with life like everybody else did. I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen to make me change the course of my own life. I didn’t have any kids of my own. No wife, but I never planned to have a wife because I liked my freedom. I liked to be able to do what I wanted when I wanted to do it. And that was why I was in Thailand. This time it was a spur-of-the-moment idea. Well, I’m going to go back again. So, the following day I was on the plane.

Being self-employed meant that I could make decisions about what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. And yes, when I was there in that bar just chatting to her, talking to her, and leaving the bar together, and waking up the following morning, I just felt like I wanted to go on a bike trip, which is what I planned to do anyway. And I asked her if she’d go with me. You know, sit on the back of the bike. Let’s go away for a week. I’d never spent a week with a girl from Thailand before, and I didn’t think it was going to be anything more than just that, spending a week with her.

Of course, it was all arranged as to what we would need to do in order for her not to work in the bar for that week, which was fine. It was what it was. I wasn’t going into this thinking I had any feelings for this girl other than just having a good time with her. Yet, I think it was over the course of that week that I developed these really strong feelings for her that I wasn’t expecting to feel. The way she made me feel was like the feelings that I felt for her were real and reciprocated. I think that was her cunning that made me think I’d found someone who was different.

I hate it when I listen to someone else’s story and they talk about how their girl was different. I really hate it. But I suppose I hate myself even more for thinking at that moment in time that she was different. I can tell you this, though: she was different. She was far different because she was so much more malicious and cruel. And once I’ve told you everything that happened to me, I dare you to say that what happened to anybody else was worse because it wasn’t. She did the one thing you shouldn’t do. And I’m still shaking with rage to think about it while also being upset at the same time because I didn’t think anybody would do the things she did.

That week altered the course of my life altogether. Back in Pattaya, I only had another week and then I needed to return home and back to work. Back in Pattaya, though, she went back to the bar and I tried to get her out of my mind as best as I could. I wanted to stop thinking about her. I wanted to get rid of these feelings. But 2 days later, I felt like I had no choice but to return to her bar and see her again.

She remembered me, made me feel really special, which was her job, I guess. And she stayed with me until I did return home. I got her contact details and I had no plans about doing anything crazy yet, such as packing everything in and moving full-time to Thailand. That was something I wasn’t even considering. I just hoped I would return home and she would be but a memory of Thailand. I faced a big problem, though. About a week after I’m back, I’m still continuously thinking about her, still wishing I was with her. I hadn’t called her yet, but I decided to pick up the phone and see if she answered. She did. I remember you, she said.

And she just talked about things that you talk about when the person you’re speaking to has a very poor command of the English language. I didn’t care that she couldn’t speak English. I didn’t care that when I called her, she was just about to go and start working in the bar. I don’t know why I didn’t care, but I said that I really wanted to see her again. And she said she’d really want to see me, too. I mean, she would say that, wouldn’t she? What else would she say?

But she knew exactly what she was doing, and she was good at it. And after speaking to her, I was just trying to get my head back in the game, but I couldn’t. I spoke to her more and more over another month, knowing full well that while I was single and without any form of company back at home, she was the exact opposite of that. In a way, that felt very unnerving. But again, all those thoughts are pushed away, and I just decided one day that life is for living. I’ll be 50 before long. I’ve got a bit of money. Why don’t I just pack it all in and move to Thailand and go and be with her? Live a different life completely and be happy for a change.

Leaving My Electrical Business and Moving to Thailand at 50

I was, and I suppose still am, an electrician by trade, and I was good at it. I always did the best jobs I could and I built up a big pool of people who would contact me if they needed any work doing. I had a younger guy who was getting into the game who was working for me sometimes and I agreed with him that I would give him all my contacts. I would vouch for him in return for him giving me some money.

It worked out very well for him. I only took 10 grand from him but it was something and he got into the business that I did with lots of the benefits that I’d accrued over the years. No problem there. That was fine. But aside from that, I actually sold my house. I actually sold my house thinking it was a good idea. And well, I got 120 grand for it. Maybe 5 grand for the car, 150 grand in savings, and probably close to 300 grand total. I thought that was going to be more than enough to get started in Thailand.

Call me naive all you want, but I didn’t know Thailand enough to know that I couldn’t get a job as an electrician in Thailand because that’s just something you can’t do. I kind of expected to do electrician work and maybe do work for other expats. I saw the condition of many of the electrics in many of the places I went to. Sometimes you’d see loose wires hanging out of the water heater on the shower and think, “How did they get away with that?” But then you understand that in Thailand they’re not actually getting away with anything because there they haven’t done anything wrong. So it’s different altogether. And I quickly learned that no, I couldn’t be an electrician.

Instead of doing what I should have done, which at the time I had no idea about, which was to invest my money and get a rate of return and live on the interest, even though it might not have been a lot of money, I didn’t know about that kind of thing. I wasn’t that way inclined. So, I was looking for something to do when I got to Thailand, but I haven’t got there yet.

When I told her about the fact I was moving permanently to Thailand and I was hoping to see her again soon, she said, “Great. See you soon.” Nah, I await you. Now, she wasn’t waiting for me. She was still in the bar. I knew that, and I’d have been stupid to think anything otherwise, so I didn’t think anything otherwise.

But after I actually decided to move to Thailand, it was only 10 weeks later when I was flying there already, just turned 50. And it’s that excitement you feel when you’re doing something so different that kind of masks all the worries. It masks all the concerns that you have and also masks the thought that you’re doing something incredibly stupid and dangerous at the same time.

Moving to Thailand was one thing. That was one thing by itself. But not only that, moving there to hopefully, and I say hopefully because I still had no idea, but to hopefully get into a relationship with a girl less than half my age who worked in a bar on Soi 6. Saying that now is just madness to think that that’s what I did. Absolute madness, as if I was engaged in the act of busily heaping up my own funeral pyre to steal a quote.

But at the time, you don’t think that, do you? You think you’re doing things right. You think you’re going to be in for a whirlwind romance, a new adventure, a different way of life. And you picture yourself in 10 years’ time living in a penthouse condo, a three-bedroom unit, looking out over the amazing city of Pattaya. You picture yourself there with your beautiful wife next to you, thinking that life couldn’t be better than this. And it’s those thoughts and dreams that you’ve got when you’re going into it thinking that you’re going to get to that level in Thailand.

That’s why you feel like you’re going to be on a level playing field, though. You feel like your future success is guaranteed based on your past success. But all these are just fantastical dreams. I didn’t know that I would be a second-class citizen in Thailand. I didn’t know I would get there and not be able to work as an electrician for other expats. But most of all, even if I found that out, I could have adapted and changed my plans.

The thing was, though, I didn’t know that the girl that I was in love with was the exact sort of person that you should not be in love with. I later find out she would be everything that went wrong with my life. But it didn’t have to be like that, I guess, if she just understood the ups and downs of a relationship. But she didn’t understand that, which makes the whole thing so much worse.

Starting Life Together in Pattaya on a Monthly Allowance

When I arrived back in Thailand, I was enthused to be there. I went to meet her in her bar my first night back, and she met me like seeing me was the highlight of her whole month, maybe even her whole year. She made me feel exactly like I wanted to feel when I got back. And it was the way that she acted when she saw me that reaffirmed the belief that I was making the right decision, that I had made the right decision because it was too late to back out now.

It wasn’t too late though, was it? I guess I could have changed my mind, gone home, bought another house before I lost all my money. But I didn’t do that because I was there and from that moment on, I had to be with her at all times. The fact that I was there and she saw that I was there when I said, “I want to be with you. Let’s move in together.” I think she understood that I must have been serious. And she was trying to think about all the angles she could use to get as much allowance out of me as she could.

The thing was though, she wasn’t acting like that’s what she cared about. It didn’t appear that money was her sole focus in life. It appeared, by everything that she said, that family was important. A mutual respect between husband and wife was important, and she always wanted to be someone who had a family, she said, but she was never lucky enough. She said she hated working in the bar and she only did it because she’s got nothing else to do.

Again, lies, lies, and more lies because why is it that the girl that works in 7-Eleven, why is she not in a bar? Why is it that the girl serving the table at the restaurant I ate dinner at, why was she not working in a bar? Why is it that lots of girls who perhaps came from similar places don’t go and work in a bar? Why is that? They’re able to live without working in a bar. Maybe they have more self-respect. Maybe they place their dignity above money.

Yet, it’s not sold like that when you’re in a bar, is it? It’s sold to you like these girls are the poorest of the poor in Thailand. The unluckiest of the unlucky. That they’re there because they have no other choice. They’re there because if they weren’t there, they’d be completely destitute. But that’s a fabrication and a downright lie. They are there because of greed and laziness and an overinflated self-belief in their own value. But again, I had no idea that this was the case because I just thought they were unfortunate and unlucky.

I’d have been better off not having anyone. But I was in Thailand for one reason and one reason alone, and that was her. So, I believed her lies. I believed that she loved me. I believed that she cared about me so much because I helped her not work there anymore based on how much she said she hated it.

Because of that, I felt it was only right to give her a reasonable allowance that allowed her to be able to continue to support the people that she cared about, as well as to be able to have a good time herself. I agreed to 25,000 baht, which I thought was fair given the fact that she did seem to have a number of commitments. This was all agreed to before we even moved in together, before I’d even found a place to live. It felt right and fair.

And when we did move in together to a great condo that I found just up the hill past Walking Street close to Bali Hai Pier, my Thailand life started out exactly like I thought it would. It was exactly like I wanted it to be. And I feel that I’m falling in love with her more every day. And she’s behaving and acting like she’s falling in love with me more every day. And there’s no signs that she’s out to get me. No signs that there’s anything other than what I think is going on, going on.

Work Restrictions and Marriage in Roi Et

And about a week after moving into that place, that’s when I found out that no, I can’t work as an electrician in Thailand. And I was extremely stupid to think that I was able to do that. I did have enough money where I could take it easy for a year, maybe even longer than that, and then still have enough money to find something to do to make more. That was what I decided to do. I felt like I didn’t know Thailand enough to think about doing any form of business when I was there yet.

The reason I’m saying business, and I think that many people don’t understand, you know, when I listen to other stories, is when someone says they’re doing business and they’ve never done business before, it’s because of the fact that you can’t just go and get a job in Thailand, even if you’re married to someone in Thailand. You don’t have any form of equal rights. You don’t have any ability to do anything unless you’re in a very specific industry. So, a business is usually the only thing somebody can do to be able to sustain themselves in the country.

Especially at this point in time when people were only just starting to work online. It was before the work online craze. So, it was an idea, you know, get to know the country across a whole year, learn about it, fall in love with it more, and then because I’ve gained all this knowledge, I should hopefully be able to find something to do. At the time, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And again, another thing was I wanted to make sure that I spent as much time as possible with my girlfriend because we were inseparable. And every single day that went by, I was more and more crazy for her. And stupidly, I thought the opposite was true.

It was after 6 months of living together that she said that she thinks we should get married. Again, as much as I want to say that I was crazy, I should have just thought to myself, “This doesn’t make any sense.” I didn’t think it at the time, though, because she said something that didn’t make sense. She said to me that she’d been living with me for 6 months and that’s not really a good thing to do to live with someone for 6 months and not be married.

She said her family was very traditional and didn’t like her living with someone and having a boyfriend. Again, this was at a time when this kind of thing still happened and was talked about. I’ve not really heard that thing talked about in Thailand as much as before, but that’s what she said at the time. I just thought, how upsetting.

She’s uncomfortable because we’re not married and she’s living with me, and she’s feeling bad about the grief this is causing to her family, instead of thinking, why was her family okay with her staying with multiple people as opposed to just one? Again, you don’t use your logical mind, do you, when you’re thinking about things when you’re in love with someone? You don’t use your rational mind either. You don’t think properly about what’s being told to you. You just take it on board and actually react on that.

Before I know it, we’re up in her village which was in Roi Et in Isaan. I wasn’t Thailand smart enough at the time to know that if you hear the words bar, Isaan, and a girl in the same sentence, you perhaps might want to look the other way. But I just was so intrigued to be going to somewhere so different to what it was like in Pattaya and Bangkok and all the other places that I’d been to. I’d only been to the well-known parts of the country, and this was going to be something else altogether. It was something else altogether.

Seeing her family and her child was weird. To think that she had a child at the age she had a child at. I’m not thinking that I’m doing anything stupid here again. I’m just thinking I’m doing something amazing for her and for me. I think I’m being appreciated and I think she’s thankful for that. Marriage and then back in Pattaya and I had a newfound love for rural Thailand now because it was different.

It also made me feel like I was special in a way because I found a part of Thailand that many people never went to. I liked it. I really did. And I could tell that she liked it there as well. And it’s just very cliché, isn’t it? A guy meets a girl in a bar in Pattaya, the city that he loves, gets married in her village in Isaan, falls in love with that part of the country, and thinks he’s special because he’s found it and ends up moving there. It wasn’t yet that part of our relationship though.

A Higher Allowance and Plans to Move to Isaan

After we were married, which cost me a pretty penny, I think all in that was about 15 grand I spent on that, including the money I gave to her family. But she said that it was only right for her allowance to go up now that we were married. And she felt that 30,000 would be more appropriate for a married woman.

I didn’t want to argue, even though I was witnessing my money going down at an alarming rate, more than I expected it to. But again, I was confident that I would be able to find something to do soon, and that would make some great money. So 30,000 became her new allowance. And it’s not like she demanded it or threatened for it or anything like that. She just talked about it and I agreed and we were fine and happy together. Or so I thought.

After the whole year, which was meant to be my getting to know Thailand phase, I still hadn’t really had much of an idea as to what I wanted to do yet. I did like the idea of opening a bar, but I knew nothing about that business, so that was something that I would have steered well clear of. What about a restaurant? Again, I didn’t know anything about that.

All the other little businesses that foreigners seem to do, again, I didn’t have much of an idea of what I wanted to do. So naturally, when you’re married to someone and you love someone and you care about them so much, it’s only right that you take on board what they think and what their ideas are. It’s only right that you ask them what they think.

When I asked her what she thought was good, she said the best thing maybe could be if we went up to Roi Et to live there. We could have a business there, she said. We could have our own house there. We could live a life there and it’s a lot more affordable to live. So, we don’t necessarily need to make as much money.

Knowing what I know now, when she said that, I should have laughed in her face. Absolutely no chance, I should have said. But I didn’t. I said, “Wow, that sounds good. Let’s go and have a look.” I feel like I’d exhausted my ideas in Pattaya. Everything looked like it would need a big investment, and while it might have been better than doing something in her village, it would have been a big investment, and we wouldn’t have had anything concrete to it.

What I’m meaning is that for an equal investment in the village, we could have had a house that belonged to us, well, her, and a business on land that belonged to us, well, her. Yet, in Pattaya, it would have been a lease on a place, and the investment would have been quite similar anyway, and if things went wrong, we’d have lost everything. But if things went wrong there, we’d still have most of the investment. I still hadn’t yet understood that a house somewhere like that perhaps might not be considered an investment because you can’t do anything with it once it’s built in terms of selling it and also I would have no claim to it.

So we went up to her village for a reconnaissance mission. We saw a beautiful piece of land on the outskirts of the village that was for sale. We went around the area and she was pointing out houses that had been built by foreigners and they all looked great and she seemed to know how much they were and wow, we could have one of them. I’m starting to picture living somewhere like that in one of those houses.

In terms of a business though, that was very important. I told her that we can’t build a house unless we have a business idea. So, we need something. And you know, you’re getting your allowance, which is 30,000. So, we need something that’s going to be bringing in 60,000. So, we can have 30,000 each. That’s how much we need to make.

Trusting Village Business Advice and Building Our House

Stupidly, I trusted the fact that she was from there. I trusted that to mean that she knew exactly how things worked there and how to do things there and what businesses were good and what weren’t. Kind of like how I would have done things if it was my country. I would have taken charge and known about things. So, wouldn’t it make sense that she would know how to do things and how things work there because she was Thai and that was where she was from?

When it was already too late, I learned that simply by me doing 10 minutes of googling in relation to how something works in Thailand, I would already have a bigger knowledge of how things worked there than she did in terms of business and legalities. So, it was a mistake. Just thinking that she was from there meant that she knew about things from there. She didn’t know anything about anything apart from knowing how to have this unwarranted desire for money without the mental capacity to get it in any other way than the way she looked. So, you learned the hard way.

The thing she kept talking about was a restaurant. If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have wanted to be one of those guys who built a restaurant in his wife’s village, because many guys seem to do that. I’ve since spoken to, after what happened to me, quite a lot of people just talking with each other about whether there were any common signs of where we went wrong. Were there any common things that happened between our cases to indicate that if something happens in a particular way, run? Based on the guys I’ve spoken to who have been through similar situations to me, it does seem to be a kind of recurring theme.

I don’t really want to get into that now because that’s more of a hobby really, like an extracurricular activity that I do to keep myself occupied to try to get to the bottom of why this happened. As if it was some kind of thing that she had and was able to do to make me do these things other than the fact that she just looked really good and I thought she loved me. But how did she get me to love her? And how did she get me? I don’t know. When we were there visiting, I just agreed to buy land there and then. She did though say that once we bought the land, we had to go back to Pattaya and clear everything out, which I agreed to. Of course, we needed to do that.

But after that, we moved temporarily to a hotel close by to the land. I spent a lot of time at this point. I actually bought a motorcycle for myself, but I spent a lot of time just driving around and learning about the area while the house was being built. I looked at other restaurants that were similar to the one she talked about, thinking how much it was going to cost and how much we were going to get. And I did feel like I’d made the right choice because I just loved that part of the country at the time.

There were certain things that happened that really shocked me. I mean really shocked me. Kind of like things you’d expect to have happened hundreds of years ago. But in a way, I was attracted to them because they were different and unique and special. You were never bored. Well, at the time, there was always something happening and something strange going on, something to learn about, something to keep you active and keep your mind active. I think that’s the thing.

The house went up in no time at all. Three bedrooms, two-story, nice outside area, Western kitchen, air conditioning in every single room. It had everything that I ever wanted that I never had before. I could never have afforded a house like that in my own country. So to have it there felt special, even though everything belonged to her.

When we moved in, I got a beautiful golden retriever pup. I called her Lacy. I’d always missed my old dog, but she died about 5 years before I even made it to Thailand. And Lacy became my closest friend from very early on. I sit on the couch watching TV and she’d sit beside me and sometimes she’d sit on my feet and it was really nice to have a dog and it was something to keep me company.

Once we moved in, that was when we started looking for more land where we could do the restaurant. It had to be close to the big road. We found that and started building it, and that took not very long, and before we know it, that was ready. When that was ready, I bought a pickup so we could carry supplies to and from the village and town, and we opened with a few staff. This was everything in my wife’s name. I just had the marriage extension, no work permit, so I couldn’t do any work. But I was paying the salaries and the staff and giving her her allowance.

When we opened though, she said because of this, she thinks she should have more of an allowance because she’s doing more work. The way she said it, more work as opposed to work because before she wasn’t doing anything. I agreed anyway though. 35,000 now and we had two other members of staff that were getting 8,000 each. After all this was in place, I think I had about 65 grand left, which I expected to remain 65 grand because now we’ve got this restaurant. And based on everything that my wife had said, we’re easily going to be able to cover the costs and give money for both of us to live on.

Restaurant Losses and an Allowance of 43,000

Quickly, it became clear that this was quite a long way from the truth. While we built the restaurant on the outskirts of the village, it was on a big road and there were a lot of passing cars. So, there were people going to it, yet it wasn’t making anywhere close to what she said it was going to make. I mean, yes, I placed my trust and faith into the fact that she knew what she was talking about, even though I shouldn’t have done. And I think in the first month it was open, it brought in 15,000 in profit.

As I’ve spoken to other guys who have done similar things in terms of restaurants, I’m told that even making that much profit in the first month is huge because they didn’t make any profit and in fact lost money. But what I mean by profit is that’s how much after paying for all the ingredients and the electric. We still had to pay the staff though out of that. So after they got 8,000 each, I’ve lost 1,000. But I haven’t, because my wife wants 35,000. That’s quite a long way from what I expected it to be, but it’s early stages.

She said, “Everywhere starts out somewhere. It’ll get better soon.” So, I just thought, “Let’s give it 6 months and then I’ll start to panic later.” There’s no point panicking now. I mean, it’s early days and businesses usually pick up over time as opposed to reduce over time because of word of mouth. That goes around and then it seems plausible that things were going to become good soon.

I think it was month two. I’d been to the restaurant a number of times. Of course I had. I went all the time, but I’d never actually eaten there because I didn’t think so. But I ordered some food and paid for it as if I was a customer, even though I’d already paid for all the ingredients that had gone into making the food.

But the food was awful. I mean, Thai food. And I’ve eaten Thai food at local places close by, which was really nice. But this was awful. Like, who’s cooked this? Then my wife, who said, “What’s wrong with it?” She comes and tries it and yes, she understands that this is actually really bad food. So, it turned out she hired a chef and she’s paying a chef or I’m paying a chef, but she failed to try the food of the chef to see if it was any good and she’s wondering why fewer people are coming in.

It’s things like this that you just can’t get your head around because it’s such a basic thing. It’s basic common sense and it makes you think, does anybody have any common sense here anyway? I was really angry about that. I mean, it was inedible. And she understood that yes, it was. So, she goes back in and because she’s got this big business now and she thinks she’s God, she’s able to shout at the lady who was the chef, talking about how bad the food was or whatever, and she leaves and then we don’t have a chef anymore.

My wife starts doing the cooking and thinks that, you know, she should have extra money on top. The 8,000 that the chef was getting, she should get it. So, I had no choice but to agree. The food was better though when she was cooking and more people were going in. But now she was getting 43,000 a month out of me.

And if I think about it, that’s crazy. That was way too much money for her to be getting. But I was just moving ahead thinking it should work. The thing that I held on to was the fact that it was on a big road and there were lots of passing cars. You just need a few good reviews or whatever and maybe it can work.

So that’s why I continued even though it was losing quite a lot of money over the first number of months. I think at this point I’d been living in that house for 8 months maybe. The restaurant’s been open for three and it’s not really doing great. But there is a promise there. Or perhaps it’s just blind hope that something was going to work. I don’t know what I was feeling.

Village Neighbors, Chickens, and Life with Lacy

But it was around this time that the adjoining land, which was vacant when we built, had someone come and build their house on it. It was more of a, let’s call it, Thai-style house. Probably spent less than 50,000 baht building it. And while we had a wall all around our house, should I say while my wife had a wall all around her house, they didn’t have a wall built around the other three sides of their land. They bought some chickens and unfortunately they even bought a few pigs and built a small pen and actually used the boundary wall which I’d paid for as part of the pen for themselves.

So, we’ve got smelly pigs right next to the house, which was very unpleasant. But again, it’s rural Thailand. People are a bit lacking as to courtesy and things of that nature. So, let it be. It’s not that bad. And usually the wind blew in the other direction anyway. So, I guess that was a stroke of luck. The amount of chickens though that they had was ridiculous. And all the time there were chickens coming into our garden, which I kept reasonably well. I like to do it. It was a hobby more than anything.

It was great though because I managed to teach Lacy how to catch them and dispatch them. It was kind of meant as a warning to the neighbor. If your chicken comes into our garden, it’s going to be dispatched by Lacy. Under no circumstances would I have ever let Lacy catch a chicken that wasn’t on our land. When I took her for a walk, she knew where we were, and she knew not to catch a chicken because she wasn’t in her domain. I taught her well. She was my best friend, like I said.

But that became a real sticking point with the neighbors. They always wanted paying for their chickens. Like, keep your chickens on your own land and then it won’t happen. As you would fully expect, my wife was on their side. Cannot kill chicken. People chicken. People need money. What about they keep the chickens on their land? People need money. People know keep chicken land. So, you know, it’s one of those never-ending talks where, deep down, what you’re saying makes perfect sense to anyone with a logical and rational mind. But it makes no sense to somebody who doesn’t seem to have a logical or rational mind.

I refused to pay for the chickens though because they were on our land and they were disturbing and making a mess on our land. So I refused. Then my wife gets very upset. So I actually had to start paying for the chickens that were dispatched by Lacy even though it was on the land. I shouldn’t have done but I did just to keep the peace.

I suppose it was hugely worthwhile though. Chicken comes on the land. Lacy knows what to do. It’s an invading force. So she picks up her ears, looks out, chases after it, and before you know it, she’s caught it. I loved her so much. She was amazing. And we had some fun times together with those chickens because they shouldn’t have been there. They should have been kept properly. I hated loose roaming chickens. I really hated them.

But I loved most of the things about the place. Even when this restaurant’s losing money, I’m still liking the place where I’m at. I’m still thinking it’s a really great place. There was one thing that happened around this time that I really didn’t like though. I mean, I was appalled by it. And that was when somebody had been out in the jungle close by and they caught a monkey. Now, a monkey is a monkey. Yet, they saw it as more than a monkey, perhaps as a meal.

Most people, and I mean, I didn’t see this more than once. And I’m not saying that this is commonplace because it’s not. This was very rare. And I’m not wanting you to picture that this is what people do all the time in rural Thailand because most of them don’t. In fact, my wife was even repulsed by this. Her family were repulsed by this and most of the other people in the village were repulsed by this. And I think it’s only right to say that this is not normal or right and most people hate it.

But that happened and it was just something that you see occasionally which you wouldn’t wish to see. And then you see videos nowadays of YouTubers going to these tribes that eat things like that as though it’s normal. It’s not. You’ve got food animals and you’ve got animals. But some people don’t seem to know the difference. So that was one thing I hated as well. It was more common though to see people catching monitor lizards and eating them or other beautiful creatures that had no place on the dinner table. But again, it wasn’t my country. Who am I to judge?

Declining Savings and a Failed Farming Investment

After the restaurant had been open for a while, it was clear that it wasn’t going to make enough money. My wife was happy with it because she’s now getting 43,000 every month out of me and one staff’s getting 8,000. I think it’s making enough to pay for the staff and maybe another 10,000 on top of that. So, I suppose that means she’s getting 33,000 out of me every month. And I’m spending about 17,000 for myself. I’m trying to keep it to 50. So, my wife is getting and spending more than double what I’m spending. And that money is coming from me. And that was starting to grate.

My money is going down on a monthly basis. Probably £1,000 a month I’m losing. While it still feels like there’s a long time to go before things can get really wrong, I told my wife, I think we need to change something with the restaurant. We need to make more money because I need to live from the income that the restaurant earns. It’s meant to be making 60,000.

I was spending all my time looking for different things to do. Then quickly, after about 6 months more of the restaurant losing money and my wife not trying to do anything to change things, I quickly learned that I wasn’t Thai. I couldn’t speak the language. I knew nothing about the place. And while I had my own business back in my own country and things were okay there, there was no chance I would ever be able to do anything in Thailand unless I had a Thai partner who was really good at business and my wife wasn’t.

It was a shocking realization to come to because I invested so much money in the house and the restaurant. So much money that I can’t go and try again in Pattaya. It made me think that I would have been better trying to do something in Pattaya. Even if it meant that we wouldn’t have been left with land in a house or land in a restaurant. I wasn’t left with land in a house and land on a restaurant. She was. So I would have been better doing something in Pattaya. But I couldn’t change my mind now. It was already too late.

My wife then said, “What about if we tried to grow some things?” Her family had some land that was currently used for rice, but there wasn’t any rice planted at the time. So, if we raised the land a little bit and invested some money in that and grew something, maybe we could make money out of that. The investment was quite high, about a million baht to do all those things that we needed to do. Could have had five rai of land raised. Could have grown actual crops that would have made some money. We could have done. It was meant to have done that. I just trusted that this would work.

I gave her the money. The land’s being raised and everything’s right and fruit trees are getting planted and then fruit trees are dying and then more are being planted and they’re dying again. And no, that was a waste of money. And then that was when I came to the understanding that okay, I probably need to go back home to make some more money and come back later. I was holding out hope still that the restaurant would work because it seemed to be making bits of money. Yet, it was my wife really who was the biggest problem because of how much I was giving her.

If I didn’t have to give my wife any money and she just lived off what the restaurant made, that would mean that I could get an extra couple of years to hopefully watch the restaurant grow before I could also live on it. I was happy with not much money, just pottering around the house with Lacy, just taking her for a walk. Sometimes she’d go on the back of my bike and we’d go around together. I wouldn’t go very far with her when she was on the bike because it was a bit precarious.

But occasionally the pickup, which was mine, wasn’t being used by someone in her family who she decided could use our pickup and the diesel that was in it without paying for any servicing fees to go along with the pickup. And by the time we had it for a year, it had 100,000 km on it, of which I put on maybe two. But when it was free, sometimes we’d go together all the way to the Mekong River. We could look at Laos across the river, and sometimes she’d go for a paddle, and then we’d drive back again. Maybe I think we could get there in about an hour and a half from where we were living.

I was good with that, though. I was good with the basics in life. I’d come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t have a lot of money again if I stayed in Thailand. I was thinking all the time, maybe go home, make more money. But again, I just decided, okay, I’m going to tell my wife. I need to give you less money. You get from the restaurant more, then you can have more. I’ll try to make more as well. From another angle. I had no idea what that angle was going to be yet.

Reducing My Wife’s Allowance and Facing Violence

It was actually after I got back with Lacy from a trip that we’d been on to the Mekong River. Not really a trip. We go there and back in a day, so we didn’t need to pay for accommodation. And then I went to the restaurant where my wife was and I said, “Okay, things are not great at the moment. The restaurant’s not doing too badly, but it’s not making enough for me. I’m going to reduce your allowance.”

It was my plan to reduce it once and then a few months later take it down to zero. Just, you know, get it in gradually, get her to come around to the idea, but I was giving her 43,000. Some of that was coming from the restaurant, but most of it wasn’t. So, I’d say I was probably giving her 35,000, maybe 33, somewhere around that. I said from next month it’s going to be 20,000. We need to be a bit more careful. We need to save more money and we need to try and make more money and things will get better soon. Then we can, you know, put it up later.

I thought that was just a very logical and sensible thing. Why would she want me to go through all my money so we wouldn’t have anything left? Why would she get upset about that? Because it’s still 20,000 which was far more than many people in that area earned for working a full month. But she was absolutely incandescent. I’ve never seen anyone as angry.

She stormed out of the kitchen and hit me with a frying pan. And this is in front of some people who were eating there. You know, take money me I need money family. I need money. Hitting me with the frying pan two or three times. And I was shocked because she hadn’t been violent before. And then the staff we’ve got comes out and tries to restrain her. You no take money me. I need money. You no good man. You bad man.

I was stunned. I was stood there frozen. Kind of frozen in time because I couldn’t believe what she’d just done. I said, “You’re still getting 20,000 plus what you get from the restaurant. What’s the problem?” I didn’t know what she needed all this money for. And I wanted her to tell me, “What do you need all this money for? You don’t have anything to pay for.” “I pay money family for this. I give mama this, I pay this, half pay school, brother.”

And she said that she needed the money. She earned this money that she was getting from me and she hadn’t had anything else. She said, “I don’t know. I had no idea what she was talking about.” I thought we were a loving couple. She wasn’t calming down, so I just said, “We can’t change this. This is how it is. There’s nothing we can do to change it. You can’t have as much as you’re having now.”

And then I said, “You don’t effing deserve any more money based on the actions you’ve done now.” Oh, so forget it. You can have 20,000. Maybe work harder in the restaurant and you can have more from that. I just walked out because I couldn’t deal with her at that time. And I went back home. Just hoped that when she arrived, she would have calmed down.

She hadn’t. She didn’t even finish the whole day in the restaurant, closed it early, and came back screaming and shouting. She starts throwing things at me and hitting me and getting violent and saying, “I need the money. I need money. I need money.” Then I said, “Well, I need money, too. Don’t you think I need money too? If I give you this money in one year time, we will have no money. And then where are you going to get money from?”

Again, my rational and logical mind thinks that if someone’s telling me that if I continue doing this for a year and we’ll have no money left, then I may have to listen. So, if you have less money now, we can do it for longer. Therefore, we have more chance of making something work sooner together. It’s only logic. It’s only sense. It’s only reason. But to her it wasn’t and it was awful. She went to bed eventually and so did I. And I hoped the next morning things would be better.

An Apology, More Money Requests, and Lacy’s Disappearance

The next morning it was like she was a different person. She was sweet and kind and saying she understands and she’s sorry. She was just worried. She’s really upset and she’s hoping that things will get better soon and she wants to carry on with the restaurant and hopefully make things work and everything can be good. I was really thankful to hear that and I said, “Okay, let’s just forget about it.”

I was willing to overlook the fact that she’d hit me in front of people and been violent. I was willing to overlook that. Let’s just move ahead. Now I’m thinking, well, how am I going to explain to her in a few months that there’s going to be no allowance? But again, I thought we’d get to that when it came.

This is all going on in the space of a few minutes after we’d woken up. And that was the first time in a long time that she actually behaved like the wife that I met. I think that’s how I could put it. She was really sweet and romantic and it was great and I thought she’d turned over a new leaf.

But after that she said, “I really think that maybe we can do 30,000 instead of 20 because I have many thing pay.” She basically just tried to manipulate more money out of me. And I had to tell her, “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. I’m only doing this because it’s the last option. We need as much time as possible.” So, her act was only an act because she got violent again, hit me, and stormed out of the place.

And again, I’m completely stunned about what has happened. She just tried to manipulate me to get more money out of me, knowing full well what I told her about money and running out and time frames, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care, did she? She didn’t care because if she cared about any kind of thing, she would never have gone to work in a bar, I suppose. So, she didn’t care. A few hours later, I went to the restaurant and she was there. And again, she wasn’t being violent now, but she was still shouting and talking about how I was really not good and everything that she wanted to say. Again, I didn’t really know what she was talking about.

And I just said, “It’s not possible. Let’s just be normal and hope that we can get more soon. You sorry now? You really sorry? You do like that to me?” I didn’t know what she was saying. And if I had, I would have got in my pickup with Lacy and never returned. But I didn’t know what she was capable of.

I returned home. I’m just sitting in the garden just trying to come to terms with things. I’m trying to feel better about things, but it’s not working. And then three chickens pile onto the land. And the wall wasn’t high enough, I suppose, to prevent them from flapping their wings to the top of it and coming in. And Lacy chases after them and gets all of them. And that was the highlight of my day. I told her, “Good job.” And then the neighbor comes around saying, “Money.” They had learned to say money.

But admittedly, I just stuck up my middle finger at them because they knew what that meant. I wasn’t paying for them. They knew that chickens would be dispatched if they came onto our land, and I didn’t know. Did they let the chickens go on the land on purpose so they could get money out of me quickly if they couldn’t sell the chickens easily? I don’t know. But I refused to pay and they just walked away.

I didn’t think anything more of it. I didn’t expect my wife to return later and now she’s angry about that as well. You’ll pay chicken. I didn’t want to argue about it, so I went to give them some money for those three chickens and went back to listen to her being more angry about me not giving her the money that she thought she deserved. I just had to get out of the situation and come back later. I didn’t think anything. I just jumped on the motorcycle and rode off.

Finding Lacy and Leaving Thailand

I went back about 3 hours later and my wife’s not there, so I went to sit inside and I can’t see Lacy anywhere. I didn’t know what to think, but I tried to call my wife. She didn’t answer. Then after that, I went to the restaurant and she was there. But then I said to her, “Where’s Lacy?” “I don’t know what. She’s not home. Where is she?” And she shouted at me, “I don’t know.”

But the way she said it, I could tell something was very wrong. It was like she knew something about something and she was so bad at hiding it, but she kept repeating that she didn’t know. And now I was starting to really worry. I got back on my bike and started driving around just looking everywhere, but I couldn’t find her. I drove in a few directions from the house all the way to the big main road, and that’s where I did see her. She was at the side of the road. She’d got out.

I was devastated. I mean, I was heartbroken. I loved Lacy more than my wife. She was my best friend, and she was no more. It was my wife. The way she acted, I knew something was wrong. And it was where she was as well. Lacy, that is. I’d left on my motorcycle and closed the gate behind me, and I can guarantee that my wife had gone and opened the gate and let her out, knowing full well that Lacy would follow me because she did, but she didn’t make it to me.

I went back in a different direction, and she’s not there. So, I had to go and confront my wife, and it was so obvious, the way she acted, so obvious that she’d done it. I just sat though on the road next to her. I couldn’t control my emotions. I was distraught. All I could think about doing was picking her up and taking her back to the house. I buried her in the garden. Didn’t say where. Didn’t make it obvious so that anyone could think of removing her. And I jumped in the pickup, went back to the restaurant and told my wife, “Why have you done that?”

I could tell my wife knew that I was upset about something and she said what’s happened, but she said it in a way like she knew what had happened. I told her what’s happened and I just said, “I’m leaving. Goodbye. You’re not going to get any more money out of me.” It was the day before she was due to get her allowance of 20,000 baht and she said, “Can I have 20,000 BAT?” And I said, “In what world are you living in?”

That was a really bad day for me. She didn’t try to follow me. I think she knew what she’d done. And I just got in the pickup, put my bag on the bag. Luckily, they both belonged to me, and I drove to Pattaya just to try to get my head in order. She called me saying that she was sorry. She said that Lacy was barking and she opened the gate so she could go and get me. She said she didn’t know what would happen.

Even though I told her at the time, “Do never ever leave the gate open because Lacy might get out.” She wasn’t a dog that lived on the streets. She wasn’t aware of anything. And she just said Lacy was barking and she was sorry, but she opened the gate so she could go after me and stop barking. So, she admitted it then, thinking that by somehow admitting it, I would forgive her. And then she asked for her allowance again.

I just hung up the phone trying to take stock of the situation aside from the fact that I was so distraught. I got out with about 20 grand left. Six grand from the pickup and another three grand from the bike. So close to 30 grand and I went home. Never been back to Thailand. I never thought that something like that could even happen.

Did she deliberately know that Lacy would chase after me? Yes, she knew Lacy would chase after me. She knew full well. I’d made an effort to tell her every single time to always close the gate. I always closed the gate and made a scene of it. Even when I left, I closed it behind me. And I double-checked to make sure it was shut properly. Then she said Lacy was barking. It’s as if she knew something would happen or she hoped something would happen, but she didn’t understand that if something did happen, it would make things worse for her.

I’ve never been back to Thailand. No desire to go back to Thailand. I started working again as an electrician and I got back on my feet. But that was the worst thing to ever happen to me. Meeting her, all she cared about was money and money and money. And while I tried my best to support her and help her, what she did was worse than anything. So be very careful that something like that doesn’t happen to you.

Story 2 Early Retirement in Thailand and the Relationship That Cost $110,000

The thing that I always liked most about Thailand is that people from just about everywhere can just get along and exist in harmony together. To me, it felt like a place where you could be from anywhere and it didn’t matter. Nobody judged anybody else for their differences and it made such a nice change to where I was from. I loved to be able to walk around any part of Thailand, but mainly the tourist destinations and to be able to see so many people from so many different walks of life, from so many different countries, all enjoying Thailand for what it had to offer.

This is how I felt back in 2015. When I went for the first time, I felt alive in the moment because I no longer felt like I was living somewhere where people valued other people based on how they looked and how they thought. Thailand seemed to have done a very good job to be able to remove that sense of division that we had. And it was because of that that I actually decided to retire early the following year in 2016. Thailand had rubbed off on me and made me feel like I no longer wanted to go through the daily grind back at home. I was 52 years old when I went for the first time, 53 when I retired, and I couldn’t wait to live somewhere where anybody could just be without worrying about what anybody else thought.

I know many people have different opinions about Thailand and how things should be done there, but that’s one of the things that I never understood. Thailand was never my country, and I understood well enough to know that it would never be my country. But if I behaved myself and followed the rules, I would have a place there, albeit as a kind of outsider, but a willing outsider who was grateful to the country of Thailand for allowing me to be there in the first place.

I found the process of getting my retirement visa and extension extremely painless. And I use an agent to do my 90-day reports, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. And the fact that it was only once a year, I was prepared to do that. And I wasn’t about to complain about it because I knew what the rules were when I arrived. I’m not trying to be somebody who fails to see anything negative about anything.

There were things in Thailand that I didn’t like, but the things in Thailand that I didn’t like were far exceeded by the things I did like and also the things I didn’t like in my own country. They were all minor in comparison and were a complete non-issue. I think though it’s worthwhile talking about how everything turned out for me.

I thought I was doing everything the most sensible way possible. I really did. I didn’t know that there were certain people who would use this against me to destroy me or should I say a certain person. And I didn’t do anything the same way that many guys do. And that’s one of the hardest things that I have to actually live with. The fact that I thought I was doing everything right. I thought I was going in with an abundance of caution. That just because I didn’t meet a girl in a bar or a massage parlor or any place of the sort, just because she was not very much younger than I was, that didn’t count for anything.

I think one of the issues is that many people telling their stories perhaps are not able to articulate the brutal honesty of relationships like this and I didn’t even get into a relationship with a bar girl as I said or anything like that. What I did was sensible. At least I thought it was. I didn’t know that there was such cunning, ruthlessness, and vindictiveness. I didn’t know there was such ruthlessness out there that went far beyond that of a common lady of the night.

A Working Life and the Finances Behind Early Retirement

Life was always very good to me until it wasn’t. I managed to do a lot of amazing things that I’m very proud of and very thankful for. But Thailand, I guess, was my mistake. As soon as I left university, I started living the life I thought I would always live.

I spent two years volunteering in East Africa where I developed a love of different cultures and different peoples and different ways of life. It was a full volunteering gig, not one of these that you pay money to a charity and most of it goes in salaries. This was 100% money going towards the people that needed it the most. And the reason I wanted to do this was in a way to give back something before I started my own journey at making a living. I was lucky that I had a great upbringing, that I wasn’t from poverty, and that I had the ability to go to a good school and a good university and get a good degree. So, it only felt right to give something back.

After my volunteering work, I next had to spend a bit of time thinking about my career path. I hadn’t yet decided what I wanted to do, but I did have an economics degree, but I wasn’t wanting to work in a bank. That was something just that wasn’t me and I kind of just fell into the work that I ended up doing for the next 30 years of my life.

It was decent work. I enjoyed it. I made okay money at it and it provided me with a good life which meant that by retirement age, given the fact that I discovered Thailand and my money would go further there, I had enough money saved up and it was my intention to just live off the passive income that this would provide.

I’m just trying to paint a picture of myself as a guy who wasn’t someone who thought he was the bee’s knees. I was just a regular guy, worked hard his whole life, and wanted to spend some time in retirement at a young enough age to be able to enjoy myself before I couldn’t even walk anymore. One thing that I learned from my father, who worked himself to death, was that he was always wanting that little bit more money before he would retire. He hit his targets and he’d want that bit more and that bit more and he never got the chance to enjoy retirement. So that was always at the front of my mind when I was making big life decisions.

I owned my own house, but I did sell that because I didn’t want the trouble of having to be a landlord. I also felt a bit dirty by renting out a property to someone as if in any other situation they wouldn’t rather own it themselves. But property got so expensive that I didn’t want to be one of those people who made money from people who didn’t have enough money to buy their own place. So that’s why I sold my house and just invested in some financial products that would give me a reasonable rate of return. That should give me a reasonable retirement. Nothing too special about me, nothing unique about me, just a typical guy who had a typical life that he was so thankful for, about to start my next chapter in the country of Thailand because of all the reasons that I’ve already described.

A Motorcycle Tour of Thailand and Retiring in Phuket

When I’d been to visit Thailand in 2015, I’d been all over the country. I spent 3 months there in total, and the longer I stayed there, the more I fell in love with the country. I rented a motorcycle for the whole 3 months. I was always someone who loved riding, so I got a decent Honda touring bike up in the north, Chiang Mai, and made my way a bit further up north to Chiang Rai before touring down south through a number of the provinces, many not on the tourist trail, making my way to Bangkok, which was an experience riding there. Then I went further south in the direction of Cambodia, which would see me going through Pattaya, Koh Chang, and arriving at the Cambodian border before going back up again and round the other way all the way down to Phuket.

It was the trip of a lifetime. I saw so much of the country, learned so much about it, and along the way, I didn’t meet one person from Thailand who was unfriendly, unkind, or unwelcoming. And I still think that most people in Thailand are some of the world’s friendliest. They will go above and beyond to make you feel welcome in the country. I didn’t spend time in bars. I mean, a few beers after a long ride always came in handy, but I tried to keep a distance from the nightlife scene because it just wasn’t something that interested me remotely.

I did get used to seeing lots of foreign guys with younger Thai girls. That’s something that you will see all over the country of Thailand. And nobody gives them funny looks or judges them. And again, one of the great things about Thailand, people could just be and do as they please as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone else. While it wasn’t my scene to enjoy the nightlife side of Thailand, I had no issue with other people enjoying it if that’s what they wanted to do.

But it was in Phuket when the holiday to Thailand became more than just a holiday to Thailand. It was when I really fell in love with the country and just about everything that it stood for. I used to think about walking around the streets back where I was from. I was having these thoughts when I was walking around Phuket, and back where I was from, there was always tension in the air. There was always worry that something was going to kick off. You always felt uncomfortable where I was from.

But in Thailand, you didn’t feel like that. Everyone could just be at one with each other. And there were none of these political things that we have to deal with at home. We’re taught to fear people from certain places. We’re taught to judge people from other places. In Thailand, you’re so free to be able to just do what you wanted while somebody from somewhere else could do the same thing. That’s what made Thailand great.

It was in Phuket when I started to have the feelings that I decided I wanted to retire early because Thailand could give me everything that I would want in retirement and I was even open to the possibility of meeting someone and having someone to spend my time with. And I guess that was where I made my first mistake because I thought that by not looking in the bars or any place like that, I thought that I would have more success. But that wasn’t at the front of my mind yet. This was just one of the things you think about when you have all these thoughts rushing through your head at the same time. I felt excited again. I think that’s the thing.

And when I got home, I started putting everything in place. And then I had decided that I was going to live in Phuket. And in 2016, I arrived in retirement. And it was probably the most exhilarating point of my life. First things first, I needed a place to live. And I just took a place on a month-by-month basis, even though it cost me a little bit more money because I didn’t really know which part of the island I wanted to live in. But I immediately felt right at home. It didn’t take me any amount of time to settle in, no amount of time to get used to being there. As soon as I was there, I felt like I’d been there forever. And that only gave me even stronger thoughts about the fact that retiring early was the best decision I made.

During that first month, I was just enjoying retirement. I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t going out every night getting drunk. And while I had drinks occasionally, that was usually just to go along with the meal. I did decide that I would like to be able to meet someone and spend time with someone who perhaps was at a similar point in their life to me. Somebody who I could spend my days with, somebody who I could add to my retirement, and in return I could add to their lives. I was thinking about a relationship as an equal partnership just as you would in your own country. And I don’t know if that was another mistake I made thinking that a relationship like this was available in Thailand to somebody like me.

Dating Online and Travelling to Bangkok to Meet Her

With that in mind, I joined a dating site and I kept it open for the whole of Thailand. I was retired and I was good to travel anywhere and travel was something I was most excited about doing in retirement. I couldn’t wait to go and see different parts of the country that I hadn’t yet seen. I thought about buying my own bike and doing an even bigger tour. But these were all ideas I was having and I wasn’t rushing into anything.

I felt it was quite easy to approach people on dating sites and I was approached multiple times as well. And I thought it was quite apparent if somebody wasn’t looking for something serious and they were just doing other sorts of things. I wasn’t interested in that. And I did go on a few dates with girls in Phuket. I never really felt anything other than it seemed that they were only interested in one thing alone, and that definitely wasn’t me.

I was only going to be meeting girls over the age of 35. I was thinking early 40s would be the perfect age for me because I wasn’t about to get into a relationship with someone so young that we’d have nothing in common. Again, you can be thinking you’ve got the best ideas. You can be thinking you’re being careful and everything that goes along with that. But still, when someone sends you a message who’s living up in Bangkok, who’s working in an office, two kids who are already grown up, and she was 41 years old, I thought it was more than worthwhile going to Bangkok to actually meet her in person because we chatted for a bit online, and she seemed to be the sort of person that I could get along with.

At this point, I’d been in Phuket for about 2 months. I’d been on a few dates, but nothing more serious than that. And this was going to be my first time going somewhere else since retirement had started. And I couldn’t wait to get to Bangkok, a city that still makes me stand still and actually understand how fortunate I am to be able to experience such a wonderful place.

I was flying up to Bangkok in 3 days’ time. So, until then, we didn’t really chat much apart from to confirm the date. And I was excited to be seeing something and doing something different. That’s what retirement’s all about, after all. And I was caught up in just how amazing it was to be a new retiree, living such a different life than I was living back at home.

I flew up to Bangkok a day before we’d scheduled a date. I booked a really nice hotel quite close to the river, very close to the ghost tower, which was a building I would have done anything to have been able to climb to the top of like so many guys did before. But I wasn’t about to go trespassing or do anything illegal. I loved that part of Bangkok. I would probably say it was my favorite part of the city. You could walk a bit further and end up in Chinatown, which was amazing.

But the date was actually arranged for a place in Asok. I spent my first evening just enjoying Chinatown, having some great grilled prawns along the street. And the following day, I walked to the nearest underground station, which was actually quite a long way from where I was. Probably a bad idea given the fact that I was going on a date and now I was dripping with sweat, but it was Thailand and that’s what happened. And I did wear proper clothing color so that the sweat wouldn’t show up, which was at least one thing.

I got to the underground, which is called the MRT in Thailand. I got off at the Sukhumvit Station and walked about 500 meters, which I would say would be in the direction of the next MRT station. I think that one was called Phetchaburi. And it was around here that we were meeting at 1:00 p.m. at a little Japanese sushi restaurant, a place that she’d picked out.

A First Date in Bangkok and a Growing Connection

I was half an hour early. I don’t know what it was, but when it came time for me to go anywhere, I always ended up arriving so early that I would end up having to wait a long time. But it just so happened that she was early as well. And it was a bit strange meeting her because I felt like I’d already developed feelings for her before I’d even seen her. Not over the top or anything extreme, but she just seemed to be on a similar life path to me. I suppose I didn’t have kids, but I did work in an office just like she was doing.

This was a weekend, so she wasn’t working. And we both recognized each other straight away when we met. We took a seat at a table in the restaurant, which was very busy at the time. It added to the atmosphere, I thought. I always loved those places in Thailand where you could go and it was always busy and you know it’s popular. I felt like it made the experience even more exciting.

From there, we just started talking as you would do on any date and I did feel an immediate connection with her and I kind of felt like she felt the same thing with me. I told her that I’d retired and how I was living in Phuket, but I was open to anything because that’s what retirement was for.

And she went on to talk about how at 41 she had two kids, as I already knew. They were both grown up. She had them when she was very young. She didn’t need to support them anymore. And she was separated from the father of her kids over 15 years ago. And she was just working what she described as a boring office job where she didn’t earn a lot of money. At least she said because she didn’t have a university degree. She just said she made calls for a company, made outgoing calls. That just sounded like a normal, respectable job.

We both shared our own dreams as well about what we’d like to do in the future. And I said that I was already living my dream and she said it was her dream when she retired to go and live on the island of Koh Chang and maybe open a little place there. That was very specific. I thought I’d been there before when I did my motorcycle tour and I liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite place. But she just said that she had a great time there once with her kids a long time ago and it was a moment that she cherished, so that was why she said it. We didn’t go there, by the way. It’s just the things you share on a first date to get to know each other.

The thing was, I wanted more than just a first date with her. And she did as well. It was great though to just go on a normal date where she didn’t expect anything from me. And she knew that I didn’t expect anything from her, just normal. Was it too normal? It could have been, but I didn’t know anything about her. We arranged a date for the following evening after she’d finished work. I left from that date feeling energized, but it was clear what the intentions of those dates were from the girls I met. But with her, it was a lot more comfortable and real somehow.

We met up the following evening and spoke at length, and the following week in a row, we kept meeting up every day. We’re at the stage now where I’m paying for a date, and then she’s insisting that she would pay for the next one. I didn’t let her do that because she said she didn’t make a lot of money, but she did appear to have a reasonable amount of money based on what she was wearing and the bag she had and the phone she had, but she didn’t really want to give too much away about her job and what she did exactly. I would later find out why. I know she didn’t work in a bar or anything like that, which seems to be the most typical form of deceit, but that’s completely beside the point.

I wasn’t expecting to stay in Bangkok for so long, but after we’d been on all those different dates for over a week, I had to go back to Phuket to do some things. And we spoke every single day, probably a few hours a day when I was there, and it became clear that it felt like we had something that could turn into something better, something long-term, something meaningful.

Moving to Bangkok and Living Together

So, I decided to go and spend another week in Bangkok, see her as much as possible, and if it got to the point where I liked her, then I could move to Bangkok and see more of her there. None of this moving in together straight away. None of this telling her to stop working and I’ll support her. This was nothing close to what this relationship started off as. It just seemed to be two people who had found each other who were interested in each other.

During that weekend in Bangkok, we did spend more time. And because I’d only booked for a week, I was due to go back to Phuket. And we sort of talked with each other and I said, “Well, I’m going to move up to Bangkok. I can give up my place anytime because I only took it for a month for this very reason.” So, let’s take a place in Bangkok for a month, see how it goes from there. We both thought that that would be the best idea.

So, I returned to Phuket, spent a few days there, got most of my things, and went back to Bangkok where I rented a place for a month and started living, seeing her as much as possible. At 41, she didn’t look 41. She looked 31. And I’m not exaggerating or trying to say anything other than I found her very attractive. Just over 10 years younger than me as well, so I thought that was very appropriate.

During all this time, nothing has happened over and above just going on dates with each other, going out to eat, going for a few drinks, talking, and going our separate ways after the date. I wasn’t there to rush. I wasn’t one of those guys who couldn’t control themselves. But when you hear about all these guys who do these ridiculous things and end up losing that money, I suppose they did have a very good time along the way. And while I’m having a good time, I’m just trying to be as respectable and decent as possible, considering that we’re both equals who both deserve to be respected by each other.

Things did get more serious after I’d spent 2 weeks in Bangkok. She came back to my place for the first time and I did have very strong feelings for her and she was the one who professed love for me first. From that moment, we kind of became inseparable. As her kids were grown up, she was just living in a small apartment a few Skytrain stations away from her office and the place I rented was closer to her office. So it just kind of happened that she started living with me and I took the place for a longer lease which gave me a better rate for 6 months and she gave up her place and she was continuing to go to work every day.

She would bring back dinner in the evenings after she’d worked and I wasn’t giving her any money in terms of financial support and sometimes she would treat me to a meal out and it just felt like what a normal relationship would feel like.

This went on all through to the end of 2016. Retirement’s going great. The relationship’s going even better. But the only thing I’m not really liking much is the fact that I’m living in central Bangkok, an amazing city that I love so much. But it was quite difficult on a day-to-day basis just to do anything or go anywhere because of just how busy it was. And I wasn’t used to that constant activity happening all around you. It wore me out even though I wasn’t working.

And it was because of that I started thinking about the possibility of her leaving her job and for both of us to move to a different place in Thailand that was a bit more relaxing, a bit more conducive to a comfortable environment where you didn’t feel pressure being thrown at you from every angle.

Planning Marriage and Agreeing to a Million-Baht Sin Sod

I didn’t raise it with her yet, but by March 2017, I did feel like I would spend the rest of my life with her and we decided to get married. And I did raise the point about her leaving work. Then we could move somewhere and just live the retired life. She could retire early. I retired early and she’d only be retiring 10 years before I did. So, it wasn’t like she was 20 years old and I expected her to be at my every beck and call. This was a completely different situation. But what we did agree was that she would work for three more months. We would get married, which would involve doing everything the Thai way in the village that she was from, just on the outskirts of Ayutthaya, a city about an hour north of Bangkok.

Those 3 months pass. The more that time goes by, the more I’m feeling in love with her, the more we seem to go well together, and the more things we seem to have in common. The having-things-in-common thing seemed to be exactly how I saw it. But I did get to the point where I wasn’t sure if she did actually have anything in common with me or she was just pretending to. But at this moment in time, I can’t believe how my retirement is going as well as it is.

My investments are more than covering my living expenses, but I did know I would have to spend a bit of money for the wedding. But I was prepared to do that. And I did know that if she no longer worked, my investments would have to provide for our lifestyle. But there was nothing to indicate that that wouldn’t be possible based on how much money was coming to me, about $20,000 per year that I got as income, and I was more than happy with it.

When it was time for us to go and get married, I had not yet been to visit her family before. Both her parents were getting on in years given the fact that she was already 42. We hadn’t really talked about anything other than the fact that I would need to pay for the wedding until the time came when we were actually going to be going. And then she started talking about the good old sin sod, which I’d heard about, but not expected that it would have any effect on me because I was getting into a relationship with someone when we were both quite old. But when we were due to go the following day, that is, she brought up how this would be something that I would need to pay to the family and it was going to be a million baht.

I was really alarmed when she hit me with this and it was the way that she said it like this is something you don’t have a choice with. Do you want to lose everything we’ve got and everything we’ve got together and what everything we’ve made together? But she’s not saying it in a way like that. She’s not forcing it on me. It’s just as if it’s one of those things that we both have to accept if we want to get married. And this is what it is. I can either accept it or not. And if not, then she would be really upset because she doesn’t want to lose me.

She never asked for any money from me before for anything. I’d paid when we went out together and she’d paid on some occasions. She was working up until this point and had just quit the job. She’d never asked for an allowance, never asked for money for the family, never asked for anything at all. I don’t think there was one occasion throughout the whole time from when I met her until this very point in time when she’d asked for any money or anything of the sort.

I think that’s why when I got over the initial shock that such a large amount of money was going to be required so that we could even get married, when I got over that initial shock, I started to think that it was only one payment. She had never asked for money before. And if I was like many guys who had relationships, the amount of money that they could have spent over the relationship could be that much anyway. So, I took everything that happened in our relationship up until this point to mean something. This is a one-off. We’re getting married. We’re solidifying our love for each other. And if this is what it takes, it’s only a minor thing, and I will pay it because I feel like I want to be with her for the rest of my life.

I know I should have thought about it a lot more. Maybe sought advice from somewhere. Maybe actually looked into the bigger picture because under normal circumstances it’s not normal to pay that amount of money for someone who’s already in her 40s and who has kids. It’s not normal and I didn’t do any research though into that to understand it wasn’t.

I was just too bought into the fact that I thought I’d found a girl who wasn’t after money. I thought I’d done everything in the correct way that I agreed that I would pay this money and once it was agreed we just went back to normal conversations. I did manage to put it to the back of my mind and I was quite happy to be going the following morning to her village. It’s only going to take us about an hour and a half to get there.

I had to take a cash advance from my credit card to get all that money and I had to dip into my investments to pay that back, but it wasn’t going to make much of a difference. I just considered it to be a one-off. But I did also decide based on things that we talked about that I would buy a motorcycle and before we decided where to live, we would do a very big tour of the country and that would be the only thing I would pay for aside from getting married. We had plans to be on the road for a long time which was exciting to think about. But first things first, it was getting married.

The Village Wedding and Questions About the Sin Sod

So we went the following day to the village just in a taxi since it wasn’t that far. And there were people there getting things ready. We were actually going to be getting married the following day. When that day came, there weren’t very many people there like I expected. There was her mother and father and a few other people in the family. The kids didn’t come and it was a very, very small affair. I’d heard of village ceremonies before where the entire village shows up. They bring cards with money in and everyone gets to see this marriage and witness us being together.

But this was completely different to that. Probably 10 people in total were there as well as me and her. But I was okay with that because I didn’t spend any time to think about, you know, is there anything wrong with the situation. It was presented to me like that and I did everything that was requested of me.

I handed over the money which was all in cash and everything seemed to be good. It didn’t last very long though, a few months there, but aside from that, it was very nondescript in terms of a marriage. The following day, we arranged transport back to Bangkok. And one thing that I didn’t even question, and perhaps I should have, was that the million baht cash was now with my wife. I thought this was meant to go to the family. And she just said that she was going to put it in the bank and send it to her family when she got back to Bangkok.

I didn’t question that, as in why couldn’t they pay it into the bank themselves, just thinking that they were in a village location and they might not be very good at banks and financial institutions. So, I’m putting all that to one side in my thoughts and didn’t really think anything of the fact, you know, when I arrived, I was carrying the cash. When we left, she was carrying the cash. And when we got back, she just said she’s going to put it in the bank and send it to her family, and that was it. There was no way to know if she actually did that or not.

But I guess she probably didn’t and she just somehow managed to get a million baht out of me, which was not very good. Perhaps she said to her family that the sin sod was a small amount. But this was just a show to make it look good and they, you know, we want it back. That could have happened. I’ve heard about that before. And I do think that’s probably the most likely thing.

I bet she spoke to her parents who would have been happy with, you know, anything 100,000 baht. And she wanted to make things look good and somehow pocket this money and then I think about the whole situation of her never asking for money from me. Would I have actually lost a million baht if I’d given her money you know up until that point and not given her that million? Probably not. And then it’s the things that you don’t understand and recognize until it gets to a point of being too late.

Married Life and Touring Koh Chang, Isan and Northern Thailand

But aside from that, we were both really happy to be married. And there is no indication that she’s trying to do anything other than be my wife. We only did the village ceremony because I had the retirement visa and there was no point getting married on paper. It felt like it was going to be unnecessary. I didn’t have anyone to leave anything else to apart from her. So, she’d be in my will anyway. That’s all I was thinking about, although not much. Didn’t seem that we needed to actually do everything on paper. So, we didn’t and we just started our life as a married couple.

I was supporting her now, but she’s not overly asking for anything. I mean, she never asked for anything from me. She doesn’t want an allowance. She just says, “When we go out, I can pay. When we go shopping, I can pay. And if she needs something, I can pay.” She’s not going to take money from me. And again, I just saw that as her respecting me and both our positions in the relationship.

We spent about a month together in Bangkok and that was when I went and bought a bike, my dream bike, a Honda Africa Twin, because we talked about and discussed for a very long time how I dreamed to travel around Thailand. And we decided that we would do that, you know, with no end in sight. My income would be enough to cover it. We’re just going to be staying in normal hotels, eating normal food, just getting to know the country as well as possible. Having a good time along the way as a newly married couple would be the bonus. And again, I thought that what I was doing was how I should be doing it.

When we set off on the bike, that was a very special moment. It’s one thing to go on a tour knowing when it’s going to come to an end, but another thing altogether different when there’s no end in sight in a good way, and you don’t quite know how things are going to turn out or where you’re going to end up from one day to the next. Because she talked about Koh Chang before, that was the first place we decided to go to. We did stop off for a night in Pattaya first which was fun and then we made the ride down to Koh Chang the following day.

It didn’t take too long to get there and it was just so fun to be on the bike. She liked sitting on the back and we just took it easy. Full protective clothing and helmets and everything you need, stopping off anytime we needed to stop off and not rushing.

When we got to the island, it was great. She showed me the place that she had fond memories of and talked about how she’d love to be able to live there. But again, it’s one of those conversations you have where anyone can say that they’d love to do something and that’s fine. But actually doing it, it was quite clear that we weren’t going to be doing that. But I could see the appeal.

We spent 3 days there having a great time. And from there, we went north through Chantaburi and made our way into Isan, which was a part of the country I’d not been to before. I suppose we spent about a month in total, stopping off at various towns and cities along the way. I’m in my absolute happy place, riding with my new wife, who I’m in love with and who I think is in love with me as well. And we’re visiting new places and traveling. This is the retirement that I’d envisaged and it was actually happening and I felt very fortunate about that.

Next, we went up to a few of the northern cities. Chiang Mai, where we spent a week not riding at all, and a few of the other places around there, from Chiang Rai to Pao and my first time in Meong, which was a really great experience. Pai was fun, very different to anywhere else I’d been in Thailand. And that was our last stopoff point before heading down south.

Visiting Ayutthaya and Considering a House Near Her Family

The idea was to do a big ride, make our way to Nakhon Sawan, spend a night there before going to visit her family in Ayutthaya. The idea was to spend a few days there and then slowly make our way down to the Malaysian border. It was going to be the longest part of the ride and we both couldn’t wait to do it.

We followed that plan and we were staying in a small hotel quite close to her village for a week and actually she was just visiting her family and a few friends in the area and I was just enjoying myself, taking everything in, thinking about everything that I was doing and how fortunate I was while at the same time pinching myself to actually think that this was my retirement and I could do this all the time.

I was just so happy with things and we’d been there probably one or two days when she said that when the trip was over, how about if we actually lived here instead, maybe we could have our own place, we don’t need to rent in Bangkok and throw that money away, and then we could move and do more trips from here instead.

I listened very intently to what she was saying. It seemed to be an idea that I wasn’t going to say no to because I’d heard so many times before, you know, the rent thing, the rent would no longer be required. So, although the income might be less because of that, it wouldn’t really matter because we’d have the same amount of money to live on anyway. I hadn’t given up the place in Bangkok when we were doing this tour. I’ve got so many things I couldn’t just give it up. So, I was still paying rent even though we hadn’t been there. And that would actually always be the case.

I started warming to the idea. She wasn’t forcing it on me, though. She wasn’t forcing it down my throat. It was just raised as being one of many possibilities, and I hadn’t said yes or no by the time we left for what would be our first time back in Bangkok since we set off. And all throughout the drive, I was thinking about being based somewhere as beautiful and as peaceful as that, using that as a point to go off on our many adventures. Because of the no rent situation, it shouldn’t affect my retirement in any way. And I was warming to the idea.

I was the one who brought it up again when we were in Bangkok. I brought it up saying, “Let’s think about it more. Let’s look up what potential houses could be like that we could get for the price equivalent of how much money that provides.”

We spent a few days looking around in Bangkok at different examples. Although this wouldn’t be in Bangkok, it quickly became clear that we could have a nice three-bedroom house as well as a nice outside area and even enough money for a car. That’s when the idea started to appeal. But we were on our tour and she wasn’t forcing anything or trying to make me hurry with the decision. It was just a slow-moving thing that we talked about for a long time.

We left Bangkok to do the next leg of our adventure and I do feel so fortunate that I’m able to be living like this. We made our way next to Hua Hin where we planned to spend a week, maybe a bit longer, just exploring that part of the country and the surrounding areas. It was great to be there because it was a place that I always loved. We were talking about the house from time to time, but we’d not come to a decision yet.

Deciding on Koh Samui to Build a House and Paying $80,000

We left Hua Hin going further down south over the next few weeks, stopping off at places along the way. And it was actually when we were on the island of Koh Samui when I decided that the house would be the best thing to do. It would be a lot more comfortable than living in a condo in Bangkok. As I already said early on, I didn’t really like how busy it was in Bangkok, and the idea of living there permanently was something that I wasn’t all too keen on. Also, it was a situation of where else to live, what to do, and we don’t need to pay rent. So, okay, I think we can go for it.

And we were on the island, so we decided to leave the bike parked up, fly to Bangkok, go to her village, get everything arranged in terms of the land that would need transferring from her mother to her. Then, once the land was arranged, I would leave everything to her. She can find a company to build a house, and then we can continue our tour. We still had so much to see and do. And I was also hoping to go back up north again because when we were there, we didn’t have the best weather.

So that’s exactly what we did. A flight to Bangkok, up to the village. We spent a week or so there and it got to the point where the land was registered in her name. I went to the land office in order to, you know, witness it, not thinking that I wouldn’t trust her, but I wanted to be there just to see what the process was like because it fascinated me.

Then we looked at more examples of houses around the area, and the figure that kept coming up for a basic 3-bedroom single-story house would be approximately the equivalent of $70,000. Plus, we would need to spend another 20,000 on top of that, which meant that to play everything safe, if we allocated $100,000, which at the time I was getting about 5% on, $5,000 a year, that was basically the rent that I was paying in Bangkok.

So, it didn’t feel like we would be reducing our quality of life. If anything, it felt like we would be increasing our quality of life. It didn’t feel like a sacrifice. It felt like it was something for our future. We’d have a great place to live, very close to Bangkok, and it would be the perfect place to use as a base for our other adventures because we planned to do so many more. But once everything was agreed to, I cashed out some of my investments to the tune of $80,000. I would do the rest later when it came time to furnish it, and I gave it to my wife and left her firmly in charge.

After that, we went back to Bangkok, flew back to Samui, spent a few days there celebrating the idea of our house and left further down south. Over the next few weeks, maybe a whole month actually, we had a great time and eventually got to Phuket, which was where I planned to live if I never met her. She’d been contacting multiple people. She said she’d found a contractor. She paid the money and they were just waiting for a date when they were finally going to start and it was exciting. Things were looking promising. I was really looking forward to things and I was just leaving everything up to her because she was the local and she seemed to know what she was doing.

Friends in Phuket and the Missing House Money

I wanted to spend a whole month in Phuket, which we did. And it was during that time that a few of her friends from Bangkok just so happened to be visiting for a 3-day holiday. Three girls who also worked in the same office that she worked in. She said she really wanted to meet up with them and said I should come along as well. I thought I should just let her go and see her friends herself, but she insisted. She said it would be fun to introduce me to them because they were still working and she’d like me to go, too.

So, when the time came, we went to a great restaurant and she saw her friends in the distance already sat down. And you know when a Thai person sees someone else, they shriek or squeal in excitement, run over and hug each other, and they’re all talking in Thai as fast as they can. I’m not picking up much Thai yet, but I’m understanding some words.

We had a great meal, two bottles of wine, and then it was, “Well, we’re going out for some more drinks. Let’s go.” I was never a huge drinker, although I like to drink, so I agreed to go and would just take it easy on the alcohol and let my wife have a good time with her friends. I was always up for seeing new things and experiencing new things.

We went to this small Thai-style place which was quite quiet and peaceful. The drinks are flowing and they’re getting more lively and the conversation’s getting more exciting. And I think it was around this time when I said to one of her friends who all spoke English, you know, “how’s work?” I hadn’t really spoken to my wife much about it apart from, you know, she said she made calls and this friend said that it was great. She made a bit of a cheeky laugh saying that she’d just closed a big deal in investment to someone and she’d made a lot of money out of it and she was the one treating the other two friends to this trip.

I didn’t know what she meant by that and I didn’t care to push. But when I spoke to my wife about it later, I started to think that perhaps this job of hers was a little bit dishonest in nature. I think that’s the best way to think about it. She just said that she sold investments to people. What kind of investments? Just investments.

But my wife didn’t appear to be someone who was qualified to sell investments or offer investment advice. But again, I didn’t think anything of it. It would be later when I would start to put all the pieces together and think, especially with everything that’s going on in Thailand today and in the neighboring countries, that perhaps this was something similar to that. I didn’t think this at the time, though.

Her friends left. We spent more time in Phuket. She’s always talking to people about the house, and I’m thinking that construction had already started. We made our way further down south to a few other locations, places that I was a bit apprehensive going to based on the reputation and news that you hear from the far south of Thailand. I loved Hat Yai as a city. That was interesting. That was until we’d been there for about 5 days and my wife had gone out to have her hair done.

I was just relaxing in the hotel and she came back with a very sad and shocked expression, saying that there’s been a big problem with the house. What’s happened? I was thinking it was going to be something minor. I thought construction had already started, but she just said that the construction company that she found, which she’d already paid, had taken all the money and she can’t contact them.

That was not what I was expecting to hear. The first thing I said is, “Okay, go and report it.” And she said she already had and it’s just a waiting game until we hear anything more. I said, “How much of the house is done?” And she said that nothing had been done. They hadn’t even started and they’d taken the money. This was $80,000 we’re talking about. It’s all gone. And she’s doing her best to try and sort it out. And she’s sorry, but it looks like there might be a problem. Then she said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll do everything I can to make it right. and let’s just try to enjoy ourselves in the meantime.”

That was easier said than done. And from that moment on, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore because all I was thinking about was what was going on with the house. And she’s saying that she’s dealing with it and sorting it out. And I’m upset and worrying about things. And you know, I think it was this time that we made it back to Bangkok. I was really panicking because she just kept saying, “soon, soon we’ll find out.”

The Claimed Bankruptcy and the Relationship Breaking Down

Then she said she’s going up to her village by herself. She said it was better to go herself because if a foreigner was involved it might make things more difficult. So I let her go by herself and I’m just staying in Bangkok not understanding what’s going on.

She goes up and we’re speaking for quite a long time and I’m starting to get angry and concerned and worried. Then she’s getting angry with me for getting angry. She’s getting upset with me for getting upset. She said she’s trying her best to sort it out. She’s been to the Middle East. She’s done everything about it. And she said, “The problem is that this company has gone bankrupt and there’s nothing we can do about it because they haven’t actually scammed us. They took the money, they had some problems, and they’ve gone bankrupt.” And it was the company, not a person. And just coming up with excuses basically as to why we can’t do anything about it.

I’m telling her, “don’t be stupid. We need to do something about it. I’m going to come up.” And she said, “No, you can’t because I’ve already done anything. We can’t do anything about it. I’m so sorry. we can’t do anything.” And she just said, “I’m going to come back to Bangkok and we can talk about it.” I’m in absolute panic mode like I’ve never been before. I don’t understand how things can go so wrong. But from everything she said, it’s like we can’t do anything about this.

She arrives back in Bangkok the following day. She’s apologetic, saying she’s sorry, but this company has gone bankrupt and there’s no chance to get the money and we can’t cause problems for the family in the area because everybody knows everybody. If we try to do anything, the whole family could fall apart. And she’s sorry about it, but there’s nothing we can do. I’m so upset and angry about things, as you would expect. And that’s how I felt for a long time, just trying to come to terms with this. And she’s using that to keep saying to me to stop being angry. “I don’t like you acting like this.”

And what actually happened across the course of the next month was we drifted apart substantially because I can’t do anything because I’m a foreigner. And my wife, who at this point I trusted implicitly, had never wanted anything from me apart from the money for the marriage and the house. Now, it seems like something’s gone wrong somewhere, and it’s not her fault. And that’s what I’m currently thinking. But because I’m so upset and angry, she’s not liking it, and she’s saying to me that “we can’t continue like this if you don’t calm down.”

While I was still able to live in terms of a retirement, there was a big difference in what I had now coming in on a monthly basis, and we couldn’t tour around anymore. We couldn’t do that on the budget we had anymore and we couldn’t stay in the same kind of places. So, I was having such a bad time and it all came about one day when she just said that she was leaving. We weren’t married legally. But me being upset and worried about things was an excuse for her to leave. And at this point, I still hadn’t made any conclusions about what the situation was or what had actually happened. I was still thinking that everything was just a really unfortunate stroke of bad luck.

Why would I think it was anything other than a stroke of bad luck? It didn’t make sense to me that it would have been anything other than that. But the fact that she didn’t try to support me through the time like I would have supported her through the time if it was the other way round, she left. And although I could contact her a few times after that, it got to the point where she didn’t really answer her phone. And I’m still there in that same place in Bangkok that I shouldn’t be renting anymore, no wife anymore, and I’ve lost $110,000 including the sin sod money. And I can’t do anything about it.

That was when I had the lowest point of my life because after speaking to a few friends, after reading information online, I started to actually think that she’d set the whole thing up. But there was no way for me to prove it. When I contacted her again multiple times before she answered and asked her, “Did you set this up?” She just said, “Don’t be stupid. Why would I do that? I love you, but you’re acting in a very strange way. I can’t stay with you anymore. If you act normally, I want to stay with you, but you’re not acting normally.”

So again, there was nothing I could do about it. I mean, without it costing me a lot of money, and that could have been wasted for nothing as well. I gave up on her from that moment because it was clear that she didn’t want to stay with me anymore. And I was coming to terms with everything that I was finding out about how this was probably a setup all along.

Suspecting a Setup and Continuing Retirement Elsewhere

I actually wanted to go to the company where she worked to find out more information, but I didn’t even know which building it was in or what the company was called. After multiple sleepless nights, lots of digging, and lots of me coming to my own conclusions, I started to think that I was 100% right in the belief that she did sell scam investments as a job, and she did deliberately scam me out of both the sin sod money and the house money.

I don’t believe her family were remotely involved with this. In fact, I would bet money that her family weren’t in on this because they were decent, respectable people who would never think of doing something like that. But what I think happened with the sin sod was she agreed a lesser amount and she spoke to her parents about me or her wanting the family to look good with a large amount and you know he wants the money back kind of thing, but she took it for herself instead and maybe gave her parents a token amount. That’s what I’m pretty sure happened there.

In terms of the house, I think she came up with an idea where I can pay, she can get the money, something can go wrong, and she can keep the money without me being able to do anything about it. I could have potentially done something about it, but it would have cost a lot of money. So, it wouldn’t have been worth it anyway because the chances are I would never have got any money back and I would have lost a lot more.

And then that conversation with her friend who worked for the same company talking about investments. I can’t see any world where what she was doing was a respectable investment deal. I don’t think that was the case. I’m very sure in fact that she had deliberately sold investments to people that she had no business selling.

And when you’re hearing today about all these call center scams that are happening in Thailand or on the outskirts of Thailand in the neighboring countries, international criminal gangs, this was, I think, before this happened because this was within an office in Thailand. It wasn’t on the borders. It wasn’t anything overly extreme like we hear about today. I don’t know how they set it up. I don’t know anything about what they did, but that is what I would bet the rest of my money on being the case.

From the start, she acted like the sort of girl that anybody would want to be with. Never wanted money, never wanted expensive gifts. She didn’t work in a bar. She didn’t work in a massage parlor. She didn’t do anything that appeared that she valued money as much as some of the girls that you see who will do anything for it. I gave her money two times. Once to get married and the other time for the house. But that amount, as I said, added up to $110,000, which is a lot of money. I am convinced that she played me.

After that though, I didn’t want to be in Thailand anymore. It was upsetting because it completely removed all the feelings I held for Thailand. I just wanted to be somewhere else. I wonder if she’s done it to other people. There’s a chance she has. I think that situation is rare though. It was just a very unfortunate one because it happened to me.

I’m now living my retired life in a different country which I shall not name. I have a good time but I have never got into another relationship since then because there’s always that risk there. There’s always a risk that something could go wrong and I don’t want to take that risk. I’m single. I will remain single and I guess I should be thankful that I can actually continue to live my life in retirement and I didn’t lose everything like so many unfortunate guys did.

Story 3 Moving to Thailand for a DevOps Job

I’d set the alarm to go off at 4:30 in the morning. I had to be at the airport by 11:00 and I was always someone that liked to make sure that I arrived in good time. As soon as I heard the alarm, I quickly reached over and turned it off before waking my girlfriend who was sleeping next to me. But it was already too late. She’d woken up and I kind of just looked at her with that sense of excitement like our lives were about to change for the better. We were going to be separated for around 2 months, but she was due to leave her job soon and join me where I was going.

I’d just been offered a job in Thailand. I worked in DevOps and one day when I was at work at lunchtime, that is, I was just looking at job postings in my industry and I happened across one for a job in Thailand. Without thinking much, I sent off my resume and didn’t expect to hear anything back. I got an email the following day inviting me for a video call. A week later, I was offered a job. And I remember being at work at the time and thinking, “This can’t be real. I’m sure there’s some kind of angle going on here where they’re trying to scam me because things like this don’t actually happen to somebody like me.” But it was actually real.

That evening, I told my girlfriend about it. I really wanted to go ahead with this because it felt like a really exciting and different adventure, for lack of a better term, and I just hoped my girlfriend would feel the same way. She worked as a nurse in a hospital close by, working for the NHS. I really didn’t know how she would take it. She took it better than I expected. She said that was an amazing thing to have happened and if I wanted to move to Thailand for that job, she would happily move there with me.

Everything was happening so fast. But after sitting on it for only a day really, after speaking to my family about it to see what they thought, I ultimately decided to take that job. And I was going to be starting in only a month’s time. Everything really was happening so fast. I was in my mid-40s, previously married but no kids, divorced at 40, now with my new girlfriend who I was planning to ask to marry me soon. And life was just coming together so well.

I gave my notice at work. My girlfriend did the same. However, she had to continue for an extra 2 months because she wanted to finish off some things she was doing. And we thought it would be a good idea if I went there first, found a place to live, got settled into work and made sure I liked it, and that if I did and everything was good, she could join me later.

It was one of the most exciting times of my life. Something that didn’t happen to somebody like me. Okay, I might have been paid a good salary when I was working at the job I was doing at the time, but it was in my hometown. I knew the roads to get to work like the back of my hand. I knew everything about it, everything to do with my hometown, and it didn’t excite me anymore. I mean, it never did. It kind of felt like I was walking towards a future that was almost predetermined and I didn’t want that. I wanted something completely different. And I guess that’s why I applied for that job in the first place.

Over the next month, I spoke to the company in Thailand regularly. It was a company that was under the Board of Investment in Thailand, which meant they could employ more foreigners than normal. There was no Thai-to-foreigner ratio. The thing I did for work seemed to be one of the things that foreigners were able to do in Thailand in terms of finding a job.

The day before I was due to fly out (they paid for my ticket), I had this sense of sheer excitement, and there really is no other way to describe it. I went out together with my girlfriend that evening, and I even asked her to marry me. I knew it was sooner than expected, but our lives seemed to be coming together so well. She said yes, and we thought, what better place to get married than in Thailand.

I really felt like we were on our way that morning. Although I tried my best not to wake my girlfriend, it was too late. I had a real sense of nervousness come over me because this was a big thing. I’d not been to Thailand before, although I had done a reasonable amount of traveling in my life. Thailand was always on the list, yet never moved ahead with. I took a shower and my girlfriend was struggling to get back to sleep and we went down to the kitchen together, had an early breakfast and I booked a taxi and waited.

The only thing my girlfriend said to me was, “Don’t do anything stupid during the next 2 months.” I looked at her like, “How dare you say something like that to me because that’s not the person who I was.” I promised I wouldn’t. And when I heard the taxi pull up outside, I headed towards it, kissing her goodbye and telling her that I can’t wait to see her in two months’ time.

Flying to Thailand and Settling into Work in Bangkok

Prior to this, the company had sent all the documents that I needed in order to apply for a business visa at the embassy, which I already had stamped in my passport. In the taxi, as we set off, still pitch black outside, I can remember envisaging what it was going to be like when I got there and when I started working in a completely different country. In a way, I felt young again, although that might not make sense. It was like life didn’t have to be the same anymore. It could be different and I was loving it.

Checking in for the flight, I handed them my passport and they took it. And the lady at the counter asked me where my return ticket was. I didn’t have one. I told her. And then I remembered I had to show her that I had this visa and it was fine.

The reason I thought that was interesting was because the guy next to me in the queue didn’t have a return ticket and he didn’t have a visa and he was told he needed to buy one otherwise he wouldn’t be allowed to board the plane. He had a real look of anger on his face saying like he’s been to Thailand so many times and he’s never had this problem before. And I remember thinking I’ve never been and I don’t need it. Maybe just wanting to rub salt in the wound but probably not.

I was flying on Thai Airways from Heathrow all the way to Bangkok. It was possible to have a layover somewhere, usually in the Middle East. However, I thought it was going to be better to just get there directly, even if it meant a long flight and the ticket being more expensive. I wasn’t paying for it. They were, so it didn’t matter. I kind of felt like my introduction to Thailand was already starting as soon as I got on the plane, the really beautiful air hostesses welcoming you with what I would later learn to be their signature Thai hospitality. And then we took off.

It was a very uneventful flight and just under 12 hours later we touched down in Bangkok and that’s when everything felt real as opposed to how I pictured it being. It wasn’t anything like I pictured it being. For a start, the airport was a lot more modern than I expected, more than the one I left behind. But Bangkok was what they said it was. It had a crazy energy exuding from it. It just seemed to be a concrete jungle. And up until that point, when somebody said concrete jungle, I would never have understood what they meant. But now I could.

It was mesmerizing being somewhere like that. And I was taken from the airport in a car that the company had arranged for me to a hotel that they were putting me up in for the first week. It was in a place called ThongLor, right in the heart of Bangkok. And as soon as I got to that hotel, which happened to be on a Thursday evening, I was blown away by the feelings that were coming over me of sheer excitement. And it was like I didn’t even need to go to work until Monday. I had a lot to do, a lot to explore, and it was exciting to think about.

I already knew though that that’s where I wanted to be, and those three days before work was just so I could get to know the city better. It was exciting. It was fun that I was there. The first thing I did though was call my girlfriend to say I was there and everything was fine. Although I hadn’t slept on the flight even for a second, the last thing on my mind was sleeping. And I left the hotel on Thursday evening to go and explore. I didn’t make it very far. I went to a restaurant, had something to eat, had a few drinks, and just returned to the hotel because all these emotions and feelings came crashing down on top of me and I needed to relax.

I continued over to the Friday and the weekend and I left that area to go look at some of the other areas that I’d heard about. Kind of like I was a tourist seeing Thailand for the first time. I’d already made my mind up that Thailand was the best place I’d ever been. Monday rolls around and I was met at the hotel by the company so they could take me to the office. It was only a short distance away from there back down in the other direction towards Asok where they had the office and I was introduced to the team. A number of expats working there doing similar things. A number of highly qualified Thai people working there as well. And I hit the ground running and fit in perfectly.

During my first week, I found a place to live close to the office. But by the end of the week, I was taken to go and get my work permit and I already felt settled in like I made the right decision. Things continued very well over the next week. I think I’d been working there for two weeks at this point, and I hadn’t been out at night in Bangkok yet. I’d been for a meal or whatever, but not out like going for a drink.

Discovering Soi Cowboy and Bangkok Nightlife

Then I was invited by some of the other guys that worked there to go out for a drink. We found ourselves going to a very posh kind of place in Pong. Everything I’d heard about Thailand really being cheap didn’t seem to ring true there. The beers were imported and more than I would be spending for something similar in a place back at home.

There were around 10 of us there going from the office. Around 9:00 p.m. we were discussing where else to go. A few of the guys were heading home to be with their girlfriends or wives. A few of the other guys wanted to go to a similar bar like this, but the guys who were on my team said, “You’ve only been in Thailand for 2 weeks. You’ve never been before. Let’s go and have a look at soy cowboy.” I hadn’t even thought about going somewhere like that before, but I agreed to go with them because I was a team player. I was getting along with the guys in the team, and I also wanted the Thailand kind of thing, so we went there.

The guys I was with who didn’t have relationships, you could tell they frequented places like this regularly. One of the guys met a girl and went off with her, and two guys left. One of them looked like they wanted to go and do the same thing as him and the other said he couldn’t be bothered and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere together and leave the other guy by himself. So I said okay. So me and this other guy left, went for another beer somewhere else, and after that I just returned to my place.

In the moment when I went there, I didn’t feel anything. It was fun to see, it was exciting to see, but I didn’t feel anything when any of the girls spoke to me or when they grabbed me or anything. It was just a weird environment. But for whatever reason, I found myself thinking more about it as the week passed by.

The only way I can say how it felt, it was like as each day passed, I felt like there was something pulling me just to go and have another look, but I didn’t know why. I really didn’t know why, but I was being pulled there. And all of my resistance that I tried to do didn’t work. I found myself, this was about a month after being in Thailand, going by myself on a Friday evening back to Soi Cowboy.

As soon as I walked into one of the bars, I felt a release somehow. I had a few drinks, watched what was going on with quite a sense of amazement. But I did leave and I started walking back to my place. But then I thought, why not just go to one more bar? I’d heard about another place or a street called Soi 4. I could go there and have a beer. I did that and I did an about-turn and walked in that direction. And about 15 minutes later, I was sat in a bar with a beer.

Three beers later, I’m talking to a girl and I’m buying drinks for her. And no matter how hard I tried to stop myself, she went back to my place with me. I felt really guilty when I woke up the following morning. But also, I felt so excited and happy because this was amazing. That girl was incredibly gorgeous. And I didn’t feel guilty because of anything apart from my girlfriend, my fiancée even. She was going to be joining me in a month’s time. So I promised myself I would never do that again. The thing was I was back out that same evening. And I did it again and again and again. And it was like I couldn’t control what I was doing, but I just hoped it would get out of my system by the time my girlfriend arrived.

A few weeks later, though, I was in a bar and it happened again, only this time I felt a really strong connection to this girl that I’d met. She was only 22 years old, but she was breathtaking. And I actually saw her for a few nights in a row against my better judgment, and I actually felt something for her. Strangely enough, though, she told me that she felt something for me. She said how much she appreciated the fact that I respected her and wanted to get to know her as well, and also that I saw her a few times. I continued seeing her, trying not to make it every day, but it nearly was every day until my girlfriend finally arrived.

My Fiancée Arrives While I Lead a Double Life

I went to meet my girlfriend at the airport. We’d spoken at length about how great it was, and I hoped she would feel the same way. It was great to see her again, and I just told myself, “Okay, you’ve got all that craziness out of the way. Don’t even think about doing it again. It’s okay to do what you’re doing.” I told myself what I did was awful and it was wrong, but just move ahead with life.

I took her to the place I rented for us both, trying to ignore the fact that that girl that I spent time with had been at this place only the night before with me. But it didn’t matter because she was here now and I would be sensible.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that my girlfriend didn’t really like Thailand. She didn’t look to feel comfortable there. She said it was too busy for her, too chaotic, and too hot. But she said she would happily stay and live with me here until my job ended. I just hoped it would never end because I liked it that much.

I was being paid a salary, even more than I was paid at home in my last job. And also, it probably added up to more than my girlfriend earned as well altogether. So, we had a great life. It wasn’t like we were having to downgrade by moving there. And we had our house that I was continuing to pay the mortgage off, but we could continue with our lives if we had to move back.

I am shy to admit that when I knew my girlfriend was arriving soon, I got a second phone and a second number. And that was the number I gave to that other girl, just hoping she wouldn’t call me or send me a message because if she didn’t do that, then I would feel no need to actually go and see her again. But she started messaging me. I told her I couldn’t answer because I was at work. So, I messaged her back and it was like I was living a double life.

I hadn’t seen her since my girlfriend arrived. And I know I should have forgotten about her, but about 2 weeks after my girlfriend did arrive, I told her that I had to go out that Friday evening with some of the people from work. It was just a done thing. She said, “That’s fine.” But it was all a lie. And I went to see that girl.

Because I’d not seen her for a while, I was very excited to see her. I hated myself for doing it, but I didn’t hate how good she made me feel. And I know it was a huge error of my judgment, but it would be something that would come back to bite me. I even told her that I moved out of that place and I just hoped she would believe me. I said I’m in between places at the moment and currently staying in a hotel.

I felt after I saw her that time, I got her out of my mind. In a way, I had. She sent messages and I messaged back, but I didn’t feel the urge to see her.

A Pregnancy Ends My Engagement

Yet, about 6 weeks later, there was a message which I wasn’t expecting. She said she was pregnant. I thought about it, and yes, I hadn’t been sensible, but I’d learned since being in Thailand that things like this could be used as a way to extort money or to scam, but I just asked her if we could go to the hospital together to confirm, and she said, “Okay.”

I found myself having to take off a business day from work. I just said I needed to go and get my driver’s license, and that was okay with them. And because my girlfriend thought I was going to work, I had a day to be able to get to the bottom of this. Because ever since she told me that she was pregnant, I was just a nervous wreck, hoping that it wasn’t the case. But it was.

The first idea that came to mind was, “Can we do something about this?” But she just said absolutely not. She couldn’t do that. And also in Thailand, apparently, you’re not even allowed. She just said, “Maybe we should stay together.”

I hadn’t told her I had a girlfriend. I just told her it wasn’t possible. And I even made up an excuse saying, “I’m actually leaving. My job is coming to an end soon, so I’m leaving in 2 weeks.” And I just hoped that she would see sense and do something about it. I told her I’d be in touch with her soon. And I remember just leaving feeling so concerned and so worried because how was I going to get out of this?

She was constantly sending me messages asking for money saying she can’t work now and she needs to go to the hospital and she needed money for other things. And I’m finding I’m just sending her money every time she asks just to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. This was about a week after we went together to the hospital and I kept telling her, “I’m going in a week and I will continue to send money when I leave.” I just kept telling her that.

Call me the world’s biggest idiot, though. Actually, don’t do that. Call me the universe’s biggest idiot, multiplied by infinity. Because of course, when I met that girl, just like I said, I took her back to the place I was renting. I tried to tell her I wasn’t there anymore, but I don’t know. I suppose in the moment it didn’t cross my mind that she would actually show up there one day, one evening that is a few days later after I’d ignored her messages that day.

My girlfriend answered the door and that was the end of that relationship. I felt awful. She had given up her job to come and be with me here and I’d got a girl pregnant. And now this girl that I’d got pregnant was angry as well because she didn’t know I had a girlfriend. And it was a very difficult time as you would expect.

My girlfriend was destroyed. She was crying her eyes out. And I really felt for her. I really did. And no matter how I tried to ask her to be okay with it and just forget about it, and it was an accident, she wasn’t accepting that. And I had no right to expect her to. A few days later, she was going back home. She’d managed to get her job back. And then was the question of what about our house? We had that house together, although we weren’t married, and it had a big mortgage on it, not that much money in it, but she said it’s going to be sold or she could buy me out of my share. I guess the fact we weren’t married was one thing, but I agreed to £30,000 for my share of the house. It was actually worth a lot more than that, but it felt only right given what I’d done and what happened.

Marriage, Fatherhood and a Changing Relationship

That girl who was pregnant, I think she used that to her advantage. She’d gotten over the initial shock that I was in a relationship. And I was just really upset at that time. And I felt the way that she was acting with me and being around me showed that she actually loved me and actually cared about me and wanted to be in this relationship. So I found her just living with me even though I didn’t expect that to happen, but she was just living with me and I was going along with it because it made me feel less bad about what happened.

As the month went by, I’d forgotten about my old girlfriend. I was starting to feel like I loved this girl that was with me and she was just a dream to be with and to look at and she’s getting bigger, of course, because of the pregnancy. Work was going very well for me, though. That’s one amazing thing. And I was able to focus on that and forget about what happened.

I’m starting to feel better myself as well. And in a way, because my ex-girlfriend didn’t really like Thailand, and I did, I was starting to feel like perhaps this was for the best because it was my intention to stay in Thailand for the rest of my life. And it was clear that she had no desire to do that whatsoever.

As the weeks and months went by, everything was great with work, so that was the main thing. And about 6 weeks before she was due to give birth, I proposed to her because I thought that would be the best thing to do. She seemed to be delighted. Seemed to be over the moon by that, and she agreed. We had a very quick ceremony, got everything legal so that when our child was born, we would be married.

And if I think back to that time, I guess I just rushed into it because it made me feel better in a way than I would have done if I was just single after what happened. If I’m being perfectly honest, I was happy. I got over the initial upset of my ex and I was the happiest I felt for ages. I was making great money. I was saving a lot of money. I was having a good time most of the time. I really liked my work. So, what more could I want? Our son was born not long after. He was healthy, which was the main thing. I did feel happy and content. I’d never had kids before. I wasn’t really planning on having kids, but it kind of just happened. And I felt like my new wife was a great mom.

How quickly things changed, though. I was renting a reasonably sized place, and only a week, I think, maybe less, after our son was born, my wife said she wants to ask someone in her family to come down and help her look after him. I thought that was okay. We had more than enough room. So her cousin who was about 2 years younger than her came down from the village to help. I had to give her a little bit of money to help, kind of like a nanny. And I just thought everything was fine and there’s no problem there.

I’m continuing to go to work. Life’s great or I think it’s great. But that didn’t last very long. As soon as my wife was feeling herself again, I’d come back from work in the evening and she’d be out and her cousin would be there looking after our son. I’d call up my wife and she’d just be saying she was seeing friends and it was like she wasn’t really ready to have a child yet. But even still, her behavior was unacceptable. I might as well just get to the bottom of it.

But after 3 months, it was clear that she never really liked me and she was just using me for the fact that we had a son together and she was up to no good. We were there with our new son. But in the evenings, I would be there with our son and her cousin. And she would come back drunk and doing whatever it was she was doing. And after a few months, it was just not sustainable. And I told her she had to change or we couldn’t stay together.

A Second Divorce and Losing Custody of My Son

It was obvious that she didn’t really want to stay with me at all. And I just hoped she would let me look after our son. And luckily at the moment that was, she came to an agreement with me and I would have custody of our son. So she could get some money out of me and she could see our son anytime she wanted.

That was a very quick marriage. Divorced for a second time now. And now I have a young son to be responsible for. And of course, her cousin has now left. So, I needed to find a nanny, a full-time nanny, because I needed to work. That was one great thing about Thailand. It was possible, I mean, very easy to find a nanny. Before long, I had an amazing live-in nanny that was helping me basically with absolutely everything. Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to manage.

This was in 2014. At this point, I was happy with my job, happy with my son, but my personal life was a shambles and a mess. I started to really miss my ex, who I had let down by getting this Thai girl pregnant, but there was no use crying over spilled milk, and I just got on with things.

I thought everything was settled with regards to our son, and it seemed to be for the next 3 or 4 months. But then she came to me saying she wanted to look after him now. She wanted him to go and be with her family where she was from, and she was a mother, so she thought that was right. I thought we’d already arranged things, but it was clear that she wasn’t going to stop.

But no matter what I tried to do, no matter what advice I sought, no matter what I offered to her instead, she said, “No chance. She wants our son.” I even contemplated taking him out of the country and leaving altogether. But apparently that would have been difficult. You can’t just leave without certain paperwork.

Though, as heart-wrenching as it was, as awful as it was, I found myself allowing her to take our son. It was under the conditions that I would be allowed to see him anytime I wanted and that was agreed to and I would be sending financial support. The village though was 10 hours away from Bangkok so it was difficult and that was an even worse time in my life. It’s like something goes great then something goes wrong. Something goes great; it always had to be followed by something going wrong and that was just the never-ending cycle that was my life.

When my son left, I went into a really big depression like I’d never been in before. I was still managing to work, which was good because I was paid good money. I was putting away a decent amount of money every month, but it was just a very bad time for me. I managed to keep it separate from work. I don’t really tell people what’s going on. It’s none of their business and nobody knows. So, I was okay on that front.

I just started going crazy, going out every single day, going to the bars every single day, and I was drowning my sorrows and also having lots of girlfriends and waking up with a hangover yet still having to go to work. Luckily, I could still manage.

This went on for around a year. I hadn’t seen my son once. I was giving financial support and I asked if I could see him, if he could be brought to Bangkok. I saw him in Bangkok and that was okay, but it just wasn’t the same. He didn’t know me and I felt dreadful. I even asked, “Can I have him back?” And it was just not going to happen.

Meeting a New Partner in Hua Hin

It was around this time that I met another girl. I guess I didn’t learn my lesson from the first time. I had 15 days’ paid holiday with the company I work for, which was quite good in Thailand, and I hadn’t had any of that for the whole year. So, I just thought I’d use it all at once and leave Bangkok and try and clear my head a bit.

I was in Hua Hin for pretty much all of that time. I’m not trying to hide anything, and I did meet her at a massage place. She just made me feel good again. She made me feel better about myself again. And after the massage was over, I wanted to spend more time with her. It may not have helped that I’d already had quite a few drinks that day and was drunk. I wasn’t very polite about it. But she seemed to be a really great girl.

When you’ve met at this point probably 50 girls and you see one that you like, it does give you a bit of reason to take a step back and actually think, why do I like her more than everyone else? I really did. After we left that massage place, it was just like I was starting again. She didn’t know all the things that had happened to me. She didn’t know all the baggage I had. She was just smiley and happy and easy to be with.

I told her I worked in Bangkok, told her I’m here for another 2 weeks. I’d happily agree to pay for a two-week massage if that’s possible instead of the usual 2-hour massage. And she actually really laughed when I said that, saying okay. And she stayed with me for those two weeks. I was feeling a bit better in myself, feeling like I had a release and an escape from things that had happened. And she made me feel better. She was the one who helped.

When I left back for Bangkok, it felt awful knowing that she was going back to the massage shop and I was going back to work and I was going back to being alone. When you’re alone, you’re alone with your thoughts and the thoughts of the past and the things that happened in the past. And I think it was those awful thoughts that I was having and how bad they made me feel that quickly made me understand that perhaps there was a real connection with that girl.

I did have the foresight to ask for her information. So I sent her a message asking how she would feel about coming to Bangkok. Almost as soon as I sent it, she responded saying yes. So, I sent her the money to get a taxi to Bangkok, and she sent me a message saying she was there at around 3 p.m. I told her I had a few hours left of work, so I’ll meet you at a particular spot. I went to meet her and it just felt like I’d just left her not long ago. It felt great, felt better again. Not 100%, but I was moving in a direction of happiness and I was relaxed, I think, for the first time in such a long time.

She never left from then until she did. She was 25 from Khon Kaen. She had a son as well and her son was living with her family. I hadn’t mentioned my son yet, but I told her about him this time. I told her about my ex-wife and how she’d taken him away from me and I tried my best and it felt like she was really on my side and she felt bad for me about it. She felt bad I couldn’t stay with my son. And she said, “Why would she do that?” Referring to my ex. Of course, it would be better for your son to stay with you. I guess people don’t think about that.

She’d been with me for about 2 weeks and I hadn’t given her anything and she just said, “I think I need to go now. I need to go to work. I need to make money.” I’d asked her what would it take if we could be together. Maybe we could spend a few months together and see how we feel and if we feel good, we could take things further. She told me what it would take in terms of what she made and how much she needed to send back to the people in her family. I agreed immediately. From there, I had a girlfriend again.

Marrying Again and Planning a Home in Bangkok

6 months after that, we were getting married. It felt great to be married again, but also because we went to the village to get married, it was only an hour away from where my son was. So, I spoke to my ex about the possibility of seeing him and she just said, “Absolutely not. You can’t go to my village.” And it was like I just kept trying, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. And I stopped trying, which I regret. I always did send financial support though.

But yes, I was married again. And that’s when life kind of just settled down a bit. I think there were no crazy surprises and nothing shocking going on and we stayed together. I would say amazingly so really happily for the next 2 years. At this point I managed to save a good amount of money. I was paid well which was great. The company still wanted me. They were expanding and I was a valuable member of the team.

I’d already moved into a new place since I got married again and life just felt like it was coming back together. I did have a chance to see my son occasionally. It’s not as much as I would have liked. Aside from that though, I was happy with how things were going and I felt like I was going to be in Thailand forever.

This was around 2017, though it could have been more than 2 years. But around 2017, because I’d been with my wife for a long time now, it felt everything seemed to be going great and everything felt comfortable between us, we decided to look for our own place to live.

If I think about my financial side of things at this moment in time, I had about £150,000 total. That included a lot of the money I managed to save since I started the job. And we decided that we wanted to put down some firmer roots. I knew as a foreigner I wasn’t able to own land, I could own a condominium.

We spent time looking at condominiums around the area that we rented in, but it quickly became clear that the sort of place that we were renting, we couldn’t get anything like that for anywhere close to the budget I had. And of course, as a foreigner, I wasn’t able to get a mortgage, which made things more difficult. You had to pay for it in cash. I didn’t want a shoebox in the sky. I wanted a place that, okay, it didn’t have to be huge, but it needed space, and it was just over budget.

We went to look at houses and that would have had to have belonged to my wife. But the problem was any house within budget would have meant at least a 1-hour commute to get to work every day. And I was so used to being able to walk to the office in no time at all. So, we had to quickly forget about the house.

It was a bit of an anticlimax after we’d been so excited about this. We couldn’t have the sort of condo I wanted because it was too expensive and I couldn’t get a mortgage and the house that we could have had was too far away.

Buying a Bangkok Condo with a Mortgage in My Wife’s Name

What we did think about after we went to the bank to discuss a mortgage, this was before I understood as a foreigner I couldn’t get one. They said your wife could get a mortgage using your salary. I hadn’t even thought about that. And there were some quite strict requirements. This was with the OO bank and as long as you earned over a certain amount of money, that was me. As long as I had a work permit, as long as I’d been working for that job more than two years, and a whole other string of requirements, then they could use my income to get a mortgage in my wife’s name.

The income requirements were quite substantial. 99% of people wouldn’t have met them, but I was paid really well, so I should be able to get the sort of place we wanted. I had enough for the down payment that they wanted as well, which was quite substantial. We spoke about this about the pros and cons of it and there was no idea that I would have any problem with the job. Like I said, I was a hugely valuable member of the team. I had a few salary increases over the time I worked and I could more than afford the mortgage on the place that we wanted.

I would be pushing it to the wire though with the deposit nearly putting all my money into it. But the mortgage could be paid. I worked out if I paid extra, it could be paid off within 8 years, maybe seven. Then we’d have an amazing three-bedroom condo right in the best area of Bangkok. And after that, we could do what we wanted. I even thought about once it was paid for, I could retire and just rent the place out for a lot of money. So that would be enough for retirement, I think. I thought this is what we were working towards, retirement based on our condo. That, okay, would be my wife’s, but it would be ours together.

Once this idea was something that we decided we would do, we did spend a very long time looking around at all the different condos that were available. One thing that we kept coming back to was the fact that if we bought in an older building as opposed to a new build, not only would the units be bigger with a better layout and often better quality, but also it would be cheaper as well.

We were looking around the 15 to 20 million baht range. I know that’s an awful lot of money to put into a condo in Bangkok, but it’s a great area, a great part of the city, and there’s a lot of scope and possibilities. At least I thought. I remember the day exactly that I decided this is what we would do. It would be the best thing for both of us. It was at the start of 2018. We gathered all the documentation required in order to apply for this mortgage using my income in my wife’s name, and we found a condo that we wanted, and we submitted a mortgage application.

It was a very nerve-wracking experience wondering if it was going to be approved or not. I just thought if it was, this would be our home for the next however long and it would be our retirement, would be our future. And when it was approved, it was one of the best moments of my time in Thailand. I would say, of course, that my son was very important, but whatever I tried, I wasn’t able to do anything to actually see him as often as I would have liked. I just hoped when he was older, he would understand that it was out of my control. But that was a very difficult situation.

I put nearly all my money into that as a down payment. The payments were big but affordable. And when we moved in after doing a bit of renovation work to get it to our standard, it felt like I’d really made it in Thailand. I had my own place in Thailand or we had our own place in Thailand and it was still very convenient to get to work. Work continued and life was great. Up until this point, my wife was just like a dream. She’d never wanted to go out in the evenings with friends. She’d never wanted to do anything. And this remained the same.

I paid off a decent amount of the mortgage over the next year into 2019, and everything was looking like it was on track for what I’d hoped would be the thing I envisioned. In another five or six years (I was actually trying to pay it off quicker than I thought it should be), it would be paid off, and then we could consider retirement.

Losing My Job and Struggling to Sell the Condo

The whole of 2019 went by great as well and then we had that problem. Initially, I started being able to work from home for the company, but they lost a few big clients and I was informed about 3 months into this that my position was no longer needed. They were very sorry, but it was out of their control. And while I did get a big severance payment, it was nowhere near enough to pay for the condo and that would be all gone within a year if I wasn’t able to make more money. And then what?

How your life can change in an instant is very alarming to understand. I mean, that was a huge change in no time at all. Going from being so happy, feeling so fortunate about what the future held, feeling so grateful that I had an amazing wife, we had this condo that was going to be our retirement future. Now, I needed to find another job very quickly, otherwise things would go very wrong.

That’s when you understand that finding a job in Thailand is not like finding a job at home. While I understood I had this job that I got in Thailand, I applied from overseas. It was for a very specific position in a very specific industry and it was very unlikely. No matter what I tried, I wasn’t able to find a job in Thailand over the next few months. I mean, how was I going to be able to do that when the world was closing down?

Then I thought about trying to find work online, yet I couldn’t make anywhere near enough to cover the mortgage on the place we had. And when after about 6 months of not finding anything, I said to my wife, “We need to sell the place, otherwise we’re going to have problems.” I noticed she seemed very upset and angry about that. It was as if for her that would be a sign of defeat, and I understood, but it was like, “We can’t do anything about this because we don’t have the money to pay because of what’s going on.”

I noticed an alarming change in my wife, but it was still possible to go out in Thailand sometimes. I think around this time, it was still possible. She was going and leaving me alone in the condo trying to find work and it was like she didn’t want to see me. I did manage to find something online but it wasn’t enough to even cover the mortgage let alone anything else on top. I took it because I didn’t have any other choice. The thing was I wasn’t doing that job properly because I was always spending my time looking for something else. So that didn’t last very long and it was like the end of everything.

My wife did agree though that we could sell the condo. We put it up for sale about 7 months after I lost that job. And I just hoped it would sell quickly. I should have known that that wasn’t going to happen. After months, we weren’t even getting anybody coming to look at it. Nobody’s coming to look at it. Nobody’s asking questions. And all that severance money that I had was nearly gone. It was nearly all gone.

People were still allowed to come into Thailand, but they had to do quarantine. And I would say about 10 months after losing my job, my wife said something which I thought was really weird. She said one of her friends was coming back to Thailand and was staying in quarantine. The quarantine has come to an end, so she’s going to go and see them. I didn’t even dig or ask anything. I just thought she meant one of her friends that was a girl of a similar age to her. Why wouldn’t I have thought that? So, she left and goes to do that.

I’m just frantically applying for job after job and trying to find things to do. Yet, nothing’s working. It was going to be a very bad situation if we lost this condo because all my money was in it. Literally all my money was in that condo and the money that I paid, the extra work I was doing, the extra money I was paying off on it, it was all there. And it was only a matter of time if things didn’t change, when everything would go wrong.

When my wife didn’t come back that evening, I called her, but she didn’t answer. Sent her a message and she didn’t respond. I was just too focused on the bigger picture though to think anything about it. So, I didn’t think anything about it. She came back the following morning and she was just very distant and I asked her what happened. She just said she saw her friend and she stayed over with her friend because she was stressed about the situation with the condo. I said I understood and I’m trying my best, but she didn’t care.

She said she was going to see her friend that evening as well. And I said, “Do what you want.” Again, I’m not really thinking about that. I’m thinking about trying to save what we have together. So, she leaves and I don’t even bother calling her. I do remember going to 7-Eleven and buying a large amount of beer and getting really drunk. I was doing that every day. I really felt like I had nothing else to do that could somehow help me escape from this nightmare situation.

Discovering My Wife’s Relationship with Her Former Boyfriend

As is often the case though, things tend to get a lot worse before they get any better. The following day, this is extremely difficult to believe that she did it, but she comes back to the condo, but she’s not by herself. She’s with this friend, but it’s not a friend like I thought. It was another guy from England with her about 15 years older than me. She said that this was her old boyfriend. And since COVID happened, they’d started reconnecting. She told him about me. She told him about everything about the situation, but she thinks it’s better if she stays with him instead because he doesn’t have problems like me.

You could tell that that guy had a lot more money than sense by the way he dressed, by the way, everything about him. It just said, “I’ve got so much money and I don’t care.” And I don’t know why he even bothered coming around because I could have been that way inclined to physically attack him. But it was a very cruel moment.

The only thing I asked was when did you see each other last? Then she said 3 months before COVID. I asked her to make her mind up. You connected when it started or was it before? And then I’m thinking how did you have the chance to do that? Of course I was working before though. I was in the office from 8:00 a.m. till 6:00 p.m. every day. So she had all the time in the world to do something like that with me not knowing.

In my mind she was there in the evenings and at the weekends and because of that she wasn’t doing anything else. Of course, I was just wildly wrong, and no matter what I said or tried to do, it was quite clear that she’d already made her mind up. The money had spoken to her, and she said, “I think you better leave.”

If I think back, I know exactly what was going on. I bet it was her plan to get rid of me and get this guy to pay for the condo because he could have afforded it. Yet, what was I meant to do about it? If I didn’t pay and it was repossessed, the bank would sell it at a fire sale and I would lose the money anyway.

If we got divorced and sold it, I would get half the money and that was it, which was quite substantial. But if we got divorced and we couldn’t sell it and therefore I had to leave Thailand because I didn’t have anything at all, it would be hers and she would be free to pay it off so she could have it then. It was like my dream of retirement had been used against me somehow and all that money would be gone.

At the time though, I was just too devastated to think straight and I just even in front of that guy, which is very upsetting to admit. So, I just said, “Please don’t do this. I’ve worked so hard. I’ve tried my best. I can’t help what’s going on.” And she just said that this other guy has been with her when she needed him. He was there to talk to her when I was at work. He was there to be with her.

And I wondered what kind of guy this was. Surely, he could find someone who wasn’t already married. Or he could have found somebody based on how much money he had, but I guess he didn’t see sense either. I also guess just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re sensible when it comes to relationships.

Agreeing to a Divorce Settlement and Giving Up the Condo

But she said after we’ve gone through this that she was going to leave and she wants to get a divorce. I wasn’t about to just agree to that. Thought no way. I’m going to fight this. But then I realized how can I fight this? Literally in 4 months’ time all my money is going to run out and I’m not going to be able to pay for the mortgage, let alone paying to fight anything.

So it was like I was really pushed into a corner and there was not much I could do about it. I was just feeling very sorry for myself. I was in a really sorry state and she gave me an offer which I thought could see me saving a bit of money. Bear in mind that the mortgage was hugely expensive and if I saved 4 months of money that was about a million baht we’re talking about including everything I was spending. And she offered me half a million baht to agree to a divorce.

As much as that destroyed me, as much as that devastated me inside, it was like I say yes and I’m going to have about 1.5 million baht to my name. I say no in 4 months I’m going to have nothing, and then she can take it away.

So, I had no choice. I accepted this and only 3 days later we were divorced. I got that 500,000. I had my million and she got the condo and that guy was most likely going to pay it off for her.

Talk about being extremely lucky and playing the game well. I don’t think she did it by design. It was just pure luck. Pure luck she managed to find someone as stupid as that. I guess I was equally as stupid for doing what I did and getting such an expensive place with such a huge mortgage over such a short amount of time. The thing was though that if COVID didn’t happen, this wouldn’t have happened. And I really felt like it wasn’t my fault and it was completely out of my control.

But then I think to myself, what about what she said? You met this guy before COVID, so it could have been a case of just using him to get money behind my back all the time. If I never found out about it, well, I wouldn’t have known. But I might have found out about it, so it could have happened anyway regardless.

But that really destroyed me. I was now divorced again. I had hardly any money at all, and I also missed my son and hadn’t seen him for such a long time. No matter how many times I tried to contact her to meet him, she always just ignored me. When I called, she said soon. It was like I didn’t want to give up trying, but I felt like I had no choice. The only thing I could think about doing was just going to drown out my sorrows. I just couldn’t bring myself to return home yet because up until this happened, I expected to spend the rest of my life in Thailand.

But now, while I could have found work online and made okay money based on what I did, now that I didn’t have these huge overheads to pay for, I just wasn’t in the right mental space to be able to do that. I was more in the mental space that I just wanted to go out and get drunk all the time. And I want to just go and live for the moment as opposed to thinking about the future, because thinking about the future I started to think was what caused me to have this problem in the first place.

Pattaya, Returning Home and an Uncertain Retirement

I found myself going to Pattaya. Things were just opening up in that sense, although not properly yet. And I took full advantage of the fact that there weren’t many tourists there, and just went insane. And my remaining money slowly started to go down and then quickly started to go down.

And then when you realize you don’t have much money left, and you know you can get a job online to make money because that’s what you do, but you just don’t want to. You just want to give up altogether.

I ended up flying home completely depleted. A lot of my family didn’t want to talk to me anymore because of what happened with my old girlfriend. I was a mess, a complete mess. And while I still send financial support for my son and I eventually pulled myself together and got another job, I’m nowhere close to the retirement that I envisioned or to the plan that I thought about.

It’s so cruel because I felt like I was 5 or 6 years at most away from retirement, from this amazing retirement that I pictured together with my wife, who I thought loved me. It just turns out I was just a guy that she was using. If she could use somebody else and get more, that’s exactly what she would do.

I feel like my life was destroyed two or three times in Thailand, probably three. I know a lot of it was self-inflicted. A lot of it was stupidity. A lot of it was selfishness on my part, and a lot of it was not being able to cope with the excitement that Thailand gave with all the things that you could do in Thailand that you were never able to do before in your life.

It got the better of me. I will admit that. I really hurt my ex and I hate myself for that. I don’t see my son and he’s not going to be living a great life like he would have been if he was with me. I was destroyed by my wife, my last wife that was, just because she had a better option. There was no love there and there never was. I mean, there was from me, but obviously not from her.

I have absolutely no idea what the future of my life holds. No idea whatsoever. And I think all I can work towards is just feeling better again because I still don’t feel better about what happened, and I don’t know if I ever will. That’s my goal though. That’s my target.

I hope one day that I will be able to retire. The thing is, I still feel like I want to retire in Thailand, even though I know it’s probably not the best idea. And it would most likely cause me to do so many stupid things and have more problems again because I wouldn’t be able to control the urges that you get in Thailand. I know myself too much. So, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have no idea. I just hope one day that I do.