A 50,000 Dollar Nightmare in a Thai Relationship

Meeting Anne Through Online Dating

I got married in the Philippines, and I thought I was doing everything right. I didn’t meet her in a bar, and I thought I did all my homework about everything I needed to know. I met her on a dating app that I joined as soon as I landed in Manila.

I’ve never seen so many people interested in meeting me when I joined that app. I liked the profile of a girl who said she was a hard working professional who worked in a call center. She was looking for someone to spend her life with.

I was looking for something serious too. My marriage back in the US ended in divorce and the loss of half of everything I worked my life for. But I missed having company, so I asked if she’d like to meet up and get to know each other.

We arranged to meet at a restaurant and go out on a dinner date. I wanted to know how she did her work, where she was from, and if we could develop a connection. I arrived at our meeting point five minutes early.

I’m the guy who would rather be one hour early as opposed to two minutes late. I don’t like it when people are late.

Learning About Anne And Her Hometown

Anne was 20 minutes late, but I was prepared to let this slide because she arrived. I was captivated by the way she held herself. We introduced ourselves, although we’d been chatting online.

Over the course of the meal, we asked each other lots of questions. For some reason, she was very hesitant every time I mentioned her job. She couldn’t describe what it was about.

She just said she worked in a call center answering customer support calls for customers of a company in America. That’s all she said, and she refused to elaborate on it. I didn’t want to push her it was only our first date.

She was working in Manila after moving there from Bohol, where she was originally from. She told me how it was her dream to move back there one day with enough money to build a house and take care of her family. I talked about my marriage failing back at home and me moving to the Philippines to retire.

I was in my mid 40s but able to retire. I wanted to find someone to settle down with and hopefully have a more successful relationship than I did with my ex wife. Anne and I spoke for hours, and I invited her to go for a drink as well.

Dating Anne In Manila

She happily obliged, and we went to a bar close by. We talked more about each other over drinks. I didn’t want to push anything further than that.

I was out looking for something serious, not something casual, so there was no rush. After we finished our drinks and learned a lot about each other, we called it a night. I returned back to the condo I was renting.

I don’t know where she went, but I assumed back home as well. She said she needed to work the next day since it was Monday. As I’m writing this, that should have come as a red flag even on our first date, but I didn’t think anything of it.

She said she had to work early on Monday morning, but she also said she answered calls from clients in the US. Early Monday morning would be Sunday evening US time. Which company has customers calling in the middle of the night?

I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I just had a good time with her, and we arranged to see each other again the following evening after she finished work. This time, I let her pick where to go, and she chose a famous Filipino restaurant.

Making Our Relationship Serious

We had some great lechon and talked for hours. I felt like I was getting to know her. She seemed to be showing a high level of interest in me.

Again, we went for drinks afterward, and we ended up going back to my place. We dated for a good three months, and I felt like I wanted to take things to the next level. I wanted to find out if she felt the same.

She said she was enjoying herself with me and would love to take it to the next level. We decided it was best if she moved in with me. Another red flag came up around this time.

She never stayed at my place during the day, always saying she had to go to work. But when we decided we were going to be serious and she was going to move in, she told me she had something to tell me. She said she had unfortunately lost her job a few days prior to this decision.

She said she’d look for another one soon and didn’t want this to get in the way of our relationship. I told her not to worry about it take her time and find a job when she was ready. But in hindsight, I’m betting she never had a job in the first place.

Living Together With Anne

She was just trying to appear as a respectable girl. I have my ideas of what she used to do before she met me, and I’ll get to that at the end. But probably, she was doing what we met up I didn’t know at the time.

That wasn’t much of a problem. She moved in and didn’t have many things. She just brought a small bag with all her clothes in it.

I asked where everything else was. She said she just rented her apartment, and it had everything in it none of it belonged to her, so she didn’t need to bring it. A lot of what she owned was in her family’s home down in Bohol, so she didn’t bring many things.

I told her I was excited to go and visit the place where she came from at some point. But when I brought that up, she quickly changed the subject, saying, *”What are we going to do that day?”* or something along those lines. I don’t remember exactly.

So far, any guy who wasn’t infatuated with the girl would have seen a number of red flags. I didn’t see any of these because I was falling for her. I need you guys listening to understand this.

Ignoring The Red Flags

I can see it looking back, but at the time, I was blind. I was happy to be building this relationship with what I thought was a wonderful girl. It was great initially when she moved in.

I felt like we were really serious. I was starting to think of my future with Anne included in it, and I hoped she was feeling the same way. We lived a normal life, but when I raised the possibility of going to Bohol again, she told me she wasn’t quite ready to take me there.

But she said we could go soon how about we go somewhere else first instead and have a vacation? I didn’t know where, so I asked. We decided we would go to Siargao.

We spent two weeks in Siargao having the best time. I was starting to feel like I was ready to marry this girl. She was 15 years younger than me, but I wasn’t too old.

I thought she appreciated the fact I wasn’t far older than her. I picked the right moment when we sat on a beach and pulled out a ring that I bought back in Manila. I asked her if she would marry me.

Getting Engaged To Anne

She burst into tears and said that would make her the happiest girl in the world. She said she would love to marry me and thanked me for asking. That made me a happy man.

I was engaged to what I thought was going to be the best marriage ever. The process to get married was a bit involved. I had to go to the embassy to get a document saying I was fit to marry.

Then, I had to get a marriage license. It took two weeks, if I recall, to get the marriage license. We needed a host of other documents as well, such as a birth certificate, and the list went on and on.

We finally got everything sorted and had a civil ceremony. Then, we went to register the marriage. From start to finish, I’d say it took us a month to get all the necessary paperwork and wait for things to happen.

But it was a fun month and an exciting one because we were getting married and we loved each other or so I thought. After the marriage, I surprised her with tickets to Bohol. I was ready to meet her family, and I thought, since we were married now, it would be the best time.

Getting Married In The Philippines

She didn’t react like I was expecting very evasive, like she wasn’t really ready to go there. But I brushed it off as a non issue. I’d already booked a honeymoon as a surprise, but I wanted to visit her family first.

I felt like I was part of her family now, and that was important to me. When we got to Bohol, she wasn’t her usual self. Out of the blue, when we arrived at the hotel, she said she had something to tell me that she hadn’t told me before.

She didn’t know how to say it. She told me that the family she talked about wasn’t real. She had her mom and dad, but they had sadly passed away.

She didn’t know where her siblings were, as it happened such a long time ago. Immediately, I felt that was the reason why she acted so differently when I talked about Bohol. But I felt sorry for her in this moment.

There was nothing I could say to be angry with her. I said that she should have told me, and I’d have understood. I actually ended up feeling sorry for her.

Discovering The Truth About Bohol

Again, looking back, I see this as a red flag. I bet her family actually was not as she claimed. Perhaps she wanted to keep things a secret from them about what she was doing.

I don’t really know, but that’s my guess. We ended up leaving Bohol and went back to Manila the day after. That’s when I surprised her with the honeymoon I’d booked to go to Singapore.

She immediately lightened up and turned back into her usual self, forgetting everything that had happened over the past few days. She’d never left the Philippines before and was excited to go to Singapore for a week. We had an amazing time in Singapore, but wow, that country is expensive.

We went to all the hotspots loved Sentosa Island, and she really liked the theme park there. I enjoyed walking around places like Little India and the other older settlements. All in all, Singapore was fantastic.

I could probably say I would move there myself if I was a lot richer than I was. But I wasn’t, and after the week was up, we returned to the Philippines and back to the condo I was renting. I was sure that she was the person she said she was that she loved me and wanted to be with me.

Taking A Honeymoon In Singapore

So, I thought it was only right to open up a joint account for joint expenses. I was retired in my 40s, and most of my money was invested in the markets in a simple index fund. It paid me good dividends, which allowed me to live the retired life.

I wasn’t going to touch that, but I had a few hundred thousand in cash. I was thinking about buying a condo so we didn’t have to pay rent and to feel like we would be developing firmer roots. I ended up putting a few thousand in our joint account.

I wanted her to be responsible for paying all the bills, and she seemed capable of that. Over the next few months, from when she originally told me she didn’t have her job anymore, she not once brought up looking for another one. I would have definitely told her not to bother she could just stay with me and not work.

But she never brought it up. Was this another red flag that I overlooked? Potentially, it was, but I thought we were a great married couple.

We looked at some condos that were available for sale, but if I’m being honest, I found that they seemed too expensive for what they were. I was expecting them to be a lot more affordable given where we were. I decided against buying a condo, at least for the time being.

Opening A Joint Account

It made more sense to rent, and we were flexible and could move anytime we wanted. Anne was okay with this, as I was thinking about her as well being my wife, I wanted to make sure she was happy. But it was decided that we would hold off buying a condo anytime soon.

The next few months went by, and things were still great. But I did find myself getting bored during the day. I didn’t have anything to do, and I felt like I needed a purpose.

What could I do that I could enjoy not necessarily to make extra money, but if it did, all the better? I found some things that I was going to try to export back to the US. It sounded like fun, and I wanted Anne to be involved with me.

I ended up putting around $50,000 in our joint account, which was meant to be used for the business. I don’t want to tell you what I was buying and selling because it didn’t work, and I ended up losing money. It wasn’t a problem, but if I told you, you’d probably think that would never work.

We tried this for a few months, but it didn’t really work. In fact, some weeks we didn’t sell anything. When we did sell things, it was at a small loss because we couldn’t find them cheap enough or sell them expensive enough.

Looking For A New Purpose

It kept me busy, though, and I didn’t mind because I didn’t need the money. We decided to stop doing this there was no point. But I did want to find something else to do.

I had the $50,000 in the account that wasn’t doing anything, so I ended up just leaving it there, not thinking anything of it. Life continued, but I found myself continuously getting bored and not knowing what to do to occupy my time. Anne seemed to be fine not doing anything, but I wanted to be busy.

I looked into the possibility of opening a restaurant, a bar, or doing anything that would be enjoyable. But after speaking to people who had done this, I decided against it. I didn’t want to lose a lot of money.

A few thousand would be okay, but not tens of thousands. That’s when I thought about building a house with the money down on her island. But again, she shot it down and said she didn’t want to go there.

Things between us were still okay. I was just getting bored and didn’t know what to do, and Anne seemed to want to just continue as things were. I went out one evening to meet a friend, and when I returned to the condo, Anne wasn’t there.

Losing Money On A Business

I was unable to contact her. She’d never done this before, and it felt strange. I tried to contact some of her friends, and none of them knew where she was.

She’d been gone for a few days, and I was starting to panic and think the worst. But then she called me and told me she was sorry, but she didn’t love me anymore and wanted to separate. I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

As far as I was thinking, everything was good I was happy, and she was happy. But this came from nowhere. Perhaps I should have looked into the marriage laws before I got married because getting divorced in the Philippines is not the same as if you’re anywhere else.

She said she wanted a legal separation or something along those lines. And by the way, she emptied the joint account of the $50,000. How your world can shift so quickly from being happy and content to being devastated and distraught is uncanny.

The money was in a joint account and was legally hers as well as mine, so I couldn’t do anything about it. She even told me she knew about everything I had and if I tried to do anything about it, she’d come after that as well. The next couple of days, I just kind of sat there, not knowing what to do.

Anne Leaves And Takes The Money

But I quickly needed to pull myself together, and I contacted a lawyer to know my rights. I was informed of the situation and how the Philippines was more difficult to separate from your spouse. But he informed me of what to do and told me it was best to let her keep the money and just go our separate ways.

I had no choice, and I let it go. I saw Anne one more time when she came to get her things. I asked her for only one thing, and that was to tell me the truth about everything.

She just said she didn’t love me anymore. I asked her if she actually worked at a call center like she said she did when we met, and she said she did. I was never able to find out the truth.

Why she married me, I will never know. My lawyer told me that I should go for an annulment based on how she acted and perhaps withheld the truth from me. I would just need to find out what the truth was, so he advised offering her some money for the truth to see if we could get the marriage annulled.

I contacted her and told her about this and how it would be in her best interest as well. I’d be prepared to give her $10,000 if she was willing to play. I think she saw the reason and agreed.

Seeking An Annulment

She spilled the beans about everything how she never worked before, how she wasn’t even from Bohol, and how she used to work in a bar but wanted to appear as a respectable girl. The annulment process was expensive as well. I’m still going through it, and I don’t know how it will go.

But my lawyer says we have a good chance for success, given how it could be seen as her lying to me in order to get married. It’s probably going to cost me, as well as the money I’d given to her, somewhere close to $30,000, including legal fees. But there is no other way around this.

So, I lost $80,000 to her. If you’d like me to give you an update when this comes to a close, please let me know. I would say to anyone thinking about getting married in the Philippines: Take your prospective wife to a different country and get married there.

Then, if you want to get a divorce, it’s a lot easier to do. Think long and hard before you get married in the Philippines. It can stick you in a position you don’t want to be in.

I’m still living in the same condo. I have a new girlfriend now, and I’m taking things a lot slower than I did with Anne. It’s amazing just how far people will go to try to deceive you.

Learning From The Marriage Nightmare

But we live and learn.