My Thai Wife Stole 500000 Baht From Our Business
It was in a town called Uthai Thani when I was having a barbecue on my way to Bangkok from Chiang Mai where I’d spent the previous 3 months after arriving in Thailand as a new expat. I was only there for one night about 2 hours north of Bangkok. But I ran into this girl and we started talking. She spoke great English, in her late 20s, and she was currently visiting her family who lived in Uthai Thani. She worked in Bangkok. I got her phone number. Thought I’d give her a call when I got back to Bangkok and see if we could meet up.
After spending three months in Chiang Mai, I felt Bangkok was more suitable for a guy like me. I felt like there was more opportunity there. I moved into a condo in Silom. It wasn’t too far from one of the BTS stations. It was a small unit, reasonably modern at the time, and I chose that part of Bangkok because I felt it aligned with who I was in terms of this guy who works hard and saves hard and who thinks he’s business orientated.
I should mention that when I was at home, I did my own business. I bought and sold things online, sold them on the internet, and you probably know which website I’m talking about. And I kind of branched out from there. I had a small consultancy firm and I designed websites for people. That was my main thing. I was interested to do something in Thailand as well. I wanted it to be aligned with the things I did before and I hoped to be able to do that and make Thailand my home permanently.
The First Date
This was after the honeymoon phase of loving being in Thailand and understanding I was living there. I’d been in Bangkok for 3 days. At this moment, I hadn’t yet gone ahead and rented that place I told you about. that came later, but it was 3 days when I gave that girl a call, interested to know if she wanted to meet up and go on a date. She sounded quite excited that I called her and we met up a few days later.
They used to have this Mexican restaurant, not sure if it’s still there, but if you know Patpong in Bangkok, never really one of my favorite places to go, but very close to one of those streets, they had this Mexican place right on the big main road, and it was close to the BTS. It wasn’t fantastic food, but I’d been in once before and thought it would be an interesting place to meet. We go there, we talk, and she seems really sweet. I tried to show off my best self, and I felt an attraction to her, and it did seem like this was reciprocated, but I couldn’t know for sure.
She worked in that part of Bangkok as well. Just so happened, customer service, English customer service for one of the phone companies, so her English was at a good standard. She didn’t earn a lot of money, though. He said it was about 22,000 a month she earned. And I suppose in 2012, that wasn’t bad for an office worker at that level in Thailand. But it still shocked me that this professional, who was 29 years old, well spoken, and well presented, only earned a small amount of money.
For 22,000, she was living in a basic room and didn’t have her own transport. And she gave a little bit of money to her family. Just 2,000, she said. no kids, just to help her parents, and she didn’t have much left for anything else. We spent quite a few hours in there having a good time, and we arranged another date, and this time it will be her choice about where to go.
At this moment in time, I’m not really thinking in terms of earning money. I have enough money saved up for last a long time, but I knew I would get to it. I’m just getting to know things and mixing with people and trying to actually get to know more people. I was never someone who liked to go to the bars. I mean, I like to go to the bars for a drink, but there’s a difference, isn’t there, between a bar and the sort of bars that you go to in Thailand.
The reason I’m saying that is because she said she wanted to go to a bar to meet next. This was actually a swanky type of place, and I noticed more of them being built in Thailand as time goes by. They also served food there, Thai style, and it was great. One thing I loved and still love about Thailand is the cuisine. I think it’s one of the world’s best cuisines and this place had great Thai food and I was introduced to many dishes I’d never tried before. But I am liking spending time with her.
I think she’s liking spending time with me and we have a few drinks after the meal. I’m not a very forward kind of guy. I’m someone who will not really act on impulse. What I’m meaning though is I’m not really that impulsive in terms of a relationship or acting on urges that you might have. But I always liked to play things cool and tried to keep my head about me so as not to run before I could walk. As much as I would have liked to have continued that night further into the night, I was of the understanding that, and had been throughout the course of my life, that if I tried to initiate anything, then it would be as if I owed something.
Even though feelings were reciprocated, I was always very wary, so anything would have to be her idea. I was just good with saying, “Had a great evening. Let’s meet up again.” As a guy, I always felt that it was my job to try and be different to the other guys in the sense that I’m not desperate. I found in the relationships I had, never a serious relationship, but if I took a step back and didn’t look desperate, it actually worked in my favor. So that’s what I said that evening. Let’s meet up again sometime. And she said, “Oh, can we not stay out a bit longer? Let’s go somewhere else.” So we went for some cocktails at a place she recommended. And I’m going along with everything. I’m not letting her lead the way. I’m leading the way in the sense that I’m trying to be very blase about things and it worked in my favor that evening because she said you wanted to show me where she lives.
That was fine by me and it was a great evening and I started developing feelings for her and I was trying to get my head straight thinking, you know, you’re not making money at the moment. You’re eating into what you’ve got. You need to get your affairs in order first. But I felt something for her that I hadn’t really felt for anyone else before.
So, we just started seeing each other very regularly, spending more time together. When she’s not working, we go out. And when she was working, I would start to think about what I could do. In a way, I think I would have made a great YouTuber. Just the business of living and showcasing Bangkok would have been an amazing thing to do, but I guess I was a little bit too early for that.
Moving In Together: The Allowance Request
Probably a month after seeing each other, I’m starting to feel like maybe she’s the girl I’d always thought I would never have. At this point, I got an education visa because I started feeling like I would be living in Thailand forever. and I wanted to learn the language. It just so happened that you could get this visa to go along with it, so it was very convenient. I loved learning the language. It was tricky, but I always felt like just try and people are appreciated. But I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I go to the school quite regularly, probably an hour a day to start with, and it’s going well for me, and I’m meeting other people and finding out about other things. I was always interested to get to know people from different places. I’m also spending more time with her and things seem to be getting more serious. She seems to be the one who’s pushing for more things and more forward. Haven’t really told her how much I had in terms of my finances cuz that’s not something you talk about. But because I wasn’t working at the moment, 45 I was, by the way, maybe she just assumed I had a lot of money. I don’t actually know.
After that first month, we’re both, I think, quite serious, but not yet ready to take things to the next level in terms of moving in together, but it was probably over the course of another month. I find she’s coming to my place a lot more, and she just says to me, “Wouldn’t you like me to move in with you?” I’d thought about it, but I hadn’t spoken with her about it. I suppose it would have been great to have her live with me. I didn’t feel like the age difference was too extreme. at 45 and pretty active and healthy and with her being 29, it didn’t seem too bad.
It was on one evening though when we went out and had a great time and went back to my place that we kind of decided that yes, she could move in. She was working so much so we’ll be out most of the days or perhaps that would give me a reason to start finding and looking into something to do to make money. Even still, it was quick with her moving in only 2 months after dating. But it starts out okay.
I think I’ve ticked off most of the boxes that you have to be careful of in Thailand. Number one, did she work in a bar? No, tick. Number two, did she work in a massage parlor or walk on the streets? No, tick. Did she work a professional job and was university educated? Yes, tick. So, I think everything is okay for me to make this commitment.
I helped her to move her things in. She didn’t have too many things and she gave up her place that was only a cheap place, but now she had an extra 5,000 per month to herself that she didn’t need to spend on rent. I wasn’t expecting her to contribute to the place that I was renting. Wasn’t expecting her to pay for anything when we were together in terms of going out or expenditure and I was happy with that.
But after she had moved in for only 2 weeks, I definitely was not expecting her to say that foreigners should give their girlfriends a monthly allowance. That quickly made me take a step back and try to understand what she was getting at. Saying that because we were living together, she should get money from me. Even though she was working and I was already paying for everything and she wasn’t a girl like that because I’d seen her in her office clothes. I’d seen her going to work. But she wanted 10,000 from me every month, every single month.
That made me scratch my head a bit. And I tried to get her to give me a reason why this was necessary. She couldn’t. So, just as quickly as I helped her move everything into my place, I helped her move it out again. She had to go and find somewhere else to live because while I have no issue with paying for the place we would live in, paying for everything that we spent together, I wasn’t going to give her any money because she was working. I would have even been happy to pay for us to go on holiday together, pay for everything like that. Probably spent money buying gifts for her. But under no circumstances was I handing over actual money. This was meant to be my girlfriend who had a job earning money. So that really made me think about things.
After she left, she called me a few days later saying she was sorry and she just thought that that was what foreigners did in Thailand with their girlfriends. I think I made a reference to the fact that maybe if they met them in a bar, but you’re a professional with your own salary and I was paying for everything, so why would I give you money? I’m not that sort of guy.
She tried to make it up with me, but I wasn’t having it. If that was what her mind was when we were just together for the first 2 weeks, living together, that is, then I could only imagine what she would come up with later. I didn’t want to even risk it. So, I didn’t.
Building a Business in Thailand
After that relationship came to an end, I decided it was time to actually start looking into something to do to make some money. As I said, at home, one of the things I did was design websites for quite a lot of companies. I was good at it. I enjoyed it. And I started thinking perhaps I could do something similar to that in Thailand.
I knew what the regulations were. I couldn’t just start doing something like that. I would need proper work authorization in terms of a work permit. And I couldn’t just get a work permit without getting one through a company. If I had a company, I would need to have four Thai staff employed to get me the work permit. So it was a bit tricky thing to get around because it was difficult and I didn’t want to make that big an investment. I do understand it though. They want people to invest money in the country, which is fine, but I wasn’t ready to make that kind of investment. This was before many people who went to Thailand did the digital nomad kind of thing that you see today. I don’t like the term digital nomad because occasionally someone has called me that.
I actually decided to start the idea doing what I did for people at home. I felt like all I needed to do was pick up the phone. I could get a subscription to Skype, which wasn’t too expensive. Start calling businesses just like I did when I was at home, calling people in my own country, that is. And if I got a sale, I could do that and then get back on the phone. Just pursue what I wanted and try and actually work in Thailand while doing it for clients at home instead of Thailand. Why wouldn’t that work? What would be the difference to doing it from home like I used to do? It doesn’t sound that revolutionary or groundbreaking, and it wasn’t.
Many people did similar things at the time, but it wasn’t talked about or shared in a way like it is today. Guys kind of stumbled upon this kind of thing by themselves without it being shoved down their throats by people who seem to make their money selling the idea of being a digital nomad to someone through an online course. So, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I just don’t want to be called a digital nomad because I hate that term and I never considered myself to be one.
I did get myself a subscription to Skype so I could call my own country and it was affordable and I started getting long lists of people to call and the companies that they worked for and it was like let me go let’s do this let’s try and make some sales and sell some websites. I just kind of started and I did start calling and calling and calling and I probably called 500 companies back at home. These were numbers I found on their website that they currently had, small companies, and I was talking about my services and what I offered and gave examples. And after that, I got a sale. Felt amazing, $1,000. And it was for a complete website redesign as well as managing that on a monthly basis.
That was the moment I realized that in a way I felt like I cracked some kind of code. Still in 2012, I was living in Thailand and had just made $1,000. It probably took me 40 hours on the phone, an unlimited subscription on Skype, which wasn’t too expensive. But that time spent got me that sale, and it was starting to make me think that yes, I can do this. That was how it began for me, making money in Thailand. I just called and called until I got a sale. 3 months, I think, after that, I was probably making $3 to $4,000 a month. It got harder. The more clients you get, the more time you have to spend on the websites and the less time you can spend calling. But I felt like I developed a happy medium.
When I hit 10,000 made in total, $10,000 that is, I thought it was time to celebrate because I was feeling really good about the fact that I was making money in Thailand. I decided to go away for a week because I hadn’t left Bangkok since I’d arrived from Chiang Mai. So, I went to Koh Chang.
When I was there, I immediately loved that island. the way that you get the ferry across and then I was on my bike by the way. I haven’t even told you that I bought a bike and you kind of get off the ferry, turn right and go up the hill and around and about then you get to an amazing hotel by the sea which is where I was staying. I used that week to start thinking bigger though. How can I take things further than they are at the moment?
I then thought I wanted to have another go trying to meet someone. So I joined a dating site hoping I would have more luck than the last time. I put up a profile and hoped to meet someone or more than one person and get have some dates and then get to the point of finding someone who was similar to me and had similar life dreams. Even when I was still on the island, I started to get messages from girls and I arranged to meet a few of them when I got back to Bangkok.
I spent my last day on Koh Chang just driving around on the bike looking at different things and I noticed a resort for sale. I saw the price and I had enough money to buy it. But that was when I had the feeling that I’m in Thailand, but I’m not Thai. I can’t own it. So, it’s useless thinking about it. Before I got to that point, I spent a week trying to convince myself to actually buy it. Open a company, find a nominee shareholder, even though you’re not meant to do it and it’s illegal. But it just felt like I wish I could have bought it because that would have been a dream.
But I still hadn’t had my eyes opened yet to the fact that I was just a foreigner in Thailand. I hadn’t kind of understood that yet. I didn’t question it at the time, but the longer I stayed there, I would start to question things, but it didn’t really matter. I just assumed at some point that if I stayed long enough, while I might not be Thai, something would happen, whatever it was that would give me a chance to be able to buy something like that. And I’m not talking about in the name of a future partner.
Dating Again: Finding Someone Real
Back in Bangkok, I continued with my new business. I was very happy with how it’s going, and I met up with the first girl for a date. I had to excuse myself after half an hour. It was clear that she was just after money. Asked her what job she did. She said she wasn’t working. Where did she live with friends? And I had to think about what she was trying to say. I think perhaps she actually worked in a bar and she didn’t want to say. I get it that some girls do that, but if I’m going to be with someone, it has to be for the right reasons. And any sort of financial things that can come a lot later when it’s appropriate.
My next three dates didn’t go well either. I’m starting to think perhaps it might be difficult to meet someone in Thailand who is like somebody would be at home. Maybe it’s just a different culture. Maybe they do things differently in Thailand. Maybe it’s expected that the man has to support even though she’s still working. I mean, I knew the man had to support in terms of paying for things. But if you’re working, why do you need money on top? You have your salary and you don’t need to use it for anything apart from what you want to use it for. So, that’s a huge positive that guys like me don’t have the benefit of.
I decided I might as well be upfront when I met anybody else. And if that scared away any of the girls, then that would be great because we wouldn’t waste any more time. I went on more dates over the course of a few months. And when I started saying to girls, you know exactly who I am and what I’m looking for. I think they actually respected that. I mean, at least one of the girls did, saying she understands. She understands what I’m trying to say. And she worked herself, too.
She was just a receptionist at a big office building working downstairs in the information area. She had okay English, but I’m already picking up Thai, and I think I can speak Thai better than she can speak English, so we speak Thai together. She was 31. She had a kid, which wasn’t a deal breaker, but her kid wasn’t living with her because she was working in Bangkok, and she was from Ayutthaya, and her kid was living there with her parents an hour north of Bangkok. I guess that’s a typical tale.
I wasn’t looking for someone who made a lot of money. I wasn’t expecting or even thinking that that was a possibility. I just wanted someone who had a respectable job and who didn’t degrade herself for money. The first thing I said to her after we introduced and said hi and I told her up front and I’m smiling at the same time saying I’m looking for a real person who doesn’t want money out of me straight away. I told her about the instance of that girl that moved in with me who seemed to have a reasonable job and as soon as she moved in asked for cash and I never expected that and she said that she wasn’t like that. She’s not like that and she didn’t appear to be. She even offered to pay for the first meal. I declined. I wasn’t about to let her pay for that, but it was a really good first date and we arranged a meet up again and again and it goes on for a number of weeks.
Nothing other than going out for a date has happened yet. And as I said, I’m not the type of guy who will cave into any urges. Always play it cool and see how things go. Probably met up 10 times across the course of a number of weeks. I’m having a good time with her. She seems to be having a good time as well, but she says to me that last time, “I think you don’t like me.” “Why do you think that?” She said that, “Why don’t you want to do anything else?” “And do you?” I asked her. And without really saying anything, she grabbed my hand, I paid the bill, and we go back to my place. And it was like I felt she actually liked me and cared about me. She knew who I was. She knew what mattered to me. She knew the things I was prepared to accept. She knew I didn’t want to be taken advantage of. and I thought she actually liked me.
Things progressed with her quite quickly. After knowing her for a few months, I actually felt like I loved her, which was something that I felt very rarely. It seemed that she really cared about me as well. She moved in jokingly because, of course, we’re very friendly with each other. I said, “Remember what happened when we met up the first time?” And she said, “Yes, I’m going to take everything.” And she started laughing, joking, and I knew it was a joke.
She’s still working after she moved in. I’m still working really hard and I’m bringing in quite good money. I still had my company back at home. So, I was putting any income into that and then transferring it over to Thailand as and when it was needed. All my actual money was still at home. It felt bad in a way because after I sold everything to move to Thailand, I had all that money sat there and it wasn’t invested in anything. I didn’t know what to invest it in. So, it was better to leave it sat there. Don’t do anything stupid with it. And it was there as and when it was needed.
I did often have to take a step back to think how fortunate I was to actually be in the position I was in. Though that moved to Thailand and I’m there living there, making money there and let me go off on a bit here and give me a second. But I think one of the things that causes many people to fail when they move to Thailand, aside from getting involved with the wrong girl and losing money that way is the fact they want to do something to make money and they’re prepared to work. But how hard are you actually prepared to work? I might be making $4,000 a month at this moment, but I’m picking up the phone hundreds of times a day. Sometimes I get no results from that, but I do the same thing the day after. And I manic when it comes to hard work. Probably wasn’t being compensated well enough for the amount of work I was doing, but I wanted to live in Thailand and make sure it worked for me. And it was.
If you’re thinking about doing something similar, I would say try it, but think that it’s going to be hard work, not easy. Nothing like any of these guys say online, work for an hour a day.
The Proposal and Marriage
The months are going by. Things are still going well for me in terms of how much I’m earning. I’m feeling like I made the right decision with my girlfriend moving with me. And while I’m paying for most of everything, I’m not giving her any money, which is how it should be. She is only earning 15,000 baht, so it’s fine for me to pay for things. She sends half of that to her kid. With what she had left, she could do with it what she wanted. And occasionally, she’d even buy small gifts for me. Maybe it only cost a thousand baht, but that was still more than 10% of what she had left in a month. And she was being like a normal girlfriend would be.
My Thai is getting quite good, and we’re speaking basically Thai with each other all the time. And I think it was 6 months or something along those lines that I felt the urge to marry her. I’d never been married before, and it felt like the next step. I didn’t propose in any romantic way. We were just out one evening and I started talking about the fact that perhaps we could get married. But before she even said anything, I said, “I’ve been thinking about marriage, but there are things in Thailand I’m not very comfortable with. Sin sod is something I don’t agree with because it’s not in my culture, and also in my culture, the girl’s family pays for the wedding. I’m not expecting your family to pay for the wedding, but I’m not comfortable with giving them money because it feels weird.”
After I said that, she said her family wouldn’t expect it because she said she was old already, just gone 32, and she had a child. Her family wouldn’t expect it. And she indicated that she would really be happy to get married. She said maybe even start a family. I hadn’t thought further than just getting married. In terms of a family, that was something I hadn’t yet decided on whether I would want or not. I mean, having my own kids. It just felt so tying, so trapping. Said to her, “Perhaps children might not be the best thing. you already have a child, so it’s not like you don’t have one. And she understood, but said, “Let’s see.” There was no point writing anything off, and that was good enough for me.
We got married at the start of 2014, and after that, it was the idea to go to Chiang Mai and do a motorcycle trip together all around northern Thailand, but we went and unfortunately it was burning season, which I hadn’t realized, but it wasn’t much fun. Stopped halfway and flew to Phuket.
Expanding the Business: The Company Formation
After getting married, I was starting to think about trying to expand my business. I was still working really unsavory hours, probably 12 hours a day. Even worked on Saturdays when I would spend time researching, looking for potential clients. And I was starting to think that I could expand this and maybe open an actual company in Thailand. Maybe get employees to help find clients and employees to build websites and try to really expand the business. I knew it would take an investment. I’d have to have staff. I’d have to rent an office. I’d have to buy computers. And it was just a question of whether this investment would be worth it or not or should I continue doing the things I’m doing as I was averaging 4,000 a month.
It felt like a lot of hard work for the amount of money though. I felt like for the amount of work I was doing, I should be making 10,000 a month. And I quietly started researching exactly what I would need to do to be able to set up this company the way I would want it.
One of the problems was while you need Thai staff, people that I would need to work for me would need to be fluent in English so they could call companies and try to sell our services back at home. While you could find Thai people who spoke fluent English, it wouldn’t necessarily be the right fit. I would need an expert, which would also mean more Thai staff just to get them a work permit. Then I found out that if you were married, which I was, and if I found someone to work for me who was married, the ratio for Thai staff would be two per work permit instead of four. And that made things easier. So I would just have to find someone who was married. Because I was married, my wife could hold 51% of the shares, and I wouldn’t need to use a nominee. If I could find someone who was a web developer, perhaps an early-stage web developer, so the salary wouldn’t be too high, I could do the calling myself to start with and do more of it because I wouldn’t need to make the websites. That was my plan.
I was able to arrange it with the agent that I used to help me do everything. And actually, my wife was able to be included as one of the Thai staff, even though technically that wasn’t allowed. So, I only needed to employ one more person. With that, I decided to go for it. I pulled the trigger. My wife quit her job so we could do this together and the company was formed, rented a small office, smallest we could find, and spent two to three weeks looking for a Thai person who was great at what we needed. We found one really committed, good English, so when it came to writing things on the websites, he would know if something was wrong or right. That was important. And we hired him.
They spent a total of $15,000 getting everything set up. That’s dollars. Include everything. finding the place to rent and the deposit, paying the agent, all the company formation fees and everything that went along with it.
Things started out well. I’m able to spend probably 40% longer than before calling. So, we’re getting more clients in because of it. And the guy doing the websites is good at it as well. I always check to make sure it’s done properly and is doing great. What I find though was we’re bringing more money in, but because my wife’s part of the business now and she’s doing admin side of things and she’s getting a salary of 20,000, but she was working for that and doing the administration things, our guy was being paid 30,000. And after the accountant’s fees that we paid, then I was probably still left with the same amount of money anyway, even though I was doing more calling. It’s working in the sense that I have a work permit now which makes things easier and I had the marriage visa but I’m not making any more money on top. There is more pressure though. So that’s the first thing I noticed.
My Thai company worked for my company in my own country. It was quite seamless. I was thinking about how to expand the business without risking too much money. I needed someone who was like me. A guy who would really hit the phones and who wouldn’t put the phones down until they made a sale. Not overly pushy or forcing a sale. I mean, if someone says no, you immediately pick up and try again. If I could find a guy like that, it would have to be from my own country. It would have to be married to a Thai, so we would only need two more staff, and it could be a potential. Then we could get one more guy to do websites, another Thai person for something else, and then this expat. It would need a work permit, but that’s fine.
I spoke about this together with my wife, and we decided it would be worth trying. It took about a month until we found all the right people. Amazing how many experts there are in Thailand that are married that want jobs. We found a really great guy who had experience doing the same thing at home. He had a small salary, big commission, although for work permit reasons, he had to have a certain salary over a certain threshold, but that was just one of those things. I also transferred some more money into the company, about a million baht, for other essentials that might come our way.
That guy we had was a natural, nearly as good as me, and over 3 months of this since he started. While the work I’m doing is considerable because I’m still calling and I’m managing people and I’m making sure sites are good and making sure everything’s right. I’m starting to get more out of it. I mean, what’s left over at the end of the month? Before it was about 4,000 and now it was averaging 6,000. I’m starting to picture how can we actually grow this for every guy I hire. As long as they’re good, that could be 2,000 a month extra for me, which would be great. things start to sound exciting, but of course, the more you grow, the more pressure there would be. So, we didn’t get that far yet.
My wife seems to be perfect as well. She seems to be the person I met, the person I got to know, and she was getting 20,000 a month out of the company to do the admin. It started out well. She’s in the office every day like everybody else. And although she’s not doing much work because there’s not much for her to do, I do get it. She quit the job and she’s helping with the company.
The First Red Flags: Salary Increase and House Demands
About 3 months after we had that other expat working for us, though, I wasn’t expecting it when she came to me and she said she should get some more money. He was expecting a salary increase. I thought the fact that she was getting what she was getting, plus not having to pay for anything, was good already. What I was getting out of the business was a salary that would see me paying as little tax as possible. The minimum I could use to get the work permit with, and that was fine. but she asked for 30,000 saying that the business was growing and she thinks she needs it.
I didn’t know how to react when she said that because up until then I’d always thought that our goals were aligned. We’re growing this business and I’m only taking out of it what’s needed and trying to let the rest grow inside the company to make a profit and then we can expand and do more things. I did think, okay, she’s never asked like this before. She’s always seemingly being on my side with things. So, if she asks for this, then I don’t mind. She can have 30,000 instead of 20. Let’s make sure she continues doing the admin side of things because we needed someone to do it anyway. Very basic work, but even still, it needed doing and I didn’t have time to do it.
With that agreed upon, things continue going well. We had another great 3 months. The amount of work that I’m doing is crazy. I’m not quite burnt out yet, but I’m not far away. The guy we’ve got working for us, doing the calls, is doing a great job as well, working hard and making a great commission. And the guys we’ve got doing the websites, they’re doing fantastic, too.
After that 3 months, though, my wife starts talking about the fact that we’re making money, the company is growing, we should buy a place to live. She kept saying renting was a waste of money. And I also had that mentality. But when I was in my own country in Thailand, it seemed like buying somewhere to live was a bad idea because there appeared to be countless empty units all over the place. Therefore, it wasn’t necessary. It seemed to be a buyer market, not a sellers market. If you buy somewhere, you can’t take it with you if you want to move anywhere else. But she didn’t want to hear that, though. She starts talking about other foreigners and other Thai girls, and I don’t know what’s happened to her.
From the moment we met up until about 3 months before this point, after I’d explained who I was and what I was looking for, what I was interested in, she’d been that person. But now, I don’t know if she thinks that she owns some of the company and she’s entitled to more. I don’t know what it was because she’s feeling or it seems to be that she’s feeling that it’s okay to start asking for more things even though she knew everything to start with. Perhaps she thinks she has got a big enough stake where I will be worried about things if I don’t agree. This is my ultra pessimistic mind, my paranoid mind. It could also be the case that she’s my wife and she’s just expressing her opinions that it might be a good idea if we had a place to live.
My problem was if we were to have a house, I couldn’t own it because I wasn’t Thai. We couldn’t jointly own it because I wasn’t Thai. And after looking at condo units, the size for the condo I could actually see myself living in well into the future was way, way too expensive. I didn’t want a cheap small condo because I would think that I would want somewhere else in the future and I couldn’t be guaranteed of selling it. I was happy to talk about things with my wife and she kept saying how it would be better for the future, but I didn’t want to feel like I was being unreasonable and to say absolutely not.
I did agree to go and have a look at a few places with her, see what we could have for the budget, and it would appear that we wouldn’t be able to get a condo of a suitable size just like I planned. There were lots of great houses. We saw some very nice ones. That would have meant traveling though more than 30, 40, 45 minutes a day to the office there and back, probably even longer. So, I tried to put the idea to bed and I hoped my wife would agree that it was a bad idea. He said she did. He said she understood it fully. And I thought that was that.
Things are going well with the business. It’s doing well. I’m starting to think about hiring more people and expanding. Probably a good 4 months or so since we had that conversation about buying somewhere to live. And I did think that it had been decided that it wasn’t a good idea for the time being. In the future, who knows? We can see when it comes, but now we need to concentrate on the business. That’s what I thought we’d agreed to.
The Betrayal: Buying a House Behind My Back
But one day, my wife wasn’t in the office. She’d gone to do some things. I got home late because I was always calling, probably till midnight, 1 or 2:00 a.m. I got home and she was always waiting up for me and said she had something important to say. She was really smiling and happy and I thought it must be good news. She said, “I hope you’re not mad, but I bought a house.” I thought she was joking and I laughed saying, “That’s not possible. Why would you buy a house?” But she was serious.
A new development about 40 minutes away. She said she got approved for the finance on it, paid $100,000 as a deposit and the house cost 3.5 million. She’d gone and bought a house without asking me. I was sure when you did something like that in Thailand, if you were married, you had to do things together. While I couldn’t own it, I thought I had to sign some paperwork, but she said she could do it by herself because she got someone to help her. And she thought that I would come around to the idea now we had the house and she was able to get the mortgage because she was getting this 30,000 salary out of the company. She was paying proper tax on that, all the pay slips and bank statements and everything like that. She got it based on that fact. So, in a way, giving her that extra money made her be able to do this, which made it worse.
She’d taken out the mortgage over 30 years. Granted, it could have been paid off early and you could pay less interest, but the payment was 17,000 every month. I didn’t get upset because I thought there was no point. I just thought, if you wanted that house, fine. You’ve got it. Enjoy it. We can’t live there now because it’s too far away from the office, but we can go at the weekend sometimes. And if you feel good about having it, great. It was a huge betrayal just doing that completely behind my back, but fair enough. If it makes her happy, great.
From there, we went to bed and I didn’t care because it didn’t matter. She’d saved up that money for the deposit and she could use that and her salary to pay for it. Fine.
Again, what I was not expecting about a month later was for her to say, this was at the end of next month after she’d had her salary and everyone in the company has had the salary. I wasn’t expecting her to say, “Please, can you give me the money for the house?” 17,000 baht. That was when I had to think, “Hang on, did you think you bought the house and I have to pay for the mortgage even though you’re still getting 30,000 and I’m paying for the rent where we’re living? Surely that you can’t think that.” She said, “Yeah, I told you we bought the house and I got the mortgage on it and it’s 17,000.” You didn’t tell me you expected me to pay for it, though. Where did you get that idea from? You’re my husband. you have to pay.
I didn’t want it. I told you now wasn’t the right time to buy somewhere because we don’t know where we want to live in the future. We don’t know anything about anything yet. And it’s not like we can just sell the house easily if we don’t want it. Doesn’t work like that here. We had a huge row. I couldn’t believe it that she’d expected me to pay for it. That would have meant she was getting 47,000 a month when we were meant to be building a business. I don’t have any problems with supporting my wife, but I do have a problem being taken advantage of. A 30-year mortgage, and she expected me to pay 17,000 a month for a house I wasn’t living in. It’s difficult to comprehend how she thought it was going to happen.
I went to the office the next day and just thought that she understood that she had to pay for it. And she even said she did.
The Car: Adding Insult to Injury
However, what she did next was probably even more stupid. And I don’t know if it was because she was trying to force my hand or something else along those lines. But after she said she would pay for the house, while we’re not as okay with each other as we were before, things are getting slightly better again until she says that she can’t pay for it anymore because she’s bought a car and that’s on finance as well. Why they gave her finance so easily for a car just after she’s bought a mortgage for a house, I don’t know, but they did. And the car was 12,000 a month. And she said she can pay for the car, but I have to pay for the house because she doesn’t have enough money to pay for both of them.
I couldn’t believe it when she did that because it was completely unnecessary. And the thing that hurt the most was I tried to explain to her when we met the type of person I was, what was important to me. And what was important to me was not being trapped, not being stuck, not being forced to pay more than I should be paying for something, not feeling like my wife is with me for money, feeling like my wife is with me for the right reasons. And over time, the longer we stayed together, the more comfortable I was feel to give more. Yet, she was trying to force my hand. She had bought a house and now a car and the only reason I saw her for buying the car was to make it look like she can’t afford to pay for both of them to get more money out of me.
We had another huge row. She said we need the car now we have the house because it’s a long way away, but we didn’t need any of them. So, we’re having a shouting match and I start to think, is this a Thailand thing or a woman thing? Because I don’t get what is attractive about giving yourself commitments that tie you to things. Thailand taught me the exact opposite of that. Thailand taught me that you don’t need material things. You need your time. You need your freedom.
I don’t know how to react to this because she bought these things and she could sell the car easily but lose money on it. But the house that would be very difficult to sell. I didn’t know if I should just accept what she’d done. Tell her how upset I was and accept it and hope it never happened again or just tell her I have no idea who you are and what you’ve done is completely misaligned to the future we talked about before we got married, before we even got serious. you knew me and what was acceptable. What you did was awful.
What he decided to do was talk to her and say how upset I was by what she’s done, how I think the car was on purpose and this is not the right way to behave with me. And I thought you knew that. I said, “You pay for the house and the car for one year, which means that you’re not going to have any other money out of your salary. You don’t need any more money because I’ll pay for everything. You pay for those for one year, and if everything’s okay after one year, I’ll pay for both of them. That way, I think it’s the fairest thing for both of us. My reasoning behind that was if she thought about the future together with me, if she thought that was best for us as a couple and for the business and for everything we were doing together, she would see that as being extremely fair. It would also give me a year to see if she was the same as before, or if she was different now that she didn’t have any money to spend, even though she wouldn’t need any money to spend because I was going to pay for her anyway. I thought it was a good idea and she said, “Okay. Things move forward from there.
I decided against hiring more people because of this thing that she’d done. It was lying over me. I wanted to try and build a bigger buffer now because of this just in case. So, a few weeks go by and I think she’s okay. She seems to be and a few months she seems to be. And it gets to the end of the year and I feel like she has behaved normal.
The Theft: 500,000 Baht Missing
But it’s time to do the company accounts. The accounts were done by an accountant. The accountant did everything for me. me. I paid them a lot of money to do that in terms of the yearly thing and the monthly thing. So, I send everything across and then a few weeks go by, don’t hear from anything, and then they call me up saying that some money is missing from the account that we don’t have receipts for.
I thought that can happen. What other things though? Maybe I bought a computer I forgot to put the receipt in or I had a replacement office chair I bought and I forgot that something basic. But they said a half million baht was missing. Money was going in and out of the company all the time. I left everything to the accountant to do and when someone needed to be paid, it was all done online by the accountant because I paid them a lot of money to do that because they knew what to do. I could sign at the bank. I could go to the bank and withdraw money if I wanted to, but I’d not been to the bank. My wife couldn’t sign at the bank because she didn’t have access to do that. She wasn’t a director. But half a million was gone.
Do we know which account this went to? We do. this account number. It was my wife’s bank account. How had she done that? She didn’t even have access to be able to do that. And the accountant wouldn’t have done it either. When the company was formed, it was set up. And although I only had 49% of it, I had what they called preference shares. So, my shares had more votes than my wife’s shares did. So, I was confused. To cut a long story short, she’d managed to somehow get some paperwork from the company saying that she was now appointed as a director. Because of that, she could now sign at the bank. I don’t know how because I had the preference shares and I was never consulted about it, but somehow she’d managed to do it and she’d taken that money.
When I confronted her about it, why did you take 500,000 baht out of the company and put it into your account, she just said she needed help to pay for, as she put it, our house and our car? Don’t you mean your house and your car? The ones that I didn’t want. the ones that you were meant to be paying for for a year to show your good faith and then I will pay for them afterwards after you’ve proved that you’re not trying to be this very person that I’ve just found out that you are. Imagine if you’d waited.
She didn’t get upset saying she was sorry. She didn’t think I would notice though. How would I not notice half a million baht? The accountant is there to do this job. Every year you have accounts done and if something happens they find it. They’re professional. She just kept saying she was sorry, but she really needed it. What did you need it for? That’s what I didn’t understand yet. Because what did she need this money for? You were getting 30,000 out of the company and you were paying for the car and the house and you wanted both of them, which I didn’t want. She said that, you know, that I send money to my child every month. Yeah, I know. You sent half of your old salary there every month, 7,500. What you should have done is said to your family, I can’t give you this for a year. If you did that, it would have been better for everyone in the long run because you can prove to me that you’re genuine and not out for money. But you’ve taken your immediate situation and that of your family, done stupid things to try to get money out of me, and now you’ve stolen money from the company. Okay, you’re a shareholder of the company. You own 51% of it. Yet, how you managed to get on the bank is wrong.
I felt so let down by her because everything that I tried so hard to avoid had just happened. Most of what I had was still in my own country. The only thing we had in the company was that little bit of money I sent in to cover eventualities. Thinking about growing the business, thinking about continuing to work hard and building something big, and then we’ll get to the point where we can decide what we want to do after we’ve managed to save.
What do you want me to do now? I asked her. What do you think I should do in this position? You know what happens when a girl’s in a position like that? She just tries to use what she has to her advantage, her looks, and I’m not a guy that can fall for that. I’m not a guy that can be played like that. She said, “I love you. I want to be happy with you. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I didn’t believe her, though. She was acting like it was nothing. That was three stupid things she’d done. As soon as she started to feel more comfortable, as soon as she started to feel like she was entitled to these things, he started to do things like that. So, no.
I said, “You have two choices. You can either pay the money back and we’ll be okay. That’s 500,000 baht. Or we don’t stay together anymore. What she said next was quite shocking, saying, “If you don’t have me, you don’t have the company. You need me for company. You need me.” That was when I knew how she thought. She thought that because she owned half of our business that she could use that to get more things out of me.
But I said to her, “I’m the business. even if this business has to close. The only people who are going to hurt are the guys we’ve got working for us, not me because I can do it anyway. So, do what you want. When she knew I was serious, then she changed her tune again. Okay, I will pay back. I will give a thousand every month out of my salary. No, you won’t. You have to give it all back. Knowing she couldn’t. I just walked out of the condo and I couldn’t take that type of behavior anymore.
The Divorce and Moving On
We did get divorced, closed down the business, put everybody out of work, and I continued doing the same thing, but I left Thailand. She got 500,000 baht that she stole out of the company, and she didn’t get anything else. I didn’t have anything in Thailand. I think she knew if she didn’t get divorced and I left, it might be more difficult for her in the future. So, that’s what happened. She was so upset when we got divorced, saying she’s sorry. Please change your mind. But how could I change my mind? because that’s who she was as a person and that wouldn’t change.
I left and I put my business on hold for a few months as I got my head back in order. That was the beauty of it though. It was still the same business and I didn’t need to be in Thailand. I could do it anywhere and I just didn’t know where yet. That was until I went to the Philippines. They spoke perfect English there and I could actually use that as a boost for the business. I thought I would try my hand there.
Things went okay for me. I tried to have another relationship. Things got serious. She was great. Things got more serious. She was great. Things got even more serious close to marriage. She wants more money. So, that didn’t last.
Final Thoughts: The Lesson Learned
I’ve just resorted to casual relationships only because I always thought the longer you stay with someone, the more comfortable you get with them and the more happy you should be together. Yet, the more comfort that I get when I’m with someone longer is a feeling like the longer I’m with them, the more I can trust them, the more I feel aligned to who they are. Yet it appears that the longer someone, at least from my perspective in Thailand and the Philippines, the longer they stay with you, the more comfortable they are to want more out of you for nothing.
I have no issues with supporting and agreeing to things, but I do have issues with being lied to and being seen as a source of money for her wider family, being seen as someone who is going to sacrifice my own future for someone else’s present.
I did that business for a few years. I went really hard and made quite good money, but at the moment I actually just spend my time traveling around Southeast Asia. I spend a few months in one country, few months somewhere else, and I find that that’s the perfect balance for me.
I often do wonder what life would have been like if I’d stayed in Thailand and my ex-wife hadn’t bought that house and car and stole that money. I do think by now I would have expanded the business further, would have made a lot of money, and we probably would have our own place now. But that would have been at a time when both of us wanted it, not just her.
I think what I’m trying to say is the guys that I’ve met in Thailand and in any other country around this region who are the most successful are the guys who either found the right girl, which I think is like a one in a million shot, or the guys who remain single. I don’t think I’ve met anybody who’s lived a long time and being married for a long time in one of these countries who doesn’t admit to his wife doing certain things that he believes has made his life and therefore her life more difficult for the present and the future.
For when I understood that I would need to remain single, my life has been better than ever. I can go where I want, do what I want, and I never have to be concerned that somebody instead of being who they claim to be is actually doing something that can make my life worse.
I have a joke which I share with a few of my friends. It’s not really a joke that you would laugh at, but I always say, “Why is it that when I have a casual relationship with a girl, she will treat me better? She will let me have more fun, and she will be sweeter, more romantic, and kinder than she will be when she eventually meets an idiot who marries her and who gives her everything and who spends years with her. It should be the other way round. But that should tell you everything you need to know about a relationship in this part of the world.“
