Thailand Retirement Dreams and the Cost of Trust
Retirement was a thing I’d worked all my life for, but I found it was always just out of reach. I’m from England originally, and I started going to Thailand a very, very long time ago. Thailand became my yearly escape. It was a place where I could rewind after a really difficult year, and a place I always wished I could live at some point in time.
My first time in the country was all the way back in the 1990s. I was 24 years old, and I was there as a backpacker with a few friends. Those 3 months we spent going around the country were the best I’d had, and Thailand had now been implanted in my mind. Back in the 1990s, Thailand was nothing at all like it is today.
I currently spend a lot of time watching YouTube channels that are related to Thailand, and when people say that Thailand has changed so much, I think they’re talking about how much it has changed since when they first arrived themselves in whatever year they arrived in. I find it quite amusing when people say things like that. And while it has changed, the real change happened a long, long time ago. The Thailand I went to first isn’t even comparable to the Thailand of today.
But that’s one of the things I love about it. The fact that it’s always changing and evolving and becoming something new. I love Thailand regardless of what has happened to the country over the years and the developments that came along. To me, these changes made Thailand an even better country. There is no two ways about it.
Rediscovering Thailand in 2003
I didn’t find myself back in Thailand for a long time, yet it was always with me. And I would find myself falling into a dream about Thailand when I was at work, and I always wanted to go back. I just never got around to it. The next time was in the early 2000s. I was 37, 2003 I believe. And if anything, that was when my love affair with Thailand got taken to the next level. I decided from that moment on, if I was going to go on holiday, I would go to Thailand.
The reason it took me so long to get back there was because I was in a very serious relationship up until a few months before going to Thailand in 2003. And I guess that’s why I didn’t go to Thailand until then. It was because of finding Thailand and being in Thailand after that relationship broke down that I decided I wouldn’t look for another relationship at home again, because I could see myself moving to Thailand and living there as soon as it was possible for me to do so.
It was my dream to retire to Thailand. And I was working as hard as I could, but if I look back, I don’t think I was working as I should have been. The problem was I was saving a lot of money throughout the year, and then I was spending all of it in Thailand. Because of that, I wasn’t saving anything for retirement. But all I thought about was retiring. Kind of a mixed bag of feelings, but that’s just how things went for me.
By the time the end of the year came around, I needed my Thailand fix so badly, and the thought of missing a year to save money for retirement made me feel like the whole year would have been for nothing, and I didn’t want to do that.
What Made Thailand Special
Thailand was everything that I wished my country happened to be, yet it wasn’t. I wanted cheap and affordable amazing nightlife and a fun place where I felt like I was at home. I never felt like I was at home at my own home, because I never fit in. There were things about Thailand that to me at least just made sense, where things back at home didn’t make sense at all.
I know the cost of things in Thailand is a very hot subject for all new retirees and tourists, but in Thailand, things that I felt were meant to be cheap were cheap. For example, a train ticket to go from one side of the country to the other was so cheap in Thailand, yet at home it was priced way out of proportion. I loved the way things were affordable that should have been. Yet you look at the opposite side of things – if you wanted to splurge for something expensive in Thailand, you most definitely could. It just felt like they did things right in Thailand, and I imagined what it must have been like to be able to live there as opposed to only visit.
These are the opinions I was having of Thailand from my second trip there. And when I went backpacking on my first trip, I was more interested in people similar to me – other backpackers and other tourists. On my second trip, I became interested in the nightlife side of Thailand. So, I would be one of those guys. But back then, this was in 2003 we’re talking about, the nightlife in Bangkok was a lot better than it is today. I also discovered Pattaya on that trip, which became another one of my go-to places.
As the years dragged on after 2003, I started spending a little bit less time in Bangkok and spending even more time in Pattaya. This was through my yearly holidays, probably all the way up until I hit 50 in 2016. Thailand really was the thing that made my year for me. There was no way that I would want to be anywhere other than Thailand.
The Epiphany on the Plane
Coming to this point at 50 in 2016, I couldn’t see where retirement would come from. I had been paying off my mortgage as the only thing that I’d been paying off ever since I bought the house after that breakup that saw me going back to Thailand in 2003. When I flew to Thailand in early 2016, this was before my 50th birthday. It was on that plane ride there that I had an epiphany.
Why don’t I just get rid of my house, release some equity from it even, maybe take a loan out against it – lots of options – and then pack everything up and move to Thailand and take a chance? It was only a thought as we came into land in 2016. A thought that made me shiver with excitement. I had goosebumps. But reality usually kicks in and you think perhaps it’s not necessarily the best idea.
I did have a lot of girlfriends when I was in Thailand over the years, but I never met someone that I got serious with. I mean, I got really serious with a few girls over the years, and as much as I wanted to keep in touch with them when I left, I knew that the only thing that would happen there would be me sending money to them, them still working and receiving money from other people. And I just didn’t want to be one of those guys.
I ran into someone, probably on my third or fourth trip to Thailand, and up until then, I was just a normal Thailand tourist who liked the nightlife, enjoyed the country and the things that were there. Yet some of the things that he said, based on his decades in the country, made me understand that if I did get serious with a girl and go home, the chance of her doing what she said she was going to do would be very small. He said he’d been there and done that, wasted a lot of money, and came back and found her in the bar where he met her instead of in the village where she was meant to be.
When I was there in 2016, I had taken about six grand with me, pretty much all the money I had to my name. And I can remember thinking if I don’t do something soon, I’m going to be coming to the country in 2026 at the age of nearly 60, and nothing will have changed. I’ll be in the same position, and the chance to have the life that I want to live will have slipped away even more.
Meeting Someone Special
It didn’t help matters when I met a girl that holiday. I’d met a number of girls over the years and always had a fantastic time, but this time, while I still didn’t want to break my habit and keep in touch with the girl after I left, I think the fact that I actually liked her a lot made me start thinking more along the lines that I might never do anything if I don’t do something now.
2016 was a very different year for me. And I’m sorry to keep saying 2016 all the time, but it was the year that when I met that girl on my third day there, she stayed with me for the whole time. And when it was the end of my holiday, I didn’t want to leave. I had a bit of money left out of my holiday allowance, so I called up my work, told them I needed to have an extra few weeks off as I’d had a problem and I couldn’t fly. I made up some cock-and-bull story about something or other, and the thought of leaving was just too painful. Leaving every year got worse every year.
I spent another 2 weeks in the country with her. By the end of it, I’d already come to the decision that I was going to bring forward retirement and do whatever I could to be there using the only thing that I could use to make it real. And I broke my promise to myself and kept in touch with that girl, even though it meant maybe having to send her some money. I had the exact same moment come over me on the plane ride home. A shiver and that feeling of euphoria and excitement that regardless of what happens, I am going to move to Thailand. I don’t care anymore. That’s where I need to be.
The Home Equity Loan
When I was back, the first thing I did – well, I went to work for the first thing because I got back on the Sunday night and was at work on the Monday. I did earn an okay salary, although I spent most of it on my house and my trip to Thailand. But I did plan to go to the bank at lunchtime and inquire as to getting out a home loan. Because I had my salary, because I’d always paid for things, the bank wouldn’t know that it was my intention to get this loan and then rent out my house and leave. And that very lunchtime, I did just that.
My house was worth approximately £200,000. I still owed £30,000 on it and I managed to pull out £140,000. Because of that, this money that I would now be able to use to set myself up in Thailand. If I rented out my house based on the current market value at the time, I could actually rent it out for slightly more than the mortgage payment. Not much more, but enough so that if I had someone leave for a month and I needed to find someone else, that would be enough to cover that. I felt keeping my house was the best decision.
With this in mind, I approached an estate agent telling them what I wanted to do. They came to take pictures, listed it for rent, and while I was at work 3 days later, I had a call that someone wanted to view it. I told the agent that I left a key in a place that was easy enough for them to take, and they called me back 4 hours later saying that these people wanted to take it and they’d already filled in the application form. I got someone to rent it out so easily, and they were moving in in a few days’ time.
So, it was all systems go. As soon as they were approved to be able to move in, I told my work I was leaving and just left. £140,000 in the bank, a tenant in my house, and finally able to start my real life. I felt like every single waking second of my life up until this moment in time was waiting for this moment. It was waiting for me to start my real life and the life I wanted to live.
It was the highlight of my whole life. I’m not trying to be crazy or anything here, but it was the highlight of my whole life. I was on the way to Thailand to live and I never, ever wanted to go home again.
Back to the Bar Girl
After you get over the initial excitement of being in Thailand, I’d rented a place in Pattaya a few days after getting there. I did live in holiday mode for those few days and a few days after that as well. And after that, it was time to start thinking about what next. I think that’s when the gravity of what I did actually hit me.
One thing that I will have to openly admit to being very angry with myself about – and what I’m saying is – I was still enjoying everything that there was in Pattaya. I loved it there, and I think it was only 2 or 3 weeks since I’d been there when I was on the same street where the bar was, where the girl I had met before worked. The one who I kept in touch with, who I heard was still in the bar when she wasn’t meant to be. But I went there and I saw her and she recognized me immediately and rushed over and told me it was so good to see me. Why didn’t I call her again?
I don’t know whether it was the sense of familiarity that I had with her, the fact I felt like I knew her already. I didn’t need to get through the initial stages with her, and I’d already spent nearly 4 weeks with her in total, even extending my time when I was there last to be with her more. But it was that feeling that I knew her that made me think, why don’t I just have another go? I really liked her before, and probably I would have said that I loved her before.
I often asked myself why did I even go back to her bar? Perhaps there was something drawing me to her, and I was just hoping she wasn’t going to be there and then I could go somewhere else. I did have a few casual girlfriends since arriving in the country anyway, but now I found that we’re leaving the bar together, and it’s not like every other time because it’s like we know each other and we’re talking like old friends and we’re talking like we’re meant to be with each other. And that’s how I think I ended up being with her.
I’d just gone 50, and perhaps it was a promise I’d made myself a long time ago that by 50, I would be where I wanted to be that made me there in the first place. But at 50, I felt very young for my age, and this girl was 26 – a kid working in the bar for 6 years – but she was really a breath of fresh air for me in comparison to all the other girls that I’d met. I mean, I can’t think of any other reason why, but I do think that’s why I went back to that bar kind of subconsciously. I felt something for her, and she never left from then until she did.
Two Years of Working Nights
The place I was renting that she moved into pretty much as soon as I saw her again was only 12,000 baht a month. Very convenient location in Pattaya, so going anywhere was effortless. When she did move in with me, the first month was just a honeymoon phase of the relationship, and I was constantly thinking about what to do to make some money because I knew, even before I set off to Thailand, that I would need to do something.
I had expected to do a business, find something exciting to do that could make me a lot of money, but I kind of found myself drifting towards doing freelance work online. Quite similar to the work that I did at home, and this was the furthest thing from my mind when I planned to be in Thailand for retirement because I wasn’t really retired or doing my own thing. I was working. Although I was working UK hours for just enough money to cover living expenses, which in itself is okay because most of my money was secure, but not okay in the fact I’m not really living how I want to live in Thailand.
After 3 months of being together, I feel like I’ve been with her for a very long time. I’m giving her a monthly allowance because I knew that was expected of me. Not a fortune, but enough for her to be able to support her kid, and also for her to be able to buy things that she needs. And I’m finding that what I’m earning, plus maybe an extra 10,000 baht out of my savings, is how much we’re spending. And 50% of me is the happiest I’ve been because I’m where I want to be with an amazing girl having an okay time. But 50% of me hates the fact that not only am I working, I’m actually working evenings, so I can only go out twice a week anyway on the weekends.
After a year, we were engaged to get married, but we never got round to it. And I was happy, and yeah, much rather be where I was in Thailand than back at home. And I always had to think when I was miserable working at 11:00 p.m., the alternative would be back at home, so I accepted it.
It was, however, in 2018 when this life took a turn for the worse because my girlfriend had started going out when I was working more and more regularly, and often coming home drunk. This by itself shouldn’t be an issue, but I kind of felt cheated by then because I wanted to be going out and doing that, but she was, and I was paying for her to do it, doing work I didn’t want to do. So that really was difficult. I did really love her, though, so I was continuing to do this until I found out that she cheated on me while out with money that I’d given her while I was working.
So, this relationship, although I did love her, fell apart. I should have known when I went back to her bar when I first arrived in Thailand to live that it was a bad idea based on what I already knew, but I went with it and had a good time with her, but ultimately 2 years for nothing. And while I still had most of my money left, my desire to continue working like this had been diminished when she left.
A New Girl – And A Bigger Allowance
Being free again, single, free from work – I mean, I went back into living on holiday mode for a while just to let my hair down. I made sure to avoid her bar. I mean, the whole street where that bar was, I avoided like the plague. And I really just had to take a step back and understand that I was in Thailand, I had decent money, and over those 2 years, I was 10% of the way to getting the mortgage paid off on the house I had at home.
I was starting to think big again. Instead of just staying in Thailand, and while I was having lots of thoughts about what to do, that was when I actually met another girl who made me think that the girl I was with before was just a warm-up act. I was smitten the moment I saw her. She worked in a bar, yes – I loved the bars, so to me that seemed like the best place to meet someone at a place I loved – but I really did fall for her in a way I can’t describe.
2018 this was, and I felt like I had to do anything possible to make sure that she could live with me. I think I got a bit carried away because it was as if she knew how much I liked her, and I thought she liked me as well. But if I think about it, she just used what she knew to try to get herself in a great position before we even talked about living together. I wanted to do anything to make this possible.
Without even thinking how crazy it was, after I’d only seen her two or three times in the bar, I told her how much I cared about her, and I agreed to give her an allowance of 30,000 baht a month so she could stop working and support her family. She had a kid as well, and she also needed to support her parents. But most importantly, this would allow her to be the perfect girlfriend, and maybe the perfect wife if things went well. I can’t believe that I agreed to give her that amount of money considering many office workers in Thailand don’t make that money for working a 6-day week.
When she moved into my place only a few days after meeting, I was really in my element. It didn’t take that long, probably only a week, for me to actually understand this new obligation that I had, and instead of understanding that it wasn’t in my best interest, all I thought was making sure that this relationship became something even more serious and something that would last. I think I had the chance to save myself here because this is the moment that would ruin me, but I didn’t do it. I kept diving headfirst from the top diving board knowing that sometimes there’s no water to break your fall.
Marriage and a Brand New Car
By the end of 2018, we’d already married. And once we had the paperwork, we were going to go and have a ceremony in the village. This was something that she expected and something I was happy to do. And she said to me that she was happy, too. She couldn’t believe she’d found someone like me, and she thanked me that we were together, and that I was going to be prepared to go to the village. She said that showing respect for her family was something she cherished.
But I suppose the saddest thing for me was that I thanked her for making my life complete. I will put my hand up and admit that I was showcasing the exact behavior of a simp – a word I don’t like. But if you need a description of that, I suppose it was me. I was the one doting on her. I was the one that placed her on a pedestal, and I don’t know why I did. The only thing I can think of is that I thought somehow it would make my stay in Thailand even more real. It would make it feel less like I would have to leave in the future if I had a wife who was Thai.
Before we went up to the village after having 2 weeks of thinking about how to make more money and how to save money and what to do, I had the momentary urge to go and buy a car for my new wife so that we could drive it together to the village. I spent £25,000 on a brand new car – just over that, in fact – a brand new Toyota Camry, the base model. I bought it for her. It was the one she picked out, and it was such a stupid thing to do because I didn’t want a car at all. And 99% of the time, I would have been against the idea, but it only takes that 1% of the time when you’re in a particular state of mind to do something that can ruin the other 99% of your time.
Probably now, after spending money on the car, extra things I’d spent ever since I arrived, the allowance I’d given to my girlfriend, and now the wedding, out of the £140,000 I arrived in Thailand with, I guess I had around £90,000 left. That was with working for two whole years doing really awful work, really awful hours. So, it wasn’t brilliant, but I felt like the biggest expenses had been made.
The German Guy in the Village
When we did get married – and I’m still referring to the time in the village here, I haven’t gone back to Pattaya yet – we had someone from the village show up, another girl about the same age as my wife who happened to be her friend, and she showed up together with her husband. I met him the day we arrived actually, and he was at the wedding as well. And he was interesting to see – another foreigner in the area. So we decided to let our wives get on with what they were doing, and he took me to a local restaurant he liked to go to, and we had a few beers and a chat.
He was from Germany, and just seemed to be very happy to have someone to talk to, because he couldn’t speak Thai. He said he’d been living in the village for around 4 years, got a house there, car, business there. He said everything was perfect. His life is really great, he said, since he moved there. He talked about how he was retired, had a reasonable income, pretty similar to what I was earning for, and he was a similar age to me. But he said that the business that he did with his wife was doing okay. He leaves things up to his wife, doesn’t pay much attention to it, but he’s happy because she is.
Throughout the time that we were in the village, including getting married, he showed me his house, and it really did look good. He showed me his business. It was doing something to do with farm supplies – a shop, everything to go along with it, next to the house. And it was like the perfect business, I thought. He told me all in he’d invested about 140,000 euros, he said. So, what’s that? Maybe 5 million baht? And I was thinking, I mean, I could do something similar if I wanted to, because I had the money.
It was actually my wife who spoke to me a few months since we got to Pattaya, like, “Oh, do you remember that guy that you met in the village? Him and his wife are actually selling up and moving to Germany.” As she put it, apparently, he had a job offer that was too good to turn down, so they were going to go for a few years, and come back to Thailand and build an even bigger house when everything was over.
It was my wife again, probably 2 weeks or so later, that said to me, “You know that my friend and her husband from Germany? You know, they sell house and business. Guess how much they want?” I said 5 million baht, which is how much I think they paid for it, but she said, “No, they want to sell it quickly because they’re going to buy a place over there, live there for the time being, and then after that, they’ll sell that and move back here and build a bigger house. So, they only want 3 million baht for it.” Right there and then I thought, “Wow, that sounds like an absolute bargain.” I had that money, and as soon as she said it, I thought, “Why don’t I buy it? And why don’t we go and live there and just carry on that business that was meant to be making 30,000 a month. Sounds like the perfect thing to do.”
The Purchase
It was my wife that told me the business made 30,000 baht a month – information that she got from his wife. The next time I spoke to him, he didn’t even raise it. It wasn’t like he was trying to pressure sell or anything. He didn’t even talk about it. I was the one that said, “I heard you’re only asking 3 million baht for your house and that business.” And he said, “Yeah.” He didn’t have enough cash to buy the place he wanted at his home, and he wants his own place there, so he needs to sell this quickly.
I didn’t even think people cared about owning property in Germany like they did in my country, for example, but apparently he did. And this was the shortfall he needed to cover. He said he’s already had a few people looking at it who seemed interested, and the price was good. He couldn’t see any issue selling it. And when he finally gets back to Thailand, he’ll be building a new house anyway, he said. He said he had a few grand visions that he wanted to accomplish, and building from scratch would be better.
What I did do was decide, after my wife also said she would love to get this place, I decided that we would buy it from them for 3 million baht. This was on the understanding that the business they had made 30,000 baht, and also the house itself didn’t need anything doing to it. It was fully furnished, didn’t really need anything whatsoever. It was just a straight buy, take over the business, and off we go.
Not very long after, we found ourselves driving back to Pattaya, emptying the condo with everything that was ours, filled the car, returned the key to the landlord, and we’re driving up to our new house in her village that used to belong to a German guy and his wife. Plus, we’ve got a business that has one member of staff working for it that we’ve taken over, and we’re going to be getting 30,000 profit a month. From there, I only need a little bit more, given the fact that life in the village is a lot cheaper than life in Pattaya, and things could only get better from there – or so I hoped.
I knew I was running quite close to the wire after buying that. I thought I only had around £15,000 left, but I was quite confident that my wife’s allowance would be replaced by this business. I mean, I bet everything on it.
The Business Wasn’t What I Thought
If I’d have known how quickly things would have gone wrong from there, I probably would have had a heart attack on the spot. Because after a month, it was quite apparent that this business didn’t make 30,000 a month at all. It might turn over, if we were very lucky, 30,000 in a month. And after paying for the staff that worked there – while only a very small amount of money, they got 7,000 baht – paying for the electric bill, the water bill, and buying all the stock that we needed to sell on a small markup, the actual profit was closer to 3,000 a month.
And I found this out after we’d only had it for a month. You wouldn’t think that things could get lost in translation to such a degree like that. When I spoke to him about it, he didn’t really say how much it made. He just said his wife was happy with the business. It was my wife who said it made 30,000 a month. And what she meant was it turned over 30,000 baht a month, not profit. And that simple miscommunication had really put a dent in my mentality after only being there for a month.
I even called that guy back in Germany. “I thought your business made 30,000 profit,” I told him. And he just said, “Where did you get that from? I never said it made that.” I told him my wife said your wife said that. Then I heard him saying, “Wait a second, let me find out.” So, he goes to speak to his wife, who was in Germany at this time, and comes back and says, “No, she never said that. She said it turns over 30,000, and it’s a big difference.”
I told him I knew it was, but why did my wife say the opposite of that? Because this was meant to pay for my wife’s allowance, and now I’ve only got a marginal amount of money left, and I haven’t even started looking for more work yet. And I won’t even be able to make enough, given the fact that my wife has an allowance. It was what we agreed to, and I knew I couldn’t stop giving it to her. If I can’t make at least 60,000 online – which I can’t, I can only make around 40, that’s what I used to make – I’m going to be in a bad position. He said he felt for me, he was sorry, but he never said it made 30,000. I mean, he didn’t.
The thing was, and I will be honest here, I don’t think my wife deliberately misled me. She just didn’t know the difference. She just didn’t know the English words to use to describe it properly. “Business get 30,000 one month” – that’s the words she used. And there was no way that the guy and his wife would try and scam my wife because they were from the same village and they knew each other. Families knew families. So, it wasn’t like it was going to be a random village in a random area with random people. It was the exact opposite of that. My wife in her village with a friend of hers that she went to school with. And it was my wife, I think, who made the error.
Reducing the Allowance
And the problem was this error was so huge that all I could do was say to my wife, because of this, I’m not going to be able to give you the same allowance anymore. I told her I can give her 10,000. And if I can make more, we can start to do more or we can expand the business or whatever. But I can’t give you that amount anymore. And I thought it was going to come from the business. She didn’t take that very well. She told me she needed this allowance because she had commitments. I’d already met her kid and parents, of course, because when we got married. And it was clear that she did give money to them because they appeared to have more than many other people did in the village.
When she finally understood, she actually did say she was sorry. She was sorry that there was a miscommunication. Now I’ve explained myself properly – because even though I thought I was explaining myself properly before, she probably didn’t understand – but now it appeared she did and she said, “20,000 – how about that? If things are okay and you can find work, if you can make enough to pay for this and for everything else, perhaps after that we can split everything 50/50.” The fact that she was seemingly prepared to compromise, I took that as a good sign and said, “Okay, I will try.”
It took me two more months to find another online job. Back to that again. Same 40,000 salary, which wasn’t much. And after giving her 20,000, I was just about to scrape by and exist without eating into what little savings I had.
Selling the House Back Home
We moved into that house around February 2019, give or take. March I already knew that the business wasn’t like I thought it was. May I was working again. In June, I’d been through two jobs. I was on my third and I’d only managed to work around half the time, and I was desperately eating into my savings even though I didn’t want to. And I thought the only thing I could do was to sell my house at home. Because at this point, I would have been able to get around £35,000 out of it, which was what equity was in it at the time. I saw that as my only option.
Getting below £10,000 in the bank, struggling to find a job that I can keep, a wife that I love more than anything but I need to keep up with financially, and a business that wasn’t like I expected it to be. In hindsight, what I should have done would have been accepted that things weren’t working out, kept my house, gone back home, and accepted I’d failed. But I didn’t want to accept failure. I was in love with my wife, who I thought was helping me by agreeing to take less money from me than I originally said I would give. And I thought eventually something would come good.
My house sold by the end of 2019. I transferred what money I got from it to Thailand – only £30,000 because I took a lower offer just to get rid of it. And that topped up my bank balance and made me feel better. I felt now I could concentrate on looking for a job that would be better than the ones I currently found. And I wasn’t pressured to do this instantly. I did manage to find something, but it was only £800 a month. That was rolling into 2020.
Life wasn’t what I was expecting it to be, but at least I was in Thailand. That’s all I could tell myself. At least my wife was happy with me and only with me and she wasn’t cheating on me with anybody else. And at least I was living in a great house in a great area. And when I wasn’t working, I was happy.
The German’s Wife Returns
Unfortunately, in 2021, I found something out that really devastated me. That German guy’s wife just appeared back in the village one day and apparently they’d split up. Yet somehow she’d got nothing out of him, and she came around to see my wife in what was her house, really upset, saying he scammed me out of the house, he scammed me out of money, and he scammed me out of everything. Apparently, that’s what she said.
She spoke to me in English afterwards because she couldn’t speak German. She told me what happened. She said apparently, aside from this house and car and business that he paid for, he also bought a condo in Bangkok and a condo in Pattaya, both in her names. She went with him to Germany and everything was fine. They were agreeing to sell both of those places because they were going to be building a new house in the village after he retired from his new job. But as soon as they sold everything, she said he hid the money and said he wanted a divorce and she couldn’t do anything about it.
That made me feel that somehow he’d worked it to push this house that I was now in on me. It was that aha moment that I think he got to a position in his life when he was trapped because of doing stupid things with his wife. And he did something to get out of that situation, and I was the collateral damage. I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer.
When I thought back to the conversations we had, he never directly told me how much that business made. But he said he was happy with it. His wife was happy with it. And then when I hear from my wife how much it makes, it was as if he used his wife to push it on me. I think that’s how it was.
The Final Investment
Many of the things I’ve talked about were things that I thought about only after the event. Because I felt sorry for his wife and because she seemed to be friendly with my wife, we did allow her to live in the house – her old house. And she seemed to be helping my wife with the business. They seemed to be busy with things all the time. They were always driving to places, looking into different things. And my wife told me that they were hoping to expand this business together. She had experience. My wife now had experience. And also things looked good on the new idea they had, but it would need an investment.
Yes, I did. Based on their enthusiasm and the fact that I still hung on to hope that something would work that meant I didn’t need to continue working online, I invested a million baht into this business on the understanding that I wouldn’t need to give my wife an allowance ever again. And on the understanding that if she made more than 20,000 for herself, I would get the next 20,000 and everything on top would be hers. This was the agreement. It wasn’t written down because she was my wife. But this is what we talked about. And I said to my wife, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?” And she kept saying, “Yes, I am.” And that’s why I invested the money.
Basically, we were just going to expand this shop a bit and also build two more shops in different locations so they could have three. And some of these locations were a lot busier, apparently. When I say we, it was them, really. And that was the mistake that finished me off. I was just holding on to hope, I think. It was just the hope that things would go well for me that I did that. I was bored of working online, working stupid hours for a little bit of money, and giving most of it to my wife was really starting to take its toll on me. And this was my last-ditch attempt.
Unfortunately, after a month, when my wife said would it be okay if I gave her an allowance this month because she’s still doing things, I agreed. Although I didn’t want to tell her it was the last time. She came again and asked me the month after. I gave it to her and then I told her, “This is the last time. I can’t do it again.” And she promised she would never ask again. But like clockwork, the month after she asked again. And it was clear that things weren’t going to work.
The End of the Marriage
The month after, we’re approaching 2022, I’m still doing work. I’m just surviving and eating out an existence. But I had to say no to her that time because at this point, I didn’t have much money at all. I could tell she wasn’t expecting me to say no. When I did say no, it was like she’d seen a ghost. I’d never said no to her before. And she said, “I really need it. If you don’t give it to me, I will have really big problem. I thought the business worked now. Now business not work soon. I promise, please help.” But I couldn’t.
I don’t have any proof for this, but I think that guy’s wife – my wife’s friend – I think she might have been more than just a friend. I don’t have proof, but that’s how I feel. But after that, I felt really uncomfortable because my wife just didn’t behave the same way. It was like she had this business she was working very hard on, saying she’s trying so hard, she’s doing all this – not understanding that she was trying with my money that she could have had over the course of a number of years, but she had it all at once. But she didn’t see it that way.
And when I lost the job I was working at that moment and couldn’t find another one, and at this point – no hint of a lie – I only had 100,000 baht to my name in the whole world and a wife who wasn’t really anything like the wife she was until I stopped giving her money, we split up. Or more like I was forced to leave and she didn’t try to stop me. She didn’t even say keep in touch. We had so many arguments around this time, and I left and I never spoke to her again.
Having to return home with nothing – quite literally nothing, no house, no money, no prospects – it was tough and something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact I will most likely never go to Thailand again unless I win the lottery. I had to start my life all over again at the age of 59. And today I’m no closer to getting another go at retirement and another go at Thailand and another go at anything, really.
My Two Biggest Mistakes
The two biggest mistakes I made, aside from the fact that I mortgaged and sold my house to make Thailand a reality, was number one, meeting a girl younger than me and falling in love – a girl that worked in a bar who needed a monthly allowance. The second thing was buying that house in the village from the guy who I thought was my friend, who I thought loved it there and couldn’t wait to go back. But he painted a picture of paradise and how he couldn’t wait to get back and build an even bigger house after his job in Germany came to an end. He didn’t really want to do that job, but the money was great, he said. He was quite similar to me, but he got out of his situation. He got out of his bad position, and his wife was left with nothing. But my wife was left with the house and the business that I put extra money into, and I was left with nothing.
I would hate for this to happen to anybody else. So I would just say to anybody: put yourself first, second, and third. And if there’s any room left over, only then think about giving someone else your world. I gave everything to her, and I got nothing in return. While I like to blame her and that German guy for what happened, I guess it was my fault for not understanding that perhaps retirement in Thailand were two things that I simply wasn’t allowed to ever have in my life.
