Failed Thailand Retirement Lost Everything

I went to Thailand with over £100,000 pounds, a retirement plan, and the dream life most men talk about.

A few years later I was back in England with nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it all started the night I met a girl in a bar in Pattaya.

Planning My Dream Retirement In Thailand

When I turned 55, I thought, “Right, that’s it, I’m pulling the pin on work and finally doing what I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and that is to move to Thailand.”

I’d spent many holidays over the years going to Thailand and always knew early on that it would be an ideal place for me to retire.

I was retiring early, but I had spent my whole life working. I had a decent job for most of my life, worked my way up the business, and had a nice little pot of savings built up. I would say it was more than enough to move to Thailand.

I had a long-term relationship with a woman here in the UK, but we never got married or had kids. I guess that was a blessing in disguise, really.

I had also lived in the UK my whole life, so I really fancied a big change.

My savings were about 100,000 quid, which was more than enough, I thought, for Thailand. I also owned my home in the UK, which I planned on selling take the lot and go start the remainder of my life over there. That was the dream, anyway.

I also would have my pension coming in in a couple of years, so money really wasn’t anything to be sweating over at the time.

Truth be told, I wanted to find a nice Thai woman out there, a good one, so I didn’t plan on splashing cash around left, right, and center like some men do when they get there.

I didn’t plan on spending most of my nights in the bars. Though Pattaya did interest me a little bit, I don’t think it is a place I could actually live full-time.

Maybe another place by a beach would be nice, or even Bangkok. Having lived in a city most of my life, I think I would get used to Bangkok fairly easily.

If I am completely honest, I didn’t plan anything much. I probably should have done a bit more research, but sometimes the beauty of it is going in with no plan. You can do what you want and go where you want.

Arriving In Thailand And Starting The Adventure

After I submitted all my documents with the help of an agency and got my visa, I was on my way to Bangkok to start what I thought would be a dream retirement.

As soon as I landed, it all came flooding back. I proper loved the place. Couldn’t wait to get stuck in and start living really living.

For the next 6 months, I did a hell of a lot of traveling around Thailand and staying in hotels while I looked around places.

Within that 6 months, I had been to Bangkok, Hua Hin, Phuket, and a couple of other places, but nothing really stood out to me. Nothing made me think, “Yeah, I could see myself living here.”

Going back on what I said, I finally chose a place in Pattaya well, just on the outskirts of Pattaya. I rented a decent condo that was only a short bike ride to Jomtien Beach.

Although the bars were not really my scene, I would be lying if I said I didn’t go out some nights, mainly just around Jomtien and Central Pattaya.

Other than going out a couple of nights a week, I did keep myself busy. I would go to the gym, cook for myself, and, being a computer programmer, it never really leaves you, so I would be doing some random projects on the side.

Meeting Meg In A Pattaya Bar

So, one day I’m in this bar and this girl catches my eye proper catches it. She was 34, not some girl just off the farm. I liked that about her straight away. We got chatting, you know how it goes, and I ended up buying her a few drinks that night.

There was just something about her the way she carried herself and talked that made her seem different from the other girls working there.

I did have hopes of meeting a special someone in Thailand, but I never planned on meeting someone in a bar. It kind of just happened. Like, I never thought a girl in a bar could make me feel the way she did, because I thought I knew the deal in those places.

I went back to her bar a few more times, just testing the water, I suppose. Then one night, I finally asked her to come with me, just the two of us. We went for something to eat first a proper chat, getting to know each other. Then we ended up in another bar nearby for a few drinks.

After our first date, if you want to call it that, I started seeing more and more of her. She wasn’t like the other girls in the bar. I guess it’s because she was a bit older and more mature than the younger girls.

Her name was Meg, which is not her real name, but I will call her this for the sake of trying to keep myself anonymous. She was from Isan, had a kid, and the rest of that stuff basically pretty much the life of every other girl in Pattaya.

She told me she’d been working in Pattaya for around two years and was after someone to settle down with, someone steady, which was nice to hear because that is exactly what I was looking for.

She said she didn’t really want to be working in a bar anymore and was getting too old for that life anyway. Everything she said was like music to my ears, really.

Falling For Meg And The First Red Flags

Days with Meg rolled into weeks, and before I knew it, she was a massive part of my life. She had this knack, this way about her that made me feel wanted, looked after, like I mattered to someone. I hadn’t felt that in years, not properly.

After about 3 or 4 months of dating a lot every week, we had a discussion about her leaving the bar, moving out of the apartment with her 2 friends, and coming to live with me.

She looked a bit uncomfortable when we started talking about it, like she already knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.

She said that she couldn’t leave the bar because she sends money home to her family each month, and other jobs in the city just don’t pay as much not enough for her to live on, anyway.

She told me that she sends 30,000 baht per month home for her family, and what she has left over is her spending money and rent.

I told her that I would cover the 30,000 baht per month for her family, give her extra for spending money, and that I would cover everything such as rent, dates, food, and whatever else was needed.

It didn’t seem like a big deal to me, because I had the money sitting there and I thought if it meant she could walk away from the bar life and start something more normal with me then it was worth doing.

She agreed, and that’s what I stuck to every month. She left the bar, moved in with me, and that was it. I think, with me being the one to ask her to leave the bar, it was only fair that I help her out.

In total, I would give her around 50,000 baht per month, on top of everything I paid for, which I still think was reasonable. It wasn’t too much but wasn’t too little either.

A few more months passed, and everything was going fine between us really good, actually. No disagreements, no arguments about money. Everything was smooth sailing, and then… she asked me if I would like to meet her family.

To be honest, I knew what meeting the family usually meant over there, and part of me was thinking things might be starting to move a bit quicker than I had planned.

She could tell I was a bit hesitant in my reply but told me it would make her really happy if I did.

Meeting Her Family In Isan

I didn’t want to let her down, and I was really in love with her, so I wanted to prove I was serious in every way. So, I agreed, and we took a trip to Isan to meet them all.

Once we got there, they welcomed me with open arms. I met all her family. They were very nice and polite to me, and even if they spoke little English, they made me feel like one of the family.

I even met Meg’s little son, who you could tell she had missed a lot and really did love.

Being there made me feel like part of the family and made me think that I had made the right decision in getting serious with Meg and taking a leap with her.

Meg showed me around the family home. It was in such a bad way to live. You could see instantly that their family had very little money; the house was practically falling apart.

She showed me where the roof was damaged and leaking. She showed me the toilet, where you had to walk to the back of the garden to get to it, and then lots of holes in the floor.

The rooms were only separated with mosquito nets. There weren’t any walls separating anyone. It certainly isn’t a place I could live.

But at the same time you could see they were doing the best they could with what they had, and everyone there seemed used to living like that.

They made it clear, though, they thought we should tie the knot there in the village. Said it was the proper thing to do, Thai culture and all that.

I was super in love and did not want this to end. I did not want her family to think I was not serious about their daughter, and I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t willing to do anything to keep us a couple, so I said yes, let’s do it.

The Wedding And Sin Sod Payment

They don’t move slow there. The next day, her mother was arranging it all, and within about 2 weeks and 100,000 baht sin sod later, it was done. We were married, in a Thai way, that is.

Yeah, it moved very fast, and I should really have stopped to think about it, but I was flying high and madly in love. Getting married in a Thai ceremony with Meg made me a very happy man.

On the way back to Pattaya, Meg brought up the state of her parents’ house again, reminding me about the damaged floor and roofing.

I could tell it was weighing on her mind the whole trip back, and the more she talked about it, the more I started feeling like I should probably do something to help.

She said she was concerned about her family living there, especially her son, and wanted to help them fix it up.

She kept talking about how the rain would come through the roof and how her boy had to sleep with buckets around the place when it got bad.

Her words were exactly, “Now we are married, do you think you could help to fix the house?”

I didn’t think much of it then. I thought it was just her way of asking for help, but after all of this, when I looked back, it was her way of saying, “Now that we are married, your money is mine and you need to help the whole family.”

At the time though, it just felt like the right thing to do. I mean, we were married now and it was her family, so in my head helping out a little bit seemed fair enough.

Anyway, because I was stupidly in love with her and we had just gotten married, I agreed to help out with getting some of the house repaired. She wasn’t asking for a huge amount. I can’t remember exactly, but it was only like 15 to 20 thousand baht or something like that.

Felt good to help out, and truth be told, it didn’t seem like anything major back then. Reckon now I should’ve just told them to use the sin sod money for the house repairs instead.

The Pressure To Build A House On Her Land

But anyway, I paid for her family house to get done up again, but it didn’t end there.

After a couple of months, Meg started saying how much she missed her son and being back home. She said she wanted to eventually go back so we could be with her son and have our own family.

It did appeal to me a little, to be honest, because Pattaya was never really my scene. I liked the more quiet, peaceful life, and last time I visited Isan, that kind of life was for me.

I was picturing a slower pace of life, you know, quiet mornings, simple living, nothing like the madness of Pattaya.

I told her that we could go back to Isan and live there. We could rent a place close by to her family and see how it works out. If we wanted to stay there or move somewhere else, then we could.

She didn’t want to rent a place, though. She wanted us to build a little house on her parents’ land for me, her, and her son so we could be close to her family and she could take care of them.

Being in love, not thinking straight, and going through the motions, I thought it sounded like a good investment idea. It would be our own place. I stupidly thought we were going to be together forever, so I agreed to it.

You know, it might not sound like it, but most of my life I’ve made good decisions. I always thought everything through, especially when it comes to money. I don’t have many regrets with decisions I made, other than this.

I don’t know why I didn’t take time to really think this one through and just weigh up all the pros and cons. If I did, I probably would have realized there were more cons than pros and not gone through with it.

But when you’re in love and everything feels right in the moment, you just kind of go along with it without asking too many questions.

So, we made our way back to Isan, rented a place for 6 months, hired some builders which turned out to be her brother and brother’s friends that worked in construction. She said it would be cheaper if we hired them.

It wasn’t as cheap as she said, though. She would come to me every other day saying they needed more money for this or more money for that. There was a problem with the roof, they had to dig more in some places, and it just kept coming.

The cost started mounting up faster than I would have liked, but I couldn’t have exactly pulled out now. Well, I guess I could, but I didn’t.

I’m not joking, within about 6 months the house was built. It was nothing special, wasn’t luxury in any way, but it was ours our own little house to begin another chapter in our life.

We moved in and got the place feeling like our own. She was over the moon, and by all accounts, we were both still madly in love with each other and still had the same future plans.

Her family was happy that we had moved there too, though they seemed to spend more time at our place rather than their own. I didn’t mind at first, but it was hard to get some alone time with Meg, if you know what I mean.

Life In Isan And More Money Requests

For months we were happy. I would spend most of my days sitting outside on the front of the house on my laptop, and she would spend it with family, and then at night we would all be eating together.

We had fallen into a bit of a routine by then, just getting through the days and taking things as they came.

Though I could see that Meg was getting a bit bored. She just looked fed up not unhappy with me or anything, but like she was always used to being so busy and now she hasn’t got much to do.

We floated the idea about her getting a place at the local market to sell food. It wasn’t a plan to get rich or make much money; it was just something for her to do, and she seemed interested in it.

I really had no idea how all of that worked and the legal side of renting a place at the market, so I was just taking her word for it. She said she needed about 300,000 baht to set everything up, buy everything, and even get her a new bike so she could pick up stock and whatnot.

Meg was chuffed to bits, and for a while, I was too. We were getting on like a house on fire, and I thought, “Yeah, this is it, life’s good.”

Everything just seemed to be falling into place for us at that point, or at least that’s how it felt at the time.

However, like most fairy tales, it didn’t stay good for too long.

Not long after she had started her market business, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t making money. She hardly sold anything, and to be honest, I don’t think she had a clue what she was doing either.

She started asking me for more and more money just to keep her afloat there and keep her place. She claimed she just needed more time to get the ball rolling, but it was clear for anyone to see that it was not going to take off.

I put quite a bit more into her business more than I’d like to have just to keep her happy. I tried to say maybe it was time to call it a day, cut our losses. But Meg wouldn’t have it. She kept going on about how it’d come good in the end, just like she’d said.

The money requests didn’t just stop there, nor was it only from Meg. Now her family wanted to put their hands in my pocket.

It felt like once I helped the first few times, everyone suddenly knew where to come when they needed money.

Every time I turned around, there were money requests for something. Something in their house needed repaired, the kid needed more stuff for school, dad would need help with something it was never-ending.

At first, I really did not mind because I knew that if I married Meg, a lot of financial responsibility would fall on me, being the man of the house and a farang. I know a lot of people see us as ATMs.

But after a while, it felt less like helping out and more like being used. It felt like every other day Meg would tell me she needs to talk to me about helping her family with something.

The Noodle Restaurant Disaster

Then she comes out with the idea of starting a noodles restaurant. She says that her brother had part of his house sitting empty and it opened out onto the street, which would be a great place to have a restaurant.

She went on about how busy the road was and how people would stop there every day for food.

She said nobody really had a good noodle shop close by, and the nearest one people had to drive to. She said it would be a good money maker and something long term.

I had my doubts, I’ll be honest, but she had a way of talking you round. She said it’d set us up for good, give us something steady coming in. So I dropped another million into it, maybe more.

I had come to Thailand with a decent amount of money probably over-budgeted, actually, and came out with more than most people do but after the marriage, the house, the market, and now a little restaurant, my savings were seriously dropping.

I even started picking up the odd freelance programming gigs. I used to do that just to keep me busy, but now I was doing it for extra cash. So much for retiring early.

It was starting to feel less like retirement and more like I was just trying to keep my head above water.

The Relationship Starts To Crumble

The pressure started really getting to me. And that’s when Meg began to change proper change. All the affection dried up. She got distant and cold, even. Stopped going on about our future together, spent more and more time with her own lot. I tried to bring it up with her, but there was always some excuse, always something else going on.

Sometimes in the morning, she would say she is going to the restaurant or to do something with her family and wouldn’t return until the end of the night.

I understood that sometimes the restaurant might be busy, but sometimes I would go to the restaurant and it wouldn’t even be open, even though she would tell me she was there.

As for the restaurant, I was seeing no money coming in. It was working, but not making any profit. It was spending more than we made, but again, Meg didn’t see it as losing money.

One day I’d been into town to get some shopping. I had a phone call from my brother telling me that one of our childhood friends had passed away, so that put me in an emotional mood.

As soon as I got home and walked through the door, and before I’d even got my shoes off, she was straight on at me needed more money for something else, some urgent thing that’d just cropped up.

I just stood there looking at her thinking, not today… not after the day I’ve just had.

With my emotions through the roof after hearing about my friend, I finally pushed back and snapped at her, telling her I’d already coughed up enough for her and that I had to start watching what I had left.

I told her that she started 2 businesses, so she should start seeing profit or making money herself. It wasn’t my fault that she isn’t making it work.

That set her off proper set her off. Screaming at me that I didn’t trust her, that I didn’t give a damn about her family.

She just kept going on and on, getting louder every minute while I was standing there trying to calm things down.

She told me that I don’t love her and am not willing to support her. I tried to explain all the money I have put into this relationship and her stupid business ideas. That just made her worse.

She packed a bag of her clothes and stormed out. Didn’t see her or hear from her that whole day and night. She came back the next day, but it wasn’t the same. Could feel the tension in the room.

From then on, it just didn’t feel like a relationship, and it was starting to sink in that I have made a huge mistake with everything and I am going to become one of those guys that loses everything in Thailand.

But I kept telling myself it was just a rough patch and things would settle down again.

Maybe it was stupidity or wishful thinking that made me keep trying to keep the peace and see if we could work, so I carried on for a bit.

Meanwhile, the bills just kept coming, and I just couldn’t afford to keep the shop and market thing running anymore. It wasn’t making money, and we still had to pay her friends that would help there.

Every time I sat down and looked at the numbers, it just didn’t make sense anymore.

Eventually, I had to tell her straight that we have to close the doors on them because I simply can’t afford to keep investing in them without making a profit.

Realizing I Had Nothing Left

One night when I had some time for myself, I checked all my accounts while she wasn’t around and started doing the numbers.

I literally only had around 100,000 baht left that was spare money, money I had to rely on.

When I saw how little was left, that showed me how bad things had gotten.

I could have just started working again full-time and picking up as many freelance gigs as possible, but that wasn’t the reason I moved to Thailand. And even if I did start working, I wasn’t happy with the position I was in.

I looked into selling the house that I had built, but with none of it in my name, I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I didn’t even have a percentage of the ownership, so that was a big loss.

In that moment it properly dawned on me just how badly I’d boxed myself in.

After thinking about everything, checking my finances, and seeking advice from friends and family back home, I had to make the call, as hard as it was.

The Painful Decision To Leave Thailand

I told Meg that I was going back to the UK because I can’t afford to live here for the time being. I told her that I will be back if we can start making money.

She didn’t even look bothered. In fact, she looked like she was hiding the fact she was happy about me leaving.

Not even a proper reaction from her, just looked at me like it didn’t really matter.

Maybe this was her plan the whole time, I’m not sure. But her not giving a damn that I was leaving was a clear enough message to me that I really do need to get out of this mess.

So, there I was, landing back in the UK with absolutely nothing to show for it apart from an almost empty savings account, no job, no house, nothing. Truly a retirement nightmare.

Leaving Thailand after you have told everyone you are moving there, coming home broke because of a girl that is a tough and humiliating pill to swallow.

I had to stay at my friend’s place for a while until I could get back on my feet.

It was a strange feeling being back there after everything that had happened, sitting in a spare room at a mate’s house and thinking about how I’d gone from planning a quiet retirement in Thailand to starting all over again like this.

Picking Up The Pieces Back In England

I eventually found a long-term contract for work and am still working for them now, so I was able to start rebuilding. But damn, that feeling of getting taken for a right mug is hard to shake off.

She never gave a damn about me, just what she could squeeze out of me. And I fell for it like a right fool, let it wreck my whole life.

I kept telling myself it was just a rough patch and things would sort themselves out, but deep down I think I already knew where it was heading and just didn’t want to admit it.

When I look back now, I can’t believe how thick I was. Got swept up in this fantasy, this dream of the perfect life out there, and completely ignored every warning sign staring me in the face.

I thought I had everything planned out. I had money, rented a condo, I was keeping myself busy, and by all accounts was going to have a fantastic retirement.

It’s crazy how one person can change all of that. It’s even more crazy that I allowed her to.

I wanted it to be real so bad, wanted to believe she loved me and we had something, a future. But it was all for nothing, every bit of it. Would’ve been miles better off just staying in Pattaya on my own, keeping myself to myself.

I mentioned earlier that I did want to find someone, and that was true. I really did want to find a decent girl. I guess, because I was in that mindset, I rushed things with the first woman that I thought was decent.

I should have taken a step back, taken things slow, actually looked at where this relationship was heading. And maybe then, I would have saved myself a bit of money and heartbreak.

Lessons Learned And Advice For Others

So here I am now, trying to pick up the pieces back in England. But at my age, it’s no walk in the park. Still think about Thailand, yeah, but it’s different now. Not the same place in my head.

Beautiful country, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the paradise I built up in my head. Learned that one the hard way. You’ve got to keep your wits about you; not everyone’s looking out for you.

I still miss parts of it though, the food, the weather, sitting by the beach with nowhere to be, but that whole experience ruined the dream I had in my head about what life there was supposed to be like.

Will I ever go back and try to retire there again? I’m not sure. But if I did, I sure as hell will not be trusting anyone, especially people that I meet in a bar.

Living through something like that changes the way you look at things, because you realize how quickly a good situation can turn into a mess if you stop paying attention and start believing everything people tell you.

If you’re thinking about moving out there, here’s what I’d say. Be careful, really careful. Don’t let your heart call the shots; use your head. Keep your money locked down tight and never, ever put anything in someone else’s name. Nothing.

Take your time with everything out there as well, because the place has a way of making you feel comfortable very quickly, and before you know it you’re making decisions that you wouldn’t normally make back home.

Always rent, and I mean that for everything: condos, bikes, homes, anything that is rentable rather than buying. Do that.