Karma, Bargirls Or Both Part 2?

I exited the taxi and quickly spotted the single karaoke bar, not somewhere I would go for a drink, very shabby indeed, strange this would be her choice for a girls night out.

As I approached the entrance (a gap between the wooden, windowless walls), two Thai girls started vying for attention, clearly available for take-out. What on earth was my wife doing here?

As I entered the dimly lit space, the girls came with me into what was your typical karaoke shack at the side of a main road with a concrete floor, some wood tables and chairs with that plastic vinyl covering the top. To my right was a big
duke box with TV screen. Toilets appeared to be at the back. There was only 1 table occupied, on one side of the table, facing the TV were my wife’s friend, an older Thai male and then my wife. The other side of the table sat my live in
maid (my wife’s blood aunty). But as I started to focus I realised that the Thai male had his arm resting on the back of my wife's chair. Hmmm, best not to overreact and embarrass us both. I had yet to be noticed by my wife and her
friends, so I turned to the company that had followed me in and said I want to take a lady. They offered themselves but I pointed to my wife! “Cannot, cannot this lady”

“Why”, I asked.

“Because she sit with boyfriend!” My jaw dropped, my brain raced to comprehend what was happening. Did they say that simply to encourage me taking them? Did they say that because they knew it to be true?

“How you know she have boyfriend?”

“She come here many time with him! Why you not go with me?”

Someone I have never had reason to believe has cheated on me. Someone who has seen it through thick and thin with me. The mother of my 2 angels has a Thai boyfriend, who has grey hair, a grey moustache, and looked like a 50 year old taxi
driver. (He was actually 45 years old, 10 years my senior, 14 years hers). I was struggling to comprehend all of this. I wasn’t convinced. What on earth would she see in this guy? Surely not!

She noticed me stood there, probably looking quite puzzled and she smiled. I tried to smile back, not sure if I made it though. No sudden moves, nothing. I needed to compose myself. I could rip the guy's throat out, but what if he hadn’t
done anything? Then what? What about the row of taxis parked out front? I wouldn’t last long for sure, but that wasn’t the reason I didn’t. It wasn’t denial, it was genuine belief that I was jumping to the wrong conclusion.
I genuinely just couldn’t see it to be – or is that just denial?

I went and sat at the table behind theirs and my wife quickly joined me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I wanted to buy you some whiskey to make…whose that guy?”

“That’s my friends husband”

“Yhe painter?”

“Yes”

“So if I go over there now and ask him what his job is in Thai he will tell me he’s a painter?”

“No, actually it's my friends boyfriend.”

“Whats going on?”

“Nothing!”

“Fuck this!”

I stood up to go over to the other table but it was empty. During my conversation the 3 people had left quick smart. I ran out front but couldn’t see them. I went back inside.

“Where’ve they gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did they run off like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What have you done?”

There was no reply. She wasn’t even going to bother lying.

It was sinking in, but what was sinking in? Did she have a boyfriend? Was she selling herself in this bar? For some reason at this stage I knew something was up. I knew she had / was cheating. My stomach churned and I had to get out. I walked away from
her, out of the bar and got in a taxi, I told him to take me home, I just sat there, his Issan music piping through the speakers as the cab darted along the dark road.

I was home in no time, but now I was in shock.

The neighbor who had been in my house watching the kids in case they woke up seemed oblivious to what must have been my clear state of shock, They ambled back to their house.

I walked up my drive, past our car, the car we owned, into our house, pictures of us and the kids all over the walls. I went upstairs to my step daughter's room.

“Do you know if mum has a boyfriend?”

“Yes, she has!”

What, she knows?! The girl I have spent 10+ years raising as my own knows her mum has a boyfriend!

“How long?”

“Don’t know!”

“Who is he?”

“Ajarn from baan nok”

“From your home in baan nok?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t know.”

It was then that I could see she seemed happy to tell me this news, not relieved, but happy to hurt me!

What had I ever done to her?

I was now very confused. If my step daughter knew then her sisters knew. Her whole family would know. No, her whole village would know if she was doing the dirty on me with the local Thai ajarn. What had she done?!

Needless to say I went through several crazed phases that night, from anger, pity, sadness and back to anger. Round and round the feelings went. I smashed up all of our wedding photos and threw them out into the street. I padlocked the gate
to the drive and locked the house up fully. I held my daughters and cried.

She came back within 10 minutes of me arriving home. She saw the mess in the street and told me it was just a guy she had met that night, her friend's friend. It was lucky I had come when I did because she was getting drunk and may have
made a mistake, but she hadn’t so we were okay.

“Ajarn,…fucking Ajarn,…you lying bitch!”

She turned and walked down the street. She was caught and there was nowhere to go. She was now wondering how I could know about Ajarn. She was planning what to do next.

For me there didn’t seem a next. I had no idea what to do next. I needed to try to sleep as the next day was going to be a very long day. I went off to bed and cried myself to sleep. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t sad for me. It was
my daughters that I couldn’t stop thinking about. How all of this would affect them, and what was all of this? I still didn’t really know, but right then I had to sleep. I couldn’t think any more.

When I woke up the next day it all felt a bit strange. The kids were still asleep. I wandered downstairs. I’d certainly made a mess of the pictures. I looked out the front windows and my wife was asleep in the hammock in the garden…
What had she done?

I foolishly rushed my thoughts and decided I needed out. I packed a bag and went into my girls' room, explaining daddy was going away for a few days. My eldest daughter wanted to come with me. Good idea, so we left together and I moved
into a hotel.

My phone was ringing off the hook, but I just needed space. I needed to think things through, so many questions, so many conclusions being jumped to. But the fact was I didn’t know what had been going on. I needed to talk to my wife.

We met 2 days later in a neutral place. Just the two of us. Her eyes were bright red, probably from crying, but crying for what reason?

I started asking the usual questions – what, why, how long? This is a summary of what she told me…

She’d met him 3 months ago at party in her village. Somehow they connected. He listened to her, was a gentleman and they spent the weekend together, drinking and playing cards with their friends in the village. She says nothing sexual
happened. He then surprised her by turning up 2 months ago at her girls' night out and said he loved her. She was starting to think she loved him too but she says nothing sexual happened. After that night they talked daily on the phone (how
I missed that I don’t know). They arranged for him to come back to Bangkok again at the next girls' night out. That night she took him to a short time hotel and they kissed and had sex, twice. She used a condom and after the sex she
told him she loved him. I remember that exact night and when she came home from her girls' night out I recall an amazing sex session with her. I put it down to her being a little drunk. She says it was because he didn’t make her cum,
whereas I could. They talked again every day and arranged to meet at the next girls' night out, but he wanted more. He wanted to spend the whole night with her, wanted to wake up with her. This is why she wanted to come home at 6 AM. She
loved him, but said she wasn’t good enough for him, didn’t want to ruin his life…and he was to be married in 8 weeks time! She says she found out he was getting married that night and that’s when she changed her mind. She
didn’t want to be with him and that’s why she said she would be home early and not 6 AM. She says she had ended it that night, before I turned up.

Now that’s a heck of a lot to take in. I also had to try to figure out which bits I believed and which bits I did not. I recall telling Stick of this situation at the time and telling him what she had said. He was amazed she had told
me all of this and said that that was the only good thing and that normally they will lie till they’re blue in the face, but she seemed to be admitting it all which he said was very unusual.

Despite the cheating, despite the falling in love with someone else, despite all the lies during the affair, I found myself in a very strange position. I had 2 daughters, 2 daughters that need their mum as much as their father, 2 daughters
that under Thai law I had no rights to as we were not legally married. I found myself thinking about how WE go forward TOGETHER for the sake of them.

The following months were quite simply awful. I moved back in and we tried. She said it was over with him and we could work everything out. She said our relationship had become stale and this guy had just come along and swept her off her
feet. She said she would never let that happen again. She promised this was the first and last time and she begged me to forgive her and keep trying.

Communication was never a great thing between us before. Yes, we both spoke fluent English and I had enough Thai but I started realizing that the last 2 or so years had not been the perfect paradise I believed. I started realizing how we
had drifted apart and there was no real us. It was more the kids, everything we did together was with the kids. We had no us time and we had grown apart.

I soon realised that her way of fixing this situation would be through sex. Things we had not done since the early years of our relationship were suddenly back on the menu – sexy clothes and all manner of ‘services’. Her way
to fix this was as a whore which was not what I had in mind and not what I wanted.

The maid had betrayed my trust. I had employed her for 4 years, taken great care of her and paid her a very decent wage but she had to go. My wife said if she went then she would go! Loyalty was to her aunty over me. Within days she was back
on her phone all the time. I even caught her talking to him again, in front of me. She denied it, then accepted it, and said he had called her and she was telling him to stop.

I realised we had no future together. I realised I no longer wanted her. I realised I would not get past what she had done. I didn’t want to get past it. I wanted out, and I wanted my 2 kids. I had to have them and I had to protect
them. There was only one way I could achieve this, I had to start playing the game.

Part 3 coming soon.