The Game Is Almost Over

I never came to Thailand for the women, and I most certainly never came to find a wife. What happened was all quite unexpected and a bit over a year after I started dating a woman who I had fallen in love with, we were married.

I did the bar thing, had plenty of girlfriends who never worked in the bars and even went through the live-in bargirl phase. That caused me major problems at the end and perhaps that is a whole other story, but I escaped somehow, little worse for wear,
but with a large hole in my wallet. I have been around Thailand for long enough to have a few clues and some experience with the women, though an expert I am not.

So why do I find myself in one damned awful situation now?

We married a few years back and if I am truthful, the relationship had started to go downhill well before we Thaied the knot. Three weeks before the wedding we had a huge great argument late one night in a taxi on the way home from RCA when she started
pouting and complaining that I didn't like her friends. She was right. I didn't like her friends. One was a mia noi and the others were conceited money hungry women, something I found a little strange as they all had very good jobs.
Things got so heated that

she leapt out of the taxi promising to throw the engagement ring away. I ripped the ring off her finger, leapt into another cab and went home. She came back and we somehow made up, but from that point the writing was on the wall.

We married and everyone said how we were the perfect couple. Our age gap was negligible, we were close to fluent in each others' mother tongue and we both had a high income. The future was very bright. We weren't the perfect couple but we weren't
far off.

Almost the day after we Thaied the knot everything changed. She didn't want to have sex on our wedding night. She suddenly became needy. Ultra needy. I bought a new car and we moved into a high end condo. Every day there were demands for this and
that. She wanted this, wanted that. I was paying all the bills and doing a lot of the housework, while my demanding job also required that I work long hours. She put so little into the relationship.

I admitted to myself that she was not the perfect wife, that people don't change and things don't get better. I had had enough and decided to leave. Three months after we had got married I didn't pay the condo bill. I just didn't pay
it! In what must be a first in this money hungry country, nothing was said by anyone. A month went by and no-one came asking about it.

I didn't pay the next month either. Towards the end of that month we were told that the rent was late. I went to pay two months' rent and was given the bill for just one. I paid it and didn't say anything. Three years later they never picked
up on this.

Things started to get worse. Sex became less frequent and mechanical and the few months just drifted by, me working late nights simply because I didn't want to go home to see her, and then she started working later too.

From time to time I would go out to some late night spots with colleagues and I was sorely tempted but never did cross the line. I wanted to but knew it was wrong. I refused to give in and felt that betraying my wife would be the worst thing in the world
notwithstanding that my home life was unbearable.

Perhaps a year after marriage begun I found out that she had started seeing one of her customers at work. As luck would have it I even saw them out together one day at lunch. I don't think anything "happened". I hired an investigator who
hacked her email and found out all about this would be Romeo, thin and bald, 20 years older than her and himself stuck in a loveless relationship with a Thai woman it transpired. While I didn't love her anymore I was still furious.

I raised this with her and we had a roaring great argument. She put a knife to my throat in the apartment. I managed to push her aside and went outside to cool down. When I returned she had absolutely destroyed some of my most prized possessions. She
smashed them so hard with a frying pan that she put it completely out of shape. That must have taken quite some effort.

By the time I had cooled off and returned to the condo, she had gone out to meet this other English guy, for dinner.

I'd had it by that stage so I called her mother and told her everything, telling her what her daughter had done, that she had destroyed property, threatened to kill her husband, that she was now seeing another man and that she had always been a bad
wife. Her mother was shocked. She was hysterical on the phone, crying so loudly that I thought I could hear her wailing across Bangkok. She promised to try and fix it but I said it was too late. She said she would still try.

I then called the guy who my wife was having dinner with and abused the shit out of him. He denied that there was anything more than friendship and passed the phone to my wife who abused me and promptly hung up.

I went back to our apartment and collected some of my stuff, including everything breakable, a week's worth of clothes and put them into the car.

That night I crossed the line. I went to a bar, picked up a girl, took her to a hotel, did the business and kicked her out immediately afterwards feeling dirty and guilty. I turned my phone on at 7AM on what was a Sunday morning to be met with a heap
of missed calls from the wife.

The phone rang within 60 seconds. It was her. She asked me to go home. I got out of the bed in that short time hotel, showered, lingered in the room for quite some time, went and had breakfast and finally made it home around 10 AM. As soon as I opened
the door she started yelling and screaming at me and lunged at me with a knife. I pushed her aside and left. This time I went and checked into a serviced apartment.

Over the next few days the phone rang and I would be abused with every curse known to man. She threatened to come to my place of work and cause a scene but deep down I knew this was unlikely as she would damage her own reputation if she did that.

That week we spent apart. Text messages would arrive frequently. One minute it was love, then hate, and then love again. A shrink would have had a field day analyzing what she said.

About a week later she asked to meet me at Mahboonkrong on a Sunday night. I went and she was in a right state, crying her eyes out. She begged me to go back and I said I would, but not that night. Over the course of the next few days I slowly moved my
stuff back in.

Things were ok, but only ok. They didn't get better, they just stayed much the same but without the violence and abuse. Looking back that was all a big mistake and the inevitable was simply postponed.

Around that time I was put on to a lawyer by a friend who had been through a divorce around that time. His wife had been much the same as mine so he recommended the lawyer and I arranged a meeting. The lawyer gave me all the information I needed to know
and a one hour consultation cost just 1,000 baht. He was absolutely first class. When I outlined the situation he implored me to go and lodge a complaint with the police who would write up a report stating that I had had property destroyed and
had had my life threatened with a knife to my throat. If I wanted to push charges I could and that would be enough to get the ball rolling to file for divorce. But if I did not want to press charges I could still get the report which could be
used as evidence at a later date if need be. I did that and I have had that priceless report locked in my safe ever since.

The lawyer said to me that he had seen a lot of cases like mine and that seldom do things improve. But he was not pushy and told me he would be happy to follow my instructions whatever they might be. Looking back on it, I wish he had been more pushy.
Ending it all then would have been so much better.

Not long after I moved back a former boyfriend of hers from abroad came to town and she secretly met him twice. She told me she was meeting other friends, female friends, but she met him. They did not end up at his hotel but just the fact that she lied
to me pissed me off.

Since then things have never been consistently good. We have times when things are good, and times when we have roaring great arguments with her smashing things and screaming. She has smashed some of the apartment fittings and furniture and once inadvertently
smashed some of her own personal belongings.

When she gets heated she is totally unable to control her emotions and goes crazy. A long time ago I met her ex-boyfriend who privately warned me to be careful when she has her moments. She had been like this with him too.

I guess I knew long ago that this woman has problems despite appearing to be the perfect wife. She is drop dead gorgeous to look at and has a look that most guys find very appealing. Her English is great and she is highly educated. She dresses well and
is very charming. On the surface she really is close to perfect, but let me tell you that in private she has been a nightmare. Being demand and needy is one thing, but her temper tantrums are another dimension altogether.

I have always been a good husband to her. I paid a dowry, not absurdly high, but paid one, to keep the family happy. I have bought her nice gifts, expensive jewellery and clothes. We have eaten at the finest restaurants in Bangkok and frequently take
weekends away. I've taken her to my homeland and I was going to pay the down payment of 50% of the price of a new car for her. I'm not perfect and I'm sure I have my faults, but treating her badly is not something I could be accused
of.

I am going to leave her very soon. The difficulty I have is that when I leave her she is going to become very unstable and I have very major concerns about just what she may do. She will almost certainly try and destroy everything and anything I own.
She will almost certainly speak foul of me to all and sundry. This is not such a concern, but it is the damage she could do to my job that worries me. I enjoy my job. Image and reputation are the biggest things in my line of work and if that is
damaged then I am out of a job.

I am going to talk to my boss before I leave her and warn him of just what might happen. He is Thai but he understands farang well and I think he will not only be understanding but may even have some advice. I hope to have her photo distributed to security
so as to prevent her entering the office. I am going to have a team of guys clear everything out of the apartment and take it to my new residence. My lawyer is arranging the guys to do this and they will not let anyone at the old apartment know
where we have gone. One day she will get home from work and everything will be gone, including the beloved TV. She is going to go crazy! I cannot imagine what she will do but it will be extreme. I would not be surprised if she trashed the apartment.

It is what happens after that that concerns me. She will almost certainly try and contact me and contact my friends. I will have a new phone number so she will not be able to reach me. My closest friends will be briefed as soon as I have moved but in
the interest of making sure things go to plan, I am not going to tell anyone where I have moved for a while.

But the most important part of my plan to rid myself of this devil woman is that I have 4 weeks' leave and I will take them all at once. Combined with Songkran and other holidays I will be away from work for well over a month. This will give her
time to cool down. With me not at work, there will be little she can do.

I hate it that I have to do this but with Thai women there is no reasoning, no discussion and no communication. It is so hard to get problems worked out. I hate myself for sticking at this for so long. I feel like I have wasted three years of my life,
three years in my prime.

Divorce law in Thailand would appear to be fairly precise and according to my lawyer she would not be able to file for divorce at this point in time. She would need to wait three years and then could file for divorce on the grounds of abandonment. By
that time I will almost certainly have left Thailand. My long term plans never included Thailand and what has happened with her has re-affirmed that. This means that she will have to wait three years to get divorced by which time she will be mid
30s and any home she has of having a kid will be fast slipping by. For various reasons that I won't go into, she cannot divorce me in my home country.

The reason that I do not wish to divorce her in Thailand is that it could be costly. With no children and with her earning a good income I see absolutely no reason why I should pay her a single cent. My lawyer has been outstanding and his advice has been
brilliant. When I leave I will do so understanding every aspect of the relevant laws.

There is one more thing that I have failed to mention. My wife did something very silly a year ago, something incredibly stupid actually. There are some things in Thailand you just do not do, and she did this. Yes, she did that! Can you believe it? You
know what I am talking about. The thing that every guide book says you absolutely must not do. I collected evidence of what she did and it is stored away safely in my safe. I didn't dare breathe a word of this to my lawyer, but will present
it to him only if she should try anything extremely nasty. So in terms of legal issues there is little of concern.

I am sure there are nice marriage-minded Thai women out there but my experience married to a Thai woman has been awful. I know from close friends, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s that what happened to me was not a one off. One friend went through
a situation just like I have and others know someone who has been through the same.

I don't blame anyone. Shit happens and you have to deal with it. You have to minimise the risks to yourself and that is why very soon I will be moving everything out of the apartment and into my new place one morning and then disappearing. If I am
lucky I will never see the devil woman again.

If you have any problem with a Thai woman, you cannot talk with her about it because that causes face loss, something they cannot deal with. Even if they do something that is clearly fundamentally wrong, you cannot raise it with them. The problems continue and eventually they reach a point when enough is enough. That is what happened to me.

Stickman's thoughts:

A very nasty story indeed and knowing what Thai women can be like, you've probably chosen the best exit strategy. Hope you can send us a part 2!