Am I Being Too Moralistic In My Search For Women?

Good articles! The articles on your site raise some very valid points about a Thai-Farang relationship being successful in the long term. I have been close to marriage with a well educated, professional Thai woman. I have serious doubts about the ability of Thai women to adapt and be fairly honest with their mates. Thai culture seems to be the root cause of the dishonest behaviour. I think the women in Thai society has to be greedy and dishonest to ensure she gets her slice of the financial pie. I realize that this view might be a generalization, but several of my friends who have had prior and current relationships with Thai women concur on my assessment. What are your thoughts on this issue? A relationship with a Thai woman needs quite a bit more attention than a comparable one with a farang woman, boy do I know that!! Many Thai women are very sincere and honest, the problem is finding one. I have been trying for a number of years.

In the past I lived and worked in Bangkok for a few years and was a bit troubled by my inability to find a sincere Thai woman. Sure, I had many girlfriends. I knew most of them were looking to ride the farang ATM train. I was reasonable with money I gave them, never too much, never too little. Some of the girls were serious with their intentions of marriage, but their true nature always came through. I would call them on lies and told them I would not tolerate them being dishonest with me. Some of the girls merely shrugged my comments off and continued to lie. I would not see them any more if they brushed off my requests for honesty. They would call me at work, at home, and show up unexpectedly at odd hours trying to get me to take them back, sometimes drunk and stoned out their gourds. These were not bargirls, at least that's what they said! Some of the lengths they went to were quite amazing, one girl offered to give me twice daily BJ's for a month with no commitment or money, one girl would send me flowers and a bottle of Dewars once a week. I was flattered that a woman would send me flowers and good Scotch! I met with her and we stayed together for a year and a half. She worked as a sales girl and was more than willing to be an adventurous lover (Kama Sutra, oh yeah!) and a housekeeper. She was incredulous and dismayed because I made her keep her job. She wanted to be a housewife more than anything else! I met her family during one of the holidays and they were dirt poor, from Phayao. I have seen grinding poverty in the United States, but the Thai level of poverty was incredible! I saw signs of malnutrition in the children, rampant alcohol and drug abuse with the adults and teens, and a fair amount of what appeared to be incestuous relationships within the family. I was expected to pay for the holiday feast for the family which was just a ruse to get this farang to buy whiskey and cigarettes for the family. I bought the food myself, but no whiskey or cigarettes. They really tried hard to have me buy a case of Johnny Walker Red. Nope. No buying booze for the family. They can supply their own.

The family was rather surprised at my ability to speak and read Thai, they could not hide behind their language. Her family constantly hit me up for money for a multitude of reasons. My girlfriend was also under a tremendous amount of pressure to cough up some cash for her parents. I knew she sent home about 50% of her salesgirl pay to her parents, but they openly demanded more when they saw she was with a well dressed farang. I found the repeated requests for money to be quite insulting and plain greedy. Her older brother even threatened me, I'm no pushover, I have been involved in Karate since age 10 and was more than willing to kick the crap out of him as a demonstration for the family. I had my fill of their inexcusable behaviour. Thankfully, my girlfriend knew about my martial arts background and told her brother he would be hurt quite badly if he engaged me in a fight. When her brother found out about my martial arts background, he became quite chummy and light hearted with me, after all it would be a horrible loss of face to be beaten to a bloody pulp by a farang. My girlfriend broke down and cried that night and confided in me that her family was getting unreasonable and were embarrassing her badly with their financial requests. I told her I would not give money for alcohol or drugs, but I would buy a reasonable amount of food for them monthly and children's multivitamins for the kids. The family actually got angry with my proposal, what a bunch of total ingrates! I told them not to "Look a gift horse in the mouth". The only person who saw the logic of my proposal was the great grandmother. She was happy I was concerned with the children's health and would make sure they got the vitamins and a good share of the food. My girlfriend wanted to leave badly, so we left very early the next morning before the hung over asshole relatives woke up. She was terribly ashamed by her family's behaviour and had lost a huge amount of face. I reassured her and let her know I was interested in her and would help the family, but not with booze and drug money. This type of behaviour is not the norm for a Thai family, it was really shocking because the smiles did not hide their overt hostile greed.

When we got back to Bangkok, I arranged to have enriched rice sent to the great grandma on a monthly basis. I calculated 100 Kg per month would be more than enough. At the equivalent of $9.10 per month, it was a good investment in health for the kids. I bought a bulk supply of children's vitamins, enough for 3 years. Later that month we went back to her family's small farm plot and I sought the great grandmother. I instructed her in the use of vitamins for the kids, and that they could have only 1 tablet per day and that more was not better with vitamins, only 1 per day. I had a suspicion that the family would sell the vitamins for drugs or booze, but that fear was unfounded. The great grandmother was very protective of the vitamins and of the children, she would not let the family interfere in this situation. Believe me, they really tried (jackoffs!). I really respected that old dragon. She was the only genuine person in the family. I liked her and she liked me. She said she liked the colour of my eyes (green) and they reminded her of a Frenchman she knew as a young lass. My girlfriend and I left the same day, her family was again demanding money from her. She was really very upset with her family and told me she did not want to come back to see them ever again when we were travelling back to Bangkok. She was terribly ashamed of her family and from coming from such a poor background. She felt that it was her duty to help the family with money, but she hated the fact her father would spend the money on alcohol, drugs, and gambling. She hated the way her family had treated me and said she would not want them at the wedding ceremony if we got married. She even told me not to pay the dowry to her parents if we got married, they would just spend it on booze and drugs. I guess this is the stereotypical poor Thai family everyone reads about on Stickman's web site. Lazy, drunken bastards and stoned Thai men, greedy and hostile relatives. It's really sad, but true in my experience. Stereotypes start somewhere. I know that the average Thai farming family is quite different. I have been to a few farms with ex-girlfriends and have never been mistreated, not at all, in fact I was considered a guest of honour, that is until I met with the exception to the norm.

A couple months after we got back to my apartment, my girlfriend's cousin was killed by the Bangkok police for selling drugs. I suspect it was an extra-judicial execution. She wanted me to come to the funeral, I declined because it was her family affair and I did not want to pay for his funeral. She left for the funeral early the next morning. I was considering breaking up with her, the asshole family and the death of her cousin was getting to be a bit much for me to deal with along with my high pressure technical job. Later that morning I noticed my wallet was empty, 8300 baht missing! She had stolen from me. I went to an ATM, then to work and returned that evening. I did have evidence of this theft, I had set up a web cam in the apartment and was attempting to set up a website about Bangkok. I left the camera on to see how the time/frame update feature worked. I was furious to start with then quite sad because the relationship was failing because of greed: Her's and her families. When she got back I confronted her on the theft. She lied. I asked her to come over to the computer and brought up the webcam frames showing her taking money from my wallet. She actually said that the woman on the webcam was not her, must be a robber dressed like her!! After 15 minutes of me questioning her, she finally broke down and sobbed. She needed the money for the funeral-I countered with the village death insurance policy for the funeral. I knew she was still lying. She finally said she gave the money to her father. I told her she could live in the apartment, sleep on the couch, and pay back the money she stole with the salary from her job. She actually got angry at me for demanding she pay back what she stole! I had been giving her money weekly, about 1000 baht. No more!

I became very, very angry with her. I went to the closet and took out her suitcase and threw it at her and told her to pack her stuff and leave immediately. Then the waterworks began, she was finally confronted with her actions and her womanly wiles could not get her out of this jam. She ran in to the bedroom and sat in the corner and cried. I packed her stuff without saying a word to her, I even packed her stupid toy pig collection. I called one of her friends and told her what had happened and that my now ex-girlfriend needed a place to stay for the night. Two of her girlfriends showed up 30 minutes later, they tried to convince me that she was a good girl and was not a thief. I told them to get her out of the apartment quickly, or I would physically pick her up and throw her out the front door. What a scene! The two friends had to literally drag my crying and screaming ex-girl friend out of the apartment! She had gone completely berserk! She was in a fit because her financial dreams were ruined and her farang had tossed her out. The next day, my ex-girlfriend called me constantly at work, sobbing in to the phone pleading for me to take her back again. I thought about taking her back, but I knew her family would eventually pressure her into ripping me off again, or worse.

I paid the landlady 1000 baht to have the lock changed early that morning so I was reasonably sure my ex would not come back to rip me off again. The landlady called me at 6 pm that evening and said my ex had been knocking at my door and was trying to get her key to work in the lock. My ex even tried to butter up the landlady with a bribe to be let into my apartment. No go on that proposition! My landlady was a tyrannical dragon bitch, but she was very good with maintenance and keeping out the riff-raff and unwanted visitors. It seems that the few farangs in the building paid her well for her services. I met with my ex-girlfriend a week later.

She was convinced I would take her back and that I just needed time to get over her bad behaviour and forgive her. I actually felt sorry for her. She was in complete denial of the situation. I did love her very deeply, I told her that I would take her back if she cut all family ties, in essence rejecting her family outright. No money, no communication, no contact ever again. I told her it would be healthier for her in the long run to disown her family and make a new life with me. She said she would have to think about it for a while. I was tempted to take her back just for the sex, but I could not because of her behaviour and my damn conscience. She truly was a poor and naive Thai farmer's daughter looking for love and security, but finding out her bad behaviour and her family had serious consequences. She really has one seriously dysfunctional family. I really hope she is doing OK, I miss her now and again. She called me a quite a number of times avoiding the family ex-communication issue, then the calls tapered off to none after a month. She knew my mind could not be changed about her never contacting or supporting her family again. I really hoped she would commit to me over her family, but in retrospect that was just a pipe dream on my part. I had met a Thai business woman through an acquaintance and was entering into a relationship I thought would last. After six months, I proposed to her while we were on holiday at the beach.

My fiancée came over to the U.S. on a fiancée visa. She was a beautiful woman, thoughtful, kind, giving and sincere. That's what I initially thought until she was living with me for 60 days. The fiancée visa requires a marriage within 90 days of the issuing date to be converted over to a resident alien spouse visa.

My fiancée began to show her true colours, her "nice girl" front began to erode. I began to see a desperate, deep rooted avarice in her personality. She had already picked a car she wanted me to buy her, a BMW 318i. I took her shopping a few times, she would pick out very expensive clothes and jewellery and expected me to plunk down a month's salary on designer dresses and shoes etc. No way, I told her to cool her jets and that I was getting pissed at her greedy behaviour. I confronted her on the issue and she played the hurt little Thai girl act, said that I didn't respect her and would not take care of her. It was amazing that a highly educated and mature Thai woman would act like an 11 year old girl, trying to elicit sympathy with such behaviour. I continued to be nice and persuasive with her, getting her to open up and tell me her true feelings. I really made quite an effort to convey my views and feelings on this issue. She was very guarded and continued to digress into her little hurt girl routine when ever I would get serious with my conversations. She was not part of the so-hi set in Thailand, merely from a middle class background.

I have the ability to see if people are dishonest, from my experience in HR as an interviewer. My fiancée would spin some whoppers and then cry and go into the hurt little girl act when I countered her on the lies. I flatly told her that I would not marry a dishonest woman and that my future wife would need to be very open and honest with me. After this conversation, she became sulky and quiet. I was sad and relieved at the same time, relieved that I didn't make a huge mistake. I made a reservation for her to fly back to Thailand the next day. It was now day 81 of her 90 day fiancée visa: She poured on the charm and said she loved me and would do anything to be my wife, she was very desperate at this point and the truth started to come out. She had an ex-husband in Denmark and had 2 kids with him, he had custody of their children. Her U.S. visa application did not have this information, this fact could have left me in the deep stuff because I officially vouched for her background. This bomb shell of her lies enraged me big time, I called the airline and changed her flight to the very same day at 7:00 PM. An extra $100 for changing the flight on short notice, no problem. I was glad to pay. I went upstairs and had her pack her stuff. She went on a crying jag and continued to cry all the way to the airport. She got very angry with me, I just laughed and told her if she had been honest from the start, she would not be leaving the U.S. as a single woman. I told her I would have accepted her past marriage and kids, but I could not accept her avoidance of any real meaningful deep interpersonal communications, lies, greed, and dishonest behaviour. She went through customs and flew home. She called me many times, wrote emails and sent me presents trying to win me back. She wanted to make me a full partner in her land finance business in Thailand if I would marry her and accept and forgive her digressions. She actually tried to bribe me into getting married! Not a chance! The idea of going back to Thailand to live as an expat again was really very tempting. I intentionally brought her over on a Fiancée visa to make sure she would be the right one. She wasn't by a long shot.

In my youth, I married an American woman and saw her mutate from a wonderful, sweet, demure, and caring girl to an avaricious and vicious feminist wild beast. After 10 years of perpetual put downs and emasculating behaviour from her, I called it quits and was actually glad to part with 50% of my savings and 50% of my house's value to get her out of my life. Strangely, after 7 years of divorce, she has tried to re-enter my life and wants to restart our relationship. I guess being a 38 year old grossly overweight (5'6" 375 Lb!!) feminist has it's downsides, namely men willing to be treated like dog vomit by her to get some sex every now and then, and that's if she can find a man who would be willing to burrow into her mountains of flab!

I still love Thailand and Thai women. I just need to find the right one. I hope my standards are not too high, the one deal buster is utter dishonesty. I don't lie, not even little white lies. I need to find a Thai woman who shares my values and is mostly honest. Where do I start? I can tolerate some small benders of the truth, but not big time whoppers like having ex-husbands or kids. Am I totally unrealistic in my desires? Am I deluding myself? At this point I am not sure, but I know what I want in a Thai woman. I will keep searching. What is your view Stickman et al. Do I need to soak my head and accept dishonest behaviour by Thai women? Am I being too moralistic here? I am in need of some other viewpoints and reality checks regarding Thai women: What works and what does not. Feminist wild beats definitely do not work for me.

Any ideas or suggestions from you, Stickgirl (yes, I need her opinion and viewpoint), or any of your readers are very welcome.

Stickman says:

It sounds to me like you have had a lot of bad luck, or you are not as good as you thought at gauging what people are really like. Yes, there are a lot of snakes in Thailand, but there are a lot of lovely women too. I think it really comes down to spending enough time to REALLY know what someone is like, before you actually commit to something like moving them overseas, getting engaged etc. Better luck next time.