Any Advice For a Conned Ex-Husband?

I met a Thai woman in England when I was finishing off my degree and she seemed completely perfect. She was shy, affectionate, made me feel clever and she was very beautiful (on the outside).

She was visiting England on a tourist visa and working in her Mum’s takeaway. I took a few weeks to build up the courage to ask her out, as I wasn’t sure if she was single or even if she could speak English. When I finally did get around to asking her out we spent a lot of time together every week during her lunch break (she worked long hours) and at night.

We managed to get a lot packed into the 5 months we spent together before her visa ran out. Over time she told me things about her past (she was taking a short course in English and I helped her to learn so we conversed fairly easily), such as the fact that she had a son from a previous relationship but had left him in Thailand due to his Dad being an alcoholic and taking drugs and gambling and his family being rich so they didn’t give him back and she couldn’t get the authorities to help her. She also told me that she used to be the leader of a gang and do illegal street racing when she was younger, but I forgave her as she seemed to be trying to get away from her past and she had left it behind her (supposedly).

The other secret she had kept from me because she was scared that I would leave her was that she is a carrier of hepatitis B, although she doesn’t know where she got it from and claims that she must have got it from her mum (even though her mum doesn’t have it), which was really insensitive of her as we had been using a non-barrier method of contraception, though thankfully my body fought it off and I became immune. Being head over heels like I was, I forgave her for this as I understood that she kept the secret out of fear that I would leave, and she did tell me rather than keep quiet about it (although I would have preferred to be told earlier rather than after a few months).

Towards the end of our time in England, due to a mix up on the behalf of a doctor who said that she couldn't get pregnant, she got pregnant. By this stage I had already got engaged to her as I was told by her Mum that the best way to ensure that my girlfriend could get a visa to stay with me was if we got married, and seeing as how I had never met someone as close to perfect as her I agreed. Just before we had to leave for Thailand to renew the visa we had a simple wedding ceremony (it was just a get-together as I was a student at the time and the real signing of the paperwork that made it official would take place in Thailand) and we were all set to go to Thailand for a month, get the marriage stuff out of the way, get a new visa then settle down to raise a family.

After a few weeks we had dealt with the paperwork and I had met the rest of her family (who were fairly poor) and we were all set for getting the visa and returning home. However, the embassy interviewer saw right through her, but because he only used feeble reasons for rejecting the application I never realised the real reason why she was rejected.

We spent the next year or so in Thailand, desperately trying to speed up the arrival of the appeal date. While we were waiting my father provided money to us from a savings account that we had stored up to pay off the student loan and get us started. During our time in Thailand we travelled around a lot and she spent a lot of money shopping and would occasionally come up with excuses to spend a fair bit of cash here and there, such as her son’s nursery fees, a car, some gold jewellery that was very important to her etc. although I don’t think that a fair few of these cash grabs were genuine. There was also one occasion where ‘someone’ had managed to take money out of my credit card in a series of large lump sums. At the time I thought that this was the work of someone who had managed to steal my bank details but in hindsight it’s pretty obvious as to what really happened.

I learned more about my wife’s past as well. For one thing she was still the leader of her street gang, although she didn’t see much of them while we were in Thailand. She occasionally flew into violent rages and occasionally threatened to kill herself, but I put this down to the immense pressures of waiting indefinitely, unable to get a job while we were unsure of our future together and were raising a child at the same time. She would get drunk very often while I looked after the baby or rarely we would get a babysitter and go out together (where she got drunk).

I blamed the embassy for putting this pressure on us and driving her nuts and making her drink a lot, and became more determined to get a visa so that we could go home and end the drinking and violence. There were even a few times when she would storm off in a rage or stay out all night with friends particularly towards the end of the wait. Although I sound like a sap when you read this, please bear in mind that this took course over a very long time so I got used to all of the changes, whereas you know all of this within the space of a single letter. A year passed from when we first arrived in Thailand and we managed to get a visa on appeal thanks to the efforts of me and my family.

Me, her and our son moved into one of my Dad's houses in the country for half a year while I did some work for him to get some income and to repay him for helping us out while we were stuck in Thailand, and although she didn’t enjoy the cold (wouldn’t wear proper winter clothing despite coming from a tropical climate to an English winter), she seemed to have calmed down a lot and barely ever drank. Then we moved to the city, we found an apartment and I got a job and everything seemed to be going well.

However, after we moved to the city and I was doing more and more of the work she became increasingly violent (at random times for no reason but only in private at home) and drunken and was constantly spending money as quickly as possible, although because I didn't open a joint account I could limit her spending so that we could still pay the bills. Even though I was looking after our son almost the entire day and earning a living at night shift and doing nearly all of the housework she became much worse, threatening me and our son and herself and spending more and more time away from the apartment and getting drunk. She eventually admitted that she had only pretended to love me to get a visa and that it was her mum's idea (who it turns out is a former prostitute) <I would put money on it that your Mrs. was too – Stick> to find some English man to con.

Soon after that she started having an affair and because she had threatened both me and our son if I divorced her I secretly made plans to divorce her then got her kicked out.

We are now divorced and because we divorced before the marriage visa could be made indefinite (i.e. before the first 23 months of the visa had passed) she ought to be kicked out when her visa expires. She's obviously trying to stay here and I was wondering what I can do to prevent her from staying as she has become increasingly nasty since the divorce (after initially pretending to like me) and is an unfit parent for our son, as she never interacts with him beyond saying that he’s cute or rarely agreeing that he’s clever when he learns a trick that I teach him. I’ve always been there for our son and have done my best to ensure that he is raised as well as possible, but she has always ignored him when I left him with her to go to work, just sitting there and watching TV, so that when I returned from work all of the toys would be in almost exactly the same place and she hadn’t budged an inch. Towards the end of the marriage she spent more and more time away from the apartment, forcing me to use babysitters to look after our son while she went out, and when I lost my job (upon discovering that she was having an affair with a local drug dealer) she spent an ever-decreasing number of days with us, until we saw her about 2 or 3 days a week. When it came to the divorce though she suddenly wanted to see our son even more, even though she had shown no interest up until this point, trying to pass herself off as wanting to stay in this country as his mother even though she has blanked him since birth.

My request to you and your readers is that you help me by thinking up as many things that I could do to prevent her from getting a visa. I’ve done what I can so far but there is so much at stake that I want to be sure that I’ve done absolutely everything possible to prevent her from staying here. I think that it would be useful if the list of what to do to prevent psycho Thai ex-wives from staying here was archived or a link was made to the list to help others like me who are in a similar situation. It seems to me that she is deliberately seeking out men from rich families and getting pregnant with them where possible so as to bleed them dry for cash and entertainment, and her latest boyfriend is also from a rich family, so if she isn’t stopped this could happen all over again with someone else, in fact who knows how often the cycle will go round?

Matt, Sevenoaks

Stickman's thoughts:

This is a complicated situation. It sounds to me like the first thing you need to do is attempt to get custody of the kid. Given her behaviour and her record you should have a shot at it, although with that said, I know little about the law.

I would be interested to know more about her past. I would put money on it that she was a working girl. She is obviously very rough by Thai standards and I could not help thinking while reading this that if a Thai read a version of this in Thai they would be shaking their head in bewilderment.

Get a lawyer, get custody and then forget about her. Best wishes!