Jealousy is not Love

I felt quite lucky actually. Here I had a beautiful Thai girlfriend with a top notch education who wasn’t too crazy for money and had a decent 9 – 5er. So what went wrong?

As a foreigner living abroad, making friends with normal people and having a social life can at times present a problem. If you are not accustomed to being alone then loneliness is a real problem and it can cause you to do crazy things if you aren’t careful. Enter the Thai girlfriend. She makes your loneliness disappear because she will be at your house every night without a break. In the beginning this is great because you have a best friend and girlfriend all wrapped into one.

I was happy with this arrangement for quite some time, but after awhile I felt smothered. I couldn’t travel anywhere without her giving me an inquisition and if I felt like catching an afternoon movie I had to be sure I could get home before 6 pm to meet her. When she was in my apartment she became like a human backpack. If I watched TV she cuddled next to me, if I wanted to surf the net she pulled up a chair and rested her head on my shoulder, even if I wanted to take a shower she was in there scrubbing my back!

Now if you are on the single man’s side of the fence this may seem like a great life, but try every day for almost a year and after a while you just wanna tell her to get a life. I looked at her one day and finally understood the meaning of the phrase, “Every hot girl has a guy out there who got tired of banging her.” I knew now it was true. I was sick and tired of my girlfriend. I needed a release! I needed something different!

I planned trips around Thailand and waded through the fights with her screaming, “You know I have to work and cannot come with you! I know you just want to fxxx another girl in another province!” I tuned it out and focused on my own sanity. Well it worked and things got better. I found myself missing her at times and looking forward to seeing her again. I thought this was a great medicine for our ailing relationship.

One day I am resting in a hotel room in a non-descript province of Thailand just enjoying the freedom of seeing new things again, and my phone beeps. It is a text message from my girlfriend, “I want to break up with you!” I was shocked to be honest. Why would she send this? So I called her, but no answer so I just sent her an inquiring text message and planned a trip back to Bangkok to sort this out.

Well it turns out while I was gone (according to her) she wanted to clean my room for me. In cleaning she got bored and wanted to surf the net. She opened my MSN and got some messages from other Thai girls who were interested in me. Well that was enough for her to make the judgment that I was a bad man and a cheater.

I explained to her those girls were from before we were together and I never signed into MSN anymore. This was the truth and after about an hour of fighting she finally said she believed me (although I knew she didn’t) and we went back to “normal.”

I knew now she was not above spying on me and I tried again and again to explain to her that checking up on me would only push me away. She listened and pretended to agree but secretly still looked through my receipts and went into my room when I was out.

Fast forward to Halloween. Now I had always been careful to research every Thai holiday and do my best to do something special for her on that holiday as close to what a Thai man would do for her. She was always shocked I remembered and usually wound up asking me about the history of the holiday, as she had never bothered to find out. After she fudged getting me a present on my birthday I explained to her that I wanted this courtesy reciprocated and she should do her best to remember Western holidays and plan something for me.

Well Halloween was around the corner and I was anxious to see what she had planned. It fell on a Friday and on the Wednesday before she stated, “I am going to stay home with my family on Friday.” Well I was mildly at a loss so I just say okay and let it go at that. I knew previously she had asked me which day Halloween fell on and I had told her so maybe she was planning a surprise.

The day of Halloween I stayed in my room and waited, but no call and no knock at the door. At 8 pm I knew for sure she wasn’t coming over and I was feeling quite homesick as I always enjoyed the trick or treaters and staying up watching scary movies with my family. I decided I didn’t want to mope in my room for Halloween so out to Cowboy I went to see what they were up to.

Halloween was done up about as well as I could have hoped for and I rather enjoyed the shows. I was in the Dollhouse which had all the dancers painted up for the occasion and I was feeling quite “sanuk.” I probably put back too many because I bought a lady drink for a dancer and before I knew it she was putting her digits into my phone. I just let her do it as this happens a lot and I just delete the number later.

I stumbled home about 1 am and hit the bed instantly falling asleep. About 8 am the following morning I hear the door creak open and I crack open an eye to see my girlfriend quietly coming in. I close the eye again as I am a little drunk still and fall back to sleep. I feel a strong jab in my back followed by an accusatory, “Who is Bbb?!”

I reply, “Nothing don’t worry about it, just delete it.”

She goes on, “No tell me! I called you last night 11pm but you didn’t answer, were you with her?!”

“Yes I was with her, but she is nobody. I bought her a drink and she gave me her number I was going to delete it today.”

Infuriated my girlfriend said, “Where did you go last night?”

“I went to Cowboy because it was Halloween and you forgot!”

She has a look like a relay just got hung up and blurts out, “Ok sorry I forgot, but you had sex with a prostitute!”

“No I didn’t she just gave me her number!”

“I don’t believe you!”

We fight on and on and finally I tell her she is ridiculous and it is time we broke up. She responds, “I will not let you break up with me!” And I tell her it is not up to her and to please get out of my room. She refuses and just sits on the floor so I go back to sleep.

When I wake up she is laying on the floor so I decide to drain the main vein and take a shower. I figure if I ignore her long enough she will go home. She comes into the bathroom and apologizes and tells me she just loves me too much and she is sorry she looked into my phone.

That day we rented a car and my girlfriend, her brother, and I drove up to Saraburi for the day. On the way back she starts getting these phone calls and talking softly. I couldn't really make out what she said, but her brother suddenly started going off on her in Thai. I caught part of it. Basically he was telling her to tell me something. She said, "Ok," and told me a guy who wanted to be her boyfriend was calling her. I just started laughing.

I told her after all the psycho shit she did to me she has some guy calling her and she is trying to hide it? This is priceless! I told her the difference between her and me is that I don't mind if she talks to him because I trust her. I know she
will not cheat on me. She goes into psycho mode again and start emphatically saying she would never cheat on me and how dare I even contemplate that. She tells me her situation is different than mine, and I simply reply, "Why because it is
you getting the call and not me?"

When we get back into my room I go to take a dump and my phone gets a text message. It is the dancer and she is telling me she misses me. Well, I have the phone in the bathroom with me and I know it is killing my girlfriend that she cannot read the message.
Then my girlfriend's phone rings and she speaks fast Thai, but I catch, "Call me later. I am in my boyfriend's room now."

I finish in the bathroom and she comes up to me and tells me she has to see that message she cannot take it. I show it to her and she freaks out. She tells me she wants to call that girl and ask her if she loves me. I told her that she is crazy and to
do whatever she wants.

She gets on the phone and politely talks to the dancer. She hangs up and says, “She said you came to see her last night and bought her a drink then she gave you her number. She said you told her you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Then she says, “It is okay. I don’t want to break up with you, but now I know you cheat on me. I know you have sex with her and I will forgive you because I am a good girlfriend and now you know I am a good girlfriend.”

I look at her sullenly and say, “Get the fuck out of my room, you psycho. Why don’t you ask her if we ever held hands, kissed, or fucked? Why don’t you ask her how long I spent talking to her or if she even knows anything about me
other than my name?”

My girlfriend looks at me triumphantly and says, “You want me to call her right now so she can tell me ‘Yes!’”

I look at her disgustedly and say, “No I want you to go home and never call me again. Go call that guy that keeps calling you. I want to break up with you and if you won’t leave this time I will get security.”

She looks at me shocked and quickly gathers up her things. She puts her keys on the counter and leaves. I lay there slightly numb because I did love that girl and I didn’t want to see her go, but I knew it would only get worse. For
a farang in Thailand we have the pick of the litter so when one goes off the deep end another will come along soon enough and maybe they will be the one.

As I laid there thinking I felt bad for the girl at that go-go bar. I remembered she was a nice girl, and I didn’t want her caught up in my drama. So I got dressed and headed to Cowboy to go see her. When I got there she started talking
to all the other girls on stage and motioning towards me. I figured she was letting them all know I was the bad butterfly farang. I told the waitress I wanted to buy her a lady drink and talk to her ASAP.

The dancer came over and said she was sorry about telling on me to my girlfriend. I told her not to apologize it was me who should apologize for involving her with my drama. The dancer feigned anger at me for lying to her, and I simply replied
(in Thai), “You have never lied to a customer?”

She got a big grin and said, “Ok ok never mind.” She went on to tell me that my girlfriend actually did call her a second time to ask her what we did and she told her that I just came in for about an hour, bought her one drink and left.
She told my girlfriend she was over-reacting because our encounter was very innocent. She said my girlfriend sounded like she didn’t believe her and I said that’s typical. I tipped her a few hundred baht for an apology and headed
home a free man.

I want to thank this website for giving me the strength to cut this girl loose. In my heart I knew I could never marry her so continuing as boyfriend and girlfriend was pointless. When she started her shit I should have been stronger, but
I wasn’t. I think had I not cut her when I did things might have turned scary psychotic.

When I met this girl she told me she wasn't the jealous type. Well she became jealous as time went on. I suspect when I started traveling she started cheating and assumed I was doing the same. She couldn't grasp the concept that I needed time
to really be alone. Like many others have said I am a firm believer in being stern with these girls and not letting them run over us. Their irrational behavior and invasions of privacy cannot be written off to their "Thai-ness" and they
have to work to understand our culture just as much as we have to work to understand theirs. Believe me, any time I did something which Thais considered rude she let me know in no uncertain terms and she did not put up with it, but vice versa
she easily took a "mai pen rai" attitude towards any infractions towards my culture. Unacceptable.

Stickman's thoughts:

I really enjoyed this submission.

I am sure when looking back you would agree that you made a few of the most common mistakes that many of us have made. I would be very careful about giving a Thai woman the keys to my place. As I have written before, it can be very hard to get them out. Also, they just can't seem to help themselves by searching through your belongings and your computer. And if I once caught a woman going through my phone, that would be goodbye there and then.

When a woman turns psycho, as this one did, there is only one thing to do and that is to call it off. Good on you for having the strength to do just that.