Reply to “The Unexpected Part 1” or “My Net Girl – 5 Years Later”
When reading Strongarm tactics story, it made me think about how I met my wife 8 years ago.
Back in 2004, I wrote the first part of our story, titled “My Net Girl”. I have been thinking for a long time to send in a follow up, but never did. Probably I have been just too lazy.
With this submission, I want to tell Strongarm tactics and other readers, that it is not unthinkable at all to find an honest, educated, intelligent Thai girl. In my case it was easy enough. What was difficult though, was
to develop a working relationship and it really took a long time and many visits to Thailand.
My wife is Thai-Chinese, of course very beautiful and university-educated. She worked for an international company and lived alone with her mom in Bangkok. I am 4 years older than her and we have a similar educational background. Back then I was 30 years
old and she was 26.
I met her on the old BangkokChat website (which is now long gone) and then we chatted on MSN. One day, she told me that she was going on a business trip to Germany, and asked, if I wanted to meet her here for a weekend. Of course I wanted to and we had
a great time. As I had a trip planned to Thailand a month later, we met again for two weeks.
After that trip it was clear that we get along superbly and that we wanted to be a couple.
Over the next five years I came to visit her more than 30 times, staying more than a year altogether in Thailand. She also came to Germany four times to visit (and she paid for the tickets herself). She met my family and everybody loved her.
I was reluctant to meet her mom, because we all know what meeting the family means for a Thai non-bargirl. After three years, she was still telling her mom that she sleeps at a friend's place while I was in Bangkok. Of course her mom suspected that
she had a boyfriend, but it was never talked about openly.
Over the first three years of our long distance relationship we chatted daily on MSN and it was never more than 6 or 7 weeks until my next visit.
She started taking German classes at the Goethe Institute in Bangkok on the weekends and we started talking about marriage. Actually she had been dropping subtle hints for a while.
Finally I met her family. They were really nice and never let me pay for anything. As I said before, my wife lived alone with her mom in the outskirts of Bangkok. Mom has 9 sisters, and I have met all of them. There is one uncle who lives in the neighbourhood
of her house. My wife told me that she respects him like her father. The uncle is very strict with his own two daughters, who are the my wife's best friends. They are 33 and 30 years old respectively,
both never had a boyfriend and they have to be home by 7 PM. Somehow they still behave like children. I was really scared about meeting the uncle, but he was also very nice. He told me that he expects
me to take good care of his niece and that it would be appropriate to marry soon.
All of my wife's family are middle class. Nobody is rich, but everybody has a respectable job. Most of them own a house and a car.
Today I thoroughly enjoy spending time with them while we are in Bangkok.
After five years it was time to decide whether I would move to Bangkok or if she should come to Germany. As my career options in Thailand are limited and she was ready to give up her good job which paid her around 50K baht a month, we decided on Germany.
As I didn’t want to marry before having lived together 24/7 for a while, she came to Germany on a 1-year language student visa. Her mom was not pleased at her leaving Thailand with a farang without being married. She had to take intensive language
classes every day and after a year we finally married. I had expected having to pay a sin sod, but nobody
asked for it. I didn't complain.
We have been married for 2.5 years now and she found a great job in her profession which allows her to travel all over Europe and sometimes even to China and Thailand. I am really proud of her, finding a job so quickly, because many people in her profession
are unemployed here, due to the economic crisis.
Everything is going smoothly and we go to Thailand once or twice a year. Money has never been an issue in our relationship.
Strongarm starts discussing cultural issues before even having met his teerak to be, which is a bit early I think. He tells her that she is supposed to wear a bikini,
when she's on a beach in Australia.
No, my wife still won't wear a bikini on the beach and I would never ask her to do so. Yet, she likes the sun now and she loves going for a walk. She hated both when she still lived in Bangkok. When we are in Thailand on holiday, she now complains
about the heat and the crazy traffic. She doesn't like to go out much, but never complains if I go out with my buddies. If I want to go to Pattaya while she stays
with her mom in Bangkok, it's no problem.
We never argue. If she wants to have her Thai way, I just leave her alone for a while.
In the end, the cultural differences make our relationship so much more interesting.
So here are my conclusions why it worked in our case:
* I had a job with lots of holidays.
* We have both a similar educational background.
* The age gap between us is not very big.
* Money has never been an issue. She earned enough money before we met and still does now.
* 8She has no greedy family.
* She was familiar with western culture from work and has been abroad many times, before coming to live here.
* Most importantly, we are both tolerant and really enjoy being together.
We took lots of time to get to know each other before marrying. Probably I have bored most of my fellow Stickman readers to death by now. I guess that most of the success stories aren't sent in, because they are just too normal and boring. I really
hope to hear a success story from Strongarm tactics one day.
My message to Strongarm tactics and other readers is….
If you stumble over a good Thai girl – take your chance, but also take your time!
Good luck everybody!
Stickman's thoughts:
I think a big part of the key to your success is that you have a similar education, there isn't an age gap and that she had some awareness of Western culture. Honestly, in the situations where relationships between a Western man and a Thai woman go bad, there's often a big age gap, big difference in education levels and there might be a lack of understanding of each other's respective culture.
