Difficult Thai Wife

THIS WOMAN IS DRIVING ME INSANE!

It's been a long time since I submitted to this site but my personal ‘Thai’ experiences of the last 6 years have to be let out one way or another and maybe this will strike a chord with some of those who, like me, log in
here regularly to see what effect the women of Thailand are having on other Western men.

Up until 2004 I was a regular (solo) visitor to Thailand and loved every minute of it – even the little scams I fell for are good memories these days, though not quite as endearing as the memories of the many nights spent on the prowl
in Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok and the Thai women I enjoyed time with along the way. I still travel to Thailand (with my Thai wife) at least once a year but the experience is not what it used to be and although I try to convince myself I enjoy
spending time with her well-off traditional Thai family far outside of the red-light districts, travelling all through the country to visit relatives and seeing almost all of that wonderful country in the process, it is not really true to the
man I am and I don’t get excited about trips to Thailand any more. It’s just a trip to see the in-laws, and time I spend constantly wishing everyone would stop conspiring against my right to have some time to myself, and trust me
enough to believe I am a loyal husband and let me go out alone at night just once! But that’s never going to happen; none of us are that silly.

Anyway, that’s a bit of an introduction to me and not what I actually want to write about. The inspiration to write this comes entirely from my experiences as a husband to my Thai wife, who I met here in Brisbane 6 years ago while
she was studying for her degree and working weekends as a waitress in my favourite restaurant. We had a whirlwind romance and have now been married 5½ years and have a 4 year old daughter who is my pride and joy.

I had very little experience with ‘good’ Thai women prior to meeting my wife, but I had certainly devoted a lot of time and money to my solo project of pursuing bar girls and thought I knew a thing or two about them. This benefited
me zero in my marriage and I learned a long time ago not to drop any of the naughty words I learned from bar girls into our conversation. While she occasionally jokes that I can understand most of what her and the family talk about (which I often
can as I studied the language for some time before meeting her), the smile generally comes off her face if I say something colloquial as she either thinks I learned it from bar girls or am remembering it for similar use in future, so these days
it is much better if I speak no Thai at all.

In the title of this piece I described her as ‘difficult’. The reason for this is that despite my heart-felt desire to make my wife happy it has become obvious during our time together that the results of my efforts are momentary
at best and there is nothing I can do to give her lasting contentment. From reading the submissions on this site I know many of you also have experiences of the maddening attitude Thai women can often have towards arguments in relationships. Everything
can be fine one moment while she is still enjoying something nice I did for her but 5 minutes later something very minor can set her off on giving me the silent treatment for hours before engaging in a form of demoralising warfare only she understands
the rules to. None of the rules give any respect to logical argument or the need to have a valid reason to be angry. Too many times I have seen her snap and things which we bought together and enjoyed owning ending up smashed on the floor, and
while she can then storm out of the house to leave me alone and wondering when she’ll return the same privilege is not available to me and if I were to try to leave she’d either interject herself in the doorway like a wild animal
to prevent me doing it, or if I managed to get out I couldn’t flee as god knows what she would do while I was gone. There are rules for me in an argument because I was brought up in a different culture with a father and mother who respected
each other enough not to touch each other when arguing, not to hit or bite or spit, not to throw things, and not to say nasty, disgusting, hurtful things which can hang in the air like poison between them for years – and also not to do
this in front of the kids. These rules don’t apply to her – she can do and say whatever the hell comes into her mind and I can’t complain about it as she was justified in doing it because I was a bad husband who did something
terrible like suggesting we go to see my family on the following Sunday when I know only too well that I always take my wife and daughter to the shopping centre on that day so now I don’t care about her anymore and don’t I know my
family did something to annoy her 4 years ago and why don’t they ever come to see us so we always have to drive over 1 hour all the way to their place one Sunday every 2 months!?!

Sometimes being married to a Thai woman is like living in a comic strip where the punch line isn’t always funny. I have hundreds of reasons why I pushed her to fight with me over the last few years but I can hardly remember any of
them because the ensuing fights were usually so enormous and destructive that I think I must have done something really bad and I forget or can not believe that it was something minor like coming home 15 minutes later than I said I would due to
traffic, or spending more time with my daughter than I did with her, or she heard on the grapevine I did a shift at work with that woman she hates, or any other little non-event which indicates to her that I don’t respect her, or don’t
love her enough, and gives her the right to use every weapon at her disposal to punish me for hours or days for my transgression.

Many of you may think I am weak for putting up with this, though do keep in mind I love my wife and want her to be happy but after 5 years I am now getting to the point where I have simply had a gutful and almost can not tolerate her attitude
or physical contact with her anymore – but we have a daughter together. It would destroy her if I took our daughter from her and she returned to Thailand alone, and the thought of our girl growing up in Thailand out of my sight is unbearable to
me. My wife knows this and while she is a wonderful person when she is not angry, she is a monster when the mood strikes her and is not scared to use my fear of losing my daughter against me.

This really is a bit of a ‘difficult’ situation.

I still hope she will come to a stage where she realises that some of the little things which happen are just bumps on the road of life, and that it is okay to shrug your shoulders every now and then and say ‘mai pen rai’ or
‘forget it, it’s not that big a deal’ and give me a break, but it seems those rules will only ever apply to the things she does, and are not applicable to me.