Deluded’s Dilemma

The wife rang home on Saturday. Apparently, the wife’s sister’s partner who is called A is very upset. A’s sister has borrowed 200,000 baht from a village moneylender and she is having to pay 10% interest per month. The
moneylender has the deeds to six rai of land as security. Apparently, her husband made her borrow this money for some reason not explained to me. Now A is worried that he is going to lose his inheritance when his father dies. He wants
us to lend him the money to pay off the loan and is proposing to make it a loan against the house deeds.

So the wife asks me for the money and I say no, as I already owe loads on credit cards and loans. She is not happy as she trusts A and he works for us in our shop etc. She also said she does not trust her sister 100% but does not elaborate
further. I said to the wife, we need to make sure that my two daughters (one is a stepdaughter) do not have to go work in a bar when they grow up. I also say how can you trust A’s sister if she is prepared to provide land as security against
her loan, which is effectively partly A’s inheritance and is therefore effectively stealing from her brother. Why does A’s sister’s father let her take the deeds as security. I also ask again, what this 200,000 baht was spent
on; again no satisfactory answer is forthcoming. The wife later tells me to stop mentioning it any more. Later on, the wife comes back with another proposal, can we lend it if we have the deeds to the land, transferred to her, i.e. sold to her
and we pay 250,000 baht and she will sell the land back to A at a later date when the loan is repaid. I say it will be very difficult to get money out of his sister if she is renting our land and cannot afford to pay this loan (especially as this
land is about 30 miles away from our house); the wife says A will do it. I say I want the money transferred in to the accounts of my three children. She agrees. Extremely reluctantly, I agree to this option to stop any marital disharmony. If I
don’t agree I will be subject to days of the silent treatment, threats of divorce etc.

The wife speaks to A, he agrees, and the wife tells him he must agree it with the father and sister. Later the wife talks to her sister who had been driving earlier and was not privy to the wife’s conversation with A. My Thai language
skills are the standard of a two year old and I don’t understand what is being said except wife mentions credit card in English (Obviously no word for credit card in Thailand) she was talking in raised voice (sign of stress). She is obviously
telling sister that we are going to have to borrow this money on the credit card.

Well that is the story so far. I am considering that if they agree to this, land sold for 250,000 baht that I would put a further block on it and say that we must see the land first and get the land transferred to the wife at the same time.
That will put this back to August when we are visiting Thailand and a lot can happen in four months. I am hoping that the blocks already in place by me come to fruition and they back out of the request.

Background relevant (possibly) facts:

1) I have already lent an amount not sure now (30,000 baht I think) when A’s sister had again borrowed money and we paid it off to get her out of another hole. We have the father's house deeds as security at our house.

2) I lent 200,000 baht to one of the wife’s brothers so he could improve his house from corrugated iron walls on the first floor to wooden walls.

3) The wife does not like ringing home, as they always want to talk about money.

My opinion is that this could be a scam cooked up by the sister to borrow 200,000 from me (with no intention of ever paying it back). I reckon she thinks it is her right as I was foolish enough to lend money to a brother with no form of guarantee apart
from my wife’s assurance that he would pay it back, and she thinks she deserves a similar amount of money.

Please bear in mind that I love my wife and my children mean more to me than anything else in the world so getting rid of the wife is not an option, plus the financial and emotional cost of a divorce so no silly thoughts.

This was the submission penned to Stickman, which was just over 800 words. I was just about to send it when I found out the truth.

The Truth

After going to work and worrying about how I can afford an extra 200,000 baht I was ranting on to the wife about if I lent this money we would have no money and there wouldn’t be any money for treats for
our family, we wouldn’t be able to afford to go to Chinese shops to get Thai food for her to eat etc, etc. Wife counters with she will sell her gold and I say, “If you do there will be big trouble” without specifying what.
Then I said no I am not doing it and A sister’s husband can sell back the car to pay off the debt (I assumed that for 200k he must have bought a car, as a motorbike is about 50k). I Also said wife would have to tell her sister that the
bank would not lend me any more money. Anyway, once I had made the final decision the wife confesses.

Apparently the debt is more like 100k baht (not sure exactly as the wife wasn’t very specific and/or didn’t know) and that sister wanted the money for not sure what reason but because I had lent money to her brother she thought
as she looks after our house and shop that she deserves some as well. Wife said sister will be very angry and doesn’t know what she will do next.

I almost hate my sister in law. I can never trust her. My wife tells me lies to try and help out her sister. I am so disillusioned as I had thought I was getting through to the wife that our family must come first. Apparently, it doesn’t
and it probably never will.

I am also wondering if the original 30k I lent was also a scam. It worked, so now they go for a larger amount. If this works a couple of years later an even larger amount. How gullible is this deluded fellow.

At last I am beginning to see through their scams and I am beginning to understand how they think. A bit late many of you might think!!!

Crisis over now and harmony has returned to the household until the next money demand from the family.

Stickman's thoughts:

This sort of nonsense would make me wild. The saddest part was the bit where you said your wife would not talk to you for days, or would possibly threaten you with divorce – and that in a situation where she was lying to you. What a horrible situation, and horrible people in that family. When you read stories like this you can see exactly why Thais take so long to get to know the family of the person their son or daughter is going to marry into. Thais are aware of all of this nonsense and do everything they can to see that they don't have to suffer it.