Bargirl Marriage Disaster

[HSTEACH]

This will not be easy to write. It is of a fantasy marriage gone bad. Read it and believe. It can and it does happen.I'm just one or the latest taken to the cleaners. If you are even thinking of starting or continuing a relationship with a bargirl, read this and pay attention. This is what can happen when you put your heart above your head. I had read the horror stories before and thought it could never happen to me. It did. Where to start? Well, in the summer of 1999, I was in the middle of my third trip to LOS and having a great time. Sure wasn't anything like this back in the states. Maybe that's why I always came back. Always Bangkok, always marking off the days on the calendar till I could go again. One slow hot dusty July afternoon I went with a couple of friends to this little dingy hole in the wall bar on Soi Cowboy. My friend said this was his favorite place to go. As we entered we were met by some 20 young and some not so young women sitting, sleeping and basically doing nothing but waiting on that first customer of the day to arrive. We were the first. Immediately we were surrounded and the groping started. Every part of the body being massaged and rubbed. We were in heaven. A bottle of Mekong was bought followed by another, then another. They were all getting drunk at 3PM in the afternoon. All except one, she wasn't drinking. She sat in the background not taking part in the rubbing of the parts. She was older, cute, and seemed very shy. It was if she didn't belong here. I walked, stumbled over and asked her name. Nuch, she said.I asked why don't you join your friends? "I no do, I no like." Strange I thought, how in the hell does she ever make money? My interest increased as I sat drinking Mekong and having all the vital parts rubbed and occasionally looking back and seeing her smile at me. I was sorta taken by her. As we were leaving, I walked over and told her I would be back that night to see her, knowing I was never do so. For some strange reason, I did return later and asked her to go with me. She said OK and went to get her bag. I was still tanked from an afternoon of serious drinking and thought she would be a good screw before finally passing out. Back to the GP we went. After she got in bed, I noticed these horrible stretch marks on her stomach. Gross! Jesus, I thought, what have I picked up? Oh what the hell I thought, she's here so I might as well do the dirty. Hell, that wasn't great either. What a mistake! She was probably the worst I had ever had in Bangkok. The next morning the Mekong had worn off, the head was sorta clear, and she began to talk. Pretty damn good English. I got her life story. I wasn't really interested, I could have cared less. I gave her the bucks and sent her on her way.God, What a mistake! I'll never do that again. Wrong! That night something took me back to that dark dingy bar to barfine that same mistake again. Why? I don't have a clue. Well, one night became two, and ended up being eight. I'm still not sure what the attraction was, it sure wasn't sex. Hell, I'd had much better in the US. On the day of departure, I got her phone number and address. No email, she didn't understand computers. When I got back to the states I often thought about Nuch. One day, I called her. Since she didn't have a cell phone, you had to call the bar and ask for her by her number. That one call became a regular event. Once a week became twice and then three times a week. I was becoming smittened by someone who I thought was horrible the first night out. I was getting hooked. I returned some four months later and spent the whole time with her. Went to her village and met the family, including her two children from her failed first marriage. I asked her to leave the bar, but she refused. " I must help family" she said. I was disappointed as I didn't want her boinking other farangs when I was at home. I offered her money to go home, but she again refused. She told me "I love you, but I cannot go home now." I thought of giving up on her, this wouldn't work, this was an impossible dream. Besides, you're not supposed to fall in love with a bargirl.I had read all the horror stories and I knew what could happen. I was not dumb. Wrong again! Before I left,I bought her a cell phone so I didn't have to call that damn bar phone again. Backin the US, I debated whether to call it quits or continue on. My heart won the argument. I continued calling and she began writing letters in earnest. She began calling me. We talked just about every day. She never asked for money for anything, never. Things were becoming serious. I thought of bringing her to the states. I started looking at visa information. When I returned to LOS three months later, I again offerd to take her out of the bar and provide her support. She agreed. I asked her if she would come to the US and she again said that was what she wanted. I gave her some INS forms to fill out so I could file for a K-1 visa for her. I returned home a happy man. I had gotten my impossible dream. She had returned home to be with her kids and I had gotten a new life companion. Plans were made to return in July of 2000 for a "monk's blessing" in her village. The K-1 was filed and approved by the INS. Things were looking good. I returned in July and we were "married" in her village and all seemed well. I paid the sin sot and mom was very happy. I now felt accepted by her family and finally by her. She explained in great detail the trials and tribulations of being in the business. The false promises, the lies, the heartbreak of doing something she didn't want to do. That of working the bar. Final arrangments were taken care of about the fiance visa. The medical exam, birth certificates, travel arrangments for her. Her interview was in October and she passed with flying colors. She arrived in the US on Thanksgiving Day.She was scared, I was too. I had to somehow help this rice girl from Kalisan adjust to living some 10,000 miles from home in a place where the people were different, where Thai wasn't spoken, and where there were no food stalls on the corner. She had no friends here and I knew adjustment would be difficult. I had made arrangements with the small Thai community here for her to get a job. She worked at a small Thai restaurant for a Thai lady who accepted Nuch like a long lost daughter. She met the rest of the Thais here and was greeted warmly. We found sources of Thai food so she would feel at home.She began driving an automobile for the first time. She was beginning to fit in. She always said she was happy. Always laughing and joking around, singing to herslf and to me. She was happy. We were married in January by a local judge and filed for her adjustment of status, which is filing for permanent residency. She got her social security card and still she acted happy. She became a joint tenant on all my checking and saving accounts. Had her own credit card, in my name of course. She learned how to write checks and began paying the bills before she left to go back for her scheduled visit home. She was becoming adjusted. I was very proud of her. One of my many concerns for her when she got here was her medcal condition, so I had her visit an oby/gyn for a complete workup. The pap smear came back abnormal and it was discovered she was in the early stages of cervical cancer. My insurance company here would not cover it as they claimed it was a "pre-existing condition." Arrangements were made for her to get treatment in BKK when she returned for her scheduled visit home. She finally got her "advanced parole" from the INS in March and arrangement were made for her to go home for a visit late that month. She left the 28th of March and promised to call when she arrived. No call came for 9 days. Late one night she called and said, " I no come back to America, I cannot see you again, I cannot talk to you again." "I sorry." She was gone. I was dumbfounded. I immediately called and got a ticket to Bangkok for two days later. I didn't know where she was, only had several phone numbers she had called in Thailand. When I arrived, I went to her former bar to see if anyone had seen or heard from her. No answers. Calls to the numbers I had brought no answers either. Several days later, I received information that was conformed by other sources that has me to this day dumbfounded. Nuch returned to Bangkok to resume living with her Thai boyfriend. This "guy" was her boyfriend before and during our time together. I was told he was even at our wedding in the village.It was planned for her to come to America to make money and then go back to Thailand, never to return to the US. All preplanned. The marriage in the village was so mama could get the sin sot. All preplanned. How in the hell could she do this to another person? Now I'm stuck in a legal entanglement. I cannot cancel the INS petition of her permanent residency, she has to do that. I cannot get an annulment, my state has no statute involving this situation. I can file for a divorce, but only for abandonment. She has to be gone for 12 months before you can even file. All of the financial arrangments have been changed. She has no access to any money now of mine. Strange thing tho, she never took any. Never used the credit card. Now I am still full of questions. I cannot find her and have not talked to her in almost two months. All I want to know is WHY?? IF you take or have the idea of starting a relationship with a bargirl, BEWARE!! This is something I thought could NEVER happen to me, but it did! Now I could never trust a bargirl any further than I could throw her. Never again. Never again!!! I'm sure that at some point in time she will go back to the bar, even with her medical condition as it is. Where she will work is the question. I'm also sure she probably has justified in her head that what she did was right. I sure she has no remorse. No guilty concience. But in the end, she's not the winner in this game, I am. I still have a future in this world, she doesn't have much. At her age she won't be able to work long, then it's either back to the village and wait till her daughter comes of age so she can send her to BKK to work the bar,or else continue to live with this boyfriend who will eventually kick her out for a newer model. Anyway she blew her chance for a good life for her and her children. She's the loser, not me.

[Guest]

HSTEACH,

your story is a real heartbreaker, but know what? - you're just one victim among legions. Number 223,445 or something like that. Sorry, if I sound cynical. I reckon that a few thousand falang are ripped-off in a similar manner each year. Anybody who marries a bar girl does so at their own peril. The strange thing is: Would the very same people who marry Thai bar girls marry a hooker from Soho in London, from the Reeperbahn in Hamburg or from the brothels of New Orleans? Probably not. So why the hell do they fall for Thai bar girls? Having lived in Thailand for a very long time, I think I know the answer/s. But I'll let you guys figure it out for yourselves ...

[ May 26, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[Guest]

I agree with Scum on this one...I think the major difference being that western hookers don't give the gf experience that a thai one does, she does her deed and is out, and this lulls the punter into a false sense of relationship! Bottom line..she is still a hooker!!..Going on vacation for 3 weeks and falling in love with a hooker?? I just don't get it. It seems to me you are setting yourself up to be taken! I think this also applies to the expat that lives there..although I think that one has a slight..very slight..chance of success.

[tomc12]

HSTEACH,

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. I would like to ask you two questions: 1)Did her mother know what kind of work she was doing in Soi Cowboy? My understanding is that if family knows then you won't get any help from them if problems arise-all they care about is that the girl makes money. If the family didn't know, then I would think they would be a big factor in preventing something like this from happening. 2)Do you think that the Thai culture of dissimulation played a part? Could there have been some real problems that were not being dealt with, that were being swept under the rug of "mai pen rai"?

[HSTEACH]

As far as the first question goes, did her mother know what she did on Soi Cowboy, yes she knew. She knew from day one what she did. Her mother, BTW, was very demanding about money. Very demanding. Would call her and tell her 10 K Baht was needed next week to pay the bank or else the farm would be taken away. She would always find a way to get the money. As far as the second question goes, well I think all bases were covered. I never saw any questions unresolved, however seeing what she ultimately did, I'm sure there were some. All I did was try my very best to try to help her adjust to life in the states. Any needs she had here were met, all the support she could have possibly needed was given. Now it's time to figure out the whys of the situation, although I doubt if I'll ever get all the answers.

[Guest]

HS Teach,

An interesting story.

Just a suggestion - it is a bit difficult to read a long article, especially on a computer screen, when it all one long paragraph. It would improve readability to group the material into smaller paragraphs.

JG

[Guest]

Don't cut yourself up over this. You tried to do good and were taken by a group of people who only wanted to get as much as possible as fast as possible.

Your lucky she didn't take everything you ever worked for.

I do feel sorry for you though.

[Boo Radley]

HSteach

I'm sure everyone feels for you after reading this story and it stands as a warning to all who come after you.

Just a couple of questions, if it's not being too intrusive.

If you haven't seen her since she's returned to Thailand, how do you know she's back with her boyfriend and how did you find out that the boyfriend was at the wedding ceremony?

Apologies if my questioning appears a little direct.

[nkped]

Went the same route 25 years ago. Lasted almost 4 years, but it was probably doomed from the beginning. Don't think she went into it with the intention of a rip-off or even changed to that along the way. But still: 1. Life in the business is damn had on the psyche; 2. She's used to going out and partying every night--you have to go to work in the morning and/or you are too old for that kind of thing anymore; 3. Any farmer's daughter from Isan going farangland is going to have a damn hard time; 4. You make so much more money than her, it's hard for her to believe you can't afford everything; 5. Even if her English is good and/or your Thai is okay, how well do you really communicate.

Not too mention that if her intention is to take you for a ride, you're going to be to in lust/love to tell.

p.s. Saw the ex when I was in Thailand last year--best sex we every had.

[Guest]

What doesn't make sense in this story is that she didn't take you for a bunch of money where it looks like she could have. From other stories I've heard she would be in big trouble with the Thai boyfriend if she returned home with little or no money.

So is it possible that she didn't plan this, that she was trying to adjust to life in America when she got sick. I can understand someone longing to go back home when they had something as serious as cervical cancer, especially a young unsophisticated Thai woman.