Issaan exode

[magician]

 

When gentlemen hit a certain age, call it mid-30's and up, the number of available women without children from previous relationships in the West becomes noticeably smaller.

 

In Thailand, and elsewhere in Asia, it is not so taboo for an older gentleman to be engaged in a relationship with a younger lady. This dramatically widens the number of available women. When you throw economics into the picture, even a relatively comfortable Western male is suddenly quite eligible in Asia.

 

I am 46 years old. My wife is 26. We get along very well, much better than I ever got along with any Western woman, though there are cultural hurdles to overcome. She has a daughter, aged 8 years old, from her very first relationship with a Thai man when she was 18 years old. The guy knocked her up, vanished, and she had the kid, to the lasting shame of her family. She punishes herself for this to this very day.

 

The daughter is lovely. I am honored to take care of her. My wife is lovely. I am fortunate to have such a woman. She cares for me far better than any Western woman ever did, and there is no question that she is far younger, far prettier, and far, far nicer, than any woman that I could reasonably expect to marry in the West. I am far from obese, and I am not a grotesque Chang-singlet wearing farang. I am a gentleman of some means. But I am not Donald Trump, and there is no way that any 26 year old beauty would give me the time of day in the West.

 

For me, this is a great deal. Yes, she had a daughter. I get along well with the daughter. I am not her father, but I am an adult, I am a man, and I am the breadwinner in the family, and that means that I have a certain authority. I am respected by the daughter, and by the rest of the family, and they are careful to exercise nam jai and not to ask for too much.

 

We recently encountered a situation where the son of my wife's uncle needed a large sum of money. He was caught living with a young lady, and the family of the young lady was incensed that they were living outside of wedlock. The situation was all about reparations, meaning it was about money. I made it clear that I would not contribute one satang to resolve the situation. Money that I provide for the family is to be used to enhance their standard of living. I accept the fact, that as a husband of a Thai wife, that I have taken on some responsibility to also help her family. I willingly do so. There are limits, however, and this was a prime example.

 

I have been dismayed by the number of people in the tambon who came out of the woodwork asking the mother and father of my wife for loans, for example. Once it was learned that my wife had a farang husband, the leeches emerged. It has gotten to the point that I no longer enjoy visiting the family in Isan, because it is inevitable that a neighbor or cousin will ask to "borrow" money.

 

At this point, we have enough money to take good care of ourselves, and to help the family. There is not enough to act as a bank. In the future, when it does become possible to do so, I will permit my wife to extend loans, formal loans, using the land of the borrowers as collateral. When they fail to make payments, we will take the land. I will show no mercy. That should take care of that.

 

These are poor people. I sympathize with them. But I am not a bank, I am not Khun Thaksin, and I cannot take care of everybody. I can take care of my own family, and that includes the family of my wife. If everyone in this world did just this much, it would be a very different world.

 

So, there are issues that go along with a marriage to a Thai lady. There are customs to which one must learn to adapt. This does not mean that you should show weakness, and this does not mean that you should display gross stupidity. There have been times that I looked my wife in the eye and told her "no," and that was that. She is a good wife. She does not exercise me with bullshit requests. But when she came to me with this problem of the son of her uncle and the extortionate demands of the family of his live-in girlfriend, I told her that I was not sympathetic, that the son would have to handle his own problem, and that it was not "farang style" to fix issues like this for the extended family. Even for her brother, I would not contribute a a single baht to resolve a situation like this.

 

My point is, if you are not Thai, you can fall back on exactly that. You can explain, "I am not Thai," and even very poor people will understand that "no" means "no." While a Thai man might feel obligated to contribute to the son of my wife's uncle, I feel no such compulsion.

 

For me, this is a great deal. You do have to handle things with some wisdom, however. As much wisdom as you can muster. Because the cultural divide is extreme, and you only really learn about it as time passes.

 

 

[WorldFun]

Magician,

 

Thanks for sharing this with us. You seem to be doing very well and this should be a prime example to the rejecters of mothers what they're potentially missing out on by establishing such a 'rule' LOL. At the very least its an exception to the rule

 

All the best