Thai wives etc. Naïve and deluded?
Discussion
I was reading the 'living it up in the 3rd world' thread and noted some comments :
d that I am I struggle to understand what a relatively young, good-looking woman would see in a 40,50,60+ year old Englishman that has nothing really going for him in the physique or looks department but by Thai standards has a few quid in the bank. Of course they are always quick to tell you that "she's different and not like all the others" as they've been together for x years despite being away from each other for ~ 6 months of the year while they're working in the UK. What is she doing during those 6 months they're away? Would it perhaps be that she is spending time with one of her 'other' English husbands that she has on the hook who also happens to have a few quid? 
I remember one of them telling me how he'd "tested" her to see if she really loved him. He'd sent her £500 for a plane ticket to come to the UK and he said that if she did a runner with the money rather buy the ticket then he'd know she was a bad'un. She did buy a ticket with it and come to the UK and all was rosy. He even used his money to build them a house over there but due to some local regulations it had to be in her name as he wasn't Thai. Unsurprisingly a short while later she suddenly didn't love him anymore and she got the house and a bunch of money and he was left destitute. Are people really this naïve? If I was on the scam then of course you're going to see right through his £500 plane ticket "test" and go along with it because you know there'll be even more cash flowing your way now that he trusts you
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I can't be the only one that sees this as one big well orchestrated scam, surely? Marry an old English guy with a few quid, get him to build you a house, wine and dine you etc, then bide your time til he pops his clogs and you clean up with his estate and then move on to the next victim?
Condi said:
Having spent the last 2 weeks in se Asia, I can confirm that a vast number of those with thai brides are indeed fat and ginger and probably wouldn't get a bride in the UK...
I work with a couple of guys who have Thai wives as they're always banging on about them and how great Thailand is etc. But being the cynical old bd that I am I struggle to understand what a relatively young, good-looking woman would see in a 40,50,60+ year old Englishman that has nothing really going for him in the physique or looks department but by Thai standards has a few quid in the bank. Of course they are always quick to tell you that "she's different and not like all the others" as they've been together for x years despite being away from each other for ~ 6 months of the year while they're working in the UK. What is she doing during those 6 months they're away? Would it perhaps be that she is spending time with one of her 'other' English husbands that she has on the hook who also happens to have a few quid? I remember one of them telling me how he'd "tested" her to see if she really loved him. He'd sent her £500 for a plane ticket to come to the UK and he said that if she did a runner with the money rather buy the ticket then he'd know she was a bad'un. She did buy a ticket with it and come to the UK and all was rosy. He even used his money to build them a house over there but due to some local regulations it had to be in her name as he wasn't Thai. Unsurprisingly a short while later she suddenly didn't love him anymore and she got the house and a bunch of money and he was left destitute. Are people really this naïve? If I was on the scam then of course you're going to see right through his £500 plane ticket "test" and go along with it because you know there'll be even more cash flowing your way now that he trusts you
.I can't be the only one that sees this as one big well orchestrated scam, surely? Marry an old English guy with a few quid, get him to build you a house, wine and dine you etc, then bide your time til he pops his clogs and you clean up with his estate and then move on to the next victim?
There is an old adage that I've heard which roughly translates to "If the buyer is happy and the seller is happy, who are you to argue". The Thai bride gets some financial gain and the guy basically gets a slave who cooks cleans and panders to his every whim including letting him jump up and down on her on a regular basis, someone who they'd probably never have a chance with under normal circumstances.
I know a guy who has brought his Thai bride over to live with him in the UK, she is 20 years his junior and does everything for him without complaint, never argues and seems to worship the ground he walks on, he is one of the happiest married people I know. If she does a runner in a few years with some of his money, I still reckon he'd have got his money's worth. Buyer happy, seller happy.
I know a guy who has brought his Thai bride over to live with him in the UK, she is 20 years his junior and does everything for him without complaint, never argues and seems to worship the ground he walks on, he is one of the happiest married people I know. If she does a runner in a few years with some of his money, I still reckon he'd have got his money's worth. Buyer happy, seller happy.
I remember reading an old thread on here years ago from some old guy working offshore in the oil fields in Asia who'd married a young Filipino girl and bought a big house for her in the Philippines somewhere and then had her mother move in with them 
. Dunno if he still posts on here (can't remember the username) but he isn't going to be short of a few quid in that line of work and that kind of money would go a very long way in the Philippines. His young wife and family just biding their time? I guess when you're balls deep in some hot, young pretty thing you don't worry about things like that 
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. Dunno if he still posts on here (can't remember the username) but he isn't going to be short of a few quid in that line of work and that kind of money would go a very long way in the Philippines. His young wife and family just biding their time? I guess when you're balls deep in some hot, young pretty thing you don't worry about things like that .It may well be a bit naïve. That said, I'm 40-odd and never been married. I have no heirs, so when I go it's all going to the State or a few ungrateful cousins. Give it a few years and I might well decide that signing up to some tasty young piece in exchange for money I'd otherwise leave to the state is a bloody good deal.
battered said:
It may well be a bit naïve. That said, I'm 40-odd and never been married. I have no heirs, so when I go it's all going to the State or a few ungrateful cousins. Give it a few years and I might well decide that signing up to some tasty young piece in exchange for money I'd otherwise leave to the state is a bloody good deal.
exactly, as has been said if the buyer is happy and the seller is too, why not. If you're both 'wise' enough to understand the transaction, it's not really naïve anymore is it...Say the bloke is 45 when he makes that decision...goes and finds an attentive (for the sake of argument) 30yr old Thai... a few pre-nups...that's not going to be a quick win for her necessarily... the bloke has about 30yrs in him by which time the bride won't have what it takes to latch on to another one...so in that case its as real as any relationship founded in the traditional (and perhaps more naïve) way of 'true love'
My Dad keeps joking about getting one, he says he's a bit old for 'all that' these days and needs a new heart valve so it wouldn't do him any good, but he reckons it's cheaper than his cleaner.
He lives in Bahrain, there is a decent number of people who follow the same MO over there I'm told.
Couple / Family move to Bahrain "for a few years, save up a load of money, come home".
But it rarely works out like that, they expand their lifestyle to fill their new income, and maybe a bit more, because you can borrow against your, I forget the word, but my Dad calls it 'ransom money' without being clapped in irons.
After a few years, Wife who can't really work gets bored of the shopping, misses her family and friends, starts making longer trips back the UK, maybe a month to miss Ramadan, then home for the school holidays for the kid’s sake etc, within a year or two it's 50/50 UK/Bahrain, the year after 'Home' is the UK and they're visiting their Husband who now is just stuck there to fund the family life at home - they're doing okay thank you very much, he's not exactly starving either, probably bored and drinking too much.
So there you have it, decent income, everything is ‘cheap’, a Wife you see a couple of times a year for a 'holiday' so you get a Pilipino 'maid' and the Wife turns a blind eye – stick her in a hotel or something when the Wife visits or she doesn’t, you separate, see her less, but send her the same money and marry the new one.
He lives in Bahrain, there is a decent number of people who follow the same MO over there I'm told.
Couple / Family move to Bahrain "for a few years, save up a load of money, come home".
But it rarely works out like that, they expand their lifestyle to fill their new income, and maybe a bit more, because you can borrow against your, I forget the word, but my Dad calls it 'ransom money' without being clapped in irons.
After a few years, Wife who can't really work gets bored of the shopping, misses her family and friends, starts making longer trips back the UK, maybe a month to miss Ramadan, then home for the school holidays for the kid’s sake etc, within a year or two it's 50/50 UK/Bahrain, the year after 'Home' is the UK and they're visiting their Husband who now is just stuck there to fund the family life at home - they're doing okay thank you very much, he's not exactly starving either, probably bored and drinking too much.
So there you have it, decent income, everything is ‘cheap’, a Wife you see a couple of times a year for a 'holiday' so you get a Pilipino 'maid' and the Wife turns a blind eye – stick her in a hotel or something when the Wife visits or she doesn’t, you separate, see her less, but send her the same money and marry the new one.
No fool like an old fool as they say.
At the same time, if you're born into poverty (and I'm sure many in the east could teach us a thing or two about poverty) with little chance for escape and your marriage prospects are all men strugging with the issues of being broke and getting older, I imagine a soft, balding older man with a good foreign job is a much better prospect than grinding out the next 20 years of your life trying to get your kid one rung above you on the ladder, assuming you can even find a decent husband.
I used to think ill of those who married into wealth, but having met a few women who have either ended up with footballers, came from some paddy field in the middle of China, had marriages arranged or even my chats with strippers I'm much more relaxed about the idea. Everyone's just trying to improve their lot.
I feel worse for the guys now TBH. I'm not sure how I'd cope being married to someone where my own relative wealth was such an obvious draw. I'm sure Flavio Briatore must cry himself to sleep every night.
At the same time, if you're born into poverty (and I'm sure many in the east could teach us a thing or two about poverty) with little chance for escape and your marriage prospects are all men strugging with the issues of being broke and getting older, I imagine a soft, balding older man with a good foreign job is a much better prospect than grinding out the next 20 years of your life trying to get your kid one rung above you on the ladder, assuming you can even find a decent husband.
I used to think ill of those who married into wealth, but having met a few women who have either ended up with footballers, came from some paddy field in the middle of China, had marriages arranged or even my chats with strippers I'm much more relaxed about the idea. Everyone's just trying to improve their lot.
I feel worse for the guys now TBH. I'm not sure how I'd cope being married to someone where my own relative wealth was such an obvious draw. I'm sure Flavio Briatore must cry himself to sleep every night.
All that jazz said:
I can't be the only one that sees this as one big well orchestrated scam, surely? Marry an old English guy with a few quid, get him to build you a house, wine and dine you etc, then bide your time til he pops his clogs and you clean up with his estate and then move on to the next victim?
How does differ from a large number of western women? At least with a Thai they are far perter and less naggy.I had a customer a few month back - ex factory worker from Hull, I'd estimate in his late 60s / early 70s, married to an Indonesian woman in her early 30s. He was very open about the whole situation and happily told me how great it was living in Indonesia with her, how she cooked and cleaned for him, and how much fun they had on all their holidays together. Apparently the proceeds of him selling his house in England, plus his savings and pension allowed them to live a very comfortable life in Indonesia, and they did seem very happy together.
On the other side of the coin, I have a friend who's actually a divorce lawyer, and incredibly he's "imported" and married asian girls twice, got divorced twice, and lost vast amounts of money in the process. His last one literally came over, married him, had a child with him, divorced him when the child was a toddler and walked away with about £500k, almost as if she'd planned it all along...
On the other side of the coin, I have a friend who's actually a divorce lawyer, and incredibly he's "imported" and married asian girls twice, got divorced twice, and lost vast amounts of money in the process. His last one literally came over, married him, had a child with him, divorced him when the child was a toddler and walked away with about £500k, almost as if she'd planned it all along...
Funny how this came up as I was chatting about this to my colleague; as soon as you see a man with an Asian lady it is always assumed that she has been paid for, or she's from the internet, generally no matter the age difference.
We had a guy; mid 50's-60's, come in to work recently with an absolute stunner, she was gorgeous, in her 20's, tall slim etc etc, oh how we sniggered "wonder how much he paid for her" etc etc; she was his daughter!!
We do however have a fat, white haired, balding man; think a larger Captain Birdseye, who works for us, his wife is Pilipino.
A good friend of my sisters; her mum died a few years ago, dad re-married to a Thai bride, he died less than a year into the marriage, she waltzed off back to Thailand with the proceeds of his estate; £2mil worth.
We had a guy; mid 50's-60's, come in to work recently with an absolute stunner, she was gorgeous, in her 20's, tall slim etc etc, oh how we sniggered "wonder how much he paid for her" etc etc; she was his daughter!!
We do however have a fat, white haired, balding man; think a larger Captain Birdseye, who works for us, his wife is Pilipino.
A good friend of my sisters; her mum died a few years ago, dad re-married to a Thai bride, he died less than a year into the marriage, she waltzed off back to Thailand with the proceeds of his estate; £2mil worth.
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