surprise surprise

Wow, Laos is often full of surprises for the open minded, and I've been (positively?) hit by an extraordinary development which I describe in the following thread:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/765174-i-left-my-lao-wife-and-was-told-i-could-be-surprised/

Some of you may have read my previous thread which I found helpful in my decision to leave my wife of 6 years after she had decided to go gold digging:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/759214-my-lao-wife-of-6-years-has-decided-to-go-gold-digging/

I never thought things would develop as quickly as they did and here's the story:

10 days ago, I moved out from my wifes (and family) land, to some close Lao friends outside of Vientiane, the setting is much nicer, I'm surrounded by nature yet over 30 minutes from the city center which is ok as I'm not interested in hanging out in the bars or clubs with other expats (and my budget wouldn't allow it anyways).

When I moved I thought I was in for a long recovery, having to start over etc, I was depressed, but something most unexpected came up: I am about to become a father with a (very) young lady I've known for almost a year and gave moral support to at the time. How did this happen?

While in Europe this summer I've been exchanging messages and pictures with her as a way to respond to her desire to communicate. Upon my return in August, i deleted my account as my relationship with my wife was a priority. After a couple of weeks when I started realizing what my wife was up to, this young girl calls me out of the blue and tells me she is waiting for me nearby my village, which is a good 20 minutes outside the capital Vientiane.

I thought that was quite courageous on her part as I know she had to travel half a day from the sticks and risk not finding me. So I immediately decide to find where she is (I speak conversational Lao but getting directions on the phone can get a bit messy) and after a bit of searching I find her in a beer bar with her friend which she had brought along. There I understand she came specifically to find me and remembered approximately when I was due to return as well as the name of my village. After a few Beer Lao I decide to return home and think about what to do next.

I call her the next day only to find out that she had moved to another place (beer bar again...), a few miles away on a dirt road which I eventually found (I do happen to have learned many village names around Vientiane which made this possible). There I understand that she didn't want to work in the beer bar and had to move as she wouldn't provide any 'services', it was a way for her to overnight for free albeit one night at a time. I knew this wouldn't work out long and that I would loose patience quickly in driving around dirt roads looking for whatever next place she would find so I offered to take her home (and her friend) to her tiny village 3 hours from Vientiane, including 1 hour off the main road through mud and water with my small 2wd chinese car (this is just after it had rained 3 days straight for those of you living here).

We overnight upon arrival at the closest 'town' and sleep together before taking the road the next morning to her house where I meet the family: mother, father, grandparents, cousins etc... her friend lives in a shack and the family has just constructed a makeshift brickhouse with no toilets. It's really poor (although I'm used to it), the setting is beautiful with karst mountains and I decide to hit it the Lao way (I've done this many times) by ordering a couple of cases of beer which came warm but with Ice... We all had a good time, made a quick visit to the temple and upon night fall returned to the town and its guest house, 25km away on a terrible road. I clearly didn't want to stay in her home.

Next morning I refuse to shell out $20 for a 'taxi' ride home and drop her in front of the bus station with some pocket money instead. I drive back to my house where I am about to learn more about my wife's whereabouts...

Lucky or not, an older friend with 20 years in Laos calls me up a week later telling me his 21 yo son is in town, leaving in a few days and hasn't seen the deeper Laos... in a blink of an eye I offer to take them on a 2 day road trip and return to the girls village as it sits in a fantastic natural setting with a great Wat carved into a karst mountain. I have no second thoughts as I am now fully aware of my wife's night activity's and prefer to drive around than stay home in such a strange situation.

We leave the next morning, the drive is nice and fun, and arrive at the girls' house with local fish, chicken and fruit bought at the market... things get started very fast after another quick visit at the temple, beer is flowing, traditional music is pumping, food is brought and the Lao welcoming ceremony begins with dancing and knots being tied around our wrists, particularly mine and the young girl; about 30 people are present. (this is called Kouat in Lao, which is a welcome ceremony but could easily be mistaken for a fiance celebration, which I don't think it was)

Night falls and my friend's son was befriended by a beautiful 18 yo girl with whom he had been dancing most of the afternoon, we are told there is a guest house 10km away and decide to overnight there. The father of the 18 yo girl seems reticent to let her go with the young man but after some negotiating and 500 baht (!), off we go with his complete blessing leaving my older friend in the house as he prefers to stay there.

Another night of love ensues, we have Lao breakfast in the adjacent town and return to the village, gave our good byes and off we go on the second day of our road trip through rice fields and small villages, we visit an expat living in the sticks and before returning home make a stop on a peaceful piece of land by the river which I bought 6 months ago, probably the place where I will resettle once I find the energy to make it livable (just a wooden hut for now with no electricity or running water...)

The situation back home has become weirder, my absent wife threatens to call the police (we are not officially married which can lead to problems in Laos) so after a few days, I decide to leave even though the family in law is happy that I stay... but enough is enough, and the house is completely emptied, including electricity, doors and windows on a sunny sunday afternoon. Not an easy decision but I just couldn't stay any more.

I had gotten some good advice here on TV, much welcomed support via pm and my friends, yet I The big surprisefound myself alone in many ways, having lost both my wife of 6 years and the only house I'd ever built. I tried staying positive, my friends were supportive and one even said "you could very well be surprised"!

10 days pass, I am presented with Lao girls who come visit as the whole area knows there's an available Falang, but birds wearing Prada and constantly texting on their iphone 5S isn't my thing, so I just enjoy the company during those few Beer Lao afternoons...

The big surprise indeed didn't take long to come, I speak with the young girl to whom I had spoken about maybe learning some cooking skills at my friends house, she has a stomach ache and feels a bit dizzy so I ask her if she'd gotten her period... "I'm late" she says.... This is the Ahaa moment that changes everything...

I call her the next day to see how she feels and she says she is on her way to the hospital... no way she should get treated in the sticks so I tell her to take the bus and I will pick her up in the afternoon. A few hours later, there she is, the tiny 17 yo laotian standing under a tree on the side of the dusty road with a big smile on her face...

On the way home we make a stop at the pharmacy, I buy 2 pregnancy tests, we have dinner and go for an early sleep and some cajoling. The next morning she picks up a test and I secretly hope it will be positive... the 2 clear red marks on the strip are the answer I somehow felt I wanted as I never managed to get a woman pregnant in the past 10 years despite really trying, the young and fertile 17 year old perhaps was all that is needed for this strike of chance; i don't know for sure but here I am now, there are 3 of us confirmed by echography, she is 1 month pregnant and the dates match perfectly. This was 3 days ago.

It's a long story I know but I wanted to put down all the details, I feel uplifted by the news, I've started eating properly again (i lost 6kg in less than a month) and it looks like my life has taken a new turn although I have no clue how I will deal with this: 17 years old is quite young, I'm 44 and this might very well be a chance for fatherhood I won't get again: it's the main reason why I would keep the baby, along with the fact that she seems happy to keep it as well.

I'll leave it here for now and post more tomorrow about the implications of this pregnancy given I'm in Laos, that we're not married and the poor environment the girl comes from.

Lot of things do not add up here. (They usually do not!) Are you really married? Pretty difficult to marry a Lao girl..not like Thailand. You say the house is 'attached' to the mother's house...How does all that show up on land papers?.Again I have no knowledge of how it works in Lao as opposed to Thailand. How much did you spend? Source of money? Documented? Was it all legal? Can you afford to throw it all away? I think, for what it is worth, you have 4 choices!

1 If it is your house and can be proven, if you want, sit it out and see what happens

2.Sue for divorce..again presume you have the papers identifying source of money for assets

3.If you want to keep her, simply find the guy and face him down! Nor many people want to be confronted with a guy saying: 'Why do you want to f*** my wife? If he is difficult have you and the family find some Luk Nong!

4. Run Away

Were 'married' at the village level, not officially so there are no divorce issues for any of us. I am free to leave so to speak.

The house is physically attached to the mother's, so we share the land / main entrance gate to park the car etc. If I choose to leave I'll loose the house which I was somewhat prepared to do when I built it in case things went wrong. It's only been 2 years since I built it so it would be a loss of about 300k baht (I'm glad I didn't buy the land)

I do have time, there's no real rush as everyone is ok with me being around, again I get along very well with the family and I suspect nobody knows what's going on, except the brother in law who is married to one of the sisters and therefore cannot say much / he was disappointed to hear the story and offered to help. As I wrote earlier I haven't talked with the mother yet. (she showed up with some food for me yesterday while I was on the computer... very nice and must mean something)

Leave with all your possession, sell the house and wish her all the best. She has made her choice. You should move on as well. My opinion.

Probably what I'll end up doing unless she comes around and understands the futility of her current thinking. I'm not sure from our conversation that she has really made a choice, it's not as clear cut in her mind and it would suck if I left without being sure, as we would loose what we have and the 'magic falang' probably wont be as magic as she has come to expect...

she'll loose the support I provide to both her and the family, and would become part of the bar scene with all the risks involved. She needs to stay with her mom as her care taker so the option of moving in with some new guy is out the question.

Like I said this is new and sudden and I'm looking at my options, leaving and starting over being one of them; with no mutual respect there is of course no possible relationship.

Thanks for the supportive comments.

Edit: I cant sell the house as it is directly attached to the mothers & on her land.

Ask yourself.....could you really stay and meet this American that you have never met before, look him in the eye and be civil, knowing full well that he has had sex with your wife, probably multiple times?

The guy has no clue, he's coming back to Laos on purpose to see her again and in my book he gets to have a chance at realizing what's really going on. If any of you were in his shoes wouldn't you want to know that you are being taken on a ride?

The reason I'm putting up with this, at least for now, is that this is all very sudden, I was away 4 months (during which she wrote my own mother to tell her she missed me and asked to remind me she loves me very much...) and yes i was unfaithful a while back and tell myself it's only fair as long as things get back to normal (Which I'm not sure wether they can or not... time will tell)

Re. her mother this is a weird one; my brother in law who is an english teacher and very respectable guy offered to speak to the mother about this and try to find out what is going on; my wife learned about it and asked I not involve anyone else as this is strictly between us and that her mother will support any decision she makes (she is the last of 9 and is responsible for her mom's well being) - I haven't decided if I will talk to her or not, but it's an option.

Re. leaving with my stuff, it's not a problem, i can take all the things i have bought she doesn't mind, but I cant take the house with me and I doubt I could get anything back from this investment.

I returned home to Laos about a month ago from a 4 month trip to Europe as my father was ill and all seemed to be well although it was indeed a long time for my wife to be alone, albeit with her family and keeping in touch during the whole trip exchanging pictures and text messages.

2 weeks ago I realized she had recently been going out to an expat bar in Vientiane, and had a couple 'adventures' (with money involved) following her new girl friends' ideas about having fun and making extra cash… I asked her about it and she honestly confirmed the facts.

I didn't make much of it as indeed I had been away for a long time and thought, wrongly, that it would stop there… She now tells me she has met a 'rich' 48 year old american who does 'business everywhere', and that she wants to live like some other Lao women married to foreigners driving a big vigo, going shopping, and living in a big house… She already has a car and I built a nice comfortable house for both of us next to her mom's 2 years ago, following her understandable desire to live with the family. We're about 10 miles outside of Vientiane, i contribute by paying the bills, occasionally buying food, giving extra cash to her mother when needed and a monthly stipend to my wife; I get along well with everyone and days go by peacefully. I'm 40 she is 26.

She is completely honest about her intentions, she only wants a lot of money from this man, for a new car, to buy more land and a bigger house, thus gaining 'respect' in the neighborhood, which involves huge sums of money (well over $100k), which I won't spend given we have everything we need already.

The man in question wants to come visit in two weeks (wife hasn't told him about me), to see how she lives, meet the family (?), and i have difficulty seeing how this would work out, unless of course I left which I am not prepared to do at this point given my investment in both time and money, and the fact that everyone gets along well.

I am not sure where to go from here on handling the issue and decided to post since I have seen some very good advice from TV posters on other threads re. similar issues.

This is not a troll… I'm simply looking for Ideas and questions i might not think of to handle this in the best possible way for all involved;

Thanks!