GinBoy2

Well I was hoping this wouldn't devolve into a bargirl discussion but I guess that was for a section of this group inevitable. My wife's family were poor. Not uncommon. but Dad was a chronic gambler, lost the family home and pretty much everything they owned so embarked on moving around the country, job to job dragging his family with him before he died of a heart attack. Mom followed a few months later in a motorbike accident, again not uncommon, but it left 5 young kids parentless. My wife's eldest sister ended up dying from AIDS, courtesy of her philandering hubby, and before retroviral's became available. Her brother, is less than 100% and I'm pretty sure in the west he'd be on anti psychotics. She paid for a house for him, just to make sure he wasn't homeless on the streets. Her twin sisters, another tale of woe. One tried to upgrade through marriage, after three failed attempts, she gave up and is now a hairdresser. The other twin sister made her way into the 'entertainment' business, and there there is not a day my wife doesn't worry about her. I don't think many in West can really appreciate how tough life can be for a lot of Thai's

My wife is a bit of an oddity. Her parents both died young, and her and four other siblings were farmed out to relatives. My wife got lucky and went to live with her aunt and uncle in Chicago, where she grew up and went to college. So she ended up with good jobs as an engineer, but the other four not so lucky. So she's always considered it's her responsibility as the eldest to help her brother and sisters who didn't have the opportunities she had. That's not so common in Western culture

When my wife went to work on the local AFB, she attended an orientation session, and the question was asked 'why do you want to work here' She answered to 'send money to help family' I already got that, and to this day she still sends money back to Thailand every month,. But I wonder how many farang husbands don't get that this is a big thing in their culture

Special place in Hell for Uncle Ben!

Well. we'll be having a little virtual Christmas. I'll be working at he airport until 2pm. Then plan a little virtual get get together with the American and Thai kids, grandkids in California and Colorado, Then me and MrsG will be packing up for our trip to Iceland, Sweden and onwards to our home in Thailand for the winter

Maybe just take a different approach. For US immigration it's a much lower financial requirement. At the same time the immigrant spouse just can't claim any federal benefits, no if's or but's. So wouldn't it be better to just stick with that 18k pounds for foreign spouses and just say regardless you can't claim any benefits from the State?

Well this thread has been fun. It reminds me of a US Thanksgiving dinner The family all assemble, half of them hating each others guts. Hold it together long enough until the alcohol kicks in. Thens it's world war 3 over the dining room table

I'm an American so have no skin in your domestic UK drama. But, when me and my Thai wife wife decided that a move to the US was appropriate for us it went pretty smoothly Obviously neither of us has US employment, but I could use assets, which to use the official phrase where 'liquidable' to make the threshold of 2x poverty level around $20K as I recall. I'd say while the US has a real immigration problem, we kinda manage family immigration somewhat better, and forget Trump, we deal with it rather well. So I feel for you guys, this is a scary time, where if you are considering taking your family back to the UK, it 'why didn't I do it sooner' I'm sure is in your head right now

Well I'm American, so doesn't affect me, but while cruising the BBC I came across this, and it seem that the income requirements does apply to British nationals trying to bring in foreign spouses. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67630258

Oh this one we can quietly sit by watching the fun lol You'll be whacking each other with your handbags next. Hmm, that might a good season 2 of Aussie/Brit slugfest

OK, back from having a pee, opening another bag of popcorn ready for Round 2 Aussie vs Brit Slugfest 2023

I love these threads. We ugly 'muricans, can sit back for once, break out the popcorn and watch the Aussies and Brits duke it out! lol

The long term consequences are yet to manifest. Regardless of his legal and financial liabilities for his little escapade, his name will filter through the system and he'll end up on a bunch of airline 'No Fly' lists. Best he start planning on his next road trip from Munich to Bangkok!

And for the majority who don't know WW1 history, he was Australian

I get that, it must be hard. Thankfully I've never had to navigate that minefield, all my kids are mine, well at least I think they are! But joking aside, it's a tough row to hoe, and I know for many it just doesn't work out

I've not done it myself, but I work with a guy who is raising another man's child. He loves her exactly as if she were his own. Now maybe it's because he's been her Dad since she was two years old, never knew her biological Dad, but it can work out

I'm not really a Christmas kinda guy, pretty much a grinch. But my wife always tried to make it special when our son was little, and she loved the whole Christmas tree, decorations thing. Fast forward 20 odd years, son is long grown up and now it's grandkids and the same is true, she just loves making that little bit of magic for them. For me, I work at the local airport. The holiday music loop has started, and I swear to God if I ever meet that damn Rudolf, that deer is gonna get a bullet between the eyes!

It's kinda hard to say how couples are viewed in general society. Yeah, in Thailand if you see a 60/70 year old slopping around the mall with a couple of rugrats and a wife in tow young enough to be his Granddaughter, well I'd be hard pushed to deny the stereotype. In other cultures it's not quite the same. I met my wife in Singapore, we're roughly the same age and the sight of a white guy with an asian woman is commonplace. Walk down any street in San Francisco and the same is true, and no-one gives it a second thought. Thailand however is different. The age differential is more extreme, and the abundance of the sex industry does affect folks perception about farang/Thai relationships

Awful situation and I feel for you. But as many have stated before options are limited. This happened to a friend when his wife died in a traffic accident. Basically he was OK up to the expiration of his current spousal extension, after that he had no option but to convert to a retirement extension. I think the recent post from Dan with the lady who missed her reporting date while basically dying from cancer sort of illustrates that the Thai immigration system doesn't really bend for compassionate grounds. The OP doesn't mention it, but at 90, I hope he has a Thai family who can help him through this, or it's going to be pretty bleak

Price is another thing. I've never smoked a cigarette or got a tattoo, so the prices of these thing when I find out always shocks me. One of the young pups at work came in last week sporting a freshly inked arm. He told me how much it cost, and it 'Holy Fu&^&king <deleted>' ....You paid how much!!!! Never understood it, never will

So hopefully this makes everyone wanting to process a IR1/CR1 hopping mad. Trump waged a war on all immigration, legal or otherwise (curious since he seems to have a liking for Eastern European wives) and as part of that the USCIS office in Bangkok was closed. Back then if you lived in Thailand you could get the process done in a fraction of the time it takes now with what used to be called 'consular processing' although I know that wasn't the official term. This is the timeline I'd mentioned earlier, not as a rub your nose in it thing, but more an illustration of how it could work if politicians could actually do their jobs and not be fixated on just getting an interview on Fox News

OK, so I've read this term 'Bogan' bandied about in this thread, and I've never understood what it really meant. So as a public service for others like me I did a web search.

Maybe getting tats later in life ain't such a bad thing, you don't to live with them for decades. I begged all my kids not to get tats. As I explained, I look at pics of me in the 70's wearing clothes which I thought at the time made me pretty damn hot. Wearing those same clothes today would just make me look like an idiot. Tattoo's unfortunately, aren't like clothes, and if I'd got tats with my 1970's clothes I'd still be stuck with them and my 1970's clothes long gone to a landfill For the record, all my kids ignored Dad's advise!

I'm always intrigued by those seem to think you have to love Thailand, hate Home Country or vice versa. I think there is a sizable sub section of this forum, who are older, and if their primary goal is cheap sex with women young enough to be their daughters, yep the West is darn boring, and can't stop telling you that Then there are the ones who will trash Thailand at every opportunity, and I'm sure a large proportion of those got burned in some way of another, or through bad decisions are just stuck with no way out. Both those groups are zealots, and argument is futile! Then there are another group of us somewhere in the middle. Happily married, kids, wife similar age, who see the advantages and disadvantages of both. I got bored of Thailand, but there are times I get bored in the US. We now live close to our kids and grandkids in the US, which is a joy, but we equally enjoy our snowbird trips to our house in Thailand. If you embrace what you like, and dislike in both cultures and lifestyles, for the non zealot you can enjoy both, warts and all!

Trust me, I too can't remember this morning's breakfast, but at the time I'd put together a timeline for the whole process which I'd posted on here at the time