Some people just don’t know how to say no. Though I suppose for some…if they’re not good enough, then their money is 

Firstly, you should never ever just give money. If they want a new refrigerator and you want to help out with the purchase then go and buy it yourself. End of.

 

Maybe I've always been lucky. I live in the same village as my in-laws but I've never been asked to give any form of financial support to anyone. For example, earlier this year my wife's 88 year old father died. I offered to make a donation for the funeral but was told it wasn't necessary. Indeed no one else contributed from their own money because everything was fully funded from the village insurance and other sources. That's a lesson in itself for all those naive guys out there who constantly get put upon by their in-laws. Within the family I've always treated as a equal, not a walking ATM.

 

Be a man,not a mouse!

 

1 hour ago, kawikasudo said:

I knew an American living in Jomtien. He said he lived with his girlfriend for 20 years. He told her from the beginning that he’ll give her a monthly allowance (I assumed it was a good allowance). Because she lives with him she’ll eat free and don’t have to pay for utilities but she’ll get no more. She can save the money or give it to her family but she’ll get no more. It worked fine!

I wonder if that's the same  American  that went shopping with his GF  and took a Baht Bus home  to Jomtien,  but she had no money for the fare  having spent  most of her allowance while shopping,  so he told her  to walk, and off he went, alone,. lol 

9 hours ago, tomgreen said:

Over time the number of requests by the wife's parents for money steadily grew and increased in the cash amount that they were asking for. Those requests for money always seemed to centre around the need to buy new house hold appliances / vehicle repairs / repairing their house roof etc.

Basically you give them 10,000 THB a month, that's the expectation, 5,000 THB each, the end of the month, the rest they take care of themselves. 

9 hours ago, tomgreen said:

So I’m now wondering how others here who are married or in a relationship with a Thai woman deal with any requests for money that come from the Thai wife /  partners parents or family , and do you have any tips or advice on how to deal with those requests for money .

 

Yes. Marry a decent woman and you'll never hear of such requests.

 

Your wife was on this scam all along.

Perhaps you need to quickly find out if you are simply there to support the brother financially in exchange for sex with the daughter, or if you have a real relationship.  Then either leave or say no more money.  🤷‍♂️

I am a lucky one. No one in the family has asked for any money given to them. I have loaned them money, they paid it back with interest even when I told them it wasn't necessary. When I first moved out to the village, my wife's sister loaned me her truck to use since she did not need it in Bangkok. She wouldn't even let me pay for the insurance and upkeep. When I built my house, her brothers came and volunteered to labor and one did all the metal work on the wall and gate. Now, I am helping to put one of my wife's sisters girls through the Uni, and paid for my wife's mother's cataract surgery a couple of months ago. The brother who did the metalwork is now in bad health and has moved back to the village and is building a house. I know he is short of money to finish. He hasn't asked, but I will surely help. I don't think I will ever be able to repay all the help. Good people!

If one is a 'cheap Charlie', the answer of a generous empathetic person this person will not like...

And conversely....

I play the thai's at their own game.

 

I get them to foot the bill 99% of the time and also shower me with gifts.

 

Thais are actually quite servile when you engineer them properly.

Of course, this technique doesn't work with the lowest strata of Thais,

which I guess is who many AN members spend time with.

 

bob.

I married an orphan.   😁

1 hour ago, kawikasudo said:

I knew an American living in Jomtien. He said he lived with his girlfriend for 20 years. He told her from the beginning that he’ll give her a monthly allowance (I assumed it was a good allowance). Because she lives with him she’ll eat free and don’t have to pay for utilities but she’ll get no more. She can save the money or give it to her family but she’ll get no more. It worked fine!

That’s exactly how it works for me. From the very beginning of the relationship (7 years in)she was told “ I am not an ATM” I will give you an allowance every month and every month you can do what you want with it. (Mum and dad get 5000 baht).Use it and there will be no more. I pay all the bills, all the food, travel expenses, we have built a house together but of course the reality is it’s hers and it works. She actually saves. Her parents want for nothing as two other sisters also contribute and they have never asked me for a baht.
 

Getting married this year no sin sod required as they say I am good to her and have built a house. I guess I’m lucky but one thing I will say is before I got into any kind of relationship I was on these forums weighing up all the good and the bad with reference to Thai/Farang relationships and from the comments made I made my on own balanced decisions on how to proceed. So far so good.

 

 

 

Think like a Thai.  View your relationships as transactional and regularly evaluate whether you're getting good value.  

1 hour ago, Dmaxdan said:

Firstly, you should never ever just give money. If they want a new refrigerator and you want to help out with the purchase then go and buy it yourself. End of.

"End of" is when they hawk the brand new refrigerator you bought for pennies on the dollar.

10 hours ago, tomgreen said:

 

To put my question into some sort of context Ive been married to a Thai woman for over 20 years and have live permanently in Thailand for all of that time.

 

After we first married the wife’s parents started to ask for money from us ( me ) saying that they need to buy a new gas cooker or fridge or to carry out repairs to their house etc .  Being fairly new to what was expected after marrying a Thai woman , when it came to giving her parents any money , I just smiled and paid the request for money , thinking that I was doing the right thing and of course helping the wife’s poor parents along the way. 

 

Over time the number of requests by the wife's parents for money steadily grew and increased in the cash amount that they were asking for. Those requests for money always seemed to centre around the need to buy new house hold appliances / vehicle repairs / repairing their house roof etc.

 

I never really visited the wife’s parents house very often , but one day just after the latest request by the wife’s parents for more money ( to replace broken windows at their house and replace a damaged toilet bowl ) I decided to visit the parents house a month after I had given the parents the money to to replace the broken windows and replace the damaged toilet bowl.

 

When I turned up at the wife's parents house , it soon became apparent that ‘’ no ‘’ new household appliances had ever been purchased or ‘’ any ‘’ house repairs had been ever been carried out.

 

It turned out that the vast majority of all the money that I had ever given to my wife’s parents in the hope that it would better help their living standards had in fact always been passed on to one of my wife’s older deadbeat / alcoholic brother's . This deadbeat older brother had constantly been taking money from the parents under the pretense that he needed to purchase and run a pickup to help him find work . To date he has never purchased a pickup or found employment of any kind. 

 

Once I found what had been going on I told my wife that if her parents asked for money , I wanted to know exactly what the money was needed for , and if the request for money involved buying new house hold appliances , then I would personally buy the needed appliances my self and personally take them to the parents house. If the money was requested for house repairs or other services, I would personally arrange and pay for the work directly my self. If the request for money involved medical treatment , I would directly pay the money my self. In other words no cash would ever again be handed over to the parents  , for obvious reasons. 

 

Over time the requests from the wife’s parents for money slowed down , over time Ive purchase various household appliances and equipment , and delivered those items to the parents house my self, along with personally paying for any medical treatment that the wife's parents needed .

 

So I’m now wondering how others here who are married or in a relationship with a Thai woman deal with any requests for money that come from the Thai wife /  partners parents or family , and do you have any tips or advice on how to deal with those requests for money .

 

Tom

How exactly did you first meet your wife?
 

🧐

I am far more generous than my wife. She controls money to friends and relations and is pretty tough on enforcing repayment of loans. Most of it is small operating money, maybe a few thousand a month. Major purchases are handled directly.

 

One thing I did figure out for wider family loans is to make another family member the repayment recipient. That way I am not the bad guy. Cousin needs seed money? No problem, repay it to grandmother.

35 minutes ago, BangkokReady said:

Perhaps you need to quickly find out if you are simply there to support the brother financially in exchange for sex with the daughter, or if you have a real relationship.  Then either leave or say no more money.  🤷‍♂️

 

... Or third optijn: if the sex is worth the money in quality and quantity, just adjust your thinking about the relationship and your behavior a bit to match the situation. If you are treated like a customer then treat her like a hooker. 

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

It seems some farangs with Thai wife/gf think they should never pay for anything, and they insist on that position - even if they have plenty of money.

Obviously, we should all decide by ourselves how we spend our own money. But I think if we are together with a Thai woman we love, and if she is from a poor family, then we can also from time to time help a little.

 

I didn't count how much I spent over the years. Not much, a little here, and a little there. All in all, I am sure I spent more money on coffee and chocolate for myself compared to what I gave the family. 

Some here would be reluctant to give 5,000B to the family, even if they would know the family would spend it carefully. But the same guys spent easily more than the 5k in one night out. I think it's a good idea to see things in perspective. 

But that's exactly the problem! In case you give money to the (poor) family, you do NOT know if they spend it carefully or not, whatever your wife or g/f tells you! In my 30 years in LOS, I've seen enough... In most places where you come in "poor Isaan", they know only ONE thing : ALCOHOL !  That's where the money is going! So for me, not being a "rich" farang, I will not "help" them with spending the money on beer, whiskey, Lao kao, etc... I help my g/f and her 12-year-old daughter who stays with us. My g/f has a job, and with that money she "takes care" of Mom and Dad.  😉

10 hours ago, tomgreen said:

along with personally paying for any medical treatment that the wife's parents needed .

30 baht should cover that, and plus a few meds.

It started with the first Thai girl I ever met; sick buffalo, sick mama,... etc.  Quickly learned to say No with sufficient emphasis to stop the request there and then.  Over the years, (>40) I have become more heartless and immune to being called a "Cheap Charlie"

After many bitter rows with wife, she has stopped passing on requests and family has learned that Bank id for borrowing money, not Khun Robin.

Perhaps I have become more relaxed on this now, and will consider request for loans on merit, and perceived ability to repay. but giving money is not to be considered.

Fortunately,  the one time I did relent and lend money, sister appeared to regard repayment as optional, and  huge struggle to get money repaid.  Now use this s an example as reason why I am not in the money lending business.  Banks, Village loan sharks are better equipped to extract repayment.

Thge only nser to any loan or gift request should be a loud and firm NO!

38 minutes ago, bob smith said:

I get them to foot the bill 99% of the time and also shower me with gifts.

Runaway delusions of grandeur. Seek out psychiatric medical care. It's best treated early. 

I solved this problem, after giving some money to family initially, to teach my wife how to earn money, through real estate. I invested initially (we made profit in selling) and now she has a good, steady income flow, catering to both foreign and Thai buyers.  The saying its better to teach someone how to fish then buy somoene fish comes to mind. First two years, after my wife stopped work, my wife sent 20K/month back home, my money. Then I got her into this part-time business and never had to look back. She contributes to all expenses now and will be set for life. She knows not to pay for anything stupid back home and has only sent the monthly contribution back home. However, if more for an emergency is needed, she can cover that. If my wife did not work, I would have continued to help her parents live...20k a month won't break me. 

I wonder what the OP paid in sinsot? if you start off shelling out without negotiation especially for an over the top amount they are bound to think you are a soft touch. I forked out 10k to get the mrs brother out of trouble after he had a bike accident with no insurance or license 15 years ago, but nothing after that. That was the only request.

I still give my wife the same 'allowance' every month, 9 years down the track even though her 2 kids are now adults, who work and earn their own money and share a house which is on a mortgage the daughter got, for two reasons, I can budget my money every month, I don't have to buy her anything, she even buys her own food most of the time. She has her own shop, that is nothing to do with me and she works almost everyday.

Does anyone on this forum feel like they have a "normal" marriage with a Thai woman?  I mean an actual relationship/partnership focused mainly on the immediate family? Or is something like this not realistic.  I have met only two women in CNX who I thought understand the kind of future relationship I was looking for.  Both had live in a foreign country in the past.  One had worked in Singapore and the oher had lived in San Francisco.  All the others were focused in on one thing:  We can all guess what that was. 

 

It looks like the best decision I have made in LOS is to just stay single. 

16 minutes ago, ChumpChange said:

Runaway delusions of grandeur. Seek out psychiatric medical care. It's best treated early. 

you wish they were delusions of grandeur.

 

bob.

10 minutes ago, bob smith said:

you wish they were delusions of grandeur.

 

bob.

What I wish is that you get proper help before the problem goes beyond repair. 

1 hour ago, BangkokReady said:

Perhaps you need to quickly find out if you are simply there to support the brother financially in exchange for sex with the daughter, or if you have a real relationship.  Then either leave or say no more money.  🤷‍♂️

Real relationship = not much sex!

25 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Real relationship = not much sex!

 

Yawn..   another sweeping generalisation from you designed to normalise your failed relationships.... 

... Its an insult to anyone in a normal, 'real' relationship....

 

 

This repeated banging of the misogyny drum presents the belief that you genuinely consider everyone else's relationships are equally as flawed as all yours have been...  

 

It's a shame that your experiences have turned you into this bitter person who fails to see anything honourable in the fairer gender, its a very sad outlook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Celsius said:

11 hours ago, tomgreen said:

So I’m now wondering how others here who are married or in a relationship with a Thai woman deal with any requests for money that come from the Thai wife /  partners parents or family , and do you have any tips or advice on how to deal with those requests for money .

 

Yes. Marry a decent woman and you'll never hear of such requests.

 

Your wife was on this scam all along.

 

It seems some / plenty of guys who have married Thai women have married those of a poorer socio-economic demographic...    hence the request for money...  It often discussed that from the perspective of some Thai female's the basis of attraction is financial security... In such relationship the request for money is perhaps not uncommon, or it seems so based on many comments here.

 

But, there are lots of relationships that are not based around the 'financial security' where the socio-economic, educational background and age of the Thai female spouse is in line with that of the foreign husband, the financial strains of the extended family either don't exist, or are not pushed onto the foreign husband. 

 

I think there is a clear difference between the guys who have retired out here and met a female, decades their junior, for whom life has offered few opportunities....     and guys who have been in Thailand earlier on in their lives and met a 'partner' of equal socio-economic and educational standing...  

 

It could be a generalisation - but I see more of these 'equal' relationships amongst my friends in Bangkok, where they integrate in a mixed society, have many Thai friends and Western etc...    more like 'normal life' than the 'Disneyland-flesh-Pantomime' that is more normalised in other areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, proton said:

I wonder what the OP paid in sinsot? if you start off shelling out without negotiation especially for an over the top amount they are bound to think you are a soft touch. I forked out 10k to get the mrs brother out of trouble after he had a bike accident with no insurance or license 15 years ago, but nothing after that. That was the only request.

 

Decent point... 

 

Most of my friends paid a Sin-sod to go with tradition, as did I...  The Sin-sod was returned.

 

Perhaps when the 'sin-sod' is not returned a financial precedent is set.