good point on the model the father set. My FIL is a coconut farmer and he and his wife have worked side by side for nearly 60 years. They spend most their time together, do talk altho if they do about emotional stuff (which I doubt) its behind closed doors.

When hubby and I got married and were filling out the forms I said, when is your parent's birthdates. He had no idea. I couldn't believe it and said how can you not know?? So we go to his Mom and Dad's house and ask Mom and she said, "I don't know. Let me go look at my ID."

To this day Thai people are amazed that I know my parents, sisters, nephews and nieces birthdates.

try explaining that one to the immigration folks here when anon never remembers any dates liek: when did u get married (amphur or village ceremony?, when is bina's birthday?ummm; how old are her kids? not sure... etc etc.....

good point on the model the father set. My FIL is a coconut farmer and he and his wife have worked side by side for nearly 60 years. They spend most their time together, do talk altho if they do about emotional stuff (which I doubt) its behind closed doors.

When hubby and I got married and were filling out the forms I said, when is your parent's birthdates. He had no idea. I couldn't believe it and said how can you not know?? So we go to his Mom and Dad's house and ask Mom and she said, "I don't know. Let me go look at my ID."

To this day Thai people are amazed that I know my parents, sisters, nephews and nieces birthdates.

try explaining that one to the immigration folks here when anon never remembers any dates liek: when did u get married (amphur or village ceremony?, when is bina's birthday?ummm; how old are her kids? not sure... etc etc.....

Oh god yes! Trying to work out the birthdates of hubby's 7 siblings including one that died as a child, for his visa application was the worst. His mother had no idea, she just remembered the seasons they were all born (and the season the one child died).

Bina, Happy 50th and glad you had a wonderful day and got a present. See, you CAN teach an old dog/hubby new tricks!

To the OP I have no advice - hubby and I haven't had any children together (although he is Dad to my youngest) and we have never had any major disagreements or communication problems. But I wish you all the best.

I have lived in Thailand for 17 years, and been married to a Thai man for 9, and believe it or not, this is the first time that I've looked at the Thaivisa "Ladies in Thailand" section!

I have now looked at a few forum discussions, and am amazed by how many women there are married to Thai men! I'm also amazed how many of them are doing what I've done and immersing themselves in rural Thai culture. I feel for you people who are just starting out in the relationship, as I know how baffling it can be. My husband and I have had all sorts of ups and downs over the years, and we still have to work very hard to keep the marriage working. I was amused to read people's tales of 'teaching' their husbands about showing emotions and that they care! I have to say, with us it's got to the point where I accept that he won't spot these things for himself, and if I have to tell him to do it then it takes the meaning out of it.

He, of course, has had to accept that I will go out at night occasionally, even well into a marriage with kids, and that the people I go out with are usually a group of men (women are thin on the ground here). He has also had to accept that he won't get a cooked breakfast from me!

Sometimes I wonder what the relationship would be like if we were both from the same culture. We will probably never be as close as we would be in that situation - we lack a shared cultural history - for example little things like being able to laugh at references to childhood games and TV programmes, or "in" jokes from years back in the pub... but that's OK. I think the hardest thing about that is that we both have to accept that we will get that camaraderie from other people instead; that I will always laugh hardest with my friends, and he with his. It's harder for him, as my friends are male...

In recent years, bringing up kids in a society very different from my own, and teaching in a school very different from my idea of what a school should be, I have become quite negative about many aspects of Thai society, and this of course has had an affect on my marriage. After all, this society I sometimes bitch about is his! I think it's very important for Western women (and men) to adapt their lifestyle and expectations to fit with the local culture, but it's also important to make our Thai partners aware from very early on that we will NOT ever be completely Thai, that sometimes our ideas will contradict his and society's, and that sometimes we will not play the part of dutiful wife. I think I got to the stage where I was losing who I really was in order to fit in, and at that point I backed off and told myself and my husband that I needed to do certain things my way, not because I didn't understand the Thai way, but because I had decided that my way works better for me!

One note of caution that's already been touched on: if you have children, there's a very high chance that your Thai in-laws will try to 'teach' you how to look after them from day 1. It seems to be the case that there's not really room for individual parenting style. "You haven't had kids before, so you don't know how to do it. I do. I'll teach you." Please ladies, resist this! Use your instinct for parenting, and adopt whichever Thai ways, habits and methods you like, rather than letting yourself get swept up in it. It took a few years for my mother in law to accept that I knew what I was doing - once she saw that my 3-year-old son was healthy, happy and smart - then she stopped hassling me about my parenting habits!

Sorry, a very long post. I just wanted to add my own ideas so those new to the whole idea could get a variety of viewpoints!

I think we just need to get a balance - some 'training' is useful as the culture can be very different (I'm British). But it works both ways - there are things that he appreciates that I don't think are a big deal, so it's not just 'husband training' - he's trained me a bit too. Birthdays were a real surprise - its taken me ages to get the fact that they're just not as important here, even the big ones! Though it's funny my husband managed to get flowers/chocolates and nice presents for my first few birthdays - just shows what they can do when they make the effort ;-) Anyway I just have to give him an idea of what I want/expect as it doesn't come naturally. And my husband is not bad at talking things through now but doesn't want to do it all the time, do sometimes I just have to let things go (and it works sometimes-they don't seem important a few days later)

I know what you mean about it being easier to be with someone from your own culture -sometimes I think life would be a lot smoother! But I think as long as we try to discuss things that we disagree on rather than arguing, our son will end up with a wide range of experiences and an appreciation of Thai and British cultures. To be honest I have less of a problem with some of the traditional aspects of Thai culture and more of a problem with some of the more modern aspects, such as every single person handing my son an iPhone to play on for several hours within 10 mins of seeing him or feeding him nothing but junk food and coke!

I was lucky that our son was born in the uk and lived there until nearly 4 so had a lot of 'good' things ingrained in him -eating proper food before snacks/using child car seat etc- that it was a bit easier to continue them when we moved here- but I still find it hard being the 'odd one out'. Obviously there are lots if times i let things go, but it's hard when you do want to stand your ground and no-one agrees (hubby helps but it's hard for him being stuck in the middle sometimes!) It must be even harder to have had that from birth!!!

Re the cultural history, it's sad sometimes that he doesn't know a song or tv show from my childhood and vice versa. But he's 11 years younger than me so even if he was British we'd have a pretty big cultural gap anyway!!!!!!! But we still have things in common that cross the cultural boundaries - eg we like similar music so he likes English music that I like and now I'm hearing a lot more Thai music I like a lot of the same stuff too. Same with food - he's more adventurous than most of the people around here and likes all sorts of European food plus I like a wide range of Asian food. We like a lot of different films/tv progs but have a big overlap that we can watch together.

Edited January 26, 201313 yr by swlondonmum

good point on the model the father set. My FIL is a coconut farmer and he and his wife have worked side by side for nearly 60 years. They spend most their time together, do talk altho if they do about emotional stuff (which I doubt) its behind closed doors.

.

Agree - good point. My FIL left my MIL when my husband was a baby (he moved to the uk) and my husband had very variable contact with his dad over the years and they have a bit of a love/hate thing as I don't think he'll ever completely forgive his father as his mum had a hard time when he was a kid. When we had our son he didn't really know how to be a dad(sorry I don't mean to offend single parents, most of whom do a great job, but that's pretty much how he described it, and it was exacerbated by the fact that we were living in the uk where things are done differently anyway) particularly as he didn't have close uncles or other 'father figures' when he was growing up. He has a good relationship with my dad and I love seeing the two of them do DIY or watch football together - my dad is not very open emotionally so i doubt if they have many emotional chats but they seem to bond well in that 'guy way' doing stuff together.

It'll be interesting to see how my husband and son's relationship develops over time but he's doing a great job, given how little guidance he's had!