Divorce Advice Needed

[onpermanentvacation]

I've been separated with my Thai wife for over a year now and now we both want to divorce. I have a few questions, I hope those with related experience can help me understand where I am in all this. If you have recommendations for a good divorce lawyer that would be great too.

Here are some facts:

Child

- We have a 5 year old child who loves both her and me and so far has stayed equal lengths of time with both of us.

- She will not let me have joint parental controls and this is our main point of disagreement. If I would let her have 100% parental controls she wouldn't want to go to court at all and wouldn't ask for any money or assets. I am not willing to give up being a father of my son and I insist on him being with me at least half of the time.

- I offered either 100% parental controls to me or 50-50. In both cases I am offering her to say what financial support she would like but she refuses any.

- I have no wish to move out of Thailand and I want my son to stay with me here for at least half the time.

Assets

- At the time of marriage I didn't have any assets. I had in reality but legally, they were all in other people's names so I didn't.

- Right now the only legally recognised assets and income I'm getting come from a certain percentage of ownership I have in a company in Southern Europe (not a EU country).

- I don't have any savings in Thai bank accounts nor I generally kept my money here. Generally I channel my income to here through my debit cards or bitcoin and spend directly.

- My income is more than sufficient to take good care of my son (100,000THB+).

- My wife's income is almost non-existent (less than 30,000/mo). So far she managed to get by thanks to my support and support of her new farang boyfriend (and perhaps other people)

- I have a small house in the south of Thailand, built on a rented land and has no blue book so basically no one could claim ownership of it other than the land owner or myself through the power of my contract with him (I guess).

- For about 18 months since we've separated I've been sending her on average $700 per month to support child expenses.

Relationship and Sexual Affairs

- We ceased to have any intimate contact about a year ago.

- Both before and after that, both of us had multiple other partners. I was the first one to sleep with another woman (due to unsatisfactory sexual relationship with my wife and my perceived lack of love). She probably can prove this by showing some email or Facebook communication between me and her, but I am not sure if I ever specifically confirmed it. There surely are no witnesses. LOL

- She had several partners over the last two years and some of it I could probably prove (via text messages, emails, etc.), though mostly in implied form.

- We both have witnesses seeing us in public with other people. For me it's only one new woman. For her it's 4-5 different guys. Most of those are in Europe however and would be hard to prove anything here in Thai court, unless I fly in a bunch of witnesses which is unlikely.

- I've been living in a monogamous relationship with my new Thai girlfriend for almost a year now. She has a good relationship with my son.

- She had a brief episode of mental instability before I met her, I think she might have been hospitalised for a few days, if not she definitely had to see a psychiatrist and was prescribed some medications. Now she is in good mental shape, save for occasionally forgetting what she promised (though this seems to be the norm for Thais ).

My main question is, do I have a chance of going to court and winning the 100% or at least 50% parental control. In the process, if it has to come to court, I would like to not give her any money. (Although, I would like to keep supporting her for a while even if I wouldn't be required by the court decision.)

Second question is do you know a very good lawyer for this and what costs am I looking at for the whole thing?

[onpermanentvacation]

I forgot to ask: does it make a difference who will be the one to initially request divorce? Do I get any advantage if I do it?

Partly, I'm reluctant to do it since I'm not even sure how serious she is when threatening me. I'm sure she also doesn't want to get dragged though Thai courts and deal with all the drama. So if I start first she might go thermo nuclear on me. She's "a bit" on the jai ron side. However, if we really can't negotiate 50-50 then I might brace myself for a few months of a world war and go for it first (if it does make a big difference).

[nabbie]

Sorry to hear this pain & mine is similar too. In the shortest words -

Child: 100% control for myself providing Thai wife can see children at any time. (this is what Amphur can suggest her)

Asset: Lucky, our asset is nothing much.

Relationship: faded away but we agree to put children first.

So far, this is based on the mutual understanding.

Hope you can avoid both the contesting at the court and all the fat lawyers...Good luck

[2008bangkok]

Im going through a similar thing myself but with 2 children, from my research the courts would favor who would be able to best take care of the children which should mean you.

At this moment if you were married at the time of birth then you are legally 50/50 and under no circumstances should you give that up because she could go and send your son away with the grandparents and there is nothing you could do legally.

My experience is that thai ladys show superficial love on the outside but defiantly don't have the same desire to keep the family as a single unit and wouldnt hesitate to send the children up to the village and justify it by sending a few grand up every month.

Its a shame you cannot work it out between you but if you have both been cheating on each other thats a slippery slope.

Good luck with it i hope for the sake of your son its amicable

[ATF]

Unless you really need a divorce just let things be but secretly build up as case against her e.g. she's living with another man.

Put the child in a decent boarding school either here or overseas this will prevent her brainwashing the child and her lover influencing the child.

Keep sending her some money to keep her calm or threaten to cut it off if she doesn't let the child go to boarding school but slowly decrease it or just help her with unexpected expenses.

When the holidays come around let your child spend half the time with you and half with her. The child will probably opt to stay with you.

The other option of course is to go in with all guns blazing over custody. Slow and deliberate is better.

[jacksam]

Is it true that in Thailand that fidelity is a negative thing when it comes to divorce. In AU, when my wife, at the time nicked off with a bloke after 2 yr marriage and shacked up .....the solicitor pointed out that any court would look more favourably on their situation than mine and she would get the kids based on she was in a relationship. Divorce was best thing that has happened to me.....taught me never to do it again and didn't cost much.

[onpermanentvacation]

Thanks for your input, guys.

After a zillion emails, endless blame talk from her side, and trying to calm things down from my side - we were able to agree on a consensual divorce with shared parental controls. I will keep paying her $1000 per month until our son finishes elementary school, which is about 7 years from now. He is to spend half time with me, half time with her, and to decide where he wants to live once he is mature enough to do so.

All is well that ends well.