Latest developments and discussion of recent events in the Ukraine War

[giddyup]

Regarding your "My gf's mom won't let her leave Thailand...."

Assuming your gf is of legal age, it's not your gf's mom's call, it's your gf's. If indeed she is that controlled by her mom, then I'd drop her because it's only going to get worse as time goes on ... and will probably get even more devious if you marry her.

Can you make your text a little larger, my eyesight ain't that great.

Sorry., but on my computer I have the font size set at a rather large 22 points because my eyesight ain't that great either. You should easily be able to very quickly ... and temporarily ... boost the size of fonts, etc. on your screen.

How do you read anyone else's comments? No one else uses font as large as yours. I was being sarcastic BTW, my eyes aren't perfect but I have no problem reading size 14 font.

[Jing Joe]

Just thank your lucky stars and move on....???

Couldn't agree more with Chico.

There's LOTS more fish in the sea, just in Bkk alone.

Just do some people watching e.g. in respectable shopping malls and take off your rose coloured glasses looking at your current g.f.

Depending on your age she sounds relatively young just out of college and immature and you would be buying into trouble in that family big time.

Suggestions to show the colour of your money from some posts would only be inviting/buying family for all the wrong reasons.

Think about your future; kids make it VERY complicated (especially with that family) and heartbreaking for you and the kids, so you want very solid relationship foundations don't you?

Small heartbreak now. HUGE heartbreak later.

Asian backgrounds are so different to yours and you want as much going for you both as possible.

Tell me about it.

Saw a quote from the movie Captain Corelli's mandolin" -- "after the honeymoon is well and truly over and all the novelty etc is over, all there is left is love. So make very very sure beforehand. She was Greek and he was an Italian soldier. Google >> "what is love"

Edited February 8, 2016 by Jing Joe

[bazza40]

You should be grateful to your MIL. She has given you an ideal excuse to keep what happens in Thailand in Thailand.

From the OP, your GF is unsophisticated and would probably be miserable tagging along with you to countries where she won't be able to cope with the food, the climate and a host of cultural differences.

For example, I have yet to meet a Thai who can cope with Vegemite. Mind you, Americans can't cope with it either.

[richard_smith237]

The same thing happened with my Girl Friend and I.

We had secretly visited the UK together 2 times previously, my Girlfriend had received permission from her parents to visit her cousin working for a Bank in London.

At the time my Girlfriend was working for her parents and still living at home (she was 30, I was 33). I had to have her home by Midnight whenever we went out.

Fairly conservative parents accepted our relationship, they were very polite with me etc... however, when we wished to travel to the UK a 3rd time we thought it would be a bit too cheeky to lie to them again. So, we had a dinner and I asked them.

They took a day or two to think about it, then said no - because we weren't married she could not travel overseas with me - it would be inappropriate.

We were married less than a year later.

Op: It could be that your Girlfriends parents are simply traditional and see it as inappropriate that you are travelling together while unmarried.

Next time either lie (i.e. she tells her Mother she is visiting a female Thai Friend overseas) or up the ante and get married !

[beerzy]

I have heard this "sell for sex overseas" comment before with my wife's mother. she was scared stiff i was a bad man and that was my intention. I convinced her that was not the case so i suppose speak to your girlfriend and ask is this the case.

[ChoakMyDee]

A lot of foreigners assume, arrogantly, that Thai women can't wait to get out of Thailand and go live in the foreigner's country. This couldn't be further from the truth. A lot of Thai women refuse to go....a lot who go are unhappy. The foreigners can't understand this. They think they come from the best country in the world and they assume their Thai GF/wife will be jumping to go. Not true. They want to be close to their family and they like living in Thailand. They aren't looking for a way out.

To the OP, if you are looking for a woman who wants to travel with you, you should establish that at the beginning of the relationship. Now that you are attached it is a bit difficult to find out that you want to live different lives. You should be concerned about her happiness. If she wouldn't be happy living the life you've planned for her then either compromise with her and stay in Thailand or move on.

[sawadee1947]

depends on the girls. If your girl loves you she would come with you. Or does she have a high paid job in Thailand?

[louse1953]

Ya I am not sure but she always is crying after these "talks" with her mom...she just graduated college and its perfect gap year time for her...she is working a dead end job and I think what my gf really wants is to go to the US to work for awhile and "save for the future" ... making 300 bht a day vs 400 bht per hour is the big appeal for her....I really do believe her mom is putting the kabosh...I mean a week in SG whats up witha big fat no to that? Actually it was her cousin who said no...who we would need to cover for her...her mom wasn't even asked...her mom is super freaked out that her daughter may be living with me...which she is and has been for a year...unbeknownst to the family...and she is also super freaked out her daughter will be sold into sex slavery or something weird if she travels abroad...bs man....

Time you drew that line in the sand,it's my way or the highway.Life is to short for childish games.

[louse1953]

If the monks said something, your girlfriend, her mother and all the other family members will believe it 100%

Last year my wife went to a temple, told a monk about my situation.

Bring your husband here to the temple, i will make him walk again. !! WHAT !!

i AM PARAPLEGIC. Will never walk again.

Would my wife listen to me. No way the monk said he can fix your back.

After 3 days of argument i gave in was carried to the car, taken to the temple.

Lay on the floor for 3 days. Monk visited me for 5 minutes each day, massaging my back.

Oh i can feel his back is getting better.

F..k this we are going home i said.Darling monk says it is getting better.

My wife believed the sh..e he was saying.

Today 6 months after the temple my back is still the same.

Your wallet is probably a bit lighter though.

[jhonnie]

been where you are, was told its' you or my family....no brainer for a much younger, recently graduated young professional with an extremely dominating ( or so it seemed at the time,) mother. Best thing that could have happened;we are still friends but i met and am now nearly 4 years later about to marry my fiance, who is still younger but not absurdly so( not that souls have ages)than I, and whom i love very much. We began our travels with a trip to Laos where the language barrier wasn't going to be too daunting( her idea) and progressed a little down the track to visiting India before she accompanied me to Australia for the first time. Since then her English has improved markedly and so has her confidence having now visited Nepal, India once again , Malaysia and Indonesia.

Put your situation down to experience; the universe has much better in store for you, but first you have to trust, demonstrated by letting go; or alternatively as was my case, not, and then being dumped and left 'heartbroken'...up to you?

As the I Ching might say' movement is indicated....'

[NoshowJones]

What's SG? Another one of the "use initials instead of words" brigade.

[FidelityCheckOnline]

I think Mum is holding out for a marriage proposal mate. If you want her that bad marry the girl.

[fireplay]

SG is singapore...same like USA...pretty useful but I totally get you possum

[fireplay]

There are some astonishing replies here that I just caught up with today...Gentlemen...thank you tremendously... It feels good to know I'm not alone with these struggles...

So I should probably reply....

Edited February 19, 2016 by fireplay

[fireplay]

Ya I am not sure but she always is crying after these "talks" with her mom...she just graduated college and its perfect gap year time for her...she is working a dead end job and I think what my gf really wants is to go to the US to work for awhile and "save for the future" ... making 300 bht a day vs 400 bht per hour is the big appeal for her....I really do believe her mom is putting the kabosh...I mean a week in SG whats up witha big fat no to that? Actually it was her cousin who said no...who we would need to cover for her...her mom wasn't even asked...her mom is super freaked out that her daughter may be living with me...which she is and has been for a year...unbeknownst to the family...and she is also super freaked out her daughter will be sold into sex slavery or something weird if she travels abroad...bs man....

Not really BS.. Your prize at the end of the rainbow is she gets to work for $2.00 an hour above the minimum wage McDonald's pays in the States?

I know a guy - will call him Bruce from the UK - had unlimited amounts of money - after marrying his Thai wife he thought they could travel the world and settle down - had a room ready at his house, and a nanny all set up in the UK for the baby they were having,

When it came time for her to apply for a visa, she refused to get one, came up with every excuse not to go - and used those same reasons you described for not wanting to go.. She just did not want to leave her family... They're not together anymore..

So, your not alone...

Look...the rainbow is kinda like what you are saying...the wheels are turning....we are planning strategies to move to the states and in order to work we are thinking marriage....

Purely paperwork in some respects....secret...as in...no ceremony or sinsod...yet....

[fireplay]

You should be grateful to your MIL. She has given you an ideal excuse to keep what happens in Thailand in Thailand.

From the OP, your GF is unsophisticated and would probably be miserable tagging along with you to countries where she won't be able to cope with the food, the climate and a host of cultural differences.

For example, I have yet to meet a Thai who can cope with Vegemite. Mind you, Americans can't cope with it either.

You are right...exactly...so a compromise is being struck...instead of 3 months in greece to madrid to St Pete russia to thai to brazil etc....we are now settling on an Austin USA apartment idea....baby steps. Edited February 19, 2016 by fireplay

[fireplay]

I am getting that it is a marriage that needs to take place...so we discussed this option...however for me it is a cart before the horse...I want her to experience the world and my family and culture first...unfortunately the more It comes down to decisions...it appears the technicality of marriage might be the only solution to get her to the states with a WP....

I am loving Austin right now and she would totally move here and live in this city...she wants to work...she has her eye on making 50 to 60k bht a month at a Target Or thai restaurant or whatever...totally beats her 10k she is making now.

I said to her...'I think we will have to get married for you to obtain a work visa to the States.'

She said...' we don't have to get married...just get the license from the tambon

(marriage license)

This might be the way...is it horrible?

I see it as saving face for the family so as not to have this massive wedding festival and sin sod ceremony....not now...at least until we are more ready or something....

So that's what we are thinking about now...I guess K1...but should we do that visa then get married in the US? I heard it's easier that way.

Edited February 19, 2016 by fireplay

[HooHaa]

didnt read the op closely, but if you are going to settle down with someone, they need to be in control of their own fate. if someone else is pulling her strings now, you know what your marriage will look like.

[Rhys]

Ramble about by yourself a little more.. do you need the hassle..move on.

[neverdie]

I guess she just NOT loves you toooooo much.

Gf, MIL or both of them.

You'd recognise the signs having been there and all that.

[Anon999]

I know your gf is young and maybe this does not apply, but most educated Thai women don't want to leave Thailand for a "better" life in the West.

This might have been the case in the past, but Thais today (FB) are aware that life in the West is a lonely, miserable affair. My wife is in contact with many women who moved to Canada and every single one is regretting the decision. Now, I know it's "Canada", but still......

Canada well that's interesting. Personally I've never met a Thai girl that wants to go back to live in Thailand from the UK and that's over a period of over 25 years. I have many Thai friends and relatives living in England, none of which want to return. For a holiday yes but to live here, no chance. One of my Thai step-daughters spent over 4 months in the UK and didn't want to come back, homesick, not a bit of it. She wants to spend her gap year in Oz.

[Razzler1973]

Just sounds like Mum is playing up, daughter leaves and no one to send him money every month. Monks didn't say a word. Your GF probably not quite telling you the whole story, perhaps not sure how to farang-arise it so it makes to you other than you saying 'whaaaaat'

[marko kok prong]

My ex wife refused to even think of going out of Thailand,her main worry was,do they have som tam,and what would i eat?