One sure way to cause a firestorm in your relationship or even divorce, is if your girlfriend or wife finds out after the fact you are broke.
Ask the Youtuber Thaitalk with Dan about this.
His wife divorced him, even though they have a kid together, when a couple years later he had no job or income and only wanted to play around on Youtube.
For some odd reason, expats have a hard time, (or maybe they never even try), to get the message across that they do NOT have money.
Every Thai girl wants to believe in her good fortune of finding an expat, almost to the point that they believe if an expat is living in Thailand he must have money.
Little do they know or want to believe anything but that.
I am not sure how many expats, who have fallen in love, really want to make the Thai girl understand they are broke, at the risk of losing them right away?
However, maybe losing them right away will save pain and suffering in the end.
Another recent news article concerned an expat ready to get married to his college girlfriend in Isaan, whose parents were the owners of a shipping company.
They dated and got all the way to the we want to get married phase before he learned about sin-sod.
Sin sod is a Thai custom where a groom gives the bride’s family a cash gift on wedding day. It is also known as the Thai dowry. The groom gives the sin sod to compensate the bride’s family for the loss of their daughter. The dowry price can range from 100,000–1,000,000 baht. The amount is based on the bride’s status, education, occupation, and other social background. This assures the bride’s family that the groom is financially able to support and care for their daughter and is expected in the Thai culture.
Per parents, due to her education and status, asked for $1,000,000 thb (US$28,500) sin-sod.
The groom-to-be was so shocked, he had stated he was ready to run back to his own country and forget about her, love, marriage and everything else.
But as a younger man in Thailand, what was he expecting? Get married to such a worthy girl and support her teaching English? Sorry, it never works out that way.
The issues here are as follows:
- He should have understood the Thai tradition of sin-sod long before this and had this discussion with his girlfriend as to the amount.
- Instead of running off and dumping her like a loser, he should have explained that he did NOT have that kind of money. (Maybe when she learned this she would have dumped him)
- How do you get to the stage of marriage, when your bride-to-be has no idea of your net worth?
How in the world do these men think they are going to support a family? House, car, bills, kids, tuition, etc.?
Men need to wake up and understand these girls have expectations and dreams of their own. If they find out later on, you cannot meet their expectations, it won’t be long before you are finished.
Now, sin-sod is totally dependent on the girl, her education, status, age, family status etc.
Previously married women should not expect sin-sod, so that case will be up to the man.
Women with kids should not expect sin-sod.
Older women 40+ should not expect sin-sod.
I find it quite odd, people would want to get married, when they haven’t shared their financial status or everything else together? No idea how you could expect to have a happy life together with no money.
I also firmly believe the amount of expats that complain about sin-sod due so because they do NOT have money or very little.
Come on men, if you are that in love you want to spend the rest of your life with this girl, respect her culture and happiness.
If you cannot afford, make it absolutely clear right up front.
I am my father’s only daughter.
My husband understood that from day 1 and he was very respectful of my father and the custom of sin-sod.
If you compare the cost of sin-sod with a full blown western wedding, you will find sin-sod is the easy way out.