My wife is university educated but profesess to believe in Ghosts,and black magic.Iam tolerant of others beliefs,but operate largely on logic.Currently my wife is trying to solve her familys financial problems.I really don't want to get into the nitty gritty details,but her Mother has borrowed a substancial sum of money from a farmers cooperative.It looks like shes paying 20% interest.I give her twelve times the salary of most people who live in the Issan area,but its not enough.Now she wants to work for 5000 to 8000 Baht to help her mother out.It pisses me off,because my time to see her is short,in part,because I send her so much money. Can I hire someone to snoop into her familys financial records,plus her own?I don't think she herself has a gamboling problem or bad habit,but maybe someone in her family.

Ps, I forgot to add that she,said she was trying to become like a Rat and had a piece of wood that is apparently magical,from some temple.

dougness wrote:Ps, I forgot to add that she,said she was trying to become like a Rat and had a piece of wood that is apparently magical,from some temple.

Sounds fishy. How long have you been married? How long have you known your wife prior to your marriage? Are you living with her, or just visiting on ocassion?

I think you are paying her too much money. Just tell her that if she wants to work so badly, you will reduce the support you are providing by the amount she will be earning in her job. If her job will severely limit the time you can spend together, then (given the proportion of what she will be earning versus what you are giving her) she may not value the time you spend together as much as you deserve.

I hope I am wrong, but it seems to me that you are being taken for a ride. Yes, there are plenty of agencies that can do background and financial status checkups. I am surprised you hadn't done that before you got married.

PS: I suggest getting rid of all cats in the house. What if she succeeds?

The rat is a symbol of wealth in Chinese culture, and also here in some cases.

In any case, your problems don't seem to be tightly linked to superstitions.
Situations such as the one you describe may be more common than you think. There may not be anything fishy going on, though I agree it sounds like a little looking around is in order.

Private investigators (generally) know how to ferrite out the kind of information you are looking for, and maybe even some information that you aren't looking for but should know.

Here are some links to some private investigators. Most likely all of them will travel to Udon if they don't already have somebody here.

http://www.thaiprivateeye.com/
http://www.spyonthai.com/
http://www.piengine.com/member/686/


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Dougness,

I think that your wifes situation is not all that uncommon. I spent a few months living in my wifes village and the financial situation you describe is accurate for most if not all of the families, including my wifes. During the Thaksin era, one of the ways he tried to curry favor with the poor in Issan was to open up the spickets to loans. The main lender was the farmers cooperative banks and another was the village fund. All the poor farmers jumped at this chance to borrow money and now most are over their heads in debt with little or no possibility to pay them back. The interest rates on these loans is also very high and they even let them put up their land, which in most cases is Sor Por Kor land and not supposed to be loaned against. The villagers bought cows, tractors, trucks and other misc. and now owe more then they can realistically earn from their farms. If you read the Bangkok post, you will have seen the stories about the farmers protesting the government now allowing the banks to reposess the land in order to satisfy these outstanding debts. If your wifes family live in a rural village and are farmers this may very well be their situation even though they are hard working honest people. Now there are other reasons for debt associated with drinking and gambling but in our small village it was a smaller number for that reason.

I try to help out my in-laws as much as possible but I am not rich and can't begin to pay off their debts. My wife is the same way as yours and wants to figure out any way we can to earn more money in order to help them out even more. I don't think that in itself is out of the ordinary, but they also have to be realistic about the abiilty to help the family.

As far as gosts, I don't know any Thai ladies that don't believe in them or all of the other lucky things in Thailand.

To sum it up, your wife may may in fact be just a normal Issan lady wanting to help the family who are indeed very poor and heavily in debt and have little prospect of paying it all off. I think you have to know the family to decide for yourself if they are good people or just pulling your chain.

Keg

keg wrote:Dougness,

I think that your wifes situation is not all that uncommon. I spent a few months living in my wifes village and the financial situation you describe is accurate for most if not all of the families, including my wifes. During the Thaksin era, one of the ways he tried to curry favor with the poor in Issan was to open up the spickets to loans. The main lender was the farmers cooperative banks and another was the village fund. All the poor farmers jumped at this chance to borrow money and now most are over their heads in debt with little or no possibility to pay them back. The interest rates on these loans is also very high and they even let them put up their land, which in most cases is Sor Por Kor land and not supposed to be loaned against. The villagers bought cows, tractors, trucks and other misc. and now owe more then they can realistically earn from their farms. If you read the Bangkok post, you will have seen the stories about the farmers protesting the government now allowing the banks to reposess the land in order to satisfy these outstanding debts. If your wifes family live in a rural village and are farmers this may very well be their situation even though they are hard working honest people. Now there are other reasons for debt associated with drinking and gambling but in our small village it was a smaller number for that reason.

I try to help out my in-laws as much as possible but I am not rich and can't begin to pay off their debts. My wife is the same way as yours and wants to figure out any way we can to earn more money in order to help them out even more. I don't think that in itself is out of the ordinary, but they also have to be realistic about the abiilty to help the family.

As far as gosts, I don't know any Thai ladies that don't believe in them or all of the other lucky things in Thailand.

To sum it up, your wife may may in fact be just a normal Issan lady wanting to help the family who are indeed very poor and heavily in debt and have little prospect of paying it all off. I think you have to know the family to decide for yourself if they are good people or just pulling your chain.

Keg

Hear, hear!

As far as ghosts, I don't know any Thai ladies that don't believe in them or all of the other lucky things in Thailand.

Me neither,sometimes i believe some of it myself.

and good post too keg.

Dougness, my two penneth:-

I note you said "send her money", so assume you don't live with her. As a cynic I would be suspicious that her suggestion that she gets a job and works could be an indirect way of pressing you to send her more money.

It sounds to me like you already send too much, so I would let her get on with it and tell her if she feels that will help her mother, - Ok get a job. Then see if she does. (But don't send her any more money). Otherwise I'd try and keep out of it and let her solve it within the family.

I think many do believe in ghosts, but not all. With a University education, I would have thought she would be less likely to believe.

keg wrote:To sum it up, your wife may may in fact be just a normal Issan lady wanting to help the family who are indeed very poor and heavily in debt and have little prospect of paying it all off. I think you have to know the family to decide for yourself if they are good people or just pulling your chain.

Hmm, the skeptic in me wonders. If your wife is willing to go and work for so little in comparison with what you send her on regular basis (and I am repating you are way too generous if she lives in Issan), then this could be indicative of the fact that most of the money you sent her is spent on her family's debts. You are using the word "currently". Were you aware of this situation prior to your marriage? Did you discuss the level of support you are willing to provide to her family? Are you comfortable with this? I wouldn't be and I would be most suspicious. Even if the story checks out, I still wouldn't like the fact that my labor (that keeps me away from my wife) is used for paying someone else's obligations. Get some agency to do the checkup as soon as possible.

Good luck!

I read a book once

"Dougnees age 12 and half"

When are you guys going to wake up and....oh never mind just keep us entertained

TC

TC wrote:I read a book once

"Dougnees age 12 and half"

When are you guys going to wake up and....oh never mind just keep us entertained

TC

Are you saying that our "Dougness" is just an alias for "Adrian Mole?"

panick wrote:

TC wrote:I read a book once

"Dougnees age 12 and half"

When are you guys going to wake up and....oh never mind just keep us entertained

TC

Are you saying that our "Dougness" is just an alias for "Adrian Mole?"

Nah can't be old moley was 13 and three quarters, incidently he turned 40 this year, how time fly's.

Maybe he wrote 2 diary's and the first was too "HOT" to publish

Thanks for all your replys.To answer one question from above,No I did not know about her familys debts.Her mothers debt is actually another sisters debt.The gentleman who said she is giving away most of the money is probably right.They are not from the Issan area.If I don't get the bottom of everything this trip,I will hire a PI.Sure it would be great,if my wife worked,but its not practical,if I want to spend time with her.Part of the problem is the way Thais dance around the truth to avoid conflict.My thinking is,if there is a problem,let it be known and fix it.Iam young still,so Im hoping that things will correct themselves eventually.I know that,if I was retired I wouldn't have the patience or money for this.If I was retired and looking for a companion,I would definately hire a PI first before falling love or lust, .

I would cut off the money immedietely and wait for her to confront me. Then I would simply tell her I was not stupid and there will be no more money for Family FULL STOP. You then only have to sit back and watch her reaction to see if she is screwing you or has a genuene problem, not of her doing. The Lies will pour out if she's cheating you and will be obvious to see. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind