Wilhelm II

Even if she dies because she loses you, you are allowed to leave. Suppose she is sick and life saving medical treatment can only be financed by you. That doesn't mean you have to do it. You are allowed to leave a system that collapses without you.

That’s not what I said, and it’s not what I meant. You are overgeneralizing and exaggerating unfairly. I didn't say there are no men here who understand the reality of the male-female dynamics. I just said I expected to meet more of them here.

In this context, that's a very bold claim, to say the least.

I didn't expect to encounter so much of it in a forum like this. I expected to find men here, more than anywhere else, who 'get it.' By that, I mean men who have looked behind the curtain of cultural conventions and who soberly and bravely face the reality of the male-female dynamic. Of course, I was hoping to mostly meet those who successfully integrated these insights without tossing authenticity, humanity, and a sense of community out the window.

In your dreams. The reality is, that women operate by the rule: “My money is my money. Your money is our money.”

The girls don't believe us when we say: "As long as you are transparent, your spoken truth won't change anything." They don't believe us when we say: "As long as you tell me when, who, and how you're banging, and don't deceive me about it, I won't scale back my financial support." Do you think they are right not to believe us? Or are they wrong? Either way, they don't believe us, and that's why there won't be any transparency. By the way, I am of the opinion that the girls know us better here than we know ourselves. I think they are right. I think the knowledge that another man is screwing around with her will indeed cause our own generosity to dwindle. To answer your question: your expectation was unrealistic in that regard. Since you used the word yourself: your expectation wasn't absurd. Rather, it is psychologically quite understandable that you had it. And let's be honest: the only thing that could make up for our gifts, the only truly valuable thing these girls could give us, is transparency. But they simply cannot give us that, as I've explained here. In that sense, they can't give you anything adequate in return for your gifts. And if you permanently give something to someone and they can't give you anything of equal value back, they will eventually despise you (Benjamin Franklin effect). So....

That’s an interesting story from the OP. But where exactly is the problem in this case? Because apparently, he agreed to let her look for another man. And he signaled that he would support her anyway. So there hasn't really been any deception or breach of contract. Rather, the OP simply entered into an agreement that is highly disadvantageous to him, and which he now seems to regret. Is that it? Is this a story about regret?

This is an aspect that I think many people don't fully realize: leaving all emotions aside, the man in such asymmetrical relationships can replace the girl with someone else at any time. She girls don't need to have finished school to understand that. If the girl were to fully commit to this one man - to an exclusivity with him - she would create a dependency that truly very few characters would put up with. That is why the girls have to keep their options open. It is simply down to the structure of such relationships. The structure and exclusivity (whether emotional or physical) are incompatible. Hardly any man can stand not being exclusive. That is why this connection must be ignored or rejected. And this often happens by maintaining complete naivety regarding the structural realities, and fighting anyone who so much as mentions them.

Yes, fortunately they don't have any children together. And otherwise, the (non-emotional) risks for him are thankfully limited. After such a short marriage, and given the fact that she can reasonably be expected to work, I think his alimony obligations and any marital asset division would be minimal. On the other hand, the risks she took are enormous: following a divorce, she would lose her right of residence. And just like in the fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife, she would find herself penniless back in her chamber pot in Thailand in no time. From my perspective, this only further proves that she simply cannot help herself, or that her character makes her poorly suited for a stable marriage.

I think an answer to your question is: Because some men prefer the safety of a structured environment for initiating contact, out of fear of rejection in 'real life'.

That is an important and complex topic - compartmentalization, the ability to separate sex from emotions. The questions that still come to mind regarding this are: How much do I need a woman's attention to feel valuable? How much do I need the feeling of having 'significance'? How much am I afraid of total insignificance? And these questions, I believe, are meaningful independently of Thailand, Pattaya, P4P or women in general.

Yeah, you know it. I know it. We all know it. Still: How many Thai women who are with Western guys used to work in the industry? My guess is 50%.

Good points, I think you're spot on. Going by all the parameters you mentioned, things actually don't look half bad for the two of them. But a different perspective gave me some pretty solid insight into the topic: Back in the day, I used to be a regular customer in that industry myself here in Europe. And I always liked going to Thai service providers. Pretty much all of them moved to Europe for marriage, and most of them were either still married, or married again.

Just when I thought I was done with the Pattaya topic, it finds a way to pull me back in indirectly: A friend of mine is married to a Thai. They met in Pattaya. He’s in his early 40s, self-employed, an academic, makes good money, but he’s not rich. She’s in her early 30s, graduated high school, and went to college for a bit. She moved to Europe two years ago, and they’ve been living together ever since. A few days ago, he found out that she is working in the trade again. Now, all hell has broken loose. They had a massive fight, and he apparently got very verbally abusive. But deep down, he seems severely depressed to me, to the point where I've wondered if he can even be left alone right now. He actually knew what she did back in Pattaya. So, it shouldn't have come as such a massive shock to him. But it just showed me once again how much our human (or maybe male?) brains distort reality until we see exactly what we want to believe. On one hand, when I first heard about it, I smirked and thought to myself, 'Well, obviously, what else did you expect?' And, 'Hey, as long as she puts her income into the joint account, everything is fine.' On the other hand, I can totally understand his devastation. And I can also see that this whole situation completely ruins him socially, on multiple levels. Plus, a small part of me realizes that I could have easily slipped into a situation just like this myself. Fortunately, I never did, and I'm grateful for that. This whole tragedy just proved a core philosophy of mine once again: in life, you shouldn't focus on doing it 'right'. Success isn't about perfect choices; it's strictly about avoiding critical, fatal mistakes. If you can just manage to avoid those, things usually work out. Have you seen similar cases where she secretly went back to sex work after relocating? How did those stories usually end?

"First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint a second time." (Honoré de Balzac, 1799-1850)