Are you happy with your Thai partner?

Now I am fully aware that it is extremely rare in any relationship to be 100% compatible, but you can still be overall, happy. What I would like to know, on those occasions when you aren't seeing eye to eye with your partner, what is the cause?Doesn't matter how trivial it seems after, what started it.?I am looking for the primary cause,as I know one thing can lead to another. For example: you may be arguing about money, but its because you spend too much on drink. Alternatively, the dispute may be about being unfaithful when in fact your not, but your partner is excessively jealous.It is a fairly detailed list but if you feel there is another reason not listed, please tell me., by Pm if you don't want to reveal publicly. You can of course just vote without posting for complete anonymity.
This info will help me in a presentation I am shortly going to be making.
I do have some stats but as there source is compiled from relationships that are almost at breaking point, I feel this is not a true picture. I would like to know from those of us, the majority I'm sure, that are living contently with our partners most of the time.

Money usually because my wife has no understanding as to its value. Usual comment "Look, velly nice and only 40,000 bht" and up........

Although we have things sorted now MONEY was the major cause of arguments, she had just no idea how to save! I had to give her her allowance in weekly rations as it would never last the month.
We will be celebrating our 6th wedding annaversary in a couple of days and I must say TW has been getting her allowance (still the same amount) monthly for some 3 years now and has conciderable bank savings. She did learn the value of money and we have not had an argument for years. Extremely happy together, life is bliss.

Edit:- I might add TW has to pay utility bills, phone, her daughter's private education, clothing, motor bike costs and day to day expenses out of her allowance. In Aust. it was called 'House Keeping' money.

Yes. Just clarification of the :Housekeeping" answer. I am referring to cleaning standards. The spiders webs etc.

I had to pick others if there is a problem between us it is that we are very much similar. I would prefer to be spoiled a bit more, but so would she

My wife does run the household budget, if we go over it's normally somethign that I have done not her, so I kick in for those thing, but we have been together in Thailand for three years. She knows how the money works so there are no surprises. Avtually better at it then I.

One nick in the happiness is I still want to go play with the young sweeties from time to time. But I don't out of respect for her. Could I do it and get away with it yes, she is not going anywhere but it would destroy the trust It has taken a long time to achieve that I wouldn't destroy it for a few mins play time.

I still don't find Thai women that much different then the other ladies who have been in and out of my life.

I marked children as we have had some sulking moments after discussions related to the daughter.My wife gets very angry at the daughter because she doesn't emulate her in her work and study attitudes,etc.etc......so she yak yaks at her alot from a negative point of veiw without any positive reinforcing.I constantly intervine which undermines her authority and makes her angry!

My wife is Lao, not Thai. Given the close contact with her school and so many Thai and Lao women, I notice the similarities and differences. Lao women seem a bit more grounded, but not much. Both think money grows on trees for farang. Keeping a nest egg to prepare for emergencies baffels her. Why would you have money in the bank and not want to spend it? Why would you pay off your credit card and not have a balance when you have so much credit available? Why would you bank your income tax return? Go without something ephemeral to save for something else? Pi ba!
Drink and drive, ride a motorbike without a license or a helmet, stand in water and plug in an electrical appliance, spray bug spray around food...cultural as well as age differences. My wife has no concept of food preservation, infection control or safety and is still miles ahead of my young farang wife in terms of being street smart.
I was married to a farang woman only a year older than my current Lao wife, so I can see the similar age-related issues. There are many of them. There are also a lot of cultural ones.
Jealousy would have been my second response after money. I get warned frequently about having a mia noi but as I tell my wife, "One crazy woman is enough". We are daily dragged through the git lives of the women in the beauty shop school and business. I am amazed anyone can keep these soap opera lives straight.

Man I'm so glad I go past that jealousy part drove me crazy for about two years. At first to a point that he would actually hang on me if I wanted to go have a beer. Guess she finally realized her worth.

Last ride we bought some sweets I gave what was left to a little cutie haivng lunch at the same spot, One of the guys freaked out, my wife didn't even bat an eye, she knows I have fun flirting but thats where it stops. Heck she is with me 7/24 couldn't get in trouble if I wanted to

But that minor change really lets me be myself and eases a lot of pressure. It gets old after a while reassuring someone that you do care.

Same here as far as 24/7. It would be impossible for me hide anything even if I wanted to.
When we were in DC and she was working checkout at the PX at Ft Myer, it was ok when young GIs would hand her phone numbers and flirt with her. Here, when I talk to the other nurses at the hospital, the jealousy flares and I hear about it for days.
When I moved the wife from Laos to Germany she found a picture of a former Russian GF (I thought I had sanitized the place) and it was two years before thnat simmmered down to only a periodic mention. I still get "da" or "nyet" as a response about once a month just to remind me.
She threw a major fit when a buddy of mine from Homeland Security was in Bangkok and wanted me to meet him in Pattaya for a night out.
Hopefully this will all cool down as she does realize that I am just too old to go through all this crap with anyone else again and that she is valued, safe and secure.

In all honsety the turning pint for me was when I went to Kuwait came back and married her, before that it was hell on wheels

muscle wrote:......stand in water and plug in an electrical appliance, spray bug spray around food...cultural as well as age differences. My wife has no concept of food preservation, infection control or safety and is still miles ahead of my young farang wife in terms of being street smart.
I was married to a farang woman only a year older than my current Lao wife, so I can see the similar age-related issues. There are many of them. There are also a lot of cultural ones.

That sums it up for me. It's things like the almost total lack of knowledge and awareness of so many things, particularly about food preservation and keeping house. She too would spray a worktop cleaner, whilst there is uncovered food close by. Not really knowing the difference between the freezer and ordinary compartments in the fridge/freezer etc. Those are the things which frustrate me. [Oh and the watching of Thai soaps!! ] Though no real problems or disagreements about money.

A brilliant example cropped up yesterday, which made me really angry:-

.... She has been missing Issan food, so she recently bought some pork slices (somewhat fatty) and laid them outside in the sun, initially unprotected, for several days, despite my constant and continuing advice and protestations.

When I drew her attention to some flies around it she put a perforated cover over it. At night time I pointed out the local stray cat would find it, if she left it out. She left it out, and sure enough, it was scattered around on the ground the next morning, with a few ants checking it out. The cat obviously hadn't liked it enough to eat it.

This went on for several days, though with it being brought in at night, during which time I suggested it would have be considerably more hygenic and safer if she just cooked it in the first place and told her she was being stupid, in no uncertain terms.. "Oh we used to do it when I was young and 'no problem'".

Anyway family recently arrived, so yesterday she made up some somtam with a Pappaya from a tree in the garden. This is against the background of last time she made somtam at home she was racing backwards and forwards to the toilet for the rest of the day. And yesterday she ate the pork with the somtam, and guess what...... was ill for the rest of the day, with many toilet trips and ended up having to visit the pharmacist.... and to cap it all was telling people it was from the somtam.

The other big thing for me, is general awareness. She sees, or thinks of nothing, that isn't immediately apparent or in front of her. Doesn't see rain clouds rushing in, or even rain across the valley, doesn't think of the washing being out. Doesn't think what else do I need whilst at the shops etc etc. I think you get the picture.

I, and most farangs, I think, are reasonably capable of multi-tasking, and have some degree of planning and organisational skills, but my extremely lovable other half doesn't!!

Jealousy is very evident also, though I see that very much as insecurity!!

I feel better now.

When i first came to Thailand my first girlfriend drove me made with just living and thinking of the moment without any regard to the future.No saving and no forward planning.However that is what they have been told to do from a very early age by the monks down the local wat.It is a very central part of the Buddhist doctrine not to think or dwell on the future but live in this moment.Worrying about the future causes suffering.So they have had thirty odd years of hearing this until we come along and change the whole system.
I like to think i have met my current wife half way.

yes, ignorance is frustating and entertaining at the same time. basic lack of physics, science, even biology. first time at the village and in laws house, while house being built, just a visit, needed a hotel while waiting for house. living at in laws would been impossible. rainy season and a quick thunderstorm was obviously going blow thru the village, and what do i hear. take my gold off, so i don't get hit by lightning, that's ok. i'll sit here in the car till it passes, while you sit where, under that big tree. ok. looking at the computer, human body and medical software. hasn't got a clue of any internal parts, reproductive or any. simply amazing. little one is in second half of 1st grade at st marys, nobody in family or neighbors can help her do here homework, and most have the mandatory 9 years of school, that's scary. will be done 2nd grade in march, and i think she surpassed half the village already.

Ree, present girlfriend, apparently got a proper education, well, almost. was bounced back and forth between siblings since parents passed when she was like 4. but completed school, and sometimes she suprised me both with what she does know, and what she doesn't, but much better than the other 4 gals.

I would have to put my marriage to the ex wife in the "other" category. Laziness was the biggest problem. A total lack of ambition to do much more than sit with that half dazed look in front of the television.

Her brother had sent her to school so she got a 2 year degree in computer graphics. She refused to use that degree - said that she needed more training. But, didn't want to go back to school and get more education or training. Didn't want to work for a company that would give her training either. Said that the money wasn't good enough.

Gave her an option - get a job, go to school or go back to the village. She opted to go to school. Went to the University and took a dead end career course - Human Resources. She finally told me why: She wanted to be the only person in her family that had a degree. Had no intention of using it.

In the end - told her to get out. Wasn't going to have her sitting around the house doing nothing. Since then, she has bounced from one falang to another - even to the point where she was a mia noi for one of them. She just wants someone to support her, show her a good time and have no responsibilities. Of course, she has that Thai dream to have her own business. Apparently her latest is going to help her have that dream.

All true but how many of us have clue about growing rice.