After you have died

Many expats are living here with significantly younger ladies; and typically these ladies are living with you at a significantly higher standard than what they had in their earlier lives. Is it too much to be concerned about what would happen to their standard of living after you have departed?

You seem to have a one sided view on a relationship. You only mention what you give to her. What about what she gives to you? You must have a hard outlook on life if after you pop your clogs you are prepared to let the person who has shared your life return to the lifestyle she had before she met you.
I would think that any caring person would make arrangements that her standard of living remains the same.

Good question, very thought provoking. One that my wife and I discussed before we entered into this alliance. Of course everybody's situation is different, but I would think that the majority of Thai ladies would find themselves, at the least, better off financially than they were before they met their ATM machine, should he suddenly disappear.

Some countries will continue the husband's pension for the surviving spouse. I believe this is true for the Brits. Us Yanks aren't so fortunate unless the wife is a citizen of a predominantly white skinned country. But in any event, it is prudent to plan for this, whether it be savings, accumulation of assets (house, car, etc.), provisions for a small business, whatever.

Galee wrote:You seem to have a one sided view on a relationship. You only mention what you give to her. What about what she gives to you? You must have a hard outlook on life if after you pop your clogs you are prepared to let the person who has shared your life return to the lifestyle she had before she met you.
I would think that any caring person would make arrangements that her standard of living remains the same.

I think after looking at the Title of this thread Ray means after you have "died" in which case if you have nothing in life you have nothing to leave behind. In my particular case the Wife will be far better off without me

Aardvark wrote:In my particular case the Wife will be far better off without me . It is sad indeed if you feel that way. Want to say more?
I started thinking about this when I learned from papaguido that Thai resident Thai wives will not receive survivor benefits from U.S social security.

Ray.Charles wrote:Aardvark wrote:In my particular case the Wife will be far better off without me . It is sad indeed if you feel that way. Want to say more?
I started thinking about this when I learned from papaguido that Thai resident Thai wives will not receive survivor benefits from U.S social security.

Ray, it's just that if I Die she gets a House with a small Mortgauge on it plus my Super plus my life insurance etc which will make her a multi multi millionaire in Thailand, considerably more than while I'm alive !!

My corpse will make fine fertilizer. Surely she can appreciate the value.

Texpat wrote:My corpse will make fine fertilizer. Surely she can appreciate the value.

Not surprised, you are full of sh1t.

OT...

While I perused this post, a thought was going through my mind would it be worth replying, the answer is yes.
The majority of foreigners living here with their wife or girlfrind of long standing, are ujnder no illusions that in many cases most of them will be far better off than they were before they met you.
If one really considers the amount of money we spend, and the fact that most of our money does come from a pot /pension or whatever ( not Govt pension ) then it is certainly true that in many cases that will eventually dry up.
Most govt pensions are only a top up of what you otherwise get and even that wouyld if spent carefully would provide her with a reasonable amount.

In order to ensure your good lady can continue her standard of living would be a task that not many of us would wish to undertake in fact in many cases the only real assest would be either land or house.
Openess with her and advising her of all that she can /cannot get and ensuring she does understand is the only real way to deal with this matter.

I have given it a lot of thought over the years and can find no real answer other than that. yes she may be a millionaire, or yes she may have to sell the family home, or yes she may get nothing, but whatever she does or does not get, she will lose someone she obviously loves or cares about a great deal, so it IS up to us to ensure she understands and fully realises that in the main after our demise her standard of living may deteriorate .

Thoise that worry about how much she will gain are sad, those that make no provision are in my book unworthy, but those that try are to be commended, life is uncertain except death so we should try to allieviate her loss to the minimum.

Nuff said methinks.

Good topic and worth thinking about. It depends on an individuals circumstances. My situation is that I'm married and we have 2 kids (so far!). As she's 20 years younger than me, I've given this some thought previously.

I have my own pensions/superannuation account which I can't access for another 15 years - it's going very well and has a large sum in there already as I actively manage it, i.e. don't let it just sit there getting a miserly 5% growth pa. When I pass on, TW will get 100% of that pot which will really set her up and take care of her and the kids for many years if not for the rest of her life. Similarly, any savings, monies in forex accounts etc, will go to her and the kids.

In the meantime, I will be teaching her how to make her own money from the forex markets then she is not reliant upon me. Risk? Yep - if she does ok, then she doesn't need me financially, but we didn't enter into our marriage on that basis and things have happened that satisfy me she isn't after just money.

If we have a house/land, of course it will be hers when I go. As a side note, I've often thought (and worried) about buying property in/around Udon with the thoughts - what if we split and she gets everything? Well, I was married before to a westerner in the UK and that more or less happened, so what's the difference? To my mind, the difference nowadays is a fortune - if I was married to a westerner again and it failed, say I had to sell the house to give half. So that's around $200,000+ (Australian), plus pension/superannuation rights, etc. If the TW and I buy a place in Thailand and we split and I walk away, what do I lose financially? 2m baht for the house perhaps plus the car? Still cheap compared to my previous experience with the UK girl. So now I'm not worried about purchasing in Thailand.

As I say, everyone has a different situation with their current partner, previous partners, kids from current/past relationships which all go to make things complicated or not for what you're thinking of doing. All I know is I'll try to take care of my wife and kids as much as possible if I'm here or not. Otherwise I'm not much of a husband or father.

Cheers
Phil

Oh, I forgot - also good to think about life insurance. I ride the scooters as well as drive the car and we all know how dangerous it can be. As my western based pension/insurances would take a while to sort out, it may be worth considering taking out life insurance within Thailand, then at least the wife can sort some things out in her own language and get money relatively easy and quickly compared to waiting for the western side of things to be sorted.

I have a few bank accounts in Thailand, including the one for meeting the immigration renewal requirement. I have made a will (Issan Lawyers) listing the a/c details that would give the funds to my lady after I have died. Of course, it is not for those of you who feel that in Thailand you should never be worth more dead than alive to anyone.

Ray.Charles wrote: <some text removed> Of course, it is not for those of you who feel that in Thailand you should never be worth more dead than alive to anyone.

Literally words to live by.

One thing to consider. If your marriage was informal, just the usual village event, this would probably be insufficient for your wife to collect a widow's pension from some government and possibly private schemes. So although the properly registered marriage is not always convenient (or you may have reservations!) at the time, need to think about it for the future.