Relationships between Thais and Western partners: an evergreen topic! In this
Counseling Corner series, we look below the surface to devote ourselves to the
most important issues that can await those who enter such relationships.
Part 5: Relatives
‘If you marry an Asian woman, you also marry her family!’ You’ve
certainly heard this saying before. As a matter of fact, relatives are one of
the biggest challenges for Thai-Western couples, even if both are not aware of
it right away or underestimate it at the beginning.
Most Asians consider themselves an integral part of a greater
community, their family, their villages, their country. And one of the first
lessons they learn in their lives is that they have to honor their roots - of
which their parents are the closest. Even if their family didn’t provide them
with the most basic goods like love, emotional stability or education, they
would rather blame the circumstances than complain about their parents, and they
will do their best to ‘pay them back’ for having been raised by these people and
do (almost) whatever they can to help them to improve their lives.
I can share no statistics with you to back up my assertion
but one of the main causes of breakups between Thais and Westerners is the
incessant pressure put on the woman to obtain ever greater financial support
from her husband or boyfriend. A Thai mother will often ask her daughter ‘is
he kind to you?’ instead of asking her ‘does he love you?’. Unlike in
Western countries, however, kindness of a husband has rather financial than
emotional implications in Asia. In a way, the family will also expect the
Westerner to express this form of ‘kindness’ towards themselves, as wealthy
family members are supposed to support poorer relatives - especially when they
are farmers, fighting to make ends meet as is often the case in Thailand’s poor
Northeast (Isaan).
In Western countries, however, relatives and friends can also
impose emotional pressure on the couple: accepting the Thai wife for who she is
- and was - is very rare in Western society which tends to look down on
relationships involving a partner who comes from a developing country. And in
the context outlined before, would it ever be possible to honestly decline that
in a certain way, she is indeed a ‘bought bride’? Some couples try to avoid
anyone potentially looking down on them by isolating themselves, and some
Western partners decide to avoid taking their girlfriend or wife to their home
country at all out of concern that their partner would hardly be socially
acceptable. As a result, they are travelling frequently and accept a very
complicated lifestyle.
From a therapist’s viewpoint, I bemoan seeing how couples
often deal with the pressures they feel from their respective partner’s
relatives and friends. If unresolved, both will always feel bad about the image
they have in their partner’s families and relatives’ eyes, and it can feel to
them as though their relationship has a weak spot that prevents them from
enjoying their bond to its full extent.
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Live the happy life you planned! Richard L.
Fellner is head of the Counseling Center Pattaya in Soi Kopai and
offers consultations in English and German languages after making an
appointment at 0854 370 470. |
