I’m not sure if everyone can relate, but breakups with Thai girlfriends were perhaps the most dramatic and unpredictable moments for me on this earth. Certainly a great check of those cortisol receptors.
As a preamble, my relationships are typically calm and respectful. There was never cheating, yelling, swearing, or anything like that involved on my end. Things just.. didn’t work, we discovered that we weren’t compatible. Despite that, and my best attempts to have peaceful and amicable break-ups, things always turned really dramatic. There was a time I wasn’t quite sure if I’m going to live to tell the tale, or at least it’s what it felt like, and that was with a perfectly normal (or so I thought) Bangkok office-employed girlfriend.
Typically how it went for me: you go from interacting with someone seemingly calm, try to agree that we just don’t want the same things/ are too different (or whatever the real reason is), and someone who just 5 minutes ago was your close partner, instantly breaks all fathomable bridges to seemingly dedicating their life (or at least upcoming days) to trying to make your life a living hell, casualties be damned. Anything you entrusted them with becomes a weapon they are willing to use against you.
Certainly VERY different than amicable and relatively non-hostile western breakups were for me.
I heard the advice to separate while not in Thailand, or at least when your partner doesn’t have any of their stuff at your place. But I can never make myself do that.
I also heard the advice to avoid sharing any details that could be exploited once things go sour – whether it’s related to finances, visas, employment, breaking any rules, etc. I always felt like it’s challenging to be with someone and not share details of your life.
Do you guys have any other tips, tricks, lessons learned?
