Ian,

Although I appreciate you have already had one divorce to the Thai girl, sometimes all of these things can build up on you and drain your spirit.

I like Aromulus's comments about the aggro he gets from a former wife, because it demonstrates that the stories are all similar.

What women who are about to be divorced seemed to do, is sit all day thinking up ingenious ways to make your life miserable, what makes them think up even more ingenious ways is when you tell them, you have a young lady in your life, they always say the same thing and it always amazes me what former foreign wifes say it goes like this:

"She will never come to our country - she will not get a Passport for our country, I will make sure of that" or they say

"I will write to our embassy in Manila and stop them from coming"


This always amazes me, since they themselves were foreigners, and after a few years, once they have a passport, their allegiancces seems to change the minute they think a rival is on the way in their place.

I think Ian, the hits will keep on coming, as in Aromulus's case, the hits just keep coming, but in fact, there is little they can do in the long term, all the hits take place in the short term, but you can overcome them.

You said this:

sell apartment; move; get divorce; deal with other exwife; marry Mae; live happily ever after. . . . .
I think the order is this one.

1. Start divorce proceeding.

Advice from me: Commencing a divorce proceeding in UK involving solicitors can be expensive.

Firstly, when you see a solicitor, they will assess your income for legal aid, however, if you do not qualify, (and be careful of this) everything they do for you is placed on a timeline account.

Its likely your wife does not earn the same as you, she will almost certainly qualify for legal aid, which means her costs will be met by the tax payer, and she will have a legal aid certificate issued.

My legal expenses in my divorce case was £18,000, be very careful, because although at first, you cannot see the costs, they soon mount up, every letter, every phone call, every hearing, and when children are involved, its worse.

If there is a child, there will be directions in court for the child, who will be the resident parent, and who is designated the non resident parent.

Your wife sounds like the candidate for the resident parent, then knowing her she will apply to DSS for help with the child, (although under the new laws coming in by 2010 child support will take a different route where parents can agree an out of court settlement on monthly child support without using the Child Support Enforcement commission, at present, if a woman contacts CSA they will be in your life like you wont beleive)

I assume Ian that you are already paying child support to your ex wife for children you had with her, whether they were born to that marriage, or whether you took on her children at the time, these I presume are children of the family, and you took on responsibiity for them.

The CSA can be a right Royal pain in the a... in my experience, they only got involved because my ex wife tried to apply for Income support, we already had a payment arrangement for child support, that arrangement was cancelled by the CSA and a new one had to be agreed, which meant that child support reviewed my case by asking for all my accounts.

In the end to stop CSA getting further into my life, i conceded a higher monthly figure than was originall agreed.

Back to the divorce procedures, with affidavit and counter affidavit, which basically are slagging matches in writing, with the Financial directions hearings, the Heads of agreement hearings, and divorce decree Nisi, it can take time, and money.

I hope it doesnt cost you the earth to do this, my experiences tell me that its a part of my life that has passed by now, but at the time it was hell for me, especially when my ex wife had some of her freinds come in the night and write off my work vehicle, that was something else I had to contend with.

2. Sell your Appartment and Get rid.

Get it off your back, really Ian, if you are going down the route of divorce from your Thai wife, you should try and have no financial link with her, I just hope for your sake, you have no joint bank accounts with her, women are very quick to be in the bank when their is a financial dispute, divorce proceedings can cause the bank to freeze your account, until commanded by the country court to release any funds to your solicitors jointly.

The mistake I made was having a joint account, joint accounts in marriage are all very well, when things are lovey dovey and tickety boo !, but when the marriage gets into a phase where the two of you are contemplating splitting up, then thats when financial problems happen.

Lets take my little flower, dont think for a moment women dont think about These things because beleive me they do.

How would you feel if you were out in the Philippines and checking into your hote as I was in Manila, you give your credit card to the receptionist to book into your room, she tries to swipe it ? ohoh, it doesnt swipe ? it gets declined.

You ask the girl to swipe it again, thinking there is something wrong with their machine, again it doesnt work, you complain and get annoyed, but their is little you can do, you know your credit is ok, you know you have sufficient funds in your account, so you try your debit card, oh oh that doesnt work either, something must be wrong ?

Maybe its the Philiippines, you know what it is like, nothing every works there, so it must be that.

You never thought for a second, that whilst you are out of the country, your little flower back home has called your card issuers hotline, and told them that you called her from the Philippines, and told her your cards have been lost.

In the meantime, because the card issuer does not in many circumstances try to contact you, nor can they because you didnt leave them a mobile number, nor are they use to having p...off ex's contact them to lie about your cards being lost.

There you are with your new lady love, and your cards dont work, you are in effect up the creek without a paddle, or as we said this year, up the SHAT AL ARAB WITH NO GUNSHIP SUPPORT.

Its only when you arrive back in UK and call your bank, that you find your wife reported your cards as lost or stolen and they were taken off the grid, while new ones were issued.

Then you find they have been to the bank and told the bank that you are splitting up, your bank account has been frozen, and you cannot get any access to your money, they say you must consult your solicitor, I had £7000.00 in a joint account, could not get acccess to it, and in the end it was used to offset the mortgage, and I never did see a penny of it.

3. Get your own place and move in

Getting your own place and sorting out an alternative accomodation is often the best way to get peice of mind, since some men decide because of costs to stay with their existing wife, it never works out trust me, there will always be constant arguments, rows, and slagging matches, its a big step going out on your own, I did it, and it wasnt easy, but the minute I did, a breash of fresh air decended on me.

The other problem is, you mentioned your wife has a child and its your step daughter, that represents a problem for you, because under the child act, they cannot be homeless, so you will end up having to move out, if you cannot live together amicably, without the police being called all the time.

In my case I was ordered to leave the home I had built for 14 years, and had 14 days to do it, thats what always makes me laugh about the system, I call it the 14/14 system.

it goes like this:

14 Years to build your dream home. = 14 days to get out as its not yours anymore.

Then on top of that, you have the state telling you how many times a month you can see your child.

Of couse in the family courts of England and Wales, the feelings of the father are never taken into consideration, he often ends up being given 1 weekend in two if he is lucky to see his child.

The UK tends to instantly divorce children from their Fathers, and it wont ever change.

4. Move as far away from your Thai ex as you can - dont give her your address and change your mobile number


This is very good advice, since it cuts the ties you have, (excuse the pun) then you are not getting 20,000 text messages a day telling you what a unfeeling b... you are, and not getting duped to bringing a kebab for her when she gets the feeling she is hungry.

The other good thing about this, is that she will not know where to send hate mail or come to your house and aggravate you, or stand outside yelling obsenities.

The further away you are from her, the better your life will be, and dont look back, just cut your ties and get on with it, plus you have somewhere then for Mae to come and live with you.

In Conclusion - New House, New Car, New Girl, New Life.

Once you have broken all of these steps down into little short term worthwhile achievable goals, you will be able to settle down with your lady love Mae, it can be done, if you take your time and cross off each achievement and get closer to the end game.

I always used to keep a folder of all the things that happened, and ticked them off one by one as we achieved them, my wife was in on this with me, and finally about 2 years later there we were happily living together in UK, i am sure you will do it Ian, as you said earlier, nothing can put you off when you have made a decision, not freinds, not your Mum, not anyone.

Go for it mate !!!