Had enough
I'll try to make it as brief as possible. September 2014, I agreed to allow Chroeb's brother, Dong, to stay with us, and help Chroeb start a business. The first one they tried was a "Wing" office, but the man who was handling the franchise kept changing the deal, and I nixed it all.
Then they tried a bamboo drink stand. also selling ice cream, soft drinks, and some snacks. Hard work and small money. Dong turned out to be an arrogant pig. He never cleaned his room. and the floor in there was filthy with trash. I told him a number of times to clean it, and he ignored me.
I would not let Chroeb do it for him. Finally, I told him to clean it, or get out.
He chose to leave. All the time he was there, he was telling Chroeb a whole bunch of stories about how I had a house in America, a wife in America, and how I had bought a house for my daughter (!!!). Where he got all this crap is beyond me.
I had been telling her for 4 years that I came here because I didn't have a lot of money. After he left, the phone calls started. Chroeb to Dong, Sister to Chroeb, every day 5 or 6 an hour, and her taking off for hours.
I knew something was up, but she would not say anything. Finally, in july, early one morning, I woke up and went down stairs to find her gone. several hours later, I get a text message from her phone (Chroeb doesn't聽 know how to text) - obviously her brothers doing.
The text says, I not stay you any more because you stop love me". She would not talk to me after that. Her sister and brother both helped here move, and helped themselves to lots of my stuff.
Since then, I have not heard from her, or her brother. Her phone number has changed. From what I hear, she is working at a hotel or guest house on one of the island.
As I said above, I am done with this place. Tired of the stealing, lies, cheating. Yes, I am bitter. I am moving on with my life in a better place.
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While I am very hopeful that you are not 'convicting' all Cambodians (and I do not believe that you are); I can certainly understand you wanting to let things go on this end and start fresh elsewhere.聽 I wish you only the best in your next endeavors.
Once you get back to the USA you can file for an 'ex parte' divorce in the state where you reside, since you have no means of contacting your wife, or know her whereabouts. A good divorce lawyer will be able to advise you on how to go about filing.
Better days ahead!!!
Cheers,
James
expat.com Experts Team
Cheer up mate! Everything Happens for a reason. and you deserve better!
You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on!
***Peace, Love, & Happiness
If she was meant for you
She will come back
If not,
It was time for her to leave.
I see a lot of people advising the poster not to let the brother stay in the house.聽 That's easier said than done.聽 When you marry a Khmer family, you're marrying her whole family.聽 Cambodians aren't individualists...as the saying goes, blood runs thicker than water.聽 If you think a girl will choose you over her family, think again. If she acts like she does, watch out.
Most Khmer locals thoroughly check out the family backgrounds of their potential mates before committing to marrying them.聽 Foreigners, including overseas Khmers, often don't pay much attention to matters like this聽 and opt to focus only on the individual.聽 More often than not, they end up paying the price.

Wish you good luck and be cheerful again

This story is painful.聽 I think the best you can do is try to let time heal the wounds.聽 I know it is not easy but聽 that is the only thing I can think of.
Cheers, bro.
Well, the lower the level of education and the lower the level of income class, the more likely that their poverty and stupidity is self-inflicted. If nobody can trust you, then yeah, how are you supposed to trade and hence make money?
That particularly part has got nothing to do with Cambodia, actually. That kind of people are not dumb because they are poor. No, it is exactly the other way around. They are poor because they are dumb.
The only difference in Cambodia is that they can also go bragging to other locals about how they took yet another gullible foreigner to the cleaners.
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Seems like a load of hateful nonsense - religion has nothing to do with it.
Reason : Please keep your thoughts on religion private
We invite you to read the forum code of conduct
*** Yet everything I have experienced and read leads to the inescapable conclusion that there are tyrants and charlatans from all faiths and philosophies.
Out of curiosity - why did you choose to live among people you despise?
Reason : Please avoid any comment related to religion
Furthermore, these behaviours occur everywhere. You cannot avoid their instantiation.
If you want to live in a perfect world with instances of permissible behaviour only, you should move to a different planet. Religion conjectures the existence of such other world. However, we will NOT receive confirmation or infirmation before completing our journey on this particular penitentiary planet. So, be patient, because patience is a virtue!
Another remark would be that Cambodia has one major advantage compared to other countries. You can easily organize yourself to notice the existence of a government here, once a year only, when renewing your visa at the travel agent. This is as close to paradise as you can get on this globe.
Yes, many locals are, more often than not, poor and also dumb, but they are not in a position to impose their stupidity onto you. Only a government can do that, while theirs simply doesn't. So, yes, many locals are a*** but I can suffer them, because you can just ignore the ones that you do not like.
Seriously, the Cambodian government is fantastic. I really like it. I have voted with my feet. That is why I am here, and not over there.
Reason : Political + foul language
We invite you to read the forum code of conduct
I identify as feminist myself, so the 'xxxx' suits my values (although in reality we are still working towards true equality and dismantling toxic masculinity). Empowerment of women is a huge win as far as I'm concerned.
I'm generally the first person to tear my country down, and you and I clearly have different morals, but 'xxxxxx' is simply inaccurate. I moved back here from Cambodia because there are better opportunities for me (at least for now).
Well, yeah, a good proportion of the Cambodian population blames their government or the foreigners or the weather for their troubles. They will of course never blame themselves. That is typical behaviour below the line.
A lot of them think that things would improve with another government. It is the same people who believe that they would do better if only they were allowed to move to Australia. Sorry, but they will still be same person when they arrive there. Therefore, all the shit will just start all over again.
> However, that government does indeed impose poverty and under-education on its people.
Governments never provide education. They only provide indoctrination. So, I do agree that this government may impose under-indoctrination on its people.
Concerning poverty, I am not really sure, to what extent the government would be responsible. It is difficult to say.
I once heard a local say that he found it scandalous that a particular cruise company was owned by a foreigner. It should be owned by locals, he said. So, I asked him what stopped any of the locals from placing an order for cruise ships in Korea and go for it too? Or did he believe that this foreigner should place the order and pay for the cruise ships, which should then be owned by locals?
The problem is that their reasoning often sounds too much like that. Apparently, this foreigner moved his operation to Vietnam. I do not know the specifics of the story, but I can vividly imagine what happened. Everybody does what they like, but so did he, obviously. It is better to cut that kind of bad stories short, I guess.
Furthermore, I do not see how the government here would be responsible for any of this. They certainly do not seem to have their hands in everything that goes wrong. It can apparently happily go wrong without making use of any government assistance to that effect.
> Empowerment of women is a huge win as far as I'm concerned.
Since feminism seems to badly disturb reproduction from generation to generation -- which is obviously an overruling imperative -- you can reasonably expect the laws of nature to kick in at some point, and make serious corrections and rectifications. But then again, it is never women who do the fighting, or who are targeted by the fighting. As usual, it will be men knocking out other men. The misjudgement will obviously be the difficulty to find men willing to risk their lives and die for someone else's empowerment. The ones who will try anyway will find themselves at the receiving end of a spectacular amount of violence. They will have to fight and die, or else just die. Reproduction has to go on. It is not optional. Anybody standing in the way, should not be surprised to find themselves unceremoniously terminated. It will just be nature at work.
> Governments never provide education. They only provide indoctrination.
I'm not sure what to make of this. Indoctrination to what? Surely you are not suggesting that every single skill and fact learned in school is ideological? What is education by this definition?
> it is never women who do the fighting, or who are targeted by the fighting
Women have always fought, and even the most cursory reading of history should show that women are often targets. Many militaries are in the process of de-restricting combat roles, so the specious conception of warfare as for men only will soon be obsolete in any case.
Reproduction as imperative is for animals. Humans choose. 'Disturbing reproduction' is a reasonable natural response to unsustainable population growth, in any case. Fighting to keep it high would be an act of self-destruction.
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