Loving a Vietnamese girl

One step at a time Meet her first, then plan the rest of your life.  What appears online does not always translate to in-person experiences.

Wot 'e said above.

Meet first and take your time, don't rush into anything. There are some fairly wide cultural differences to bridge - it isn't hard but there are one or two areas that need to be bridged - superstition and a need to consult "Fortunas" regularly being one possibility - don't laugh, some of them take it very seriously.

So meet up, have fun together and get to know each other very well before making any commitments. Oh and if you travel together within Vietnam, be prepared for the hotels (and the police) to tell you that it is against the law for a Vietnamese lady to share a room with a foreigner if the aren't  married.

It's bullsh*t but they make you take two rooms in some cases and the police check every hotel every night to check on who is staying there.

romaniac wrote:

One step at a time Meet her first, then plan the rest of your life.  What appears online does not always translate to in-person experiences.

Agree, come here spend some time with her, if she starts saying how she needs money or can you buy something for my family, then maybe she is not what she says. Don't trust what you see and hear on the Internet, she may have a child but she won't be disclosing that till later.

Gday Jim.

Sounds like heart warming stuff mate.   Yogi's not a gambling man but I don't like your odds.

SE Asia is full of train wrecks that came here looking for love on the Internet and got their asses kicked and were made to look like fools.  I've lost count of the number of blokes that have limped back to their home countries physically , mentally and financially crippled.     

Usually their money disappears, then their mental frustration turns to the cheap grog & alcoholism......Mission complete.

There's a guy on this forum that swore blind he "found a good one" . Spoke to her daily on the net for over two years.  Then when he finally arrived it only lasted a few weeks.....😁

Be very careful confusing Lust & Loneliness with Love.

If your like a lot of us here that have been married before,,,and in your case 2 bad ones.,why throw the dice on a third train wreck in Vietnam of all places. It would be simpler to  go find someone you can't stand the sight of,...and buy them a house.

Your likely to end up that way anyway,,so save yourself the time and drama of going thru all the preliminary heartache.

I've been dating a girl here for 3 years and have NO intention of ever marrying again.   She's OK with that and we have IMO a good relationship.  We have our own separate homes and we have our privacy and space.  It's all good.

I've also dated dozens of girls that all talk marriage, houses, baby's within the first week of meeting them.   

Just take your time, sample what's on offer here and don't rush into anything. Enjoy what a new culture has to offer and above all......don't become an "anchor daddy".   Unless you really want  to have more babies , get yourself castrated before you get here.

There's lots of guys here in SE Asia on the hook supporting a family they never really wanted.   A lot  of them were Desparate & dateless schmucks caught up on "holiday mode" and the delusional scene of having nice pretty young women telling them how handsome they are. The dream of meeting that beautiful Asian girl has since become a nightmare for them in a lot do cases.

There are TV shows, books and websites full of this stuff, but some guys still don't get it.


Take your time Jim and best of luck.

Thanks you good advice I know....I'm trying to contain my heart.....I could be wrong but I believe she is for real but we will ser

Thank you and like I said to the other gentleman I believe it is sound advice...even if all were perfect..there will be difficulty because of the earning a living thing...forgive me jor jumping all over the subject. My add kicking in haha......i may very well fit into the category of "dateless scmuck" haha

No worries Jim.....
A lot of us middle aged blokes come here from backgrounds and relationships  that could have been better.
You just don't want to see things get worse. 😜

I would suggest to anyone to have at least 2 years here before committing to anything, personally or financially.   It's not a crime to NOT marry anyone here, but you'd think so.

I cop this stuff  nearly every day where I live. " After 5 years, why you not marry".   " why you not buy house"   " why you not want baby" etc etc. 

Yogi's known as the "square peg " in my building of mostly Vietnamese .   They also think I'm gay because of it..😀😀😀😀😀

It's funny  , it's just a cultural thing .   Weddings are the National sport here.

Yogi007 wrote:

Gday Jim.

Sounds like heart warming stuff mate.   Yogi's not a gambling man but I don't like your odds.

SE Asia is full of train wrecks that came here looking for love on the Internet and got their asses kicked and were made to look like fools.  I've lost count of the number of blokes that have limped back to their home countries physically , mentally and financially crippled.     

Usually their money disappears, then their mental frustration turns to the cheap grog & alcoholism......Mission complete.

There's a guy on this forum that swore blind he "found a good one" . Spoke to her daily on the net for over two years.  Then when he finally arrived it only lasted a few weeks.....😁

Be very careful confusing Lust & Loneliness with Love.

If your like a lot of us here that have been married before,,,and in your case 2 bad ones.,why throw the dice on a third train wreck in Vietnam of all places. It would be simpler to  go find someone you can't stand the sight of,...and buy them a house.

Your likely to end up that way anyway,,so save yourself the time and drama of going thru all the preliminary heartache.

I've been dating a girl here for 3 years and have NO intention of ever marrying again.   She's OK with that and we have IMO a good relationship.  We have our own separate homes and we have our privacy and space.  It's all good.

I've also dated dozens of girls that all talk marriage, houses, baby's within the first week of meeting them.   

Just take your time, sample what's on offer here and don't rush into anything. Enjoy what a new culture has to offer and above all......don't become an "anchor daddy".   Unless you really want  to have more babies , get yourself castrated before you get here.

There's lots of guys here in SE Asia on the hook supporting a family they never really wanted.   A lot  of them were Desparate & dateless schmucks caught up on "holiday mode" and the delusional scene of having nice pretty young women telling them how handsome they are. The dream of meeting that beautiful Asian girl has since become a nightmare for them in a lot do cases.

There are TV shows, books and websites full of this stuff, but some guys still don't get it.


Take your time Jim and best of luck.

Yogi is very wise!

The other side of the coin is that I have known my (Vietnamese) wife for 8 years. We were married almost 2 years ago. So we got to know each other for 6 years before we tied the knot. It's the best thing I ever did. I can't compare my life now with the two marriages I had before, one of them to a raging abusive drug abuser.

And if your friend hasn't asked you for money yet, thats an encouraging sign.

When I worked in Vung Tau a few years ago there was in internet shop there which was always well patronised by women looking for foreign boy friends. Few of them spoke English,but there was one girl who did and she would move from computer to computer sending messages in English for the other girls. Some of the girls had several identities online and some of them would ask for money to buy a mobile phone so they could talk to her online boyfriend by text without going to the internet shop. At least one of the girls had 3 or maybe 4 phones bought by foreign b/f's. I think the likes of Skype, Viber and Facebook with cam to cam communications has largely put paid to that particular scam nowadays. But there will be those girls who will ask for money to buy a web camera.........

Gday Matt,
I've read your posts before and you are one of the lucky ones.   It just goes to show if you take your time the right girl will be out there somewhere.

I'm very lucky with the girl I'm seeing , but I really don't love her, and she has never once said she even likes me. ....?   We are good friends and I like it that way.   She's smart, she's a government employee, has a nice home with her family and will retire with a government pension.

I'm not entirely sure, but I was told that if she marries a foreigner she has to resign from the party and quit her job.  Sounds drastic , but it has happened to another guy here.

So I suppose if she "teams up" with Yogi , and the marriage crashes , there goes the pension.
Who knows...?

Anyway....about those folk in my building that think I'm gay.   

Yogi thinks he might have to stop playing the Ricky Martin tunes on his karaoke machine.
I might lose the loud shirts too.😀

Yogi007 wrote:

Gday Matt,
I've read your posts before and you are one of the lucky ones.   It just goes to show if you take your time the right girl will be out there somewhere.

I'm very lucky with the girl I'm seeing , but I really don't love her, and she has never once said she even likes me. ....?   We are good friends and I like it that way.   She's smart, she's a government employee, has a nice home with her family and will retire with a government pension.

I'm not entirely sure, but I was told that if she marries a foreigner she has to resign from the party and quit her job.  Sounds drastic , but it has happened to another guy here.

So I suppose if she "teams up" with Yogi , and the marriage crashes , there goes the pension.
Who knows...?

Anyway....about those folk in my building that think I'm gay.   

Yogi thinks he might have to stop playing the Ricky Martin tunes on his karaoke machine.
I might lose the loud shirts too.😀

Almost certainly if she marries a round eye she will lose her job. Our local friendly policeman told me that government employees, especially police and armed forces are not even allowed to travel abroad unless on a government sponsored trip.

Nah, keep the music and the shirts! You'd be surprised how many Vn guys are married to ladies who are "beards".

Speaking of the music, I had a Saturday morning of nostalgia last weekend and commandeered "her indoors" karaoke amplifier and speakers and played the massed pipes and drums of the Scottish divisions at full poke including with the bass amp turned up. One of the neighbors wanted to know if we'd had a death in the family. My wife told me that bagpipes or something like them are traditionally played for the dead in Vietnam.

I forgot that it was Saturday today and missed out on the pipes, so it looks like the pipes will be playing tomorrow morning instead.

Amazingly, our neighbors appear to appreciate heavy rock as they often call in when I have AC DC playing or Rolling stones.

Ha ha.......you can't go wrong with Acca Dacca  Matt.

The locals love the loud stuff.   I often wonder why they even bother installing volume buttons on sound systems here.    Straight to No 10 regardless of the mood of the occasion.

I was at a birthday party last year and one of the guests was doing the usual getting red faced and shouty bit, so I gave him an empty beer bottle (Carlsberg of course) and told him it was a Karaoke mic. He entertained us for over an hour. Fair do's!

Guy a few years ago I started a thread called "The No Topic thread"

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … =5#1712046

Maybe its time to resurrect it again>>>

Lol thanks don't mean to laugh but k inda comical by your description

Actually a far better thing than to have our mindless matt(ers) being left in tatters...   

I was thinking of starting a no topic thread so go ahead and resurrect yours I'm sure there will plenty of contributions .

Aha the erudite Bazza. Posts words of wisdom .

Hang on...ya still there Jim.
Thought you'd be at the Vasectomy clinic getting your nuts cracked.

It's no good sugar coating things.  It's all too easy to tell blokes that it's one big party here with women falling over themselves to meet a foreigner.  And a lot of them will.

They'll all tell you what you like to hear.

But just remember, it's always those closest to you in life that hit you the hardest .  Ex Wives, mistresses, business partners...etc .   In a lot of cases , that  sweet looking girl with the nice smile and cute ass will have no conscience when clearing you out of your cash.

Yogi has been keeping a file on funds requested from mainly women here over 5 years.  Would you believe I've been asked for in excess of $900,000 .  That's correct.  Houses, cars, business, bikes, jewellery, funerals, gambling debts, illnesses, Mafia street loans, wedding expenses, private school fees, luxury holidays, computers,etc etc.PLUS a helicopter... The chopper is not valued in this because I couldn't find one on EBay to value.  That's another story though. 

But James my friend... The biggest kick in the guts you'll get will be from one of your ex wives if you fail here and have to crawl back and have them say ...."I told you so" .   

My ex wife is dearly praying for that opportunity. 

So far Yogi's winning.

Yogi wins in more ways than one...

  I'll go with(out) the sugar coating too.   Better a bitter truth than the sweet lie.  And strangely, the (original) meaning of Sin was the Latin: to miss the point, like an inept archer.                                                                We see so much of that here...

  ..and I doubt that Jim can't.  He can not only think about the results & consequences, but also asks if he can afford to live as we do.  In Heaven on Earth.   (Sigh!)

  As for losing the lot, perhaps my 2 Dong's worth might help.  Any self-made millionaire (Oops! sorry: working with Dong; Squillionaire!!... )      ..will tell youse that true happiness is in the getting: not when you gottit!      (couldn't let that one go..)    Yogi has learnt from his mistakes, but I feel he is still happy with his integrity.   It shows.  (look up eudaemonism)    Happiness is the test of rectitude...

  Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.   Boys must chase the girls, until the girl catches him!   Previous posts here (as well as the aforementioned TV shows, books and too-often true stories tell it far better than Shakespeare ever could.   But who listens while in love?

  So while you might well save a whole heap of time and money without wrestling with reality - not to mention all those I-told-you-so's, think of all the fun you'll have in spontaneous sin!

That grinding noise you can hear in the background is the too-many jealous types gnashing their teeth in unadulterated envy.   Besides, the only way to win a lottery is to buy a ticket.

Reading between the lines, the probability is you are dead meat, mate.   But the fact that you are asking is also the wordless sutra of recognition.  So you already know the answer.   Wisdom like Yogi's comes from the difficulty of living in life.   But like the turtle, we cannot move forward without sticking our necks out.    You are self-aware and know the risks.

It is our choices, not chances, that decide our destiny.

Us?    ..we'll watch and wait...    With Empathy.         

Thank you gentleman I do appreciate your views and experience and and do hear you...I will proceed with extreme caution.... Would like to discuss  more

You speak with Much wisdom and capture my feelings exactly. I do know the risk at the same time...I would hate to die a coward...not knowing what might have been. I guess what I'm saying is start by coming to vn in June ..something I've always wanted to do.....and keep my eyes open

Attaboy!   ..you're on the right track.

If you did not..?   You would spend the rest of your life wondering why not.

At least you have the right attitude.   Your eyes are (not) wide shut.    Matt's appreciation comes from hard times and harsher experiences.    Work no one else really wants, so he deserves everything he has now.    Stay rational and you'll be Ok.

Something else you might consider is the hard fact of daily drudgery.   Even if you are completely compatible + chemistry + values, interests and motive are Ok, you must still deal with the dirt.    As any new father will agree.    All passion dulls with the daily must-do's, and this is why we need to establish a best friend base before full-time commitment.     But you know this.

A two-year life together removes more than the symbolic veil.  It finds the devils in (all) our details.   The trick is to deal with them before they become Dragons.   And before the small spots become indelible stains.           Prior experience forces us all to become cautious and yes, cagy.

( I MUST stop preaching to the choir..! )                   

Bazza139 wrote:

Attaboy!   ..you're on the right track.

If you did not..?   You would spend the rest of your life wondering why not.

At least you have the right attitude.   Your eyes are (not) wide shut.    Matt's appreciation comes from hard times and harsher experiences.    Work no one else really wants, so he deserves everything he has now.    Stay rational and you'll be Ok.

Something else you might consider is the hard fact of daily drudgery.   Even if you are completely compatible + chemistry + values, interests and motive are Ok, you must still deal with the dirt.    As any new father will agree.    All passion dulls with the daily must-do's, and this is why we need to establish a best friend base before full-time commitment.     But you know this.

A two-year life together removes more than the symbolic veil.  It finds the devils in (all) our details.   The trick is to deal with them before they become Dragons.   And before the small spots become indelible stains.           Prior experience forces us all to become cautious and yes, cagy.

( I MUST stop preaching to the choir..! )                   

Bazza you aren't preaching and what you said is spot on. I'll refrain from reiterating what I said earlier. OP go for it but don't be blinded by anything. Do what is reasonable and keep your wits about you.

He'll be Ok.   I'm more worried about the Walnuts...                   

I suspect you'll find them where the monkey ......,

Anyone who has lived around SEA for a few years would have heard this type of scenario way too often. I have a friend from Australia who tried to tell me he has found a great girl in Thailand who is just the bees knees, when I asked him where he met her the answer was a restaurant(a bar more like it).Having seen pics of his sweet, innocent, caring and totally one man woman, I wanted to tell him he was in for a big hard fall. 

As most of the guys on here will tell you, we all have heard about and known guys who have been taking for a ride. Common sense is your best friend. I hope she is what she says she is and it all works out great for you, but I'm always dubious of long distance Internet romance.

................I have been living on and off in SE Asia since 1969 and the first thing foreigners have to learn about marriage to an asian woman is - you not only marry her, you marry the family - a lot of people find that out much too late that "Famly first, Husband second"  and you can turn into a walking ATM in no time.  Tread lightly, don't believe everything you see or hear - one of her 'brothers' might actually be her husband - happened to me in Thailand, luckily a mate told me about him before I got wrapped up too much with her.   Not saying your lady is like that, just sayin..............

No I appreciate it because I have made some horrible mistakes in relationships which has not justcost me emotionally but professionally in there for financially as well I am a good salesperson but completely lost my head after divorces and I'm not near where I should be at my age and you know I may wind up not being an expat at all but the idea does appeal to me but yet I have not even been to Vietnam yet so if nothing else I go there on vacation do something always wanted to do a met Pham and see where it takes me. Feel free to offer any advice as I really really appreciate it and I am open-minded because you guys know! This may be a subject for another blog, but I'm curious what the opportunities could be in Vietnam as far as working making a living? I'm sure they are very slim  if a person wanted to take 6 months off and live there how much money would one need reasreasonably?

Very informative. Thanks to all. I am moving to Da Nang in November to teach ESL and to meet my Skype sweetie of 4 months. We video Skype daily, with her mother and son on camera also. She has a wonderful, fulfilling job and doesn't need my money. Using all due caution with the above mentioned pitfalls, I feel a true love with this girl. I sent her money once for her birthday, she didn't ask for it, I surprised her. I agree that one must meet in person and not fall victim to the internet love. She speaks good English so we can talk. I will move there and see how things go, but I am very optimistic. If I marry a VN girl, can I more easily get a visa extension?
Mahalo in advance

Let me know how things go for you bro...keep in touch

Yogi...what kind of work do you do in vn? Just curious... About how different.. Non rich expats live...

the first thing foreigners have to learn about marriage to an asian woman is - you not only marry her, you marry the family -

That's about as true as it gets, all over Asia.
Family is top in many Asian countries, so that commonly means you marry a few bothers and sisters, about 50 cousins and have 125 uncles and aunts, not just a mother in law to worry about.

If you marry into a family and are seen as rich, you're very likely to get asked for cash.

Good Morning Jim..or Chao bui sang..as they say hear.
About the cost of living ,and what I do for a crust I'll send you a PM.

Yogi is one of these people that likes to stay incognito for certain reasons. 😉....there are people floating around in sleepy little SE Asian backwaters that  like it that way.   

Just as Fred did say.....in a lot of relationships you will NOT be the No 1 boy.

In Yogi's case ,  I'm about 7th priority in her life & I don't have a problem with that. 

Family is always first.
2. Her government Job and subsequent pension
3. Her three cute little dogs......which Yogi has to exercise most days.
4 . Her health & gym routine ...which yogi introduced her to.
5. Her VN friends
6.. Here's the kicker....
     She is still in love with an old boyfriend that died 8 years ago. She still gets tears when she mentions him or when we  drive past where he worked.

7. Yogi.    I think I'm somewhere here in the pecking order.

So mate there it is.....  I've got a "dead man " putting up a better show than me in the game of life here.  But I'm OK with it, I'm happy.  I know where I stand and she's upfront & honest about that.  Which is a hell of a lot better than some of the other sharks I've run into here.




Hey Bazza.....do ya still think I'm winning.😀😀

Yogi often wonders about that.   When I wake up the first thing I see is the heavy duty Steel bars on my Windows, the padlocks , razor wire etc decorating my interesting little abode.

Then while eating my soup this morning ( mainly lawn clippings, noodles & dog meat eaten with sticks ) I'm shuffling my feet while the rats are trying to eat my beach towel.   Friendly little buggers, I'm actually getting and maintaining eye contact with them now.   

That's got Yogi worried......Grrrrrrr

Courseyerare!     Even coarsely,  the (awful?) truth of integrity is integral.

You.      And is the virtue all others arise from.

How fortunate are You?   Elsewhere I have tried to push Empathy & Self-Awareness, but blind eyes and deaf ears are legion.   Ignorance by any other name.    But like Matt, you appreciate.

(Doctor) Viktor Frankl wrote 'Beyond the chains of Illusion' after surviving the death camps.   Magic to read, for he trained his mind to see positives (even) in the maggot-ridden 'food' he had to survive on.  And even today we are still unsure how many millions did (not) live to tell...   

  Or you could research the Inquisition?     Just in case you do not know the true depths of evil we humans are capable of.

Number 7 eh?    Read 'Money Number One'  (Neil Hutchinson)  Banned in Thailand and the Philippines because of the damage it could do to the tourist industry.   The Truth hurts...

  Neil has (all) us as Number 10.    ..and we never rise above...

'course, you'll need continence pads and tissues to read it.   Best to only read the reviews to get the gist (already covered here ad infinitum)  Alongside You.   But the admix of Humour and True Tragedy makes magical reading.   

Ok?   ..now back to your unique set of circumstances.    You are miles ahead of (too many) men who trust a pretty face.  You understand that men want sex: women want security.
Biology confirms this as Number one.   Love is a (serious!) side effect which can lead to the terminal illnesses we see, read and talk about.   Again, ad infinitum...

So Yes, (Bloody oath!) you are not winning.   You have been there for Yonks!   You are complete.   The total being more than the sum of the parts (etc)   Sure, you may feel miffed at the dead guy having the advantage of selective memory.    But even without scratching beneath the surface, an objective observer might find his dark side.  Sometimes without really trying...   ..but psychotherapy is not what (She) needs.   It is You.

  Same question for us all.   Why is she with me?   Because you ARE the best she can find and just like the naive farm girl, (once) you prove to her the potential she has within, where will you be?    So yes, you got more than most.   Stay cool and keep it.

If you still haven't got the point by now, here it is. 

Attitude is everything.

So see, I knew that you know.      Just do it       

Haha yogi! You are awesome!!!?

tunnelrat69 wrote:

................I have been living on and off in SE Asia since 1969 and the first thing foreigners have to learn about marriage to an asian woman is - you not only marry her, you marry the family - a lot of people find that out much too late that "Famly first, Husband second"  and you can turn into a walking ATM in no time.  Tread lightly, don't believe everything you see or hear - one of her 'brothers' might actually be her husband - happened to me in Thailand, luckily a mate told me about him before I got wrapped up too much with her.   Not saying your lady is like that, just sayin..............

TR - You are dead right and maybe I got very lucky. My g/f when I met her had a good job - she is well qualified and very talented -, but with the economic turndown a few years ago the French company that she worked for decided that all staff should work for commission only and that the amount of commission paid would be at the discretion of line managers. This meant in my g/f case that her income as the company only customer liaison executive dropped by 50% as her line manager "shared" her commission with his g/f who worked as a typist.

I told her that she should stop working immediately as I would pay her a monthly allowance. She replied that her family would take care of her. And they did. But I also chipped in and paid all the bills and gave her "pocket money".

She discussed with me the possibility of buying an apartment and so we pooled resources and we had enough between us to buy a new build apartment outright. But the building contractor went bust and we had to take ownership of the apartment with bare walls - no plumbing, plastering or electrics etc. The cost of equipping and decorating the apartment was around the same as the purchase of the apartment.

So we just got on and did it. Instead of going to work somewhere my g/f spent every day commuting by motorbike from our rented place in An Phu to the new place in D8. She proved to be a very capable project manager and caught out the building contractors using inferior (cheaper) materials and skimping on things, on many occasions. On one occasion she was threatened with violence by the building contractors agent and I said I would step in. No need she said, "I called my uncle and told him then gave the phone to the agent who very nearly crapped himself" (uncle was at the time the most senior police officer in S. Vietnam).

Eventually after several months the new apartment was finished and we moved in. During the period that this was ongoing her family sent down fruit, chickens, coffee beans, tea, everything from their farms to help support us in what was a very difficult and expensive time.

About six months after we moved in my g/f asked me if her niece could stay with is as she was just starting university in Saigon and was thus moving down from Da Lat, where she was at high school. I agreed and the nieces family offered to pay for her room and board, but I declined. Generosity is a two way street.

We then received monthly downloads of fresh veg  (sent down by bus), chickens, coffee beans, herbs, cooked pork products - and the occasional bottle of home made "wine" - rice vodka actually

After just over a year the niece wanted to spread her wings and move into student accommodation nearer the university, but the family still supported us with supplies. Whilst all of this was going on I was sick for a prolonged period and in between doing everything else my g/f and her family supported me and even got me back to UK for treatment.

When I recovered from my illness I got a consultants job a very long way away from Vietnam for 9 months. On my return my g/f and I discussed getting married. We had been together for 6 years and so we did the bureaucratic marriage thing in Vietnam.

My g/f was "busy with things" for a couple of months and would leave home every day and come home late. I asked her what she was up to but she just gave vague answers. Then one day she told me that we were going to visit "somewhere".

The "somewhere" turned out to be a brand new house, just built on a secure estate. She had saved every penny I had ever given her apart from that used for shopping, sold all her assets and bought us a house. The family had chipped in a bit for interior decoration.

Thats the other side of the Vietnamese g/f / wife, coin and yes, you do marry the family, but it isn't always a bad thing.

Choose carefully.

Bazza139 wrote:

Courseyerare!     Even coarsely,  the (awful?) truth of integrity is integral.

You.      And is the virtue all others arise from.

How fortunate are You?   Elsewhere I have tried to push Empathy & Self-Awareness, but blind eyes and deaf ears are legion.   Ignorance by any other name.    But like Matt, you appreciate.

(Doctor) Viktor Frankl wrote 'Beyond the chains of Illusion' after surviving the death camps.   Magic to read, for he trained his mind to see positives (even) in the maggot-ridden 'food' he had to survive on.  And even today we are still unsure how many millions did (not) live to tell...   

  Or you could research the Inquisition?     Just in case you do not know the true depths of evil we humans are capable of.

Number 7 eh?    Read 'Money Number One'  (Neil Hutchinson)  Banned in Thailand and the Philippines because of the damage it could do to the tourist industry.   The Truth hurts...

  Neil has (all) us as Number 10.    ..and we never rise above...

'course, you'll need continence pads and tissues to read it.   Best to only read the reviews to get the gist (already covered here ad infinitum)  Alongside You.   But the admix of Humour and True Tragedy makes magical reading.   

Ok?   ..now back to your unique set of circumstances.    You are miles ahead of (too many) men who trust a pretty face.  You understand that men want sex: women want security.
Biology confirms this as Number one.   Love is a (serious!) side effect which can lead to the terminal illnesses we see, read and talk about.   Again, ad infinitum...

So Yes, (Bloody oath!) you are not winning.   You have been there for Yonks!   You are complete.   The total being more than the sum of the parts (etc)   Sure, you may feel miffed at the dead guy having the advantage of selective memory.    But even without scratching beneath the surface, an objective observer might find his dark side.  Sometimes without really trying...   ..but psychotherapy is not what (She) needs.   It is You.

  Same question for us all.   Why is she with me?   Because you ARE the best she can find and just like the naive farm girl, (once) you prove to her the potential she has within, where will you be?    So yes, you got more than most.   Stay cool and keep it.

If you still haven't got the point by now, here it is. 

Attitude is everything.

So see, I knew that you know.      Just do it       

All Hail Bazza the erudite! An awesome post from an awesome intellect. No really.

(He isn't paying me, honest). 

Nice story thank you for sharing!