How much to pay in-laws?

Forgive us for rolling about in laughter...   ..but how deep are your pockets..?

Humour is the best medicine.   Look at 'The Store that sold Husbands' to see exactly where (all?) men stand.  Accurately.   Even without the other store across the road...  ( ..or across the Galaxy..? )  'The Store that sold Wives'.     Go Ogle has pages of variations.

But pragmatically, you can negotiate anything.   How desperate are you to save money (or 'Face')  vs  how desperate is she to prove you are an (un)worthy choice of spouse for her darling daughter? 
   ..her genetic investment in Life...

It was never about the money.   Your suitability is being tested.

Therein lies the real problem.   Good luck.  You'll need it!    ..along with courage, skill, emotional control...

Vagabondone wrote:

Just curious how much other expats pay their wives parents. While I was dating we discussed this and I agreed to pay $300 a month to my mother-in-law ( No father). However, this money has always been a contentious issue and she now wants $500 a month. This lady is not suffering. She owns her home and seems to be quite comfortable. When her and I discuss it she says she does not use the money I give her now. Just puts it in reserve as she calls it. She is retired and does get a government pension as well.

And another expat falls into the trap. Stop paying and get yourself an honest wife.

The next stage of the ex pat trap is when 3 (or one or two) kids appear. Her brother has fallen on hard times and so she is looking after his kids. Then the brother comes to Iive with you. And sponges off you.

After years of paying out, you discover the, actually, the brother is your wifes first husband. But by now you are supporting a whole raft of kids and ancient relatives.

You are being taken for a fool.

I can only agree with the previous posts.

Bail out before you spend any more money.

200k an hour.

And to put it very bluntly you can hire an apartment for 300$ dollars a month, a cleaning lady for less than 50,000 dong a hour and save enough to drink a good malt whisky every night of the week as well as a flight to BKK every 60 days.

Some great replies. Not to say I was not aware of much of this before I dated or married here. My wife and I had a long discussion on this. I had it it my mind before I married that I would set the limit at somewhere a bit above the per capita monthly income here. Which was $200 a month. She asked me to contribute $300 and I thought it was fair. Where i am from we contribute to IRA's etc to build for our future. Here there is no such planning. At any rate I was okay with it.
  Then one year in the story changes to what I had heard from so many ladies from jump street...."if you really love me you will give mom $500 a month and buy me a house. While I am not against putting money aside so she can buy a house when they plant me. I do feel that investing in a home now is a waste of money for me. I can rent a mansion for far less than I can buy the mansion. Then too I had already set up a trust giving her all of my real estate holdings in my home country.
  So she took a job so mom can have more money. So now mom gets $300 from me and $400 from daughter and I lost a wife. She is never available fro companionship due to work
  I would never force her to work. But I am retired and had intended on enjoying my retirement with my wife. Not to be.
  So I confronted mom and asked her point blank...." how much do you need a month with your pension to get by?" She said she does not use the money I give her now, just puts it in savings, but she would love it if I would increase her monthly amount to $500.
  I told her no way. Asked her.." if I were a Vietnamese husband and both your daughter and VNese husband made $1,000 a month would you feel you were entitled to $500 a month.
  Now she writes back and says she feels shamed for asking me and wants none of my money.
  I don't know, but it seems to be round eyed greed to me.

You are being manipulated.

@Vagabonde

You are simply an ATM and being used for whatever money they can get out of you.

After 40+ years of coming and going in Asia I have seen many like you bled dry.

I had a chat about this with my wife. She said that there is an old custom in some families in Vietnam where a young married couple will support an elderly mother, if she has no income. My wifes mum doesn't expect anything from us because she has her own farm and her own income.

Aside from the 'Third World' survival ethic, you should have a good idea from reading the posts here that you are being taken for a ride.     Is negotiation too obvious..?         

Another point?   While it is always a mistake to assume, when it becomes bleeding obvious...

..and did you consider the wife's job may well be a way of avoiding you..?    Try a little objectivity.      Human nature isn't going to change for another few millennium.   

And you already have your wake-up calls...         Reality bites, mate.

Vagabondone wrote:

Not to say I was not aware of much of this before I dated or married here. My wife and I had a long discussion on this.

So you're saying essentially that you went into this with your eyes wide open. I'm sure then that you also must have known that your mother-in-law was in no real need of your "contribution" anyway.

So you bought yourself a bride on the installment plan, mommy upped the ante and now you're here asking questions.

I presume there is a significant age difference involved here too, right?

And I thought I'd seen it all on expat.com... I was wrong.

Well James actually this subject has come up many times here in Vietnam. perhaps Brazil is different. But I know many expats who help out the parents. Not a bad thing I suppose. Much better than my mother country where many elderly have no help and turn to the streets or live a poor existence.
I went in with my eyes wide open as to how much I would help her mom. And to this date I have no problem with that. Just annoyed that they want to up the ante and I have told them both such. I refuse to give more. But as the post asked, I was curious what amount others were paying their family. I have some friends here who both pay and some who don't. The ones that don't have their in-laws living with them full-time. So, while there is no money changing hands, there is a cost.
The thing that bothers me most is that the wife now is no longer a wife, but someones employee for peanuts a month. So I come here, have a solitude life and contribute to mom's retirement fund.
I make a good living, but it is the principal of the matter that gets my goat.

Well your first posting made it quite clear that your mother-in-law is not one of those people who needs help since she owns her own home and appears to be quite comfortable. You further stated that she isn't using that money, but rather it goes into a "reserve."

To answer your question, no Brazil isn't much different. The people in this country are extremely family oriented and abject poverty is rampant. That said while there are certainly gold diggers (of both sexes) here, in my 14+ years here I've not seen anything that remotely resembles shopping for a bride. So, in that sense Vietnam must be very very different. Lots of gringos here do help their wives' family, but certainly I've not seen them helping families who DON'T need help. When they do help out, it is almost always once in a while when some major problem arises, certainly nothing on what appears to be the "fee structure" you describe.

"The thing that bothers me is that the wife is now no longer a wife."

Sounds to me like she never really was, sorry to say. If she changed the moment that you didn't agree to meet mommy's price that seems rather clear. Looks like she was in on that plan right from the get-go.

I'll be quite honest with you. There is a great age difference between MY wife and I, not that it really raises eyebrows here. I'm far from being well off, let alone rich and I'm so glad when I read your posting that my marriage is one based on love, and that we have a beautiful and intelligent 8 year old son. Glad that my marriage was never based on what I could provide financially for her family. In fact, I probably wouldn't be with my wife if it weren't for my mother-in-law (also younger than I am) who was one of the strongest supporters of our relationship. She saw my character and constantly told her daughter that despite the fact I didn't have much, that I was her future. Yes, I've loaned my mother-in-law a few bucks from-time-to-time to tide her over til the end of the month, but I've borrowed from her just as many times in the same situation. That's what FAMILY does.

I can't imagine just how heartbreaking it must be to be in your position. You have my sympathy. I'd say that it's clear you're being played by both your wife and mommy. They've looked upon you as a walking ATM machine from the very beginning and given the situation you describe, it's time to cut your losses and get out of Dodge... real quick. Find somebody else, if you must, but you're just digging the whole deeper if you stay where you are right now.

Cheers,
James

Too true!   Bluntly, in black and white.   Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie.  Eyes wide shut and all the relevant rhymes.   While we all prefer to believe our life-partners choose us because of the quality of our character, it pales beside the biology that demands we all seek the safety of security.  More important for women, for they require support for the nine months of pregnancy.  Men have no function besides their original invention: to diversify the gene.  So Family is safety for both gender.

So besides being diversional therapy (we carry the parcels and pay the bills) safety shifts to comfort, then complacency, then to corruption.   Human nature NEVER changes...

Money Number One (Neil Hutchinson) at least softens the tragedy with (a lot of) humour, banned in the Philippines and Thailand.   But as you must have realised by now, it is your kind-hearted nature that has brought you undone.   Sadly, the same old story...   The hole you have dug for yourself will only become deeper and (I hope) you can see your future.   Can you start again?   Yes.                 We all adapt.  Much more readily when our survival is at stake.

There can be no gain without (some) pain. 

They have already asked the same question: how much?

James wrote:

Well your first posting made it quite clear that your mother-in-law is not one of those people who needs help since she owns her own home and appears to be quite comfortable. You further stated that she isn't using that money, but rather it goes into a "reserve."

To answer your question, no Brazil isn't much different. The people in this country are extremely family oriented and abject poverty is rampant. That said while there are certainly gold diggers (of both sexes) here, in my 14+ years here I've not seen anything that remotely resembles shopping for a bride. So, in that sense Vietnam must be very very different. Lots of gringos here do help their wives' family, but certainly I've not seen them helping families who DON'T need help. When they do help out, it is almost always once in a while when some major problem arises, certainly nothing on what appears to be the "fee structure" you describe.

"The thing that bothers me is that the wife is now no longer a wife."

Sounds to me like she never really was, sorry to say. If she changed the moment that you didn't agree to meet mommy's price that seems rather clear. Looks like she was in on that plan right from the get-go.

I'll be quite honest with you. There is a great age difference between MY wife and I, not that it really raises eyebrows here. I'm far from being well off, let alone rich and I'm so glad when I read your posting that my marriage is one based on love, and that we have a beautiful and intelligent 8 year old son. Glad that my marriage was never based on what I could provide financially for her family. In fact, I probably wouldn't be with my wife if it weren't for my mother-in-law (also younger than I am) who was one of the strongest supporters of our relationship. She saw my character and constantly told her daughter that despite the fact I didn't have much, that I was her future. Yes, I've loaned my mother-in-law a few bucks from-time-to-time to tide her over til the end of the month, but I've borrowed from her just as many times in the same situation. That's what FAMILY does.

I can't imagine just how heartbreaking it must be to be in your position. You have my sympathy. I'd say that it's clear you're being played by both your wife and mommy. They've looked upon you as a walking ATM machine from the very beginning and given the situation you describe, it's time to cut your losses and get out of Dodge... real quick. Find somebody else, if you must, but you're just digging the whole deeper if you stay where you are right now.

Cheers,
James

A happier story, James and I'm very glad for you. I have a similar story, married a great lady who is a lot younger than me and whose family don't expect anything from me. In fact, when she took me to meet her family for the third time, her father told her to ask me to go for a stroll with him. We walked a couple of hundred yards and he stopped in front of a piece of land with mature coffee trees growing in it. This is yours, he said, simply.  I was floored and could only stutter Cam on. He just grinned. Sadly,he died a couple of years ago. Mum in law comes and stays with us from time to time and my wifes' niece stayed with us for her first year at uni in here.

To the OP, you have a bit of a problem, but before doing anything in a hurry maybe you should sit down with your wife and put cards on the table. She may feel that she has lost face with her mother and maybe she saw you as an easy ride, but Vietnamese women are very deep thinkers (aren't they all?) and you may be able to come to an agreement. If not, well, the decision is yours.

Stop press: My wife just informed me that her brother, who is getting a divorce, has hooked up with a woman who is asking him for money. So it isn't just a Vietnamese / ex-pat thing.

Of course it works both ways. My wife also asks for money and I no longer argue about it because she can take 100 dollars and a couple of months later it has turned in 1000 dollars (well maybe 800).

How does she do it? I once asked her and:
She: Well, you know my friend who has a dress shop in D2?
Me: Yeah
She: Well she wanted to borrow money to buy stock from a factory that was closing down.
Me: Yeah.
She: So I loaned her 1000 dollars
Me: But I only gave you 100 dollars.
She: Yes but before that I paid a deposit for a guy from Singapore who needed a car and a driver, the deposit was 100 dollars and the guy had the car for one month and at the end I got 100 dollars back and 150 dollars commission, so now I had 250 dollars.
Me: Yeah.
She: So then my friend in real estate wanted me to host a small party of investors from Korea who were looking for land to buy for an hotel, so I arranged mini bus hire for them and took them around round, translated for them and found some land in D1. They bought the land and I got 1200 dollars commission.
Me: Jeeze, wish I could do that.
She: You foreigner not Vietnamese and cannot speak Korean so cannot.
Me: So what about the clothes?
She: Oh well my friend bought factory stock and had a big sale over one weekend and gave me 100 dollars back and 50 dollars commission.
Me: Great, where are we going for dinner tonight?
She: stay home save money, I  cook.

Matt, You are lucky !

"Me: Great, where are we going for dinner tonight?
She: stay home save money, I  cook."

mrnasirs wrote:

Matt, You are lucky !

"Me: Great, where are we going for dinner tonight?
She: stay home save money, I  cook."

Yeah I know! Especially as she is a great cook.

What Vagabondone might not have figured out yet is that this is just round 1. Round 2 is when as a kind hearted westerner he starts to insist she quit her job because she's PG and shouldn't be working so hard. Well reluctantly  (?)  she agrees but now Moms gets $700 a month and you only give her $300. Hummm guess where the other $400 is going to come from for a long time, because she isn't going back to work for quite awhile.

Hey Budman long time no hear from you. Well I think you hit the nail on the head. But decision time came today. After she got up at 3 a.m. to work her 6 am- 12 job and did not stop working until 3 p.m. when I told her I needed 30 minutes of her time, I had had enough. I made it simple, me or the job, your choice.
  Her retort was she would give up the job if I would pay her mom one year in advance. Okay, no big deal, I had suggested doing that long ago. It makes it easier for me. So now she thinks she is on a winning role....and you will pay mom $500 a month. She needs that incase she needs to paint or something. So I told her that her mom and I had talked about it and she admitted she has not used a dime of the $300 a month I have given her for over two years. And I can assure you Budman the house sure could use some paint. In fact the last time I was there I offered to paint it for her.
  So will see what she thinks now. Now she can take her $400 q month job and support new baby and mom. Math is kind of crazy to me. Now she lives in a beautiful home on $8,000 a month. Hey it works for me!

Sad to think that someone claims to love you then pulls out the calculator to figure out just how much. But we would be silly to think a pretty young gal marries an older man just because she has an attraction to wrinkles or gray hair. I thought the price of the age gap easily warranted $300 a month. Me, I only married a younger gal because I wanted to have a child, never having one I fathered. So I rolled the dice and we will see what they come up. So far I have dumped probably 200K into this thing. Just to set in a country where my language ability is poor and stare at walls!

Hmmnn...?   I would consider myself lucky that I awoke before I was bled dry.

You only got married because you wanted a child... Have you considered the very real possibility that she could be taking contraceptives, or has had a tubal ligation?

How long have you been married already? She hasn't even had a close call yet?  I'd be kind of wondering about that if I were you, or wondering if I was firing blanks.

Vagabondone wrote:

But we would be silly to think a pretty young gal marries an older man just because she has an attraction to wrinkles or gray hair.

There are many reasons for young to be attracted to old. Stability, loyalty, desire for caucasian baby, green card, preference for foreigners, are commonly mentioned in forums.

Vagabondone wrote:

I thought the price of the age gap easily warranted $300 a month. Me, I only married a younger gal because I wanted to have a child, never having one I fathered.

Sounds like you were ok with a "financial relationship" from the start. I am old fashioned in that I have looked for love and compatibility first, but there are many kinds of relationships that can work if mutually agreed on, and mutually beneficial.

Vagabondone wrote:

So far I have dumped probably 200K into this thing. Just to set in a country where my language ability is poor and stare at walls!

"this thing", do you realize that is body language for a disappointing relationship. Or a poor return on investment. "stare at walls", jeez, you have to get out sometimes. I hope you can work it out, I hope your wife is really spending her days at work. I hope she can compromise for you out of her good feelings for you.

Well smack my arse and call me Toby!!!

I'd dump that b**ch faster than the speed of light.

Talk about been taken for an absolute mug.

I'd say cut your losses now before shit really hits the fan!

What I don't understand is how a man who has enough brains to make a successful living can be so easily used and abused by 2 complete arse bandits ???

You know the old saying, there are plenty of fish in the sea ?

Well in Vietnam, you'd need a fucking trawler to reel them in there's that many!

I can understand if you're an old man and lonely or want children or what not.

But believe me when I say, get the hell out even though it may hurt to do so.

Find yourself a nice country farm girl and you'll be laughing.

As you can see, we are all wise in hindsight

We (all) can empathise with what you are being awakened to.

You have invested (far too much!!) time, money and emotion to let go easily, so we are trying to help you get 'back on track'.   It is choice, not chance that decides y/our destiny.

Yeah, there are plenty more opportunists and gold diggers out there just waiting for a kind heart.                       Trying to help (any) third party is the first red flag.

You may well feel it is a case of the devil you know?  You obviously don't.   And repeating the mistake is a real risk.  So note well that successful relations are those who begin as friends first.  We have the time and opportunity to assess their inner qualities, not the exterior Barbie doll.  Plastic is artificial.

Women especially have this wisdom already built-in.  They recognise they need security and substance.  Still, very few would want to awaken next to a Quasimodo, no matter how pure the heart.   Even biology has its parameters!      Desperation is another story...

Both Matt and James are the examples to follow.   Living and working alongside potential partners is (again obviously) the best way to see if you (really) share the same interests and values: the stuff that will hold you together through the tough times: life as we know it.

But yet again, there are no certainties.  For with your support and (unconscious) desire to help the innocent farm girl, when (not if) she realises her potential...  ..where will you be..?

Equally, you are capable of rational thought.  You don't need to be a chess master to plan your moves to secure your future.   Correct choices do it for you.   Learn objectivity.

I doubt your metaphor of staring at the walls is real.  You didn't get to where you are by sitting on your hands, and you now know your motivation.   As others keep telling you, the next hell will be far worse.    Truly, a bottomless pit.     Your choices should be crystal clear by now.

Sitting still while waiting on others to decide for you is not an option.

Oh she is no farm girl. Has what they consider here a good education with a master degree. Her and I seemed to have so much in common, and still do. We spent endless hours talking about the critical things in life. She seemed to be a very honest person, but I must admit trusts no one. Which to me has always been a red flag of dishonesty in oneself if you can trust no one.
But I did tell her yesterday she either resigns from her job or I submit my resignation letter from the marriage. We have a baby in the oven, so I am not keen on divorce and want to remain in Vietnam to be with the child. Not sure how practical that will be.
My original post only had the intent of trying to ascertain how much other expats are paying to family or how much they have been expected to pay. My original thinking was that $300 was fair. I am not in it to make in-laws rich. But I do understand it is customary here for daughters, not sure about sons, to provide in their parents later years. Which I think is a noble thing, That is when kept within reason.

' Not sure how practical that will be'..?

    Good.   Stay with the uncertainty.    Doubt is your lifeline.

   Ask the question, doubt the question, then question the doubt. 

   It begins and ends with your self.

This has turned out to be a most interesting discussion and I'd like to add some personal reflections if I may.

As I have posted on here before I met my lovely Vietnamese wife in 2008. What I haven't told anyone is that this happened at the end of a horrific marriage to a drug abusing and violent woman who had lied so much about everything and for so many years that she no longer knew the truth from fantasy - the drugs didn't help.

We took our time in allowing our relationship to develop, my new g/f being acutely aware of the circumstances of my previous marriage. A year or so after we met, I became very ill. I could no longer work as a self employed consultant and the money dried up.

My then g/f, looked after me even to the point of getting enough money together to send me back to the UK for hospital treatment. She would depart for work early in the morning and return after six at night and then go to the market to try to find fresh food, which she would then cook for us. She paid the rent on our tiny apartment, the electric and water and bought bottles of gas for cooking as well as bringing her doctor friends to treat me and buying medicines for me.

For almost two years she supported us on her tiny salary as a Client Relations Executive for a multi national company; and nursed me at the same time.

From time to time her mum came down from her farm in the central highlands to help. The family sent us from their farms coffee,  fruit, chickens, avocado pears  - whatever was in season, by bus.

I made a full recovery but was weak and shaky for a couple of months until I got back on my feet.

By now I had built up an enormous amount of trust in my g/f and when she agreed to marry me I was happier than a pig in a cider vat. First though I needed to repair my finances and I got a well paid job in the South Pacific for 9 months.

Apart for beer money I handed all my earnings over to her and she bought us a brand new apartment and engaged a builder to complete the internals to her design.

We moved in and it was like living in luxury after the previous couple of years. Now however, the international company that she worked for decreed that, due to the economic recession, all staff would only be paid commission - and the amount of payment made was to be at the discretion of her line manager, who split my g/f's commission with his g/f (TVB!).

So we decided that she should give up work.

We were married in Dalat in 2014 and had  wonderful wedding reception in Saigon a couple of months later when the whole family attended.

My wife then, without telling me (by now I was working overseas), bought us a new four bedroomed house and decorated it to perfection. For three months she left our apartment every day except Sunday at dawn and travelled across the city on her motorbike to manage the internal construction of the house. She inspected everything minutely even to the extent of telling the electrician where to run the cables in the walls and photographing them for future reference. In order to avoid pilferage, she would order the next days building materials herself before lunch daily and supervise the deliveries in late afternoon.

When she took me to see the place it wasn't quite finished but she just couldn't contain herself anymore. There's and English word for how I felt when we got out of the taxi and she said "welcome home honey, do you like it" 

The word is "Gobsmacked".

I had said in conversation at some time in the past that I love real wood furniture and voila! The new house has a built in hardwood kitchen; built in white oak bedroom furniture; wooden floors instead of the usual ceramic tiles etc etc.

I had said that I hate power wasting incandescent lights and flickering fluorescent tubes so the house has 3rd generation LED lighting throughout. I had said at some time in the past that I loved the idea of solar water heating and, yep its on the roof producing 150 liters of close to boiling water daily.

Ladies and gentleman I am in AWE of this diminutive slim small person with a heart as big as a planet and an intellect the equal of any of the great philosophers. She married ME - 30 years older than her and she has stuck by me through thick and thin. Now, wherever possible when I am working abroad she comes with me, to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Dubai, Thailand, Singapore etc.

I asked her how she had managed to pay for the house since a quick ciggy packet calculation told me that I had not earned enough to pay for it outright. Well, she said.... I sold the land that I bought before I met you and my friend paid me back the 5000 dollars she borrowed from me two years ago and then I cashed in an investment that my Dad gave me when I was at university ........

Then I remembered that this is the girl who paid her way through university by selling bottled water and soft drinks from a cart near Ben Thanh market.

I don't know what is in the future for us, but what I do know is that until one or both of us depart the earthly vale of pain and torment, we will face it together.

Thats the other side of the coin of marrying a Vietnamese girl.

He said that she is up the duff, James.

Once the baby is a reality however she is quite likely to use it as leverage.

eodmatt, what a wonderful story. Your truly blessed with an obviously wonderful bride. Thanks for sharing it.

Vagabondone wrote:

eodmatt, what a wonderful story. Your truly blessed with an obviously wonderful bride. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks! Now is a big improvement from my previous life with a drug abusing and violent lunatic.

You realise of course, he rubs it in to make us mere mortals more jealous...  ..and succeeds!         

Ok, Matt.   You got it nailed.    Now can we discuss the movie rights..?  ..it should be right up there with 'Titanic', maybe more, since truth is always more exciting than any soap opera.       

Bazza139 wrote:

Ok, Matt.   You got it nailed.    Now can we discuss the movie rights..?  ..it should be right up there with 'Titanic', maybe more, since truth is always more exciting than any soap opera.       

You'd prolly make more money extracting ammonia from urea and selling for profit. 

I think I seem to imply my wife is bad bad bad. Not the case. She cares for me beyond belief. It is just this money thing that drives me nuts. I have not yielded on what she originally agreed to, and I never will. Maybe someday she will get it through her noggin to stop trying. I know there are many nay sayers on here. Although I complain, it is far better than any ex I have had in my mother country.

Ah well, stick to your guns and .... better the devil you know, eh?

Too late, pal.   It was never about the money.   Fame, trust, integrity...   ..the stuff that really matters...

..but we are fortunate to have learnt from the Master...