{"product_id":"the-second-life-robert-van-der-veur-9798190248616","title":"The Second Life: Western Men, Asian Wives, and the Price of Starting Over in Thailand, the Philippines or Cambodia","description":"\u003cb\u003eTHE SECOND LIFE\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWestern Men, Asian Wives, and the Price of Starting Over in Thailand, the Philippines, and Cambodia\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDerek was fifty-nine, divorced, and invisible - the kind of man Western dating apps had quietly stopped showing to anyone. Then he did the math: the same pension that bought him a shrinking life in England could buy him a house, a truck, and something he'd stopped believing existed - a woman who wanted to be with him. He booked a flight to Thailand. He never fully came home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Second Life\u003c\/i\u003e follows the men who make this calculation, and the women on the other side of it who make their own. Derek, married to Nok, a Thai woman half his age, whose family expects him to provide and whose own future depends on a bet she made at twenty. Hans, whose marriage survives his Parkinson's diagnosis only to reveal who really holds the power once a body starts failing. Ray, becoming a father again at sixty-one, doing the arithmetic on whether he'll live to see his son grow up. Colin, who came home from Thailand with less than he left with, and nothing to show a Thai court for the money he lost. And Sara, a Filipina who marries an American and discovers, on a K-1 visa in small-town Ohio, that the power in these marriages doesn't disappear when a woman crosses the ocean in the opposite direction - it simply changes hands.\u003cbr\u003eThis is not a book about scandal or sex tourism. It's a forensic, deeply human accounting of a bargain that hundreds of thousands of people have made - and are making right now - built on real research into Thai and Filipino marriage migration, cross-border property law, elder care, inheritance disputes, and the demographic collapse reshaping both sides of this exchange. It asks the questions the retirement blogs never do: What does this actually cost, once you count everything? Who cares for you when you're old and can't get home? And when it's over - divorce, death, or simply time - was it worth it?\u003cbr\u003eTold through the honest, unflinching voices of the men who did it and the women who lived it with them, \u003ci\u003eThe Second Life\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of what happens when love, money, and migration collide - and what's left standing when the money runs out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Robert Van Der Veur\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798190248616\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 208\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.63lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.44d","brand":"Robert Van Der Veur","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50666070704383,"sku":"9798190248616","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-second-life-robert-van-der-veur-9798190248616","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}