I have been married nine years and have three kids. And for the first time, I do not know if I should stay.

I work on cargo ships. I spend most of the year at sea.

Years ago, work brought me to Thailand for the first time. It did not take long to fall in love with the country. The heat, the food, a pace of life that had nothing in common with the Canadian docks I came from.

On one of those trips I met a Thai woman. Nok. Things moved fast between us, the way things tend to move when a man spends weeks ashore between voyages and knows the clock runs differently for him than for everyone else.

Not long after she became pregnant. We got married. That was nine years ago. Since then we have had three children together.

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Because of my job, I have spent most of our marriage travelling back and forth between Thailand and Canada. Months at sea, weeks at home, then back to it. Nok has never wanted to move to Canada. I accepted that and tried to make it work as best I could.

The first five or six years were good. Genuinely good. We rarely argued. When I came home from a long trip, we always seemed happy to see each other, as if the time apart made us want to make up for it rather than wear us down.

I send my wife around five thousand dollars a month. It covers bills, food, the kids, everything needed for a comfortable life in Pattaya.

The problem is that for the last few years she almost always asks for more before the month is over. Usually the reason involves the kids, so I end up sending it because I do not want them going without anything.

The more it happens, the more I question where the money is actually going.

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Money is not the only issue.

It feels like I cannot do anything right anymore. Whatever decision I make is wrong in her eyes. She gets angry over things that never used to be a problem.

She is constantly coming up with new business ideas she wants me to fund. One month it is a laundromat. The next, a hair salon. Then something else. At one point she wanted me to buy land near her family's house. Another time she wanted to open a bar in Pattaya.

I said no to all of it.

Over the years I have tried talking to her about moving to Canada. The kids would have more opportunities and I would be able to spend far more time with them, instead of months at sea followed by weeks ashore. Every time I bring it up she shuts the conversation down immediately.

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What really gets to me is how different she is now compared to the woman I married.

When we are apart, most of our conversations end up being about money. Sometimes she barely replies to messages for days. Then suddenly she contacts me when she needs something.

A few years ago she admitted that, when we first met, she lied about needing money for her family. I forgave her because at that stage we were not serious and she was the one who came clean about it without me ever finding out on my own. Looking back now, I wonder if that should have been a bigger warning sign than I understood it to be at the time.

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The hardest part in all of this is the kids.

A few times during arguments she has told me I will never see them again. I do not know if she means it or if it is something said in the heat of the moment. But hearing it is enough to make me think twice about everything.

Part of me feels like the marriage ended a while ago, even if we are still together on paper. Another part worries that if I leave, I will lose my children. Not just daily contact, but the legal right to be in their lives, in a country where custody laws do not always favour the foreign father.

I love my kids more than anything. I do not regret having them. They are the best thing that has ever happened to me.

But I never expected to find myself in a position where, after nine years, I am questioning my marriage and wondering whether I need lawyers in two different countries just to stay involved in my children's lives.

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I do not have a clear answer to any of this, and I am not going to pretend I do.

What I do know, after months turning it over on every crossing, on every night watch staring at the sea, is this: the money I send every month was never the real problem. The real problem is not knowing whether the person on the other end of those calls is still the woman I married, or whether that person disappeared somewhere between year five and year six and I kept sending money to a version of her that no longer exists.

I am still at sea most of the year. I am still sending the money. I am still calling my kids every time I have signal.

And I still genuinely do not know what the right decision is.

The one thing I am clear on is that staying quiet, year after year, hoping things get better on their own, is not an answer either.