Is it really too late to do anything about this situation?
I have been trying to teach English here in China for the past 2 years. I’ve encountered a range of problems and found it difficult to keep employment. Once school fired all the teachers, ripped us off then went bankrupt. Other schools have kept me on for a few months and then turned around and found a better teacher because they don’t like my teaching style. The latest company let me go because they were restructuring and downsizing. I was the unlucky one who didn’t have a relationship with the boss so I was the first out the door. The alternative was only a couple of hrs work each week – changing me from full time to barely part time.
So, I have given up on teaching. I think I’m OK but not good enough to maintain a decent career out of it. ESL teaching is difficult to earn money in. Now that I am married, I want a better, more stable job and a different career at home. We were both planning to move back to Australia to live.
Here’s the problem. The latest firing has pretty much made my wife lose all respect for me. She’s saying really nasty things and I think her mindset is starting to become like this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApxlE10r_YqloAeAMeCr5N_B7BR.;_ylv=3?qid=20090127092441AA0P70V
She has said some really hurtful things and has been withholding the sex like she doesn’t want to be with me anymore. I’ve questioned her and she tends to close up and when pushed, says she’s not happy, she’s bored. I get upset, she sees that and says that we will be together forever and that she still loves me. I doubt it though by the way she looks and acts now. She told me to be a man and go back to Australia and set everything up (we were only 3.5 months away from moving back).
I’m reminded about how at this time I cannot afford the diamond ring. Also, despite my wages being enough to pay for everything and give us enough money to go out, it hasn’t been enough to save for a honeymoon. We only got married last month. I told her that my work prospects are so much better in Australia but she finds that hard to believe – I didn’t have it in me to change enough to grow and become a good teacher so apparently that reflects on my ability not to change overall.
A bit of history about my working life in Australia: I graduated uni about 1 year before coming to China. I worked for 4 years in a supermarket and became a manager. They wanted me to stay and become a trainee department manager. I had a lot of potential. But it seems that I lost all of that potential when I came here to China. She has just seen all of my failures and compares that against her own successes and the successes of other foreigners who have done well here.
It’s really hurting me to see her become so scathing and nasty and unloving. I told her that it’s worth banging my head against a wall with these jobs for a few more months so that we can still be together (albeit not much because she is busy with her overseas work) and leave the country together. She says that if she had more money and was more successful in her work, she’d leave with me tomorrow. But thinks I should give up the struggle of teaching and just go back and set things up. I’m about to do that. Three months is not long.
But I still feel the sting of her disappointment in me. It’s like something has changed and she can’t see the good in me at all anymore. So I think what’s the point of going home and getting established if she no longer has any feeling for m? She might turn around and refuse to come in a couple of months time. Already I think her mind is definitely changing. She’s not interested in the wedding and when I asked about us going back to see her family one more time before we leave, she said she said I wasn’t welcome in her home anymore because I stay there and get fed like a king instead of working hard. That I should give something back to her family…
So, she is bored, disinterested in me and behaving like she wants me out of her life. Should I return home and get established and forget about her? This is not the departure I had hoped for. I think she kind of resigned when I said I found more employment here and could be earning more than the last school. She’s already told me my teaching is at ground level and I’m a loser – meaning no good at teaching.
It’s really cruel for her to say these things and feel so disappointed as far as I’m concerned because I stayed on longer and pushed through because I wanted to be with her. I could have left about a year ago…My parents wished I had and set myself up with a job and car. Instead, I either leave now or find work here. Last night I had a dream about her being romanced by some other guy. She was really into it. She’s not being intimate with me and looking down upon me.
Seek divorce?? Yes it’s not fair on her to have a husband without a stable job. But I thought she woul