What is worse - physical or verbal/emotional abuse?

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Yes, I am happy with my wife, of course. I finally found someone who cares about me, and less about money. That's why I gave up an easy, well-paying job to move to China and be with her. But we face the real possibility that I might have to return to the Netherlands without her, while she cares for the baby after it's born.

With a lot of financial stretching and help from acquaintances at bank and building company, it looks like we will be able to have a mortgage in China. I do have my criticism about the reasoning: "get baby must have house", which seems to be more of a middle class requirement than a typical Chinese tradition. I'd prefer to wait with buying a house, but it has been made abundantly clear that that is not done. We'd need a house in the future anyway, so I guess it's just an early investment.

We'll be living on a lovely 6th floor, 4 bedroom, roof-terraced house. I never imagined I could ever live in such a place, since my apartment in Amsterdam is just 28m2. Except that I can't live there yet. Working in Holland will solve all the financial problems, but it will break my wife's heart to be without me.

We have an idea to sell some Dutch products in her hometown. There is always demand for milk powder here, especially baby formula. The Dutch milk industry is subsidized and of impeccable quality, while there have been horror stories about Chinese baby milk. The only Dutch food the Chinese like, are cheap Stroopwafels, so we could sell them for a profit too. Perhaps in the future, we will have an export business.

 

One rather obvious question - if you are the bread winner, and you are much more likely to get a good paying job back in the Netherlands, then certainly you have raised the possibility of moving there with your wife and child? Why would you need to break her heart if she could come with you? Certainly there would be a lot of paperwork for immigration, but you would think being married would make that easier.

I'm just saying, even if you speak Chinese very well (and I have no idea if you do, although I assume you know the language somewhat), not being educated there would seem like a very big impediment to landing a job.

 

Well, there is a great demand for English teaching and tutoring in China. The type of English given here is abysmal, so a native speaker is like an experienced specialist. It's true that you need to speak some Chinese for young learners, but I'm tutoring professional adults over the phone nowadays. But I'm living outside the major cities, because my wife is afraid the gold-diggers prancing around there will steal me away. I've had more than my fair share of those types, but I can understand her concern. It's not sure if I can earn enough by working online, but we'll see.

I was our initial idea to live in Holland, but that was hindered by immigration. They stated that I had already invited someone (my ex) on holiday before, and that that person did not leave. It implies she became illegal, which is complete nonsense. She is still legal, getting a free ride to residency as the live-in prostitute of a narcissistic millionaire. And I get to deal with the mess she left behind.

We will perhaps reconsider it in the future, but I also have British citizenship. If I could get a job in the UK it would be better. Netherlands has a big nonsense language requirement which is a big waste of time. The Dutch can speak English more clearly than the Scottish, which is where I was born, and is ideally where we'd like to go.

 

Well it sounds like she needs to make some compromises. If you can get a decent paying job teaching English in a major city, then that's where you need to go. She's going to have to trust you enough to let you out of the house. It also sounds like a heck of a lot easier than trying to immigrate, especially in the short term.