Hi askTRP:

My marriage has been slowly deteriorating, and I've pinpointed it to one thing: money. Or that I just can't make any in my current situation. I'm unsure if I should leave or stay. I have a son with her. I married fairly young, just as I finished uni. I met my wife a few years earlier on an exchange trip, we did not live in the same country, she is a Chinese national. My wife was five years older than I, she had left her career to start a business, but left that in the hands of her of business partner while she came to my country so we could have a child, I discovered TRP a few weeks before our son was born.

I was under the impression that I could go to higher education, get a STEM degree, find a job, and that it would be enough to support my family. Nope. After rent, bills and grocery shopping, we were left with less than $200/week for everything else. My savings dwindled down from 10k to 2k, eventually living week to week. I didn't waste money, we hardly went out, and we didn't have loans on things like a vehicle, it just ran out on food, baby stuff and bills. She left me to my work, and took our son back to China where she could work, and had family that would help her look after our son.

After another year, I was still at my job as an engineer, trying for a raise, or transfer to her country, making shit all, and her business had grown such that she was now making 6 times my salary. We'd been flying back and forth every six months (all paid by her), and we discussed me quitting my job, and moving with her to China, where I could work there instead.

I had a strong gut feeling that it wasn't a good idea, but I did it.

Since coming here, I started trying to lean Chinese, but ended up falling too far behind, and gave up. I can't get a proper job here on a family visa. Any work I do has to be paid under the table and isn't enough (a few hours a week) to cover basic food costs. Other than that, I spend my time by being a western face at the reception of her office. And carrying boxes of stock around.

The sex has dwindled down to nothing, and understandably, she's starting to resent me. I lift, can pass shit-tests, and get lots of positive attention on a regular basis from customers. But I can't make up for the financial aspect. My wife sees other women that she's grown up with that married rich husbands, and while the husband is nothing near attractive physically, their wives don't have to work, and can instead just play with her children or go shopping all day. Whilst she has to work at her business, 60hours a week or more.

There are regular fights where she always brings up how she's paid for everything for the family, and how even when I was working, I never contributed to the family. She's asked for a divorce more than once. The only thing that's keeping me from going through with it is wanting to do the right thing by my son.

I'm not sure what to do here MRP, either I stay here, hope it gets better, that I can find something that I can do, or man-up, go back to my country, try to kick off my career again, and hope that I can find something that can get me a transfer to China to work, so that I can stay with my family. Or just leave, try to pick up my life again, make some damn cash, spin plates, and say goodbye to both my wife and son forever. I know how important a father is in a boy's life, and I don't want to do that to him, but considering what I've made of my life so far, maybe he'd be better off.

I don't mean to whine, and I very rarely ask for advice, but I just don't know what I should do.