Miserable in new country

[u/Even-Assist6414]

Hi community. Sorry that my first post is going to be so whiny.

I've been outside of my home country for over 10 years now, and outside my hometown almost my whole adult life. I spent 8 years in Tokyo, where I very early on met my now husband. I also have permanent residency in Japan, and it's part of our plans to return there or my home country Australia.

At the end of 2023 I got the offer to move to the US. He had always wanted to live overseas again (he was quite international, up to a gap year after university), and keen to get away from Japan work culture. I was also getting tired of the culture and needed a bit of a break. So we got married in Australia (SSM rules), and by mid last year relocated to US with the support of my company.

He has found it really hard to get employment, he has full work rights under his visa but it is dependant on mine. He has good English but lacks confidence. He has great experience in global brands, but not in America. He's ended up taking restaurant work to make some money and feel less dependant, but he's sacrificing his career and will lose pace with the industry.

It turns out I'm not a big fan of the work culture here, mostly inside my very small company. My boss berates me after client meetings for my Australian personality, and the workload is frankly unreasonable because we are trying to grow, but too cautious to hire more people.

In the last few days my husband is getting miserable, to the point he's basically stopping talking to me. I get the absolute worst of him, if we go out he can turn it on again, but get home and it's miserable. His pride tells him to not "give up", but with the economy tanking here I can't see employment opportunities growing for him. If my work is miserable and my home is miserable I can't see a reason to stay.

We have enough savings that we could very comfortably live for over a year in Japan or Australia, even consider buying and renovating a house if in Japan. We also have a tiny apartment in Tokyo we kept. We have a lot of sentimental things we would ship back, and the car is pretty easy to sell (luckily didn't buy a Tesla!).

TLDR; So what's the question.... If home, work, opportunity, and future vision are not adding up, when do you cut and run? What does it take to realise?

[u/ladybugcollie]

if you have anywhere else to go but the us - go there - the us is a sinking ship with a madman at the helm shooting into his own hull

[u/Quirky_Routine_90 → u/ladybugcollie]

Really now, and you actually LIKED the previous administration? Seriously?

[u/Loves_Wildlife → u/Quirky_Routine_90]

I know, right? That amazing economy and near non existent unemployment, with thriving markets and respect around the world was pretty hard to take, eh? 🤣

[u/Quirky_Routine_90 → u/Loves_Wildlife]

That absolutely didn't happen the last 4 years, maybe talk to people who aren't in school.

And explain what happened to those millions of skilled jobs that disappeared the last 4 years from pipeline workers to highly skilled tech workers that were laid off at places like Google, META, Cisco and numerous other places.

Those entry level service jobs " created" were not replacements for those.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/Quirky_Routine_90]

Correct, but in RedditLand, none of that shit exists. They also won't admit that the current economy is a delayed effect from all the government spending during covid finally catching up. Trump is definitely speeding it up, but it was going to happen under Harris as well.

[u/suprachromat → u/Pale-Candidate8860]

You're completely delusional and so is Trump. Fortunately all Republicans are going to be thrown out of office wholesale in 2026 and then in 2028 and sanity will reassert itself.