Husband explains how his wife's job downgrade after relocating to the US was not worth the move

Moving to a new country is a significant life change, and many people do it to be closer to loved ones or seek better opportunities. But sometimes, the move doesn't go as planned. One user (u/espressoBump) shared on Reddit how his wife moved from South Korea to the U.S. to be with him, only to face a steep career downgrade, leaving him questioning if the move was truly worth it.

"My wife is South Korean and moved to the US, so we could stay together easily. By moving to the US in 2021, she gave up her career as a front-end web developer and has not been able to find a similar position since," the man wrote. "Now she works at a warehouse so we can make ends meet and has given up on her former career." The man explained, "I blame American companies because they offshore and cut expenses so that everyone is tight on resources. Even in my company, we had two backend developers design some of our web pages because we 'couldn't afford' the UI/UX designers." He added, "The CEO of one of our companies makes 400k a year. The developers are offshore from India - you know we can afford it."

"It's been three years. She has not worked in a relevant field and only had two years of experience, so that dream is pretty much dead, especially with all of the budget cuts in tech. It hardly makes it the land of opportunity. And now, she's moving heavy boxes," the husband pointed out. "My wife took the first seasonal job available to her last year because we were having trouble with my one salary alone after two years. This led her into being a full-time employee at a warehouse, and it's run so poorly." The warehouse doesn't give two consecutive days off, the shifts start at 3 or 4 am and many people quit because they are being overworked. "The majority of senior team members have left for the military as a way to get out. The older senior folks who have no other options are popping ibuprofen every day because they're in pain," he wrote.

"This is truly the American experience. We don't have a yacht or a business and aren't making bank, so it's hard to justify living here. We were able to afford to put money down on a home with the death of a close relative, and the expenses and hassle of everything are so much harder than in Korea," the man revealed. "She comes home physically exhausted, so I'm doing all the yard work and at least 50% of the cleaning. We stopped having sit-down meals because we didn't have the time on her schedule." He continued, "The last thing I need to mention is how warped my family is on working. One a****** told my wife to work at a nail salon because that's what Koreans do." The relative who gave them money for the house berated the man constantly before he died.

"I give my wife so much credit. She's an amazing person and an extremely strong woman - mentally and physically. I love her so much and want what's best for her. This life is NOT it. I need to do whatever I can to help her. And if we move back to Korea, it'll be obvious why," the post concluded. People shared their opinions in the comments. u/peppermintvalet pointed out, "Absolutely not. Even worse work culture, even worse social safety net." u/KimeriTenko remarked, "People don't realize how common it is. Honestly, there are a ton of educated people from the US doing exactly the same thing because they can't get jobs in their fields. American hiring and firing processes are just really broken."