Hello judges,

so a bit of prologue is required here:

My wife is a namibian. We met in germany when she studied there, lived together for 8 years in germany and married in the end.

From day one of our relationship she told me, that she had to go back to Namibia after her studys, because she got a sholarship from her school to become a teacher and in exchange she has to teach at that school for 5 years. So as a result we moved to Namibia in February of 2023.

Obviously we visited her family in Namibia a couple of times and I got a lot of advice and did my own studies about living here. But one of the biggest problems with moving to another country (even another continent in my case) is, that nothing prepares you 100% for the experience of actually living there.

Fast forward to now and I have to say, that I feel miserable living in Namibia.

The first months it was exiting, so many new things to discover and so many new people to meet. We moved to the capital Windhoek btw.

But as the day-to-day live started to trickle in, the differences in live really started getting to me.

Originally my former employer in germany wanted me to work for them from Namibia. We had multiple meetings about this and at the end we had a chat with the owner of the company. He approved the idea and I felt save. But litteraly one month before moving, the plan was denied by the "Datenschutz" (Data Protection Departement) and I had no choice but to just move without a job.

The job situation here is really bad in general and because of the inequality act, that basically forces companies here to hire Namibians over foreigners (generally a very good and important thing), my job search was not very fruitfull.

I applied for multiple remote jobs in germany and the US. I had many very good interviews but in the end I was denied because "Datenschutz" or other reasons. So I started looking out locally.

I worked in a german speaking call center for 2 month and it was the living hell for me while the salary is about 3-4 x lower than for a comparable job in germany.

Through some connections I found a job that at least secured us financially, but it is far from beeing my dream job. I am now the manager of a small german/namibian company.

Now I can adress one of my major problems:

The cultural differences.

Germans are known for there efficiency and very strict work ethic. But Namibians on the other hands are not like that. Which brings me into the situation of beeing in between expections from germany with a workforce from Namibia. I am slowly getting grinded down in my middle of this setup.

Disclaimer: I do not want to insult or discredit Namibians, but there are just clear differences in performance and taking over responsibility. There are also huge differences in salary. After all my german CEO's did not want to do this out of pure kindnes. They wanted to save a hugh amounts of money on staff so I cant really blame my namibian colleagues for not performing like german employees.

Aside from work many other things in Namibia drive me nuts. The authorities here are very slow and often not helpfull at all, people are (when you leave the tourism roads) not very friendly and due to my very western appearance, I feel like they dislike me from minute one which makes small tasks a real nightmare for me.

Due to big cultural differences I cant really connect with people here. Our realities are so different, that it is near impossible to find common ground aside from drinking alcohol.

The avilability of products and Services is very limited here. For example: I can not even setup a Klarna account and spare parts for my car have to be shipped from other countries, take 2 month to arrive and cost 50% more than usual while earning about 1/3 of a german salary.

Live in general is much less streamlined here than in germany and day-to-day living really demands a lot from me. Combine that with living paycheck to paycheck and you have my current mental state.

I can feel, that I need longer every day to get out of bed and I feel this getting serious.

I would also like to advance my carrer, but there are just no other options for me here.

I really feel like I hit a wall here. My live feels like on pause, there is no perspective for me in Namibia.
A very big problems is, that I never really wanted to leave Germany because I hated it there or something and I was never really interested in the adventure of living abroad. I was completely fine with it, but from the get go I had a different mindset than many other expats.

Originally we wanted to stay five years. After about one year in, I could shave of one year by explaining to my wife, that I dont feel very good here. Fast forward another year to now, and I would like to sit on a plane tomorrow. My wife is kind of happy here, because she went back to her old school as a teacher, so she had kind of a soft landing here. Obviously she can see her family and friends more often now.

She is also not 100% into Namibia, because of the very low salary and in return very demanding work at the school, but she does not have the urge to leave now.

Yesterday I broke all my feelings and thoughts to my wife again. After some back and forth (no fight, just a discussion) she made the proposal of leaving late this year/early next year which would cut our stay here to 3 years instead of the original 5 years. She can pay back the scholarship very easily with a salaray from germany, so that would not be a big deal. But I could clearly see that this really saddens her.

I feel very bad kind of "forcing" my wife to leave her Country and familily and friends early than anticipated. On the other hand I really fear for my mental state living in Namibia.

So dear judges:

Am I the asshole for wanting to leave Namibia earlier than originally agreed?