Martina was drinking vodka at 7 am in an airport lounge somewhere in the Philippines when she finally realized she needed help.
She had traveled there with her husband who had to stay for more business meetings, which meant the middle-aged woman had to fly back to China alone.
Persistent loneliness is what pushed Martina over the edge. She had been battling with bouts of alcoholism for a while, but it was not until she left her life behind in New York City to move to Beijing with her husband that the disease would become crippling.
"All of a sudden I am an expat wife and I am not working," said Martina, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
"I had all of this time on my hands, and my husband worked late a lot. I mean a lot."
To many, the lives that expatriate wives lead in Beijing appear to be shrouded in luxury.
Yet a number of the women who follow their husbands overseas secretly suffer from problems ranging from substance abuse to mental illness largely because they are lonely and unable to reclaim the professional lives they left behind back home.
"You do have a lot of expat wives who come here and struggle," said Dr Stephen-Claude Hyatt, a clinical health psychologist at International SOS China.
"They struggle because they don't fit in and don't have a framework in which to work. Enough thought isn't given to what a spouse will do here."
In the beginning, Martina, once an advertising executive in Manhattan, mostly spent her days shopping and visiting tourist sites. Eventually the mystique of a new place faded into boredom.
To pass the time, she sat in her serviced apartment watching DVDs and drinking.
She eventually started taking Chinese lessons, sipping wine spritzers while she studied in the afternoons.
Before the aerobics class she attended every morning, she drank vodka instead of water.
"I would say, 'I will just have a little swig of vodka before I go to class,'" Martina said.
"It was such a crazy life when I think about it now."
Martina has been sober for six years. She found recovery after she began attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in Beijing.
In the beginning it was far from easy. She was afraid she might see someone in AA who knew her or that word might get out in expat circles that she had an alcohol problem.
"It is very tough at first," she said. "What if I walk into a meeting and someone knows me?"
Aside from AA, there are few resources in Beijing for women facing similar issues, which lead to or are often compounded by marital problems, according to Hyatt.
"There are a lot of marriages that come here and die," Hyatt said. "A lot of these women suffer in silence because of what is happening in their marriages. They feel alone and desperate. A lot of them develop depression."
"Some eventually develop the courage and try to salvage their marriages," Hyatt said.
"They try to get their husbands to recognize what is happening but the sad reality is that some husbands say, 'I don't want you anymore,' and then they are abandoned."
Half of the patients Hyatt sees come to him with marital challenges stemming from infidelity, he said.
"Some (men) go to prostitutes, some hook up with Chinese girls and so forth," he said.
"You have a plethora of different realities surrounding the concept of infidelity here."
Martina is now back in New York and is still with her husband. She was lucky, she said.
He supported her through her battle with alcoholism and struggle to survive as an expat wife in China.
"I think there are a lot of expat wives who are out there drinking silently," Martina said. "I have been with other expat women, and I can see their drinking patterns, and I know they have a problem."
I'm an immigrant to the US. My wife too, gave up her really nice professional work and come to the US with me many years ago. Initially, she couldn't work legally, it's the law in the US. She mingled around with people from many countries, went to church, joined women groups etc.... doing all these while not having all the luxuries some expats in China enjoyed. Once in a while, she worked illegaly at restaurants, not because she really needed the money, but to fend off boredom and the feeling of uselessness. Slowly we adapted, and I spent more time with her... I worked in China before, and I never fell for the cheap girls .....
But the expats are better rewarded and gain more exposure with posting overseas. Upon return, they are usually promoted. So career-wise, it is better to be posted overseas. But is the price worth it ?
The lonely wives either left behind in their home country or in the new country, can also have the opportunity to fling around whilst husbands are not around. With better monetary rewards from their husbands, the wives have more spending power too.
Don't think that these expats wives are more "proper" than their husbands.
It is the decent ones that suffer - as usual !!
My heart goes to the expat wives with husbands who could not resist the temptation in China.
Yes there are plenty of Chinese girls who target the expat - young or old does not matter - as a golden ticket to financial security.
However, this 'plenty' put in perspective against half of the 1.3B population of China, it is insignificant. Having said that, it is real for the expat wives' whose husbands were targetted.
It is about the men. Some of course play the Chinese girls out too as there are always other Chinese girls besides this one or that one!!
Like the lady in this story, her marriage stood the test of her alchololism. It is obvious that the husband know what he needs to do to protect his wife and .....
Whilst the expat man is engage daily in the business life in Beijing, interacting and socializing with locals and expats alike, the partner is left in isolation.
Partners, if they can, should prepare themselves for the land they are moving to, and nothing breaks the cultural barrier better than language. But even then, the experience will lead some men to say "I don't want you anymore, I've found someone younger". But for the man, that fantasy will also come to an end as the .....