Getting "experience"

My lack of “experience” has cost me more than one job I wanted. This last time it cost me the job I have dreamed about for two years.

How am I supposed to get “experience” in living in Japan?

Now that this job, which worked to my interests and skills, is unavailable, the only options are:

  1. Sean getting a job (military?) in Japan.
  2. Me teaching English in Japan.

This is because teaching English is probably the only thing I could easily get hired for, and because there are literally no other companies (that I’ve been able to find) that offer what the company I wanted to work for offers.

The thing is, being an English teacher does not pay well. Not enough to support two people, anyway. Sean could teach English privately to make up the difference–as he doesn’t have a degree, he is ineligible to be hired for one of the larger English teaching programs–but we would have to hope we could find that kind of position for him. It wouldn’t be a sure thing. And because it wouldn’t be a sure thing, Sean would never agree to it.

He’s making good enough money right now. Really, we’d like more. We certainly don’t want less. It costs more to live in Japan than here in Augusta, Georgia. You do the math!

Concerning Sean’s option of getting a military job in Japan…there is no base near the company I want to work for. So, assuming he did get a job there, we would not be living anywhere near the job I want. This means that if, later on, I decided to reapply and actually got accepted, Sean would have to quit his job so I could take the new one.

The chances of him getting a job in the private sector in Japan, whether for an American company or a Japanese one, are extremely low because he doesn’t have a degree.

How am I supposed to do this? How am I going to find a way to live my dream?