Yes, why expats with Chinese spouses come across as smug and arrogant, AS A RULE, in your
view is indeed a mystery to me as well as you. All I can do is suggest some reasons.

I might be lucky. I don't see that and hang out with mostly only those types. But I would agree there are definitely some that ARE but I don't see them being the high-fiving dickheads outside the local laowai bar laughing it up.

1 - many of them have 'taken on' the bad culture. A Chinese spouse will maximise this to help
her Western husband cheat his Chinese employer and other FTs at his workplace by telling
him how to 'act' there.

Bizarre. I don't understand this because you seem to be saying you married a local Chinese girl? No, I definitely haven't seen this. Chinese women have a terrible ingrained habit of siding with Chinese OVER their foreign husbands TBH and in my experience/observation.

2 - others feel being married to a Chinese is a kind of salvation to shed their western
misfit stigma.

Its like I can't even imagine what that would mean? I dont know foreigners are looking for that? If they ARE looking for something to 'shed misfit stigma' they made ONE HELLUVA MISTAKE thinking marriage is going to doing anything but take that insecurity to entirely new heights. Imagine that guy (the misfit looking to fit in) is now at some Chinese village where he is a 'space alien' trying to have a village wedding!!! Holy hell now you have to fit in with a Chinese family.

So again, im confused because if you did have that issue and you married a local you'd well know thats not solving 'misfit' problems AT ALL and now you deal with your wife having to deal with having a strange 'misfit' marriage in the eyes of her friends and family (so you've doubled the misfit issue AND magnified it).

3 - still others feel very insecure here in China and need a spouse's help to allow them to
survive in many aspects of daily life.

Well it DOES help to have a wife but that applies to everywhere. Your Dad was not necessarily 'very insecure in your hometown' and needed to marry your mom was he?

It certainly is helpful to have a local wife helping out but see.. again, im really confused because if you were married to a local Chinese woman you just found out you now have WAY MORE RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS than you ever had before .... and that surely includes now baffling Visa and citizenship paperwork.

4 - a Chinese spouse treats a foreigner very well indeed, even a rotter of a husband,
compared to how a western wife will treat him. She will put up with much more BS
including drunkenness etc than a western wife would.
etc etc.

Again, holy hell I don't know what 1-in-a-million GEM of a local Chinese woman you married but you should probably keep her because you have no idea how lucky you are!

Oh hell no to this at all - Chinese wives most definitely do NOT hold Western husbands to lower standards and some very good arguments can be made that the near opposite is true. They will NOT tolerate the kind of standard drunkeness of a foreigner as they would a Chinese and a whole lot can be said about xiaosans and massage parlors which foreign husbands CANNOT even consider without death coming there way. Jealousy is (if anything) tripled on a foreign husband with near psychotic suspicion of his behavior.

So wow you are way wrong there BUT if you married a girl who does hold you to just EVEN standards then hallelujah and do not take that for granted because you are lucky!

Chinese women btw will also tend to expect their foreign husbands quickly adhere to Chinese rules, culture, that they themselves wont change for the foreigner AND dont get started on how they expect foreign men to have much more money.

I needed a wife, and a free reign re my employment. No medicals or release
letter BS.

Here again baffling that you married a local Chinese and then wrote this. You most definitely do not have free reign on employment and your Q-visa is canceled when you get a Z-Visa (which you still require). Including 'release forms' AND yes you did and do need a MEDICAL for a spouse visa. You do every year as anyone else.

As for 'free reign re employment you have no free reign anything. While it IS true someone might work/be hired without a Z-visa this is just as easily done to anyone on an L-Visa. Either way its the same thing. Having a spouse visa just means you did MORE PAPERWORK because Q-visa required you and everything + fees + medical + then HER Hukou issues too!

However, being below the radar and the bad culture here allowed me to survive, with the
help of my illegal employment thanks to my wife, which meant my employers had
compromised themselves, and therefore couldn't wield the big stick against me.

Again, this doesn't even make sense. You cannot get a job any easier because you have a Q-visa. It does absolutely zero to increase your hiring appeal and it might hurt because in fact they know you are not reliant on the school to keep a visa. But either way there is no 'thanks to your wife' here at all.

As for this idea they 'cant wield a big stick' in fact they can get in trouble AS CAN YOU for working without a Z-visa but unlike a single guy you cannot just bugger off home or Thailand alone. YOU have to be very concerned BECAUSE if you get kicked from the country - your Chinese wife may not be able to follow you home (without a visa to your home country).

So, I have no idea what kind of spouse experience you had but count yourself lucky because almost nothing you said here is true for the average married 'Q-Visa' person at all!