dude...I LOVE Bulgarian women...does your wife have a sister??? ha ha

anyways...here is the #1 thing you should be concious of: Bulgaria's accession to the EU. Right now, there are still heavy work restrictions on Bulgarian nationals and their foreign spouses...i.e. you can't go to England and work as a Bulgarian, but you could work for an English/Continental European carrier as an Estonian, Czech, etc....

BUT--the bottom line is this--all countries eventually have to lift work restrictions on the accession states--for Bulgaria and Romania, it will probably be 2010 or so, if not sooner, depending on what each individual country decides.

Your options seem to be: 1) Fly an RJ/tprop in the US for god knows how long for $20/hr at a possibly high-cost-of-living-base, or 2) Fly a mid to heavy jet at lower times for an LCC in Bulgaria/Turkey for 2-4 years, and eventually have access to Ryanair, Easy, Air France, BA, LH, etc. etc. etc. once the other Euro countries lift work restrictions on Bulgarians in 2010 or 2012, ready to get an outstanding job since you have heavy time and a EU national spouse.

1) Cheap apartment in the US, where pilots are treated as glorified bus drivers by many....or 2) massive house in the Bulgarian countryside or coastal regions where property is appreciating 300% over the next 5 years as post-accession as capital investment flows into the country...in Eastern Europe (or Europe in general) where pilots are treated with a heck of a lot more respect and prestige than they are in the US.

doesn't seem like a tough decision to me.