The son of the man accused of murdering Cissy Chen says the pair were happy together but colleagues of the victim say she was becoming increasingly stressed.
Yun Qing "Jack" Liu, 58, is on trial in the High Court at Auckland accused of killing the North Shore accountant.
His 27-year-old son from a previous relationship, Jia-Li Liu, told the jury he had been to the couple's Torbay home for lunch the day before Ms Chen's disappearance, to introduce them to his wife before they jetted to China to see her family.
The witness did not notice any friction between them but said there was an "awkward" moment when Liu gave him $1000 to buy something nice for his new in-laws.
Ms Chen was cleaning up at the time and did not see the gift.
The Crown case is that the couple's relationship had deteriorated to such a degree she called her brother to tell him she was leaving the defendant and was going to write a will directing her assets to her family rather than her partner.
Liu told police Ms Chen had gone for a walk alone on the evening of November 5, 2012 but the Crown said she was killed that night, most likely in her home.
Ms Chen's body was eventually found 16 months after her disappearance in a stream in a reserve in Totaravale, 10km away from their home.
Liu's son, who only saw his father about once a year, said he initially saw Ms Chen as "this other woman ... but after meeting her she was really friendly".
"She'd laugh at the jokes Jack made," Mr Liu said. "I would say Jack found someone who understood him."
But friends of Ms Chen, who worked with her at North Star Group where she was an accountant, told the court about the descent of her mental state.
"She was really off. She was speaking Chinese, which she never did, she was a Kiwi in her eyes. She went home sick. She was quite grumpy, not at anyone in particular, just in general. Stressed," Alexandra Johnston said.
On the day she went missing, Ms Johnston said she was "speaking a lot of Chinese on the phone in quite an aggressive tone" and asked her to hold all other calls.
Another colleague Marylou Hall called Ms Chen a "great worker" with a strong personality.
She told the jury how four days after the disappearance, Liu returned documents to the company that his partner had been working on.
He was crying and she gave him a hug, Ms Hall said.
The trial, before Justice Sarah Katz and a jury of six men and six women, is scheduled to last another seven weeks.