How Strong Is Your Love?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I guess this is for all of you people out there who are either married or in a deep, meaningful love relationship bordering on or creeping towards marriage.

Would you leave your lover for your career?

Now, me, I cannot imagine ever having a career mean so much to me that I would sever a relationship where deep love is involved just to follow it. I’ve just had a couple of good friends of mine split up because of this same thing! A happy, deeply in love couple, starting to plan marriage and talking about kids and looking around for good neighborhoods to move into and almost always together.

Well, she’s the junior vice president of a holding company and he’s in charge of area sales and product expansion for a large and growing machine manufacture that deals in middle level construction producers.

(Names withheld to keep me from getting my butt kicked or sued.)

Well, they both make big bucks and are roughly within the same salary range, but she makes more. Her company has offered her a presidency, making lots more cash in Nevada, which is 8 states away, 9 if you get picky. He doesn’t want to move out of here, having lived here almost all of his life and he’ll have to quit his job that he loves and there are no branches in Nevada for him to move into, nor anything currently even compatible. He has family around here, she doesn’t. He doesn’t want to move and, really, at this time, can’t.

To cut it short, she splits to go on to her new job and just leaves him behind. Now I get to be one of several friends who are taking turns sobering him up, listening to him pour his heart out all night, driving him to bars and back so he doesn’t get into trouble and making sure he doesn’t chow down the medicine cabinet and chase it with beer. We also got him on stored up vacation leave to keep him from loosing his job.

I was really shaken up because I never thought anything could tear them apart, but then the Home Office waves a big check and a power position and off she goes, though she could have stayed here and worked up within a few years.

I could not do that, but I do know of guys and gals who have which leads me to question the depth and sincerity of their love. How many here would do that if their job called, place it above the person they love oh so deeply?

2

No, I can’t imagine doing that, although we did live apart for a year because I got a job while he was still in grad school.

One thing I will say, though: 4 or 5 couples I know have split up in the past 5 years or so, and it’s never as simple as it seems. In one case we were sure that it was all about incompatible career choices and it turned out that he was sleeping around.

3

The first obvious answer is that neither one of them loved the other as much as it seemed. She got an offer and left and he stayed behind. They also weren’t as well matched because of her lack of ties and his having ties to your area.

You don’t mention that she is having any difficulty with the separation. Maybe she’s going out to bars and missing work, but lets not bet on it. On the other hand, he is miserable with his choice. It may seem like her choice, but he decided not to go to Nevada. Also we don’t know all the facts. If he can’t leave his family now, why would he ever be able to leave? Was there something is his family relationship that she saw as a threat to their getting married? If he keeps missing work and loses the job that he held onto rather than follow her, will it make it easier for him to follow her? Is he afraid of becoming Mr. Mom?

I’ve never heard of it before but maybe you and the other friends should join Al-anon, because you are just being his enablers right now. Does problem drinking run in his family? Could this be the underlying problem that made her leave?

Sorry I couldn’t be more comforting, but I do hope it makes you look at the problem in a different way that may help both of you.

4

There’s a big difference between a single unit that consists of “us” and two separate but compatible units: “me” and “you”. Sounds like your friends never got to the concept of “us” and what is best for “us” in the long term.

I’ve known more than one couple that have more or less taken turns with opportunities based on the long view of “us”. It takes love, trust, and commitment to a shared future.

There are bi-costal couples who are content with their arrangement for the present because it eventually pays off for them together.

IMHO, if they were equally in love, equally committed, they’d have found a way to maintain the relationship.

To answer your question, in the same situation, I’d expect some long and deep discussions that would first try to satisfy both of us and if that wasn’t possible, to make choice we could both accept without looking back.

5

Brite, I bet there were other problems in that relationship…perhaps your friend isn’t seeing, or acknowleging them. A couple truly committed to the “us” concept would not break up merely because of a better job offer. She put her job ahead of their relationship, and he did not go with her because of his job & family ties. I don’t mean to belittle either party…they both seem to have priorities beyond their relationship. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it speaks to their commitment to each other.

I can’t imagine seperating from my SO because of a better paycheck. In fact, I am moving from Colorado to Michigan in August (How crazy is that?!) with him and leaving a thriving business, friends & a house behind. This was a carefully considered & much discussed decision for both of us, which I think is a key point.