You live with your SO in a fairly expensive area. You both earn almost exactly the same salary. On your own, you’d each barely be getting by, but combined you live a happy and comfortable, but by no means extravagant, life together.
You are very happy with your job, but your SO is not. S/he can tolerate their job as long as they have to, but is mostly unhappy with it and is actively looking for almost anything else in their field.
One day your SO breaks the news that s/he has found another job that is exactly what they want to do. It pays 20% more than they currently earn, but is located several states away in an area with a much lower cost of living. You like your current job and are unsure that you could find similar employment in this new location; in fact you are certain that you won’t. You are facing the prospect of either being unemployed and your SO supporting you both for possibly a significant period of time (6 months or more), or you would have to take any job you could find, in which case the current situation would then be reversed (SO happy at their job, you unhappy at yours).
We would talk it through. I can’t give you a better answer than that. It depends on how happy and unhappy we each are/would be. We each treat the other’s happiness equally to our own.
We’d talk about it for sure because both of our families are here and our parents are aging, but if he asked me to go, I’d go. I would not have answered the same for my ex-husband when we were still married.
I’ve been in this situation. In the end, the deciding factor wasn’t cost of living or finding a job, it was the location itself. Where she was going was someplace I simply didn’t want to live, the sort of place I’d spent most of my life trying to get out of (southern small town). So we ended it and she left. She contacted me about 2 years later, when she was relocating somewhere else.
Annoying side note: she was the only gf my grandmother ever approved of, and the old woman accused me of being selfish for not going for the rest of her life, so I heard about this for about 20 years. From someone who’d never been outside the county she was born in. :rolleyes:
My SO and I have the deal that we just make it work, whatever that might mean. It has meant different things at different times, and we have lived apart several times. Now I’m stuck in a place I don’t want to be in, but it is the best place for us for now. Soon we’ll be off again. The deal was two years, while we finish off things that need doing.
So in the above situation I probably wouldn’t go, we would make it work separately until we could be together again. But then the above situation wouldn’t really occur as described, I think. For us, anyway.
For me it would depend on a lot of factors. Actually, given that I telecommute and my work group is spread out over the world, I wouldn’t have to give up my job. So it would come down to where the SO’s job was. I think I would be utterly miserable living in some parts of the country (areas where the prevailing attitude is far more conservative/religious than I am) so there’d be that. And logistically, moving would be a pain because we have seven cats, and both our families are currently within less than a days’ drive. His parents and my dad are getting up there in years, so I’m not sure I’d want to be that far away from them at this point in our lives.
So, tl;dr version: It would depend on the job, the location, and how likely SO could get a job he liked around here instead of having to move. It would have to be phenomenal all the way around to get me to be in favor of moving.
I did just that to move to NYC, where my husband was being temporarily transferred. We made the most of it and started a family since I was out of work. He knew the pressure was on him to make it work since I gave up a career with advancement potential.
It’s worked for us. However, there is some risk involved. If you break up, you’re more vulnerable than he is.
Done that 3 times already, although the second time I loved my house but hated the dead-end job I was stuck in. The fourth time he got restless I let him move several states away and agreed that in 6 months if he really loved it, I would make one last move. He hated it and transferred back 5 months later.
This time we are staying for my career - which I love - rather than picking up and moving when he gets restless. In return we are looking at an early retirement/third career for him at 55 to finally pursue his art. At that point I’ll be the one bringing in the monthly pay and covering insurance. Anything he brings in beefs up the retirement.
We did just that for 35 years. I moved from San Diego, Ca. to Lake Geneva, Wi. for him. Then we moved to Rockford, Il. for me, then downstate Il. for him, then upstate NY for him, then St. Louis, Mo. for me. I still rag him about the original move from San Diego:cool: Every choice was hard to make but worked out in the end…leaving out all the gory details because who wants to remember that?
Yeah, I would move. I don’t think there’s any place I would get so attached to that I wouldn’t move if he found a job he loved and there was a way to make it work financially.
Did it before, will probably end up doing it again.
For the SO, the move also meant a better career path as well. I moved with him, then came back to finish my graduate education. I’ll move again to be with him after I finish my master’s unless he finds a great job here. It’s a little frustrating since I’ll have to start over again in terms of networking, but it’s better than not being with him for the rest of my life.
We moved for each other. He moved to be with me on a trial basis (though as a transatlantic move, it was a pretty big deal). The USA isn’t neceassarily a viable long-term option for international gay couples, so in order to stay together we went to a third country, which was new to us both. It’s a pretty hefty level of commitment to each other.
