Moving Out of State--Major Marital Struggle

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Wings said:
Thank you. That is the goal. I know such communities exist and would be very desirable for us. I also know that the sky is truly the limit for the worldwide experiences we could provide our children, as well as the time we could spend with them…if we moved to base.
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I’m reminded of the Dr. Suess book :

“Oh the places you’ll go!”

talk about a super educational opportunity!
 
Don’t me overly excited about it (yet)! 😃 We have a very long way to go. Please pray for us.
 
Wings, I can imagine how tough it must be for your family. It makes my DH’s forced job change (he was laid off in 2013) seem trivial. He went from a less than 20 minute commute to nearly 90 minutes (65 miles one way). It’s going on 3 years and I still am trying to adjust. My closest family is also about 60 miles away. We had the option of relocating closer to his job or stay put knowing there are certain nights he can’t make it home (traffic, weather, large project).

We decided not to move mainly because of the stress it would cause DS. He was more profoundly special needs than he is now (age 14), but he loves our house and our parish. He still gets stressed when he overhears us and thinks we’re moving.

My DH does miss some events with DS, but DS knows that he can talk to dad when he needs to. And while my parents are no longer the age where they can drive down, we either drive to them or pay for a car service for them to see us.

We literally sat down and had a list of positives and negatives. Everything was factored in, including transferring medical records, finding new doctors, leaving a parish and neighborhood we love…everything we could think of.

Your list would be much longer than mine. I try to think what position your wife is in, and I can see both sides of the coin. Some people would think world travel is wonderful. I am a homebody. Travel is wonderful, but it is also become very frustrating since the 9/11 attacks. My cousin was a flight attendant and her husband a pilot. They just retired. She told me about the bidding process and how her husband was still low on the pecking list even though he was with the airline for 24 years. They didn’t have children, so that wasn’t a factor. She has told me how tough it would be with children.

However, I will come out and say this, as perhaps I am beating around the bush. My DH also brings in about 98% of the income. I have a small seasonal business. My DH may be exceptional in his thinking, but he truly believes that motherhood is the ultimate vocation, and all he does is to support my vocation as wife and mother. In return, I have the duties of taking care of our son (who still needs quite a bit of guidance) and making sure the house runs smoothly and that we are on target to meet future financial needs should an emergency arise or simply planning for retirement and the needs of our son, should he need extra help in adulthood.

I, too, think that the vocation of motherhood is underrated. Ultimately, we’re trying to get our spouses and children to Heaven. Isn’t that the goal we should all focus on?

God bless. I will keep you in my prayers.
 
pianistclare said:
Since the OP isn’t clarifying anything, 2 things come to mind:
  1. IF he is a pilot…the whole family flies for free anywhere, pretty much anytime.
  2. Sounds like she doesn’t really miss him those 20 days a month. 😊
The whole scenario is off.
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If some of the kids are tiny, flying can be hell (especially if she has to do it alone).

Also, I can’t imagine standby alone with three kids would be a whole barrel of fun.

So, it doesn’t sound that weird to me.
 
Wings said:
I forgot:

I am trying to get back to having more “date nights” with my wife so we can connect on a more personal level, rather than just spend our limited time doing laundry or dishes together. The goal is to have an hour of time us to connect as “just us” for an hour in home per week (something that could be done after the kids go to bed, provided our youngest goes down early)…play cards, read the catechism and discuss, just sit and talk…something to connect and remember why we chose each other in the first place, and to build up trust which I feel is what we really need most right now.

The goal is to supplement this with a monthly date night which would involve getting a babysitter and getting “out of the house!” to share in an activity we enjoy together or a meal.

Last night we tried our first one hour in home session and unfortunately, it didn’t go well, which motivated me to post here. The uncertainty and disagreement on this issue is really casting a dark cloud over our relationship right now.
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The date night sounds like a good goal.

It sounds like there’s an imbalance in your time at home–namely you’re working hard on family work stuff and doing kid stuff, but the husband-wife stuff may not be happening. It sounds like the two of you need to be a priority.

But, until that’s going well, don’t spend date night talking about contentious issues like the move!

Also, you may want to do what another poster suggests for dating couples and do a fun activity and then dinner, rather than vice versa. That way you have something new to talk about.

I have to confess that Wednesday night cruising through Aldi’s with Baby Girl is date night for my husband and me–as the big kids are in CCD then–but it is actually a lot of fun to go treasure hunting at Aldi’s (especially around Christmas time).
 
BlueEyedLady said:
What??? If my husband gets a job to support me and our children, I would not have to be convinced it would be better to live with him and have him be a real father to said kids.

You’re asking him to audition for the role of family against her family of origin. They need to stick together because they need this income and his job, and they are a family and that’s the commitment they made.

I am very suspicious that she’s trying to make it look like he up and left for a job for an upcoming custody battle. This whole situation is so insane it’s hard not to think that’s the case. He needs to talk to a lawyer so that he can document his efforts should he end up fighting for his children.
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It’s not crazy for a woman with several small children who has good relationships with her nearby family (and yes, 80 miles is close, relatively speaking) and is starting to build relationships in her community to not be excited about leaving all of that behind. For example, she’s very likely to have built friendships with other young mothers over the last several years and she’s figured out how to cope in her current area–and she may be starting to have dreams related to doing certain things in the area. It’s not just her husband versus her family–it’s her husband versus the life they have been building together in their current town.

There are ways to balance that loss–people have given a lot of examples. What pianistclare was describing (a local community of other airline families) could be very nice for the OP’s wife.

What one can’t do in the OP’s position is just issue an ultimatum–she needs to believe that what she is going to is better (or at least as good) as what they have now. If she doesn’t honestly believe that, it’s not going to be a great experience for them, even if she does go. Seriously, can you imagine the nightmare of moving an unwilling spouse to a new area, if they were determined to hate it?

So, yeah, he needs to sell her on the idea.

I have been through this a couple of times as the “trailing spouse.” As my husband is an academic, the geographic demands of the job are if anything much worse than for the OP. In academia, if you get your one job in Nome, Alaska, you go live in Nome, Alaska, and you either like it, or you stay there until you can find a job elsewhere–which could be never. (I have a friend who just escaped a tiny town in Iowa that she hated and has finally gotten back to her home turf in New England–but it took her years and years to do so.)

With my husband’s first job, we found ourselves (very unexpectedly) in WA DC. We had fun, but it wasn’t really our cup of tea, the parishes were often iffy, the commutes were huge, and we couldn’t really afford it–it didn’t look like we had a prayer of ever buying a house. But then a job offer came up in TX in an area with temptingly affordable housing. My husband went out, interviewed, liked it, and got the job. Very wisely, the college had a policy of flying spouses out for visits, because they understood that the new hire’s long-term success at the college depends a lot on their spouse being happy. So, I went out and was lunched within an inch of my life. People took me to Mass, showed me different neighborhoods and houses, showed me the children’s museum and other local attractions. By the end of my visit, I had several good ideas about neighborhoods, I had chosen a parish for us, and I had chosen a school for our kids. We decided to go. Then I did another visit on our dime to secure a rental.

We did the move. We lived five years in that rental house (a five minute walk to my husband’s office and our very first single family home rental), we learned to love our city’s parishes (not just the one I fell in love with initially), and the kids are still at the same school nine years later. Oh, and we eventually bought a house within walking distance of my husband’s work.

So, it has been a great success. There were rocky moments in the transition:

–we finally had to learn to drive and buy a car
–our oldest had potty accidents for a month at about five years of age because she was so freaked out about the move
–my husband got really busy almost immediately, so it took a year or two before we were able to unpack properly (closer to two)
–for mysterious reasons, family was no longer so eager to visit us in TX as they had been when we lived in DC…
–we have almost all gotten the typical TX allergies

But we didn’t just make a leap of faith–there was a lot of planning and strategizing that went into that move.

I think you can do this–if you lay the appropriate groundwork.
 
EasterJoy said:
Let’s say you’re a pilot and let’s say you make $150 K. If your wife makes 2% of that, she’s bringing in $3 K.

I’ve been in a similar position. Why does a woman work to make an extra $3K when she is exhausted all the time and her husband makes 50 times more than she can? The reasons I can think of are a) she has a profession of her own, and she doesn’t want to lose her resume entirely or b) she would go crazy from boredom and loneliness if she didn’t do something besides work that always has to be done all over again tomorrow.
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It’s both. It is important to both of us that she maintain her currency in her field in case something unexpected were to happen with my career.
 
ShrodingersCat said:
I also don’t agree that a person’s career should go before their family. This sounds like a “dream job” rather than a career of necessity. If he could get a less well-paid job but have a happier family life closer to home, that should at least be considered.
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This is what I do, what I’m good at, and what I love. To pursue another career at this point would be a monumental decrease in career expectation, earning potential, and happiness. All of that is a big deal to this family. It is HIGHLY likely that when comparing this career (living in base) to starting up a new career, my time with family would plummet. This career is a huge opportunity for everyone, not just me, which is appropriate because everyone has sacrificed to reach this point. But we can only take advantage of said opportunities if we take the leap and move for it.
 
Wings said:
This is what I do, what I’m good at, and what I love. To pursue another career at this point would be a monumental decrease in career expectation, earning potential, and happiness. All of that is a big deal to this family. It is HIGHLY likely that when comparing this career (living in base) to starting up a new career, my time with family would plummet. This career is a huge opportunity for everyone, not just me, which is appropriate because everyone has sacrificed to reach this point. But we can only take advantage of said opportunities if we take the leap and move for it.
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Yeah that’s fine. I think your earliest posts left a lot unsaid, so for all we knew you were a career man who’s wife was being dragged along against her will. In your later posts I could see that that wasn’t the case at all, you sound like a solid couple who’s just going through one of those phases that every couple goes through in one shape or form. The other posters gave you good suggestions, I have nothing to add.
 
Wings, I sincerely wish you all the best. I would be remiss if I didn’t add that one of the reasons we did not move is due to the nature of the industry my husband is in. He lost his job in 2013 and had a very difficult time finding another job, despite having a Ph.D. in statistics, which we thought was a competitive field. He had out-of-state interviews, and it was a scary to know what to do.

We still think he will not retire from his present employer…his career will end in a layoff. If you have the knowledge of job security, then that plays a large role.

I’ll keep your family in my prayers!
 
Thank you everyone and God bless you all for your thoughtful responses!
 
After today, all discussions on this issue have been ceased until a counselor is present. I was getting yelled at and swear words were being hurled at me in front of our children. Which made me sad. My calm disagreement was absolutely not welcomed.

I proposed that we write letters to each other at the recommendation of a close married guy friend whom I highly respect, to keep the emotions calmer. My wife told me she didn’t have much time to write letters.

I suggested a fun field trip or two, this fall, to prospective areas we would maybe move to, just as a couple. We even had one all dialed up with some activities we both were excited about, until I told her that part of the point of the trip was for her to see a new place and start to see that we could possibly handle a move there. She says she cannot stomach the idea of traveling to see a new place that we could possibly move to right now, not even on a low-key, fun basis. Which made me sadder.

She proposed conceiving a fourth child asap and then waiting until that child is 2 years old to move, so she could use her present support network for the challenging early years. While I am fine with her leveraging her network during those years, and I love the idea of a large Catholic family, I do not think now is the best time to add a fourth child into the mix. We are exhausted and quite obviously stressed to the max…God alone would give the grace, but I simply don’t feel we are in a “stable” place in our marriage to handle the challenges of a fourth baby at this time. I am concerned that trying to raise a fourth child given the present arrangement with my work/family lives could break us altogether. My thoughts on this were extremely troubling to her…which makes me feel very sad, again. I just want US, as a family, to get through this, before growing our family.

I will be calling our diocesan offices for counselor referrals this morning. Please pray we can find someone that can help us.
 
Wings said:
After today, all discussions on this issue have been ceased until a counselor is present. I was getting yelled at and swear words were being hurled at me in front of our children. Which made me sad. My calm disagreement was absolutely not welcomed.

I proposed that we write letters to each other at the recommendation of a close married guy friend whom I highly respect, to keep the emotions calmer. My wife told me she didn’t have much time to write letters.

I suggested a fun field trip or two, this fall, to prospective areas we would maybe move to, just as a couple. We even had one all dialed up with some activities we both were excited about, until I told her that part of the point of the trip was for her to see a new place and start to see that we could possibly handle a move there. She says she cannot stomach the idea of traveling to see a new place that we could possibly move to right now, not even on a low-key, fun basis. Which made me sadder.

She proposed conceiving a fourth child asap and then waiting until that child is 2 years old to move, so she could use her present support network for the challenging early years. While I am fine with her leveraging her network during those years, and I love the idea of a large Catholic family, I do not think now is the best time to add a fourth child into the mix. We are exhausted and quite obviously stressed to the max…God alone would give the grace, but I simply don’t feel we are in a “stable” place in our marriage to handle the challenges of a fourth baby at this time. I am concerned that trying to raise a fourth child given the present arrangement with my work/family lives could break us altogether. My thoughts on this were extremely troubling to her…which makes me feel very sad, again. I just want US, as a family, to get through this, before growing our family.

I will be calling our diocesan offices for counselor referrals this morning. Please pray we can find someone that can help us.
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I am very sorry to hear this. Continuing prayers for your family.
 
Wings said:
After today, all discussions on this issue have been ceased until a counselor is present. I was getting yelled at and swear words were being hurled at me in front of our children. Which made me sad. My calm disagreement was absolutely not welcomed.

I proposed that we write letters to each other at the recommendation of a close married guy friend whom I highly respect, to keep the emotions calmer. My wife told me she didn’t have much time to write letters.

I suggested a fun field trip or two, this fall, to prospective areas we would maybe move to, just as a couple. We even had one all dialed up with some activities we both were excited about, until I told her that part of the point of the trip was for her to see a new place and start to see that we could possibly handle a move there. She says she cannot stomach the idea of traveling to see a new place that we could possibly move to right now, not even on a low-key, fun basis. Which made me sadder.

She proposed conceiving a fourth child asap and then waiting until that child is 2 years old to move, so she could use her present support network for the challenging early years. While I am fine with her leveraging her network during those years, and I love the idea of a large Catholic family, I do not think now is the best time to add a fourth child into the mix. We are exhausted and quite obviously stressed to the max…God alone would give the grace, but I simply don’t feel we are in a “stable” place in our marriage to handle the challenges of a fourth baby at this time. I am concerned that trying to raise a fourth child given the present arrangement with my work/family lives could break us altogether. My thoughts on this were extremely troubling to her…which makes me feel very sad, again. I just want US, as a family, to get through this, before growing our family.

I will be calling our diocesan offices for counselor referrals this morning. Please pray we can find someone that can help us.
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  1. Yeah, stick to talking about this in counseling.
  2. I have to say, I would be annoyed by the letters, too. Anything that adds to my to do list that isn’t of life-threatening importance tends to irk me.
  3. Could your wife be suffering from depression or something along those lines? Maybe even postpartum-depression? It just isn’t normal for a healthy woman to turn down a trip (a no kids trip!).
I haven’t been on a single no-kids trip with my husband since we started our family, and I would happily go to observe the Alaskan mosquito migration if it involved getting to do that.
  1. Her eagerness to expand your family right now is more than a little weird.
If I were having huge fights with my husband over where we were going to live and I felt like I just couldn’t cope without my family support network, that would not be at the top of my list.

Also, as you’ve no doubt realized, the timeline on adding another child bumps things out so far that your oldest child will be well-established in elementary school and it might, by that time, feel really mean to rip your oldest from his or her school and little friends.
  1. How about adding up for your wife all the extra money spending that happens to pay for your extra travel? It’s got to be large. She may not realize how big it is.
Once you have a number, you can tell her (at the counselor’s office) something like this,

“We’re spending X dollars a month so that I can commute to a job 800 miles away. If we weren’t spending that X dollars a month on me commuting, we could [name something that wife has always wanted to do but you were coming up short for].”
  1. Work on your marriage while you’re home.
I would suggest (if you can afford it) outsourcing a lot of the work that keeps you so busy while you’re home and work on the marital relationship–both the counseling and doing fun things together.
  1. Make sure that she has the opportunity to speak her mind in counseling. It’s quite possible that she is very resentful of the sacrifices she has made for your career, and that the move is the last straw. She may feel that she has been giving, giving, giving, and that the prize for all that giving is that she gets to give up what was holding her together (being close to her hometown).
You may see it differently, but that’s my guess on where this is coming from–as well as the possibility of depression/post-partum depression.

Good luck!
 
Is it an American thing? Discussing this poor woman apparently without her awareness and without her having a chance to speak? :confused::(:eek: I am serious by the way. If i found out that a man of mine was doing this there would be divorce. Or worse.
 
Well, there’s a helpful response. :rolleyes:

Marriage is a compromise.
Someone has to earn, someone has to hold down the fort in many cases, but not all. Sometimes both work.
The point is, if people cannot communicate without shouting, then there is a bigger problem than just not wanting to relocate.
And adding in a new baby to an already tense home situation is never an answer. \

They do need counseling. ASAP.

You can’t tell me you don’t talk about issues online to various people for objective feedback.
You do. Pretty much daily. 🤷 Since you’re happily single I don’t see why his asking is a problem. Many have disagreed with him, others tend to be of his similar opinion. It’s a forum.
That’s what it’s for.
He doesn’t have to like the answers, but people ask, people answer.
 
Trust me, this isn’t something I enjoy doing. I just want to use every avenue possible to figure this out.
 
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the new baby idea is mainly a delay tactic because she really does not want to move. And then it will be “We have four children here, are we really going to uproot our four children and move to a place where we have no support system helping out with our large family?” I agree that bringing another child into such a tense marital situation is a terrible idea. It sounds like she’s completely exhausted and drained by this lifestyle. And I can definitely see how being so overwhelmed could lead to depression and/or resentment. She did agree to this but it’s possible she just can’t handle it any longer.

And people from other countries frequently post about family members and other people they’re having trouble with to ask for advice. :rolleyes:
 
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