Husband wants to move out of DMV but my job is here

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm in my mid 50s. Boy, that went fast. By "that", I mean my 20s, 30s, 40s. In the blink of an eye they were over, gone. You get into your 50s and start looking back on where you could have squeezed more enjoyment out of life. How you were so afraid to change, because of how it would look to other people instead of how it would make you feel. How you were afraid to take that chance that one time (such as relocating) that would have been a fork in the road that took you to something better. You can't see it now, but you will.

I would move and try something new.

Alternatively, OP will hit her mid-50s stuck in a low-paying rural job she dislikes, without enough savings for looming retirement and college tuition, and facing aging in a rural locality her children will not want to visit.

Did the OP say that she looked at jobs and could only find low paying unlike-able jobs? I mean, there are good jobs in small towns. Has she even looked?

Highly unlikely the job is anything like what OP has now. There’s a reason people leave rural areas to move to cities like DC for work.

Sure. When you are just out of school, you need a mentor to teach you how to do your job, and you want to be part of an entire infrastructure.
But once you are in your forties, you can kind of do what you want (unless you are in a field that needs a big infrastructure no matter what (ie. Transplant surgeon)).

I’m not sure what planet you are living on. Sure I have enough experience in my 40s to find another job, but you can’t just snap your fingers and get an equivalent job anywhere that replaces my very DC job.

But you can start a business, right? If your spouse agrees to be the sole wage earner for a while and is willing to live anywhere in the country that you want to live as long as it’s not a huge city?
There is really no way that you could possibly find any meaningful work in that situation? I mean, I get it if you are highly trained to do something specific that requires a big infrastructure, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on with OP. I think she is mostly very anxious.

Let’s all just snap our fingers and start a business that will make $230,000 right off the bat. I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Too right! LOL :lol:

Pp here. It’s not really that crazy. I’ve done it. Both my parents did it. My brother did it. People with professional degrees start small businesses making $200k/ yr all of the time.

No, they don’t. And maybe OP doesn’t want to? Why would I want to give up my colleagues and pension to start a business?

Also you don't just "start a business" - are you thinking, like, a retail business? Selling... hot sauce? A cleaning company? A digital marketing firm? A small law practice? Any kind of business = success and happiness? This sounds like a Lifetime movie, not an actual plan.

Almost anyone making $260k in a professional capacity should be able to come up with a job in their 40s making $150k. Not the same money as before, but they don't need the same money - they're moving to a LCOL area. Consulting is an easy one for most DC type jobs. The interesting thing about DC is every has "a job" where they work for someone else. When you leave DC for smaller towns, you find that most people work for themselves. And lots of those people are well educated - they just are more entrepreneurial than DC.

When I left DC, DH and I figured I had 2-5 years at my job in a remote capacity before I would get pushed out, and to this day I have a bunch of back up plans where I know I can make $200k if I got fired. Lucky for me, it's been 10 years and covid happened and normalized my remote situation.

If OP can't think of a single thing to do where she could make $150k in the new place, she's probably vastly overstating the "big job" she has in DC.

Someone working in a cancer lab in NIH isn’t going to be able to do their job in bumblef*ck.

Surely someone working in a cancer lab at NIH is clever enough to possibly get a *different* job?

Surely you can’t be this dumb?

I guess I am this dumb!!! Please explain to me, like I’m five, why a person who is intelligent and driven enough to land a job with the NIH is completely and forever unemployable at any other job anywhere in the world doing literally anything other than the exact job they’re doing right now. I sincerely don’t understand your point.

please explain to ME like I am five why in the world and intelligent and driven woman would walk away from an NIH research job she worked towards her whole life, to scrape for something in a rural area, because her baby DH refuses to take responsibility for his own emotions?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm in my mid 50s. Boy, that went fast. By "that", I mean my 20s, 30s, 40s. In the blink of an eye they were over, gone. You get into your 50s and start looking back on where you could have squeezed more enjoyment out of life. How you were so afraid to change, because of how it would look to other people instead of how it would make you feel. How you were afraid to take that chance that one time (such as relocating) that would have been a fork in the road that took you to something better. You can't see it now, but you will.

I would move and try something new.

Alternatively, OP will hit her mid-50s stuck in a low-paying rural job she dislikes, without enough savings for looming retirement and college tuition, and facing aging in a rural locality her children will not want to visit.

Did the OP say that she looked at jobs and could only find low paying unlike-able jobs? I mean, there are good jobs in small towns. Has she even looked?

Highly unlikely the job is anything like what OP has now. There’s a reason people leave rural areas to move to cities like DC for work.

Sure. When you are just out of school, you need a mentor to teach you how to do your job, and you want to be part of an entire infrastructure.
But once you are in your forties, you can kind of do what you want (unless you are in a field that needs a big infrastructure no matter what (ie. Transplant surgeon)).

I’m not sure what planet you are living on. Sure I have enough experience in my 40s to find another job, but you can’t just snap your fingers and get an equivalent job anywhere that replaces my very DC job.

But you can start a business, right? If your spouse agrees to be the sole wage earner for a while and is willing to live anywhere in the country that you want to live as long as it’s not a huge city?
There is really no way that you could possibly find any meaningful work in that situation? I mean, I get it if you are highly trained to do something specific that requires a big infrastructure, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on with OP. I think she is mostly very anxious.

Let’s all just snap our fingers and start a business that will make $230,000 right off the bat. I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Too right! LOL :lol:

Pp here. It’s not really that crazy. I’ve done it. Both my parents did it. My brother did it. People with professional degrees start small businesses making $200k/ yr all of the time.

No, they don’t. And maybe OP doesn’t want to? Why would I want to give up my colleagues and pension to start a business?

Also you don't just "start a business" - are you thinking, like, a retail business? Selling... hot sauce? A cleaning company? A digital marketing firm? A small law practice? Any kind of business = success and happiness? This sounds like a Lifetime movie, not an actual plan.

Almost anyone making $260k in a professional capacity should be able to come up with a job in their 40s making $150k. Not the same money as before, but they don't need the same money - they're moving to a LCOL area. Consulting is an easy one for most DC type jobs. The interesting thing about DC is every has "a job" where they work for someone else. When you leave DC for smaller towns, you find that most people work for themselves. And lots of those people are well educated - they just are more entrepreneurial than DC.

When I left DC, DH and I figured I had 2-5 years at my job in a remote capacity before I would get pushed out, and to this day I have a bunch of back up plans where I know I can make $200k if I got fired. Lucky for me, it's been 10 years and covid happened and normalized my remote situation.

If OP can't think of a single thing to do where she could make $150k in the new place, she's probably vastly overstating the "big job" she has in DC.

Someone working in a cancer lab in NIH isn’t going to be able to do their job in bumblef*ck.

Surely someone working in a cancer lab at NIH is clever enough to possibly get a *different* job?

Surely you can’t be this dumb?

I guess I am this dumb!!! Please explain to me, like I’m five, why a person who is intelligent and driven enough to land a job with the NIH is completely and forever unemployable at any other job anywhere in the world doing literally anything other than the exact job they’re doing right now. I sincerely don’t understand your point.

There is only one NIH. At every level, these jobs rarely have openings and competition for them is SAVAGE. You have no idea. It’s entirely possible that the right job for OP only appears 1-2 times in a lifetime. If she’s in it now, and is serious and successful, there is absolutely no way she should leave for a lifestyle. This is needs vs wants.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm in my mid 50s. Boy, that went fast. By "that", I mean my 20s, 30s, 40s. In the blink of an eye they were over, gone. You get into your 50s and start looking back on where you could have squeezed more enjoyment out of life. How you were so afraid to change, because of how it would look to other people instead of how it would make you feel. How you were afraid to take that chance that one time (such as relocating) that would have been a fork in the road that took you to something better. You can't see it now, but you will.

I would move and try something new.

Alternatively, OP will hit her mid-50s stuck in a low-paying rural job she dislikes, without enough savings for looming retirement and college tuition, and facing aging in a rural locality her children will not want to visit.

Did the OP say that she looked at jobs and could only find low paying unlike-able jobs? I mean, there are good jobs in small towns. Has she even looked?

Highly unlikely the job is anything like what OP has now. There’s a reason people leave rural areas to move to cities like DC for work.

Sure. When you are just out of school, you need a mentor to teach you how to do your job, and you want to be part of an entire infrastructure.
But once you are in your forties, you can kind of do what you want (unless you are in a field that needs a big infrastructure no matter what (ie. Transplant surgeon)).

I’m not sure what planet you are living on. Sure I have enough experience in my 40s to find another job, but you can’t just snap your fingers and get an equivalent job anywhere that replaces my very DC job.

But you can start a business, right? If your spouse agrees to be the sole wage earner for a while and is willing to live anywhere in the country that you want to live as long as it’s not a huge city?
There is really no way that you could possibly find any meaningful work in that situation? I mean, I get it if you are highly trained to do something specific that requires a big infrastructure, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on with OP. I think she is mostly very anxious.

Let’s all just snap our fingers and start a business that will make $230,000 right off the bat. I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Too right! LOL :lol:

Pp here. It’s not really that crazy. I’ve done it. Both my parents did it. My brother did it. People with professional degrees start small businesses making $200k/ yr all of the time.

No, they don’t. And maybe OP doesn’t want to? Why would I want to give up my colleagues and pension to start a business?

Also you don't just "start a business" - are you thinking, like, a retail business? Selling... hot sauce? A cleaning company? A digital marketing firm? A small law practice? Any kind of business = success and happiness? This sounds like a Lifetime movie, not an actual plan.

Almost anyone making $260k in a professional capacity should be able to come up with a job in their 40s making $150k. Not the same money as before, but they don't need the same money - they're moving to a LCOL area. Consulting is an easy one for most DC type jobs. The interesting thing about DC is every has "a job" where they work for someone else. When you leave DC for smaller towns, you find that most people work for themselves. And lots of those people are well educated - they just are more entrepreneurial than DC.

When I left DC, DH and I figured I had 2-5 years at my job in a remote capacity before I would get pushed out, and to this day I have a bunch of back up plans where I know I can make $200k if I got fired. Lucky for me, it's been 10 years and covid happened and normalized my remote situation.

If OP can't think of a single thing to do where she could make $150k in the new place, she's probably vastly overstating the "big job" she has in DC.

Someone working in a cancer lab in NIH isn’t going to be able to do their job in bumblef*ck.

Surely someone working in a cancer lab at NIH is clever enough to possibly get a *different* job?

Surely you can’t be this dumb?

I guess I am this dumb!!! Please explain to me, like I’m five, why a person who is intelligent and driven enough to land a job with the NIH is completely and forever unemployable at any other job anywhere in the world doing literally anything other than the exact job they’re doing right now. I sincerely don’t understand your point.

I trained for 12 years doing a PhD and postdoctoral fellowship to study the immunology of T-cells that invade tumors. I publish, present at conferences and direct my own research team. What would you have me do instead, work at the local Walmart?

+1. They have no clue. And even if OP doesn’t have such an important job, a mid-career job that you’ve worked to get to is not something to just throw away.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm in my mid 50s. Boy, that went fast. By "that", I mean my 20s, 30s, 40s. In the blink of an eye they were over, gone. You get into your 50s and start looking back on where you could have squeezed more enjoyment out of life. How you were so afraid to change, because of how it would look to other people instead of how it would make you feel. How you were afraid to take that chance that one time (such as relocating) that would have been a fork in the road that took you to something better. You can't see it now, but you will.

I would move and try something new.

Alternatively, OP will hit her mid-50s stuck in a low-paying rural job she dislikes, without enough savings for looming retirement and college tuition, and facing aging in a rural locality her children will not want to visit.

Did the OP say that she looked at jobs and could only find low paying unlike-able jobs? I mean, there are good jobs in small towns. Has she even looked?

Highly unlikely the job is anything like what OP has now. There’s a reason people leave rural areas to move to cities like DC for work.

Sure. When you are just out of school, you need a mentor to teach you how to do your job, and you want to be part of an entire infrastructure.
But once you are in your forties, you can kind of do what you want (unless you are in a field that needs a big infrastructure no matter what (ie. Transplant surgeon)).

I’m not sure what planet you are living on. Sure I have enough experience in my 40s to find another job, but you can’t just snap your fingers and get an equivalent job anywhere that replaces my very DC job.

But you can start a business, right? If your spouse agrees to be the sole wage earner for a while and is willing to live anywhere in the country that you want to live as long as it’s not a huge city?
There is really no way that you could possibly find any meaningful work in that situation? I mean, I get it if you are highly trained to do something specific that requires a big infrastructure, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on with OP. I think she is mostly very anxious.

Let’s all just snap our fingers and start a business that will make $230,000 right off the bat. I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Too right! LOL :lol:

Pp here. It’s not really that crazy. I’ve done it. Both my parents did it. My brother did it. People with professional degrees start small businesses making $200k/ yr all of the time.

No, they don’t. And maybe OP doesn’t want to? Why would I want to give up my colleagues and pension to start a business?

Also you don't just "start a business" - are you thinking, like, a retail business? Selling... hot sauce? A cleaning company? A digital marketing firm? A small law practice? Any kind of business = success and happiness? This sounds like a Lifetime movie, not an actual plan.

Almost anyone making $260k in a professional capacity should be able to come up with a job in their 40s making $150k. Not the same money as before, but they don't need the same money - they're moving to a LCOL area. Consulting is an easy one for most DC type jobs. The interesting thing about DC is every has "a job" where they work for someone else. When you leave DC for smaller towns, you find that most people work for themselves. And lots of those people are well educated - they just are more entrepreneurial than DC.

When I left DC, DH and I figured I had 2-5 years at my job in a remote capacity before I would get pushed out, and to this day I have a bunch of back up plans where I know I can make $200k if I got fired. Lucky for me, it's been 10 years and covid happened and normalized my remote situation.

If OP can't think of a single thing to do where she could make $150k in the new place, she's probably vastly overstating the "big job" she has in DC.

Someone working in a cancer lab in NIH isn’t going to be able to do their job in bumblef*ck.

Surely someone working in a cancer lab at NIH is clever enough to possibly get a *different* job?

Surely you can’t be this dumb?

I guess I am this dumb!!! Please explain to me, like I’m five, why a person who is intelligent and driven enough to land a job with the NIH is completely and forever unemployable at any other job anywhere in the world doing literally anything other than the exact job they’re doing right now. I sincerely don’t understand your point.

I trained for 12 years doing a PhD and postdoctoral fellowship to study the immunology of T-cells that invade tumors. I publish, present at conferences and direct my own research team. What would you have me do instead, work at the local Walmart?

So it’s this one specific job, or you must go work at Walmart?

You don’t seem that bright. Proof that a PhD doesn’t necessarily result in a successful or well lived life.

Honestly you’d probably learn more and become a happier person working at Walmart.

you’re absurd. PP is *literally curing cancer.*

[Anonymous]

Didn't read the whole post, but can you finally buy a second home somewhere in the country where he can spend summers, even a tiny cabin that needs to be fixed up? A friend bought one recently in PA that was under $100K and they've been fixing it up on their own. You can stay here in DC and travel there on weekends if you want, but he can go there whenever he needs to be "living in the country"?

[Anonymous]

Don’t envy you this decision OP. Even if your DH makes a lot of money, moving will permanently limit YOUR career and place you in a one-down position where you are more reliant on him, and might have lifelong resentment. That can poison a marriage as much as his current resentment can. Whoever wins this one, it’s really essential that the other spouse deeply and respectfully acknowledge what the losing spouse is giving up and show true gratitude, empathy and appreciation. If you take each other’s sacrifices for granted you are doomed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being very hard on OP DH because his interest is in the location/lifestyle.

What if DH got is dream job in another place? Would that be worth OP considering a move? Or is that also "selfish"?

If it's different, then why is a job move more legitimate than one based on (perceived) quality of life, preferences etc?

well yeah, if he started applying to dream jobs outside of DC without coming to some kind of agreement first with OP, that’s a huge problem. With a house and kids, the status quo matters. You don’t just get to decide to upend it to “follow your dreams.”

as well, the DH has a lot of options to pursue his passions while being based in DC and he’s rejected then.

I kind of think the slow-fade others have suggested makes sense if he’s really insistent and is making the marriage unstable. Let him move, on his own, to the rural paradise with a vague promise from OP to see if she can find a job there. Keep the kids with OP in DC.

[Anonymous]

I am sitting here chuckling at the prospect of responses to this post if the genders were reversed: “My H is a career scientist at the NIH and the primary breadwinner, but I just hate the DMV and want us and our ES child move to a small midwestern town. We have a 3% mortgage and no he doesn’t support this idea, and our marriage is already rocky”.

OP would he shut down in a nanosecond. Misogyny is real, folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are saying the OP lives in some congested suburban hellscape, but she said they live “in the city,” not in a suburb. And DC is the best city for nature lovers I’ve ever seen. Her DH could be hiking/climbing/kayaking/rowing — basically getting a total nature bath — every single day if he wanted. Between the Potomac River and shorelines and Rock Creek Park and its connected parks, this place is a natural paradise. All the DCUM people who avail themselves of these federally funded nature playgrounds must be reading this thread and wondering how stupidly miserable and unimaginative her DH must be to be unable to get his nature fix in the DMV. The problem is 100% his. Now I’m going take the dogs out on a 4-mile hike.

Yep I’ve been saying the same thing!! Even just gardening here is rewarding with the crazy long growing season.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm in my mid 50s. Boy, that went fast. By "that", I mean my 20s, 30s, 40s. In the blink of an eye they were over, gone. You get into your 50s and start looking back on where you could have squeezed more enjoyment out of life. How you were so afraid to change, because of how it would look to other people instead of how it would make you feel. How you were afraid to take that chance that one time (such as relocating) that would have been a fork in the road that took you to something better. You can't see it now, but you will.

I would move and try something new.

Alternatively, OP will hit her mid-50s stuck in a low-paying rural job she dislikes, without enough savings for looming retirement and college tuition, and facing aging in a rural locality her children will not want to visit.

Did the OP say that she looked at jobs and could only find low paying unlike-able jobs? I mean, there are good jobs in small towns. Has she even looked?

Highly unlikely the job is anything like what OP has now. There’s a reason people leave rural areas to move to cities like DC for work.

Sure. When you are just out of school, you need a mentor to teach you how to do your job, and you want to be part of an entire infrastructure.
But once you are in your forties, you can kind of do what you want (unless you are in a field that needs a big infrastructure no matter what (ie. Transplant surgeon)).

I’m not sure what planet you are living on. Sure I have enough experience in my 40s to find another job, but you can’t just snap your fingers and get an equivalent job anywhere that replaces my very DC job.

But you can start a business, right? If your spouse agrees to be the sole wage earner for a while and is willing to live anywhere in the country that you want to live as long as it’s not a huge city?
There is really no way that you could possibly find any meaningful work in that situation? I mean, I get it if you are highly trained to do something specific that requires a big infrastructure, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on with OP. I think she is mostly very anxious.

Let’s all just snap our fingers and start a business that will make $230,000 right off the bat. I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Too right! LOL :lol:

Pp here. It’s not really that crazy. I’ve done it. Both my parents did it. My brother did it. People with professional degrees start small businesses making $200k/ yr all of the time.

No, they don’t. And maybe OP doesn’t want to? Why would I want to give up my colleagues and pension to start a business?

Also you don't just "start a business" - are you thinking, like, a retail business? Selling... hot sauce? A cleaning company? A digital marketing firm? A small law practice? Any kind of business = success and happiness? This sounds like a Lifetime movie, not an actual plan.

Almost anyone making $260k in a professional capacity should be able to come up with a job in their 40s making $150k. Not the same money as before, but they don't need the same money - they're moving to a LCOL area. Consulting is an easy one for most DC type jobs. The interesting thing about DC is every has "a job" where they work for someone else. When you leave DC for smaller towns, you find that most people work for themselves. And lots of those people are well educated - they just are more entrepreneurial than DC.

When I left DC, DH and I figured I had 2-5 years at my job in a remote capacity before I would get pushed out, and to this day I have a bunch of back up plans where I know I can make $200k if I got fired. Lucky for me, it's been 10 years and covid happened and normalized my remote situation.

If OP can't think of a single thing to do where she could make $150k in the new place, she's probably vastly overstating the "big job" she has in DC.

Someone working in a cancer lab in NIH isn’t going to be able to do their job in bumblef*ck.

Surely someone working in a cancer lab at NIH is clever enough to possibly get a *different* job?

Surely you can’t be this dumb?

I guess I am this dumb!!! Please explain to me, like I’m five, why a person who is intelligent and driven enough to land a job with the NIH is completely and forever unemployable at any other job anywhere in the world doing literally anything other than the exact job they’re doing right now. I sincerely don’t understand your point.

There is only one NIH. At every level, these jobs rarely have openings and competition for them is SAVAGE. You have no idea. It’s entirely possible that the right job for OP only appears 1-2 times in a lifetime. If she’s in it now, and is serious and successful, there is absolutely no way she should leave for a lifestyle. This is needs vs wants.

to be clear, OP did not say she works at NIH. But she absolutely describes the sort of job you work hard to get that cannot be easily replaced.

[Anonymous]

I agree OP should not move and give up a uniquely rewarding and flexible career.

But the PP’s describing DC as some sort of natural paradise? Maybe for you. But for my family the heat and horrendous, unrelenting bugs have made us practically homebound from May-September. We fight over who has to water the hellscape that is the garden over summer. The rest of the year is great, but few people would consider this region ideal for someone who loves to hike, garden, beachcomber or sail

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are saying the OP lives in some congested suburban hellscape, but she said they live “in the city,” not in a suburb. And DC is the best city for nature lovers I’ve ever seen. Her DH could be hiking/climbing/kayaking/rowing — basically getting a total nature bath — every single day if he wanted. Between the Potomac River and shorelines and Rock Creek Park and its connected parks, this place is a natural paradise. All the DCUM people who avail themselves of these federally funded nature playgrounds must be reading this thread and wondering how stupidly miserable and unimaginative her DH must be to be unable to get his nature fix in the DMV. The problem is 100% his. Now I’m going take the dogs out on a 4-mile hike.

Yep I’ve been saying the same thing!! Even just gardening here is rewarding with the crazy long growing season.

+1000

OP is crazy if she gives up her dream job! DH is having some kind of midlife crisis that won’t be solved by moving to rural Vermont.

There are a lot of local/commuting distance options for having land, etc (I once worked with a guy who had a horse ranch in WV who commuted to DC).

The fact that the husband is not open to any of them shows that he is just making excuses and has some impossible fantasy vision of Vermont in his head that is not going to live up to his dreams and would leave her without a fulfilling job, low pay, and stuck somewhere she doesn’t want to live. And, with an already rocky marriage - no way!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree OP should not move and give up a uniquely rewarding and flexible career.

But the PP’s describing DC as some sort of natural paradise? Maybe for you. But for my family the heat and horrendous, unrelenting bugs have made us practically homebound from May-September. We fight over who has to water the hellscape that is the garden over summer. The rest of the year is great, but few people would consider this region ideal for someone who loves to hike, garden, beachcomber or sail

+1 what absurd gaslighting is this? The summers are hot and humid and besides the pool (which isn't nature) there is nothing I want to do outside. Even mornings are already hot and sweaty.

And winters are gray and rainy but rarely get fun beautiful snow to play in.

Spring and fall are nice.

There are places with much better weather obviously. Just a summer that's 10-15 degrees cooler in the summer would mean it's actually nice to be outside.

I live here and like the DMV overall. So I'm not a hater. But let's stop pretending it's a natural wonder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you move somewhere in Loudoun county and commute in 2-3 days/week via ashburn metro? The schools are decent and you'd still be in civilization while your spouse could feel like he's in the middle of nowhere.

I live in Western Loudoun and am married to a Vermonter who would also love to move back to the Burlington area, but unfortunately it would cost more for us to buy a comparable home there now. I would really caution anyone from thinking this feels like the "middle of nowhere." Maybe while sitting on our deck in the evenings, but as PPs have mentioned, you can get that many places in the DC area. Our back road is full of brewery/winery/special event traffic on the weekends, and there's a ton of new construction all around Purcellville and Leesburg. Lots of growing pains. I do love it here, and we have a great life, but it's not at all the rural respite it was even 10 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree OP should not move and give up a uniquely rewarding and flexible career.

But the PP’s describing DC as some sort of natural paradise? Maybe for you. But for my family the heat and horrendous, unrelenting bugs have made us practically homebound from May-September. We fight over who has to water the hellscape that is the garden over summer. The rest of the year is great, but few people would consider this region ideal for someone who loves to hike, garden, beachcomber or sail

If you’re “homebound” in May & June, that’s your deciding. Mosquitoes typically don’t start up here until well into June. And you can hike/bike/swim in the mornings. The heat sucks but you can adapt.