Anonymous wrote:I hate this phrase but I think it fits: seems like this is a prelude to "conscious uncoupling." I'd say let him look for a cabin to buy as a second home and spend more and more time there. You join him for the remote month in the summer and a couple of weekends a month.

You don't give up your home, your job, or the kids' lifestyle. Legitimately look for a remote job that isn't a big paycut, investigate the schools and medical care in the rural area. Make an effort to make friends there.

And then just sort of see what happens. You might find a great job and find you want to move with your husband. Or you might find that you both prefer being apart and you come to an amicable agreement and split up the properties and the kids have a great place to visit during the summer.

This is what I'd suggest too. Get the second home and encourage him to spend time there. The time apart may bring you closer together or further apart.

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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.

sure I could start a business doing crap legal work … after taking a year to be admitted to the bar and giving up my pension and 200k/40hr week interesting fed job and not to mention our 3% mortgage…

I mean, there is more to life than making the most money you possibly can.
You could be the Patch Adams of legal work. Or you could go to Urbana and work for Patch yourself.

I mean, my understanding is that your husband is willing to be the sole breadwinner and primary caretaker of your child as long as you will move outside of the DMV, and you have pretty much free reign to choose wherever that is, and you won’t even entertain the idea.

I don't know, OP. Going through a version of this ourselves. Definitely look for ways to compromise and for win-win options, but at some point the decision for each of you will come down to choosing your marriage or choosing the lifestyle/location you prefer.

Anonymous wrote:I was going to suggest something similar to PP - buy a small cabin as a second home somewhere close enough to travel on weekends that feels really remote - Shenandoah or West Virginia. Spend as much time there as possible, weekends and breaks, and maybe he spends every other week there alone.

I like this idea, too - and throwing money at a cabin and/or tickets to an Airbnb that feels like home (b/c you go there so frequently) is cheaper than divorce.

I have a similar situation, although our marriage is solid. We also don't live in the US so we have a chance to "start over" whenever we move back. But I empathize.

OP- DCUM found a compromise. Check out this house in Potomac. Your spouse can have his outdoorsy living and you can still be close to DC:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/0/1154605.page#25733047

OP, my husband and I are in the same position, but in the reverse. We are in a rural state which has gotten significant federal investment for a very specific field of applied research and, because this is my husband's speciality, here we are.

I have developed a career pretty quickly in the healthcare industry because, on the flip side, if you're talented and from a more competitive talent pool like DC, you'll have no trouble finding success (if you can get beyond the distrust of outsiders which tends to pervade these areas). I would love nothing more than to be back in a large urban environment, but I try to look at the positives: a really hefty HHI that goes even further here, in particular with regards to housing, being able to easily afford the best school district here (which is good by all measures, not just in terms of this rural state), and more money for things like home furnishings, savings, vacations, kids educations etc.

All choices are a trade off. You prioritize what's most important overall. For us, being able to command an HHI that goes twice as far as it would in DC is worth the sometimes lackluster environment. After our kids are out of high school we'll still be young enough to go somewhere "cool" again.

Life is long.

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Anonymous wrote:Op here. These are all helpful perspectives. I make about 230 and he makes about 160. He is open to somewhere near a cool town/small city like Burlington VT.

I understand you love your job, but have you looked at how far 160k will go in Vermont?

As a PP said (I paraphrase): DC absolutely sucks for people who aren’t originally from the area. You can deal with it for awhile because it does have a few perks, but eventually it is kind of a soul crushing place to live (and raise your kids) when you know from experience that a different lifestyle is out there…

the idea that OP should give up her well-paying, flexible job that she loves so her WFH husband can move to a rural area is just bonkers. Wrong on every level.

also the DC area is not “soul crushing.” we have access to lots of outdoor activities. if her DH isn’t getting out that is his fault. he’s blaming his malaise on DC (and now setting up a scenario where he gets to blame OP). he’s not 20. he needs to take responsibility for himself.

+1 so tired of these DMV haters. I didn’t grow up here but I love the DMV. Great food, lots of diversity, smart and ambitious people, mountains and ocean within a fairly reasonable drive, and four seasons. This is a fabulous area for runners too.

Sorry, I guess the DMV area can be okay if you are fabulously wealthy, enjoy being in your car for significant chunks of your day, and are hyper competitive in all aspects of your life. Oh, and also enjoy swamp like weather in the summer, cold gray winters, and the most sprawling development as far as the eye can see.

For everyone else it’s just one step up from a hell hole.

You just sound like a very negative person who would be unhappy anywhere.

I AM actually a generally negative person, but we moved out of the DMV and I have never been happier.

I am really glad so many of you enjoy that lifestyle, but for many of us it is truly awful. For example, the “fun places to hike and bike” generally necessitate that you first DRIVE to those places (unless as mentioned before you are wealthy enough to live in one of the genuinely walkable safe areas, which obviously most people are not). Some of us don’t want to commute to our leisure activities as well as our jobs.

Again, good for you if you like the DMV. A lot of people hate it for very good reason, and it sounds like OP’s husband is one of them, so taking the attitude that he is obligated to just suck it up and spend the next couple decades of his life in an area that makes him miserable is completely unfair.

Luckily it sounds like OP is far more reasonable than most of the DMV apologists on this thread, so they might have a chance.

Most of the people I know who live in rural/vacation areas drive a lot. And I’m sorry, if you have a burning need to live right on a lake or the beach, you should not have put down roots in a city and shaped your life around that.

Life is long, my friend. Feelings change. Circumstances change. Have you never tried anything thinking you’d enjoy it and then realized that you didn’t? Have you ever genuinely enjoyed something for awhile, but then slowly stopped enjoying it?

Because his wife has a job she loves in DC, that means he has to stay here forever no matter how much he hates it? There is absolutely no room for compromise because he decided to live in this area however many years ago?

This is rigid thinking and I suspect it is coming from a place of deep anxiety. The same kind of anxious thinking that would lead someone to think that 160K “doesn’t go far anywhere” as one PP said. And while the husband says he wants rural, there are of course many options in between city/suburb and completely rural that could potentially satisfy both of them (small town in a nice location, maybe?)

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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.

sure I could start a business doing crap legal work … after taking a year to be admitted to the bar and giving up my pension and 200k/40hr week interesting fed job and not to mention our 3% mortgage…

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Anonymous wrote:Op here. These are all helpful perspectives. I make about 230 and he makes about 160. He is open to somewhere near a cool town/small city like Burlington VT.

I understand you love your job, but have you looked at how far 160k will go in Vermont?

As a PP said (I paraphrase): DC absolutely sucks for people who aren’t originally from the area. You can deal with it for awhile because it does have a few perks, but eventually it is kind of a soul crushing place to live (and raise your kids) when you know from experience that a different lifestyle is out there…

the idea that OP should give up her well-paying, flexible job that she loves so her WFH husband can move to a rural area is just bonkers. Wrong on every level.

also the DC area is not “soul crushing.” we have access to lots of outdoor activities. if her DH isn’t getting out that is his fault. he’s blaming his malaise on DC (and now setting up a scenario where he gets to blame OP). he’s not 20. he needs to take responsibility for himself.

+1 so tired of these DMV haters. I didn’t grow up here but I love the DMV. Great food, lots of diversity, smart and ambitious people, mountains and ocean within a fairly reasonable drive, and four seasons. This is a fabulous area for runners too.

Sorry, I guess the DMV area can be okay if you are fabulously wealthy, enjoy being in your car for significant chunks of your day, and are hyper competitive in all aspects of your life. Oh, and also enjoy swamp like weather in the summer, cold gray winters, and the most sprawling development as far as the eye can see.

For everyone else it’s just one step up from a hell hole.

You just sound like a very negative person who would be unhappy anywhere.

I AM actually a generally negative person, but we moved out of the DMV and I have never been happier.

I am really glad so many of you enjoy that lifestyle, but for many of us it is truly awful. For example, the “fun places to hike and bike” generally necessitate that you first DRIVE to those places (unless as mentioned before you are wealthy enough to live in one of the genuinely walkable safe areas, which obviously most people are not). Some of us don’t want to commute to our leisure activities as well as our jobs.

Again, good for you if you like the DMV. A lot of people hate it for very good reason, and it sounds like OP’s husband is one of them, so taking the attitude that he is obligated to just suck it up and spend the next couple decades of his life in an area that makes him miserable is completely unfair.

Luckily it sounds like OP is far more reasonable than most of the DMV apologists on this thread, so they might have a chance.

Most of the people I know who live in rural/vacation areas drive a lot. And I’m sorry, if you have a burning need to live right on a lake or the beach, you should not have put down roots in a city and shaped your life around that.

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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!

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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.

Anonymous wrote:He needs to submit to her since she makes a lot more. Oh wait no! Men don’t make any sacrifices for their spouse’s carrier the way woman do.

What sacrifices is he making for you in exchange of quitting your job. Is he willing yo take a job that pays more, has him go to the office?

His plan is to get you & the child yo move then ask for divorce. Do not move your child yo a state you’re not willing to live in until they reach 18.

100%. And whose going to fund your retirement?

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Anonymous wrote:Op here. These are all helpful perspectives. I make about 230 and he makes about 160. He is open to somewhere near a cool town/small city like Burlington VT.

I understand you love your job, but have you looked at how far 160k will go in Vermont?

As a PP said (I paraphrase): DC absolutely sucks for people who aren’t originally from the area. You can deal with it for awhile because it does have a few perks, but eventually it is kind of a soul crushing place to live (and raise your kids) when you know from experience that a different lifestyle is out there…

the idea that OP should give up her well-paying, flexible job that she loves so her WFH husband can move to a rural area is just bonkers. Wrong on every level.

also the DC area is not “soul crushing.” we have access to lots of outdoor activities. if her DH isn’t getting out that is his fault. he’s blaming his malaise on DC (and now setting up a scenario where he gets to blame OP). he’s not 20. he needs to take responsibility for himself.

+1 so tired of these DMV haters. I didn’t grow up here but I love the DMV. Great food, lots of diversity, smart and ambitious people, mountains and ocean within a fairly reasonable drive, and four seasons. This is a fabulous area for runners too.

Sorry, I guess the DMV area can be okay if you are fabulously wealthy, enjoy being in your car for significant chunks of your day, and are hyper competitive in all aspects of your life. Oh, and also enjoy swamp like weather in the summer, cold gray winters, and the most sprawling development as far as the eye can see.

For everyone else it’s just one step up from a hell hole.

You just sound like a very negative person who would be unhappy anywhere.

I AM actually a generally negative person, but we moved out of the DMV and I have never been happier.

I am really glad so many of you enjoy that lifestyle, but for many of us it is truly awful. For example, the “fun places to hike and bike” generally necessitate that you first DRIVE to those places (unless as mentioned before you are wealthy enough to live in one of the genuinely walkable safe areas, which obviously most people are not). Some of us don’t want to commute to our leisure activities as well as our jobs.

Again, good for you if you like the DMV. A lot of people hate it for very good reason, and it sounds like OP’s husband is one of them, so taking the attitude that he is obligated to just suck it up and spend the next couple decades of his life in an area that makes him miserable is completely unfair.

Luckily it sounds like OP is far more reasonable than most of the DMV apologists on this thread, so they might have a chance.

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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.

Anonymous wrote:I hate this phrase but I think it fits: seems like this is a prelude to "conscious uncoupling." I'd say let him look for a cabin to buy as a second home and spend more and more time there. You join him for the remote month in the summer and a couple of weekends a month.

You don't give up your home, your job, or the kids' lifestyle. Legitimately look for a remote job that isn't a big paycut, investigate the schools and medical care in the rural area. Make an effort to make friends there.

And then just sort of see what happens. You might find a great job and find you want to move with your husband. Or you might find that you both prefer being apart and you come to an amicable agreement and split up the properties and the kids have a great place to visit during the summer.

This is a good idea.

I think posters are being too hard on OP: If "dh" was a woman who made less, like me, she would be told to suck it up until retirement or divorce and see how she likes her new decreased standard of living.

I have accepted that my dh is the main wage earner, and we need to stay in the dc metro to make that happen. We've tried to compromise to make life here easier for me, a person who hates crowds. We have also lived in a rural area as well, and there are compromises to be made in rural places as well that don't even involve salary. To make it work here, I have gone on an antidepressant and also go to therapy to help deal with the anxiety. I also telecommute, so I won't have to deal with local rush house traffic, and we occasionally take days off in the middle of the week so we can enjoy parks or other sites without the crush of people on the weekends.

In OP's case, she is the main wage earner and her dh is not, so compromises need to be made for them both, but especially for him. There is no way she should give up her higher paying career to follow him to a rural area, unless she can eventually change to full time remote.