To put a career over my dp

[WantAnotherCat]

I have been with dp for 4 years. We currently rent a house together. I am in my final year at university, so I am looking at graduate jobs. There is one company in particular that I really want to work for, but the only vacancy that I can apply for is in a city about 2 1/2hr train from where we live now. My dp is also in his final year, but is hoping to do a teacher training course afterwards, which means he would finish a year later than me. He wants to find a job in the area we live now.

Last night I told my dp about this job, saying I've not applied yet, but I really want to. He got annoyed by this, and starting saying things like 'I always knew you would do this', 'I wish you told me ages ago so I could have found somewhere else to live for this (academic) year' (I only found out a few days ago about the job, it was never my intention to move away!), and 'now I know where I stand'. He was saying how he would never do that to me i.e. put a job first. I have always been of the belief that you need to go where the jobs are, I can't just limit myself to a small area (it would be different if we had kids obviously, but we don't). As we will both be starting out in our careers, I feel they are equally important, so mine is just as important as his. Again, it would be different if he was the breadwinner, but he's not.

My dp has always said he would never want a long-distance relationship. I understand this, but I also feel that when you love each other and have spent 4 years together, that you would make it work for a few years until you can be together again. So basically he has barely said 2 words to me all day, and it's getting really awkward in the house. I don't actually know if we're still together or not. I keep meaning to say we need to talk about it, but as soon as I think about it I cry! So AIBU to want a good start to my career even if it means looking further afield, or was I wrong and should think more about dp?

It can't be said often enough that women should stop prioritizing couple-relationships over everything else. Far too many women, believing in romantic bullshit, sacrifice their careers and their education at this stage in their lives, just to please a man - and because a man who insists on being the Important Person in the relationship is always an arsehole, women waste what should be really good, exciting, interesting, educational years, sometimes decades, while the man's abuse and control gets slowly worse.
When you haven't got children or a mortgage, a partner is easily dumpable and fairly easily replaceable. A good job is much more valuable, even if jobs are rarely for life.

Apply for the job. If you've only ever been together as students things are going to change one way or another anyway, and the measure of whether your relationship is worth anything is how much flux it can survive.

I do suggest, though, that you question him a bit about why he wants to stay in the town where you went to uni. If he feels - however wrongly - that he committed to staying there because he thought (again, however wrongly) that you wanted to put down roots there, then I can understand why he'd be pissed off. It can be upsetting when your assumptions turn out to be wrong - most of the arguments I've had with my partner over the last few years have been down to one or the other of us doing that, admittedly more about plans for the day or evening rather than for the rest of our lives.

He may also be concerned that you are doing this at him, because even commuting will mean spending less time at home. Again, I've had this issue several times. My partner's strategy is piss, moan, adapt a bit, piss and moan some more, realise everything is actually ok and I'm not going to leave him just because I'm out a bit more or making friends he doesn't know or whatever. Yours may get used to things once he realises it wasn't an exit strategy. On the other hand, if he continues to be a prat about it then you will have an exit strategy available.

Definitely apply for the job and good luck.

As for your DP, he will either get over it or he won't but that shouldn't stop you applying to get on the first rung of your career. He only seems to care about how this will impact on him but this is your life and you only get one crack at it.

Apply for the job. You may not get it, but you have to try.

If you DO get it, there is a middle ground - you could move half the distance to London and then you'd only have 1 1/4h commute, and so would he if he chose to continue his training where you are now.

If he doesn't want to do that, then he's not open to compromise and really, you don't want to waste too much more time on him (speaking as one who wasted far too many years on a bloke who ran off just before we got married - luckiest escape ever!)

Say you didn't apply for the job because of your DP's whinging - and then he goes and leaves you. You've not got the job or your DP, and you'll kick yourself for ever for not going for it.

Your career is yours to forge out as well as you can - he has no right to try and hold you back and it's unreasonable of him to think that he has.

You haven't even applied for the job yet and already he has turned into a whining shite! Apply for the job. I'm sure there'll be lots of applicants - fact of life these days and you'll have to jump through lots of hoops before you get the job so I don't know why he is getting his underpants in a twist about it.

And speaking as someone who has experience of teaching: What is he going to do if for some reason, he isn't accepted on the local PGCE course? What will he do if once he has got the PGCE, there isn't a job in the local area and he is forced to move to a part of the country that he doesn't want to move to? From what you've said OP, he seems to have it all planned in his own head but as someone once said, 'man plans, god laughs'.

He is being inflexible by expecting you to automatically stay put assuming that's even possible in the current job market. He is being selfish by assuming that you'll just fall in with his plans and he is being immature by going off in a huff because you are putting yourself first.

Try LTR if he takes his head out of his arse for long enough but I get the impression that you are more mature than he is and will find it easier to LTR than he will.

I would apply for the job.

How likely is it that you will be able to pursue the type of career you want where you are at the moment? If there's lot there, you can apply for local jobs and the job in London. If there's not a lot locally then I wonder if your DP knows how much he's asking of you?

DP and I met at 21. Over the years we've been lucky in a sense that we've managed to stay where we are despite working in radically different sectors that coincide in only a few places worldwide. I say lucky because we've had redundancy / threat of redundancy / job outsourcing etc. etc. Whenever this has happened we've looked at options and how we could make them work.

It would worry me that someone who is relatively young (your DP) seems awfully set in his ways. Great, if he's going to be a teacher, but what if he can't get a role locally? What if you lose your job at a later date and have a mortgage to pay? How supportive will he be if you need to consider London in the future (I could be talking out my arse if there are lots of jobs in the area you want to move into locally)?

If nothing else, applying for a job and even getting an offer isn't the same as accepting a position. If you've been at uni for 4 years, apply for the experience. Even if you don't get the job, you will learn from the application process and particularly interview if you are invited to that stage.

You sound quite ambitious. Him perhaps less so? Would you resent him if you're stuck in the same place doing something that's perhaps less well paid / has fewer options for advancement in another 4 years time?

In this case, I would go for the job any day over this boyfriend.

He sounds immature, sulky and controlling.

I'd also take issue with your title. I don't think applying for a job that could be commutable if you moved between both places is you putting your career over DP.

I do think your DP insisting that he will only work locally, won't move and won't do any kind of long distance, even temporarily is putting his needs & wants high above yours. He might also get a bit of a shock when he starts applying for jobs himself and suddenly finds out that getting a job locally - even in a secure career like teaching - is not as easy as it once was.

I have teachers in my family and also among my friends. Very few got the nice probationary year in the wee school down the road straight out of uni that then translated into a permanent contract.

This isn't the guy WantAnother.

Really, this is your college boyfriend. You'll end up with someone better.

There is absolutely no reason to be curtailing your life or ambitions in ANY WAY just to keep a boyfriend.

What the hell does he mean "this isn't what I signed up for"?

Being someone's girlfriend isn't a contractual obligation. You don't OWE him anything just because you've gone out with him for a few years.

OP, always go for the job, everything else will work out if it wants to.

Please do not compromise your career at this stage.

Oh and don't live in some halfway shithole and commute just so you can stay close to this guy.

You're in your mid-20s with no responsibilities.

Move to LONDON, live in LONDON!

You have the rest of your life to settle down in a provincial town.

Do you think it might be London that's the issue? There's a lot of anti-London feeling by some people, generally resenting the implication that it's the most important city in the country. Unfortunately, for a lot of careers you are best off doing a few years at the start of your career there, even if you move round the country later on.

Apply for the job, and others in London. Do a few years before you settle down really enjoying London life. Or overseas, really don't limit your plans to what works within this relationship because if he's not supportive you'd be better off without him.

I wouldn't really call us a traditional student couple. We met when I was at uni, then I dropped out. We lived together whilst both of us worked, then I started with open uni, and we moved together to the city we're in now for his uni, I was very happy to move with him though.

We talked about it a bit this morning, everything is peachy again. I think he wants me to wait till he has done his pgce, and then we both decide where to look for jobs. But I finish in Oct 2014, will receive my degree Dec 2014, and this job is Jan 2015, so it is a perfect start date for me. There are companies near here which I could apply for, but they are all September start dates. So I would have to wait until Sep 2015. That means I will have to find some crappy job to fill my time whilst I'm waiting for the job to start (assuming I was offered one of course!). I would love to go travelling or something in that time but it's just not financially possible. So again, in wanting me to wait for him to finish, implies that his is more important....hmmm....

Here is a conversation we had recently:
me: "What will you do if you don't get onto a pgce?"
dp: "I'll just get a graduate job" ('just' get a graduate job, as if he can walk straight into one)
me: "You know most of them last 2-3 years...?"
dp: "Ye I'll just quit and do pgce following year"

He is more of a 'whatever happens, happens' kind of person. I am very realistic and like to plan.

"Whatever happens, happens" as long as you do everything he wants and he never has to do anything for you.

He does sound lovely. Or, um, peachy.

Yup still implying he's the only one who counts!!

You moved to the city where he went to uni for him- why can't he offer you the same! Lots of uni's do pgce courses. Please don't wait for him op- he is being unreasonable. It's still all about him.

Go for the job! I have tons of friends who did this after university, it's the norm these days. You have to establish yourself in your career in any way you can, particularly in the current labour market.

Being together is ace, but you're both only just starting out in life - now is the time to do the things you won't be able to do later when you have established careers/family.

"I think he wants me to wait till he has done his pgce, and then we both decide where to look for jobs."

He should get NO SAY in what you do when you graduate.

None.

This is YOUR LIFE.

You only get one.

Don't let this guy live it for you to suit himself.

A person who loves you wants the best for YOU.

It is clearly best for you to do as you have said and apply for work wherever you can get it.

If he won't accommodate that, then he's not the guy.

And also, what's all this about "decide where to look for jobs"?

Hasn't he already made it clear that he's already decided that?

TBH he sounds like a bit of a low-ambition loser.

Plus, you've already arranged your life to suit him enough already.

Is that what he means by "not what I signed up for"?

That he thought he'd found the kind of sap who would play second fiddle to him forever?

It certainly sounds like it.

You mentioned that you are stuck on a shared lease for six months. Why not just apply for the job you want and say 'Yes dear' to whatever crap he comes out with, then leave when the lease is up?

There is nothing peachy about this type of relationship. The fact that you are even considering doing some 'crappy job' waiting around for this guy to possibly get onto a PGCE course so he doesn't get the hump is wrong, wrong, wrong.

"If you love someone, you don't hold them back." Whois is so right. There's also the saying 'If you love someone, let them go, if they come back, it's love, if not, it was never meant to be.

You'll spend a good chunk of the rest of your life working, probably, you may as well feel like you made that choice freely. My DH, then DP, when I told him I had applied for a job in another country said "I'll miss you!But I'm glad that you'll sort out [thejob role]," and I've just encouraged him to apply for a year's scholarship in the US. No way can we afford to travel to see each other, but we want each other to grow and gain experiences, not be locked to our sides.

I'd def go for the job! Good luck!

I have just read your earlier thread about the same bloke.

Crikey! He just wants it all his way doesn't he: groping you when you don't want it, making you feel like you've got to have sex with him even though you'd be happy never to bother, making you follow him but making it clear that he'll never follow you or put what you want anywhere other than at the bottom of the list headed by everything he wants.

Honestly, like someone else said on that thread, just get another cat. I assume he has squashed all confidence out of you and you really believe that you should put his needs in everything ahead of any want or desire or ambition of your own. Of course it's up to you at the end of the day: it's your life. But why would you spend it shackled and broken when you could be free and strong?

LTB. He sounds like a cock.

I just read your other post as well. This is not a good man.

That doesn't sound a peachy resolution. You're not going along with that are you?