Wife is miserable where we live, but moving is not an option. Unsure of how to overcome this impasse?

[conflictedhubby0622]

Hello everyone, I am looking for some advice or insight. My wife and I seem to be at an impasse in our marriage.

My wife and I have been together for 8 years and married for 5. We have a 1 year old daughter. My wife is a nurse and I work at a power plant. Before we had our daughter, my wife was a travel nurse. It was hard with her being away weeks at a time, but I knew that was her dream and I wanted to support her. Since having our daughter, travel nursing is no longer a feasible option as she would be gone for weeks at a time.

I have worked at my workplace for 11 years and am in a pretty coveted position. It is usually held by engineers but I was in the right place at the right time and an exception was made for me- I do not have a degree. It is pretty flexible with hours and I have amazing benefits. The only "downside" is I would never be able to get a position like I do now anywhere else nor the benefits I have or the pay I have.

So here comes the problem, my wife absolutely hates where we live, rural Indiana. She is more of a city girl and there really are not many job options for nurses here as there is only 1 hospital and pay for nurses is fairly low here. It was not an issue before we had our daughter but now that travel nursing is not an option, she is absolutely miserable.

She has begged for us to move and while I do want her to be happy, moving is really not an option. Not only because of my job, but our mortgage rate is low and we would never be able to get a cheaper mortgage than what we have now. I would have to take a massive pay cut and have a significant downgrade in benefits if I were to leave my job. Plus I would lose my pension.

I have suggested couples counseling and she has shot that down saying it will not change our circumstances so it would be a waste of time and money. I have suggested she could go traveling again and she has said that it is just not possible with our daughter as she would have to be gone for weeks at a time since there are no close travel contracts in her specialty anywhere near us.

I am at a loss for what to do. This has caused a huge strain in our marriage and I do not know where to go from here to overcome this.

I’m all for supporting women but we don’t know if OP’s wife is suffering from depression or is just plain flakey.

Were kids ever going to be on the cards and if so what would the plan have been then?

If you’re set to retire and be mortgage free at age 42, run 3 cars and travel loads etc etc… then it’s crazy to say that moving is “not an option”. It doesn’t sound like you’d exactly be on the breadline. If you’re not able to earn as much in the city, have you considered working longer for a happier wife? Would you not also get anything out of living closer to a city? If you enjoy travelling so much then I would think a city would have some draws for restaurants and culture?

Kids weren’t off or on the cards. We were unsure about kids and hasn’t really talked about them other than being in the fence but definitely not in the near future. And then we got a surprise.

If I leave my job now, I would lose my entire pension as I have to work at my job for 20 years to get it. I would also lose a lot as my 401k match is currently 9% and jobs I would qualify for only have a 3% match, and that’s assuming there is a 401k at all as many American companies do not have 401k options at all. And pensions are very very very rare in the US.

We get to travel a lot because I have unheard of benefits (for the US). Free health insurance is huge as some insurances costs thousands per months and then if you have to go to the hospital or have procedure, it’s thousands of dollars on top of that you already pay monthly. We get everything for free which is unheard of here. 6 weeks PTO and 30 sick days on top is unheard of here. Most places you are lucky to get 1 week PTO and 1-2 sick days of any at all. We would not have the time nor income to travel as much as we do now

I don’t enjoy traveling, I mean I don’t hate it but it’s not something I would not on my own, but I do for her because I know she enjoys it. I would not get the time off I have now and out overall household income would be less but our bills would be higher in the city

We know it's the law but the law doesn't stop you from agreeing to it, so stop acting like your hands are tied by this law, they're not.

It's one rule for you and one for her apparently, even though you already have everything else all your own way.
None of the compromises are actual compromises because they come with the caveat that renders them all pointless.

You have trapped your wife, your unwillingness and selfish attitude has made her utterly miserable.

She may well earn the top 1% in your area but it isn't what she could be earning in a city that she would prefer, you've trapped her, you don't treat someone you supposedly love like that.

You should have never married her if you are this self interested.

What would you like to happen OP? It's clear your wife wants to move and you don't . How do you see this ending?

You could if you wanted to and were a decent caring husband agree to let your wife move with her daughter to the nearest city and use your flexible working time to have more than 2 day weekend with them.

Why is that not an option?

Oh and I wanted to add, if you can't move (because life isn't a fairytale) your wife needs to find ways to embrace that little bit of sadness that she'll have to carry around and focus on any positive things that come with living in your current location.

You’ve said the nearest city has a commute of 2.5 hours

Is there anything at all between there and where you live now - meaning she could work in the city and you where you work now for a much lesser commute ?

And pay for the city house and childcare with..?

Sorry, haven't read the thread but why does having a daughter mean she can't be a travel nurse?

Because she doesn’t want to leave her 1 year old for days/weeks on end to travel.

I think its clear we are not going to understand some of the context as most of us are in the UK. It does seem like it would be madness to leave your job.

I can't be alone in finding it hard to picture the place you currently live. A rural town or village in the UK can be a vibrant and fulfilling place to live, or it can be awful!
Objectively speaking what us your home town like? Is there a community there she could be more active in?

Some people are making out you are materialistic but perhaps in a way American culture makes it hard not to be. Anything you have you have to get for yourself. I think there is a bit of a culture clash on this thread, where our answers are from a very different culture.
Yes we have to pay for kids to go to uni but they can access student loans, and we do have the NHS of course and state pension. None of us would lose our pension pot by changing jobs.

I think she needs to start coming up with some solutions of her own. You have made some suggestions, that's all you can do.
The only other thing really is to say, let's make a plan for when I retire in 9 years, and what can we do in the meantime to make this ok for you. And just repeat, until she starts bringing some solutions to the table.

You’re right, I’m not going to let her take my daughter from me without it being legally forced. I love my daughter and if not wanting to see her on weekends only makes me shit, then so be it.

yes she could earn 20k more in the city-she wants to move to Indianapolis- but we would also have to pay for childcare which is 2500+ a month minimum, at minimum double our mortgage with interest rates today versus what we have and that’s with a hefty downpayment. If I left my job, we would have to pay for our health insurance which would be 1k a month for a family of 3. Plus you’re talking thousands of dollars in deductibles if one of us had to use it.

So you’re talking 3k+ more a month in bills just between mortgage and daycare expenses alone and that’s on the “cheap” side here in good old America. And that’s if I kept my job.

If we moved, the jobs I would qualify for start at around 60k. So our household income would decrease by about 50k but we would have 48k in added expenses between childcare costs, health insurance costs, and increased mortgage. I would also lose my pension which is worth 7 figures and in the long run would be losing 7 figures in my 401k since my match is so high. We can afford to live more than comfortably off 1 income here if something were to happen to one of us. We would be struggling as a 2 person income household moving with the extra expenses it would add. She is looking at it from the perspective she will make more. I am looking at it from the perspective of as a couple and household, we would make less and be worse off financially, now and in the future.

I'm not sure if you are in the UK or USA. I'm assuming UK because you have given no weight to the comprehensive health care and 401k which is a MASSIVE benefit in the USA

Sadly the wife doesn't want to spend time away from their child, doesn't want a local job, doesn't and never will earn anywhere near what the OP does and with nothing close to the benefits the app is getting that the whole family benefit from.
Moving away will mean the main earner's pay will plummet. The family will lose their health cover. The 401K will be a fraction of what it currently is and they will have no family hear them.

What they will gain is the wife working in a job she has no guarantee of liking because it still will be a fixed hospital job. No travel. It will earn nowhere near what they lose from the OPs job. They will have to pay for childcare out if that reduced income as the OPs job is not going to be as flexible and they have no family nearby. They will face increase mortgage payments and will have to pay for their medical insurance themselves.They will also live in a worse house.

What part of this is likely to result in happier people. I doubt ANYONE will be happier including the wife. It's a terrible choice.

On the face of it, you sound very reasonable and your DW sounds like hard work but is this all true? I don’t understand how you can have 5/6 international holidays per year with only 6 weeks leave a year…

The she's not ready to face reality, or the move she wants to make. It's a childish response if this is all she has to say.

I have 30 sick days I use all of as well. So I essentially get 10 weeks off between my PTO and sick days

Is it normal to lose a pension in the US if you leave a job? That doesn’t seem right (I don’t mean incorrect but more not morally right if you’ve been paying into it).

I agree with a pp that if most of these responses are outside the US we don’t really appreciate the importance of some of these financial issues (pension, healthcare etc) as they don’t exist in the U.K. We also can’t really relate to the isolation or distance between one area and another in the same way, being a much smaller country. Nowhere is really that isolated, not even living on somewhere like Dartmoor (UK).

Frankly she sounds selfish. She's now a parent. It's not all about what she wants.
She has a job that pays more than most. She has a nice house and a beautiful daughter that she doesn't want to leave to return to travel nursing or to work in the city. She wants everyone to uproot and lose out financially. She wants to lose health care for the entire family. She wants you to lose your pension and opportunity to retire early. She wants you to agree to work for decades more for less money. She wants to remove your child from her grandparents whom she loves.

She basically is saying she wants EVERYONE else to suffer so she can work in a bigger hospital which may STILL not make her happy as it's still not as exciting as travel nursing.

But she wants you ALL to uproot everything, lose family, end up poorer and have to work decades longer just for her to see if she'll be happier in a city.

Fuck her. She sounds awful.

Another man using his child as a stick to beat down his wife with, to control and reduce her potential.

This marriage won't last, and I'd advise you to never marry again.

Pensions work but you have to be “vested” for X amount of time to receive X amount of dollars. At my job, it’s 20 years for the amount. We do live in a more rural area but it’s not the sticks by any means. The closest larger city is a while a ways but there are little towns in between. We are not isolated in the middle of nowhere

It’s the house she designed and we had custom built. We got it when mortgage rates were low. Now we would pay 2K+ for a 1500 sq ft house in our area and even more elsewhere

Don't throw away your sensible and pragmatic decisions because your wife has itchy feet. People saying you have everything your way are ignoring that your "wants" are financial security and growing up with extended family whereas her "wants" are very cake-and-eat-it regarding children and interesting jobs with travel. She is taking all the holidays for granted, so spell out that she will lose these too.

Ask her exactly how she sees her dream life and work from there, don't try and fix problems she can't even articulate. Can you use your leave to essentially work a four day week instead of having the holidays? That might give options for having a flat in the city and living between both. Be very clear you are happy to park the holidays, so she will actually be losing something.