Help convince a reluctant wife to move from NY to Denver (DMV, cost of living)

[Indigo Cardinal]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

I'll play "analyst" for a moment and go way out on a limb. Way out on a limb. Wild guesses on my part.

I'll surmise that attempts to move a wife against her will is a passive aggressive ploy to make her so unhappy that SHE will file for divorce and head back home. It could also be that the OP really doesn't want to be a father and this is a ploy to postpone fatherhood. Lastly, it could be the OP does not like his in-laws and/or the in-laws don't like him and he's using the ploy of moving to get a lot of distance from them. Any of these ploys (if true) indicates a probable need to dissolve the marriage -- but doing that directly may be too painfully hard / expensive for the OP so the subterfuge of moving provides the rationale/excuse for a way out.

Otherwise I don't see any urgency to get to Denver when on the cusp of fatherhood.

All of this. And to add, possibly even threatened by his wife's career stability--if she makes the move, she throws all that away. And if she decides to move back (with or without the OP), then she's lost that tenure.

In the end, the OP's wife does not want to make the move, and has absolutely no reason to want to make the move. So therefore, any 'convincing' from us is a moot point.

[Thoreau424]

It's selfish to overrule the wife's desires and preferences, especially when they are so sensible.

Drastic regional shifts and relocations suck, even more so when it means splitting up family. Been there, done that. A valuable and painful lesson I wouldn't wish on anyone.

If someone is thinking clearly and rationally, we're not supposed to "convince them" away from that, and towards something foolish.

[Indigo Cardinal]

Originally Posted by JrzDefector

I had to get AWAY from certain members of my family and I miss the rest of them horribly even a decade later. I miss my friends. I've made a TON of new friends and have a huge thriving social circle, but I miss my buddies in my hometown like you wouldn't believe...

..I'm here because I do love the temperate weather, the community I've built for myself, the house I own and the culture that embraces dogs and dog rescue. I go home when I want to, and the fact that my heart is split between two locations doesn't matter that much because my job and income allow me to go home when I get the urge. I don't have kids or a spouse to hold me back.

Cut and paste a lot of your post, because I relate to the stuff I kept here. While I love my family back in St. Louis, being around them for more than a few days at a time reminds me why I live farther away from them.

I *could* move back, and there are times I feel I *should*--my parents are getting up there, after all--but my parents are a lot of why I moved away in the first place. (I love 'em, but in close proximity, things between us can get....tense.) I miss the greenery of STL, but I don't miss the heat and humidity. There are things about STL culture I miss, but I prefer the attitudes of Colorado much more. (However, I was born a Cardinals fan, and I will die a Cardinals fan. The Rockies will never take their place in my heart. )

[Mike from back east]

At this point my advice to the OP is to take what business majors know is almost always the first option any business has in its list of choices when making a decision, i.e., the 'no change' option. Do nothing. Keep studying the options and above all, your motives.

[alloo66]

I would choose San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles over Denver. However, that being said. I agree with others that say if you're going to have a wife and kids, having no support out here is going to suck and be isolating for your wife and your family members. Yes, you can fly back, but what's the point. A lot of East Coasters that I have known, have a very provincial attitude and go out west for the experience and move back home to have a family.

Uprooting then having a family is a tough chore away from any support system is setting your marriage up for failure. Losing tenure is a tough one. Lots of ex teachers here, Colorado has a very different culture from NY and so does the West Coast, nothing will ever be good enough food, lack of a city, lack of family,...etc. If you really love each other your move has to be a joint decision made equally.

Why Denver or, Orlando, or San Diego? Three very different places?

[twowilldo]

Originally Posted by Shaolin Shadowboxing

as you can see the chips are stacked WELL against me - that said, i am curious if anyone has made a similar move and may have some advice and lists of PROS to put into my column. !

Big mistake to take your spouse away from her environment, career and family, unless you truly intend to drive her out of your life. If that is the case I hope you make the decision before you bring kids into the world.

I am on the receiving end of the situation you are describing.

Successfully self-employed back in Denver, most of my family and all of my friends are there. I lived along the Front Range for my entire lifetime (59 years). I was pretty much forced to retire after 37 years in a job I loved, then started my own business and was doing pretty well. Spouse became estranged from his family, both his parents passed within a year of each other. He wanted to leave CO, I did not. We’ve been together for decades and I am seriously thinking of going home, with or without him. Fortunately, our kids are grown and on their own.

Unless your long-range plan includes becoming single, don’t do it.

[pikabike]

Bad move.

If she is close to family, such a long-distance move will only add strain on the relationship between you and her, and on the one between her and her relatives.

If she doesn’t care about leaving family, you still have the career and pay cuts (for both of you) to deal with. Any slight advantage to Denver COL might be cancelled out by income reduction, and that’s without even worrying about having dependents yet.

Someone I know told me his inlaws only deemed NYC, LA, and similar giant coastal cities as even existing at all. My own family was pretty close to this view also. I doubt my mother even could have found CO on a map without labels on it.

Some cultures view everything but Chicago between the coasts as nothing, sort of a vast void between “civilizations.”

[WhatTheFox]

Originally Posted by lovely40

If you want to keep her--stay in NY. Because if she ends up agreeing to move just to appease you, gets to Denver and hates it (50-50 chance she will) you'll never live it down. I can guarantee you that Denver is not worth getting a divorce for.

No city is worth a divorce.

[WhatTheFox]

Originally Posted by ShipwreckSiren

The grass isn’t always greener. I’ve never been to New York. I grew up in SC and moved to Denver a year ago. At first I loved it. I like variation in seasons, lack of humidity, the friendly people, the lack of mosquitos and cockroaches. But I’ve recently realized that Denver and Colorado are not for me and I want to move in a couple of years after I get some work experience under my belt.

Colorado is a beautiful state and it makes a lot of people happy, but that hasn’t been the case for me. I have ADHD and Bipolar disorder. I didn’t know this until moving here but the western mountain states are a region known as the suicide belt because they have the highest suicide rates in the country. There’s a correlation between an increase in altitude and higher rates of anxiety/depression and suicide. The same has been observed in Appalachia. Your brain gets less oxygen here and your serotonin levels drop. If you don’t have predisposed mental illness then you might be okay, but if you already have anxiety or depression it may be exacerbated up here. Medications to treat these disorders also don’t work as well here. I’ve had to raise my dosages on medications and have had worsening symptoms.

Add to that the fact that I have to wake up at 5am to commute to work downtown by 7am. During the dark winter months I barely saw sunlight. It was so cold and icy that I stopped going outside or exercising. I hate hot humid summers in the south and thought I liked winter. But I didn’t realize how long winter would last. It has been cold, gray, and intermittently snowy since Halloween and it won’t be spring until May. We will get about four weeks of lush green blooming and then by June it will get so hot that everything will wilt and turn brown. It will stay that way until about September and then get ready for another long and gray winter.

I flew out to Los Angeles Tuesday and got back today. It was my first time in California. I was actually able to wear shorts and a tank top. My pale skin was smiling from having the sun touch it. It was 77 degrees, things were pretty and colorful, a light breeze was blowing. Meanwhile CO was dropping from 80 degrees to a blizzard. I got so depressed getting on the plane to come back here. Everyone will say “Oh Denver has mild winter. Nothing compared to Chicago! More days of sun than LA and Miami!” My coworkers who are born and raised natives have said that’s bs. I always thought the northeast was cold but I’ll be damned if I don’t have friends in Philly and Boston enjoying spring. Same as the Midwest. I feel like a cold blooded lizard starving for sun rays. I imagine this must be how Bin laden felt in those caves all those years.

Besides the weather I’m also pretty bored in Denver. This isn’t a fault of Denver but it’s just not my cup of tea. I grew up on the coast and have realized that I don’t like the mountains as much as the beach. I don’t like constantly hiking and skiing. I don’t hanging out at breweries to drink craft beer. The downtown is pretty boring compared to a city like Los Angeles or Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. I’ve never been to NYC, or DC, or Chicago but I think I would enjoy living in a city like that more than Denver. Those cities seem to have more intellectual/cultural things to do like museums and theater whereas Colorado mainly runs out parks and rec tourism.

Even if you do like all of the outdoor mountain stuff get prepared to be miserable trying to fight the traffic up to the mountains on your days off. Because everyone wants to do that at the same time. It’s not like when you come on vacation. You’ll end up living here and paying premium for the mountains only to realize any of the fun hiking is a 2-3 hour drive into the mountains and that you hardly ever get to go.

You came, you gave it a shot and learnt that it isn't for you. Time to move on!

[WhatTheFox]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

I'll play "analyst" for a moment and go way out on a limb. Way out on a limb. Wild guesses on my part.

I'll surmise that attempts to move a wife against her will is a passive aggressive ploy to make her so unhappy that SHE will file for divorce and head back home. It could also be that the OP really doesn't want to be a father and this is a ploy to postpone fatherhood. Lastly, it could be the OP does not like his in-laws and/or the in-laws don't like him and he's using the ploy of moving to get a lot of distance from them. Any of these ploys (if true) indicates a probable need to dissolve the marriage -- but doing that directly may be too painfully hard / expensive for the OP so the subterfuge of moving provides the rationale/excuse for a way out.

Otherwise I don't see any urgency to get to Denver when on the cusp of fatherhood.

Definitely sounds like a possibility. Perhaps even the OP hasn't realized it and hence no answer to "Why Denver" or "Why San Diego"?