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I hear what you're saying. I have a niche skill set in a field which limits me to the are I am currently in (DC). I would never move or change jobs for love.
My position is basically non-exsistant anywhere else in the country. Plus I have my masters in the same field which helped land me the job I have. I just couldn't throw it all away.
It's very true that different career arcs and preferences come with differing degrees of flexibility, and, like in the OP's situation, this is important to consider before embarking upon any relationship. Were I a person who categorically HAD to live in a particular place to do my work, and could under no circumstances move, my husband and I would have found our lifestyles to be incompatible, and things never would have reached the point where we got married. These things are important to know up front. My husband and I talked, early on, when we were both feeling like our relationship was progressing to the serious end of things, about what our mobility looked like, and it was well-discussed that I had absolutely no issue with being the military spouse who accompanies the servicemember on orders. Not all military spouses do so...my husband currently works with numerous colleagues whose spouses and families didn't or couldn't come with for the tour, and they live apart. Sometimes it's career inflexibility, sometimes it's choosing not to uproot kids from school, or leave a community you like for a limited billet, sometimes it's just personal preference. They call it "geo-batching."
Is anybody saying, "Choose love, and don't work a job/don't pay your mortgage/don't maintain a savings or retirement account?"
I'm not sure I've been reading it that way.
Even in the OP, the poster stated that it wouldn't be a matter of giving up working, just of changing jobs, to one that "wouldn't be quite as good."
Either way you slice it, compromises sometimes have to happen. Either you adjust your expectations for your personal life, or you adjust your expectations for your professional life. Very few people get everything they want, all the time, in both, if they are in a relationship of any seriousness. If your relationships are more superficial, it's more likely that you can get what you want out of them 100% of the time without making any sacrifices in any other areas, because you're not really expecting very much in the first place.
Jobs in higher ed aren't like normal jobs. There are anywhere from 50-200 openings in your field per year in the U.S. all with 100 or so applicants vying for each of them. I'm pretty good and would probably make the first two cuts in most searches for equivalent positions. Now I have experience so it would help. Still, if you want to change jobs for a similar one - the way it works is you go on the market for all 200 positions and be happy if you get 10 call-backs and 3 offers - you can't discriminate by location and expect to have a high chance at landing a position.
Odds are, I would have to just give up this career track and take anything I could get in another location, which would probably mean I would no longer make a middle class salary, at least not for the first couple years. I do have skills so I could find something, probably.
Both of us were the "stars" in our master's program - actually her more than me - we dominated all the awards our final year although she got the most prestigious one. This is something we put tons of hard work hours and YEARS into. We fed off each other's energy making each other better & it was part of what made us such a good couple.
To some extent though, the job is part of your identity. For her this is something she will have invested 8 years of education into - for me 3 years of education + 4 years on the job track. People not in academia have a hard time understanding this; it's extremely traumatic to give it up.
If I commit to her I have to commit to two more years of long distance, when we've already had almost 2, and then take a bet that she won't make a similar choice as before (knowing how hard that choice is).
Last edited by redguard57; 08-13-2014 at 03:52 PM..
well, I think there is a difference between career and 'CAREER'.
I threw my career away for love and moved across the ocean to start from scratch.
But I was just a paralegal. If I would have been an attorney and be partner in a law firm, I might have thought twice of even starting to date a foreigner.
Jobs in higher ed aren't like normal jobs. There are anywhere from 50-200 openings in your field per year in the U.S. all with 100 or so applicants vying for each of them. I'm pretty good and would probably make the first two cuts in most searches for equivalent positions. Now I have experience so it would help. Still, if you want to change jobs for a similar one - the way it works is you go on the market for all 200 positions and be happy if you get 10 call-backs and 3 offers - you can't discriminate by location and expect to have a high chance at landing a position.
Odds are, I would have to just give up this career track and take anything I could get in another location, which would probably mean I would no longer make a middle class salary, at least not for the first couple years. I do have skills so I could find something, probably.
Both of us were the "stars" in our master's program - actually her more than me - we dominated all the awards our final year although she got the most prestigious one. This is something we put tons of hard work hours and YEARS into. We fed off each other's energy making each other better & it was part of what made us such a good couple.
To some extent though, the job is part of your identity. For her this is something she will have invested 8 years of education into - for me 3 years of education + 4 years on the job track. People not in academia have a hard time understanding this; it's extremely traumatic to give it up.
If I commit to her I have to commit to two more years of long distance, when we've already had almost 2, and then take a bet that she won't make a similar choice as before (knowing how hard that choice is).
It's really not as difficult to understand as you think, even for people who don't work in higher ed (and higher ed isn't the only setting where such issues come up, either). The situation appears to be that your career aspirations are most likely incompatible. It happens, and if there is no room for flexibility in career (and it sounds like there isn't), things are most likely not going to work. I do know two music professors whose careers have caused them to live in a marriage separated by thousands of miles for most of their careers. They are both odd people, and it seems to work for them, but that's obviously not going to work for the vast, vast majority of folks, academics or not. I've seen it in my current milieu, as well, in dual military marriages...they very often do not work out.
The fact is, certain career tracks do not lend themselves to marriage if a spouse has a less than flexible, or even competing, career track. If a LTR or marriage is a goal, this something very crucial to consider.
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