People will stick with their partners when there is far more and far less to leave for. Why must your boyfriend leave your city to get a job? Is nothing there? What does he do? Is he an anthropologist specializing in Caribbean shamanism and there is none in your area? A celebrity reporter who can't find anyone to follow? Aren't careers somewhat transportable? I'm no authority, as I've moved around a lot and tend to find little jobs wherever I go, but it seems like there's something going on beyond what you see. Unless you are in a very small town, there must be some way he could change career where you already are, or even wait a few years. Itchy feet, however, has no cure but to go.

Great advice from Cary. Letter writer, it is more than clear that your boyfriend is not committed to you. Your daughter or no, he is not committed to you. He's committed to his ambitions and goals but clearly not to yours, regardless of how much he loves you. I also don't think he loves you "enough" as Cary said, but that's neither here nor there. Love is not just a feeling - it's made up of our behaviour and actions. Do his actions feel like love to you?

I know living together (even owning a home together) occasionally can mean a truly lifelong committed relationship, or sometimes can lead to it, but obviously this is not the case with you and your boyfriend. It's an ambiguous middle-ground - not committed enough to make a public committment (marriage), but good enough for the interim.

By the way, begging you to go with him would not the answer either, in my opinion. A child NEEDS to be near both loving parents, and that NECESSARILY means not moving across the country for the career ambitions of the new guy in daughter's life (your boyfriend). I know your boyfriend isn't a father (though he's living with your daughter and therefore needs to assume some of the responsibilities of being her father), but even he should understand that your daughter's needs much come FIRST in this blended family - not his, not yours, not her biological father's.

I know it hurts and it probably makes you wonder if you will ever find love again, but that pain will pass with time and with the understanding that you deserve a man who loves you in a true sense and is willing to do what's best for you AND your daughter, EVEN if it means sacrifice for himself. Perhaps that will have to wait some more years, until your daughter moves out and doesn't need you in the same way that she needs you now, but eventually it will happen and you'll be a much happier person knowing the person you marry values you as much as himself.

That she feels she should be included is absolute bullshit. She is a girlfriend, nothing more. She envisions herself as something more than he did, that is her mistake. She sees him as her ticket. He did the right thing. Career must come first, end of story. What part of this does she fail to understand. Effectively, he has used his career move to dump her. Don't think he had not considered it many other times. He did. This was just convenient. She doesn't need advice, the decision is made. She needs a brief rebound fling and to move on, like an adult.

Other than as slop to fill the inside of Valentine's Day cards, I don't think much of Cary's advice today. Maybe it's just me, but I'm in my late forties and know MANY people who are looking for volcanic, all-consuming love and are very lonely in the meantime. Sometimes love is just comforting, companionship, and partnering. I don't think it's good advice to ditch relationships just because you reach an intersection and need to decide which turn to make.

Why is LW setting up this life or death decision between her daughter and his career? And why is the answer "stay put for the daughter's sake"? Sometimes people say, today, I need to put my career before my girlfriend's daughter. That doesn't mean they don't love or are not worthy of being loved. Some people have kids AND careers, even though their kids would be better off if they had lesser careers or just stayed at home. They're not horrible people, are they? And they manage. Sometimes, they rationalize by saying the kids are better off with happier parents, and maybe they're right. And people relocate (even with kids) successfully all the time.

Maybe the real problem is that LW doesn't love the boyfriend enough to make some sacrifices in her life. Maybe we need to know why she's divorced from the first "good guy" anyway.

Families move all the time. The problem is the LWs because she doesn't want to move...father's access rights...kid's multiple parents...etc. etc. Again this is why broken families suck for all concerned. If the kid was their daughter they could choose to move the whole family and begin a life in another city. Why the hell not? But they can't because of "the father". So this poor guy, who wants to move because he's got a kick ass job offer in exactly what he wants to do in exactly the city he wants to live in, is forced to say to his girlfriend - who he probably loves "enough" - "Honey, I gotta go".

He can't say, "Honey, let's go" because of the kid. And so the cycle of resentment builds. If he goes, she resents the kid because she can't follow. If he stays, he resents the kid because he had to give up what he wanted (and what might have been a good thing for all of them, not just him).

So unless the LW can meditate away the resentment at the lost relationship, she should talk to the boyfriend about what he wants. Maybe he is using this as a way of getting out of a cumbersome relationship. Or maybe he just wants to advance his career (which he's allowed to do, you know? All of us are.) And maybe he really wants her and the kid to go with him but is afraid to ask or put that pressure on. At some point this dialogue is going to have to happen.

This "blame the guy" crap is ridiculous. The guy is a human with wants and ambitions. Frustrating them is going to get nobody anywhere. It's just going to build resentment. And kids in families full of resentment get screwed up. Kids in families where the members are happy and fulfilled get a better chance at a happy childhood.