Letters to the Editor
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I think I'd wait . . .
to make any firm decisions about what the BF is up to here. I was 6 months pregnant with child #2 in a very solid marriage when my husband interviewed in a city almost 4 hours drive away. The job was so much better than what he had that he really felt he needed to look into it. He was offered the position, accepted--and it truly wasn't until he was in the process of resigning from the job he was in that he processed what it would mean to leave me and our children. Our plan wasn't permanent separation, it was a complex multi-year maneuver associated with significant uncertainty--but my point is this: I'd already looked on-line at housing, schools, places for me to work. I'd already begun steeling myself to raising our children alone for at least a year or two, including the difficult first year of a baby. (We had talked--and perhaps that's not what's gone on with the LW's BF.) But for my husband, not until he was halfway across the bridge did he start to look around and consider the cost/benefit picture (He opted to stay with the local job and used the offer to leverage a better situation, thankfully). I've talked to other women with similar stories. Not to generalize--there are men who plan, I'm sure--but there are also men who wait to start planning until they know more about their options. If he's really leaving for the job, and he really hasn't asked the LW how their relationship will be sustained, then of course, he's already made the decision and she'll have to let him go. But wait until he's gotten the offer and accepted it before deciding what he's doing. I'd bet that's what he's doing.
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Tough Situation
I like this couple. I like this woman, her BF, and the father of her child. They are the sort of people I would probably be friends with. Selfish and selfless. I think for many people and their careers, they don't have as much of choice in terms of the location of their work. In a couple, there is almost one member who makes a sacrafice for the other. And Cary is exactly right when he says this man does not love her enough. He may love her deeply, deeply enough that he would stay if his career was in this town. But he doesn't love her enough to sacrifice his ambition or to ask her to sacrifice everything she has to move with him. Maybe he's just coward and looking for an exit, but just maybe he's a thoughtul soul who has searched his heart and found that he has enough doubt that he couldn't and wouldn't demand this woman and her child to follow him. That doesn't make him a bad guy, it just make him a guy who isn't committed. Better to make no promises than to break them. If the LW had no child and was not deeply rooted to her career, maybe she should take that risk and move to be with this man even he doesn't demand it. But ultimately she know she has to do right by her child first.
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Ladies, and those others who seem to have a problem with this man's decision
1. They are NOT married. If he wanted to involve her in these decisions, they would be married.
2. The child is NOT his. The job of being her father is already taken by someone more qualified, her father.
3. The mother is insecure and deluded. Her letter states she wants him to beg her to come along with him. WTF is all that narcissistic bullshit she is spewing. Her 1st priority should be her daughter, period, but it's not. It is her and her desire to be begged to come along and the histrionics she is demonstrating. I am surprised he lasted as long as he did. Lets face it, she's writing for online advice (another strike).
4. The guy has no children and the issues surrounding dealing with another man's progeny and his x-wife are a can of worms he doesn't need or want. If he did, he would have asked her to marry him.
5. Career comes 1st. Sorry, but he probably also wants to have his own wife and children, not someone else's and all the baggage that comes with it. He must take care of himself 1st. Nothing wrong with that. It is called enlightened self interest. This is Darwin at work, survival of the fittest.
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Yes, he would
To the LW - in answer to your question, if your boyfriend loved you enough, yes, he would ask you to go with him. Or make arrangements to stay with you.
You're absolutely doing the right thing by giving your daughter a stable, steady homelife. The connections and foundation she is building right now will last you a lifetime. Big-time kudoes for you and I hope you meet someone who *does* love you enough. I would just let him go and see what happens.
BTW - to all of you who called her selfish and narcissistic, I don't get it at all. And there are many, many stepfathers and stepfather-equivalents who love their partner's children as their own - and more than a few fathers out there who really don't treat their "progeny" all that well.
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...Beg me...
I thought Cary's advice was good. I would only add something for the next boyfriend. Don't move in with the next boyfriend. Wait for a commitment. Clearly living together & owning a home together didn't mean commitment to this guy.
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Correction...
A man may be a stepfather, but the children are not his own and he is not their father. This is a simple fact lost on many. More often than not their father is a good man and a good father, irrespective of divorce. Justifying this woman's selfish, self-absorbed behavior does not make it right. Also, that she actually wrote in for anonymous, online advice also demonstated how out of touch with reality she is.
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somebody's a cranky monkey!
troll alert...
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Beg Me?
Anyone who wants a man to "beg them" to go with them is looking for someone who is not a man, but a eunuch. Any man who begs needs to locate his testicles, as they are missing in action. You need to go to other parts of the world to find a eunuch. The writer of the letter seeking advice is a nutjob.