LW did not explain why or if going with her would be out of the question. Since they are young and don't have kids, he should consider supporting her desires/ambitions and going with her for two years. He is young enough that his own career ambitions are probably salvageable and can be put on hold. If marriage means to have and to hold, then maybe he could have and hold her overseas!

It seems to me that your wife is saying that she doesn't really want to be married right now.

Yes, she will probably resent you if you force her to stay. And you will probably resent her if she goes away without you, or if she expects you to quit a job you love to go with her. It is hard to see a good ending for this.

The only possible good ening I see is if you go with her, given there is some way that you can be assured of getting the same or similar job after you return. And that is hard to imagine.

Wow, this one really sucks.

Modern people think they can have it all. Then that terrible day dawns when they realize they can't: that they have to pick the one or two things that are most important to them. Let that day dawn for you and your wife today, my friend.

Cary's nailed this one. Seven-year-itch it may be, which means it may also be an opportunity for divorce.

Who would willingly--even enthusiastically--abandon a spouse for two years without ensuring that the spouse was in agreement? Only an unhappy partner.

LW, your gut reaction is right. There's more going on than a burning desire to purify water in central Africa.

If you love something; set if free.

If it doesn't come back; hunt it down and kill it.

This one sucks, to be sure. The odds of not jumping the fence in two years for two hot blooded twentysomethings is slim and none, and slim is in Texas.

You let her go, you guarantee one or both of you screw around and potentially grow further apart.

You put your foot down; she holds it against you for the rest of her life.

You go with her, and you resent blowing up your career to follow some tail more concerned with solving world peace than with building a life together.

My fippant advice is to start going to bars. You are going to need to drown your sorrows and look for a new partner. In between that you are going to need a few rebound partners. Those are best found poured onto a barstool.

What I hear in the LW's description of the situation is that his spouse said "I am going, I want you to come with me". This is much different than negotiating something acceptable to both parties. That would be something like "I am seeing career possibilities in the third world for me. I wonder if that is something that might be attractive to you. Can we see if we can work something out?" Something like we used to call "win-win".

This is discounting the possibility that there are ulterior motives involved.

I have nothing against the Peace Corps. I married a returning PCV, and for her it was a life-altering experience, but she did it when she was foot-loose and fancy-free. Being married implies a willingness to work on living in the same place and sleeping in the same bed - at least to me it does - your mileage may be different.

imagine every woman whose husband made a career move to another country had been given Cary's advice to divorce and not to just follow her husband - i wonder how many more divorces that would have resulted in.

i do concede that just announcing "i'm gonna join the peace corps, no matter what you say" would be an inferior strategy to having an honest discussion about it, but somehow i doubt this just came out of the blue to the lw's total surprise.

My guess is that she really doesn't want to be married, or at least has mixed feelings. Let her go, and feel free to enjoy yourself in her absence. This is an opportunity for you both to test your committment to your union.

that nearly half of the early responses support your wife's selfishness. This display of self-centeredness perfectly illustrates the devaluation of marriage in society today. My disappointment in the ill-considered advice offered here is only matched by the hubris of people who suggest you quit your job. Cary very succinctly summarized the matter. And while compromise may be the glue that strengthens relationships, unfortunately, there isn’t much room to concede here. Waiting five years to see if your wife still wishes to follow that dream is tantamount to living with a ticking bomb that you continually throw old blankets upon. The noise may soon fade, but those blankets won’t quell the eventual explosion.

Look at the problem this way. Would your wife allow you two years of voluntary separation? If the answer is yes, then you really need to consider that marriage doesn’t mean the same thing to her as it does to you. If the answer is no, well, that speaks for itself. Either way you have my sympathies. I’ve a dear friend who was taken for the same ride after seven years of marriage and nearly a decade of commitment. The good news is that he’s getting better every day.

peace

Cary, your advice is spot on. This young man is looking at a marriage that has probably cooled off to the point where it makes sense to part ways now, rather than five years later. If someone you married a year ago wants now to be in a different hemisphere for two years, they're telling you something. He should let her go save others while saving himself from what looks like inevitable heartache in another few years. People make mistakes, sometimes getting married young is one of them.