LW my first impulse is to say "go with her!" I'm in my early thirties now and I several great jobs during my 20s. It's wonderful to do something you like or love. The thing is, during those years I was adamant about not ruining those great jobs. Now that I look back on it I wish I had taken more risk; moved somewhere because I wanted to; run off to Europe for a while.....You see where this is going. You've got an entire 50 or so years to work at a desk job. But then again, that may be because I am the type of person who thinks the Peace Corps could turn out to be a worthwile adventure for a very worthy cause.

One letter-writer mentioned the way we feel about the spouse joining the PC compared to the spouse joining the Army. Both have definite negatives, especially for the spouse left at home. But men and women who join the armed forces often feel a special obligation to serve and protect our country. This altruism is not always rewarded--aka, Iraq Happens. But are we as a world better off when people act on their sense of duty (not to mention their desire for adventure?) It is easy for people to say "she doesn't know what she is getting in to" or "she's running from the marriage"...both of those might be true, but she's working in the developing world now. It is obviously something of great importance in her life.

This is not to say that people never join the military or the PC for the wrong reasons. They do. But think about Salon's cover story today: millions of people are dying from starvation in the Third World. The article says Western apathy is to blame. So why are we more critical of the Peace Corp wannabe than the gung-ho army person?

I was struck by the LW's comment that she kept a secret from him. What secret? Earlier in his letter he said his wife was accepted by the PC years ago. She still wants it. What's the secret?

There's probably some truth to the statement that she is not ready and able to be in the marriage. But she told her husband she wanted him to go with her. Don't we have to take her at face value?

LW, ultimately this is an awful spot to be in--and it is all about values. Yours, hers and yours as couple. I get the feeling that you do not share her enthusiasm and love for this sort of thing. That's neither bad nor good. You need to find out if you both have different ideas about where you will be in 5 years. Maybe you are on two different paths. If true, this totally sucks but the sooner you figure it out, the better you will both be. It is much, much worse once you've had children together.

I would imagine LW's wife is going to decide to leave. At least he'll be able to salve his wounds by believing she left because she needed to be of service. If she stays, the marriage is probably going to end because she no longer loves him.

Better to end it now, before there are children involved and it becomes rancorous.

She'll be out in the world doing good works and he'll have his job, so they will both get what's important to them.

As for eric_trance, how are you able to brand her as selfish without applying the same label to him?

I'm with Cary on this one. Wedding vows should not be taken lightly, and, I may offend some with this statement, but I think the LW's wife is doing just that.

A marriage means sharing your dreams and making compromises. I think being voluntarily away from one's spouse for two years, when the other objects, is selfish ... it would be different if she were in the Peace Corps while she was single and they still wanted to be together inspite of the distance.

However, she wants to go into the Peace Corps without her husband's blessing and yet keep the marriage intact. It's as if she married him under false pretenses. It is not fair to the husband. Two years apart so early in the marriage was not in the realm of possibility for him when he took his marriage vows.

The wife, if she is serious about her marriage, ought to consider short-term options for working abroad. Or, she ought to find a way to work with a non-profit/foundation in their metropolitan area that will give her the opportunity to go abroad for short trips.

On the other hand, if the Peace Corps is the only option she is willing to consider, then she will just have to accept the consequences of her actions. If that means letting her husband go, then she should do that.

The harder he resists, the easier it's going to be for her to leave.

But she told me that she has been thinking about doing this for a long time (since before we were married) but has only told me now, and honestly, that makes me wonder what else she is not telling me, or if there are other profound desires that she is suppressing.

Wow. A strong desire to join the Peace Corps someday is a pretty huge piece of information to withhold from your would-be betrothed, even if that's the only thing she withheld. That's right up there with, "Oh, by the way, I'm not having children ever, sorry I forgot to tell you before the wedding."

Surely if she's been serious about this for a long time, she has long known what was posted in this thread a little while back, that anyone who's permanently coupled won't be accepted in the PC unless his/her partner also joins. If she doesn't know this, she may not be as serious about this "dream" as she claims to be; it may well be merely an escape fantasy for her. Or she might be one of those love-will-conquer-all romantics who simply assumed everything would work out if she just followed her heart. Oops.

Comparisons with partners in the military or whose jobs take them overseas aren't really felicitous here. If your partner is in the military, or intends to be, typically you know that long before you get involved, it's not something that's sprung on you one day out of the clear blue. (Assuming we continue to have an all-volunteer military, of course.) And if your partner's job takes him/her to another industrialized country, presumably there are other things for you to do in that country, opportunities for you to make a life; you don't have to do the same kind of work s/he is doing.

But in the PC you're typically sent to places where, if you're not connected to that organization, there's not only no reason to want to be there, but also, in many cases, no way to survive otherwise. And I strongly doubt the PC wants anyone to come along who doesn't passionately want to be there. There's too much at stake.

This couple has obviously reached the fork in the road; either the LW needs to find the passion that his wife has for saving the world and go along for the ride, or she needs to find another way to satisfy her calling other than the Peace Corps. A simple choice, but obviously an agonizing one, one that probably needs to be made with the help of a disinterested third party.