I think the big question is if your wife would really want you to go with her.

If she does and she just wants to have foreign adventures then the marriage has a chance. It sounds like the wife is fairly flaky--she will only work with the Peace Corps but she doesn't seem to be aware of the requirements the Peace Corps has for married volunteers. As somebody else pointed out, she's probably in the honeymoon phase of her foreign-volunteer work (sad that she's not in the honeymoon phase of the marriage after only a year) and is afraid that she'll be giving up her chances of having an exciting life if she returns to the US and settles down with her husband.

My big worry comes from her insistence on joining the Peace Corps and not one of the many other outfits that would allow her to live and work in the developing world. It sounds like the Peace Corps demands that both she and her husband will have to work for them, or she'll have to be single before she goes. If she knows her husband isn't the Peace Corps type this is a convenient excuse for a divorce.

What she needs to do is come home at the end of the summer and you guys need to figure out how to accommodate everyone involved. No reason for a marriage counselor.

You can work it out. She could join the State Department or AID and you could go with her and find a job similar to the one you have in the US; you could stay in the States and your wife could take a job with summers off that would allow her to volunteer abroad every summer; she could go into academia and specialize in the locales and problems that interest her while keeping a base in the US. There are so many ways that you guys could work this out--I know, I'm a little like your wife in my need for foreign adventures and my situation is even more complicated--but if your wife insists on the Peace Corps or nothing, then you married someone who is far too immature and selfish to be in an adult relationship, much less a marriage.

Good luck.

That's what LW's wife is essentially saying. She does not love him.

The LW is now at a point in his young life where he needs to see reality as it is, not as he wishes it were. And the Reality Factor is telling him that his wife wants to leave.

I disagree with Cary that he should fight for his marraige. Begging his wife to stay will only make her more resolved to leave.

When it's over, it's over. Women don't fall back in love with the same man. The best he can do is temporarily persuade his wife to stay with him, and her resentment, passive-agressiveness, etc. toward him will grow, and then she'll leave anyway.

Let her go, find someone else. Let the divorce be uncomplcated. You're young, and now also experienced.

Especially since you mention that there are other, shorter term possibilities she should engage in. He is not obligated to be her "soft place to land" while she goes off traipsing around the world, taking care of her boring business crap and storing her furniture and winter clothes in his apartment and providing her with a place to live. At first I felt a lot of sympathy for her--she wants an adventure! She doesn't have a kid! But as exciting as it is, there's got to be some way to compromise, because this is not acceptable to the husband, and that is basically very fair.

Definitely work out this issue with a neutral third party like a counselor. But think hard about going with your wife.

Joining the Peace Corps was something I always wanted to do, and never did. I spent my twenties casting about through various desk jobs that were unfulfilling but paid the bills. Yes, I have a house now, but... I also have a family, a lawn, a dog, and volunteer commitments at the elementary school. I chose all those things, don't get me wrong, and I love my family dearly, but the Peace Corps is simply not an option now, at all, not until the kids are out of college and I can consider joining as a retiree (they have a program now for that, I've heard). I'm lucky to find a Saturday morning to sleep late.

I know it's incredibly hard to see from where you sit (in your twenties with your good job)--that this brief time in your life before major commitments like mortgages and children is indeed very brief. It seems that your one major commitment is your wife... see if you can make it work.

Good luck.

Marriage requires an incredible amount of compromise.

I sense that the LW if flexible. He wants to make this work.

However, his wife is emphatic. She insists that she go abroad, that it is her dream.

It’s not like she’s asking him to go live abroad in a place where he too has growth and enrichment opportunities of his own. No. She’s essentially asking him to live for several years in an underdeveloped country and watch her do her job.

She is unfair and unreasonable – two qualities that certainly don’t help build a long-term, mutually fulfilling relationship.

Marriage sometimes means sacrifice. As much as we may wish the contrary, we can’t always have it all.

I agree with Cary. If she absolutely refuses to yield (e.g. choose an opportunity that requires a shorter stint), then it’s time to end the relationship.

Having been widowed after near forty years of marriage I am well aware that marriage means give and take. I also know that President Jimmy Carters mother was a Peace Corps volunteer after age sixty, so it isnt as if being a Peace Corp volunteer is something you have to do in your twenties.

What puzzles me is this. What kind of communication did these two people have before they got married? I ask because if this is something she realllllly wanted to do, did she ever even suggest it was something she wanted to do while married? If so then he had a hint that this could be a possibility. If not then she lacks honesty and should realize she is hurting the man she professed to love so much.

Hope other singles read My wife wants to join the Peace Corps... because its a serious message about what to do before you get married or even involved with someone seriously.

~Beth