While my wife and I are mostly eye-to-eye on bills, etc., we are in a disagreement on where to live. We live in Texas, a state I loathe. I'm not from here. I grew up in Europe. My wife is from this area. She makes twice what I make. Both of us love the scenery and overall PNW vibe. I have been trying for years to get my wife to move. She finds every excuse in the book. Meanwhile, neither of us are getting younger. Our daughter is graduating HS soon. This leaves a kid in the house for several more years. Once my daughter is off on her own, I suggested being able to downsize (no real opposition there), maybe buy a nice double-wide trailer on our own land (no real opposition), and save money on taxes, etc., in the PNW close to a fairly large conurbation where we could work.
It's tough trying to get someone to see your PoV. Maybe do a spreadsheet with numbers to show her how you could get ahead elsewhere, keeping in mind her hobby. Big houses suck. Literally. Ours is ~2500sf and the upkeep is ridiculous. Maybe sell it as, "we could both do more with our respective hobbies if we had a cheaper outlay every month. We can only be in one room at a time, so having a lavish house is more to impress others than for our own benefit. I encourage you to pursue your hobby (within reason/set a budget maybe). Set a budget for you both outside of essential spending (housing/utilities/medical) and stick to it. I now no longer buy computers. I buy RPis and do things with them. They have a command line. I'm happy. My wife gets her happiness from attending sports games of our children. Her other hobby is gaming. Sell the idea of moving to a cheaper state with less taxes/cheaper property taxes and downsizing but keeping her hobby. It's all about compromise (but not your dignity). Remember, love is not a sentiment or emotion, it's an act of the will. Love wills the good of the other for the other. Find a way to make you both "happy" while giving you both what you want. I'm sure a nice, expensive house with high taxes and ugly upkeep costs would take a back seat to your wife's hobby (at least I would hope it would). Chart it out with numbers and present them. You owe it to yourself to stand up and set the tone, but do so with respect and tangible ideas that you can execute on. Everyone has great ideas, but almost no one can execute on them well.
As someone from the Gulf South who lived in the PNW for most of a decade:
There is a not insignificant chance your Southern wife will be incredibly miserable in the PNW. It is gorgeous and green but it is also grey, and if your wife has not lived in similar conditions before, it is very possible that the lack of Actual Sun will start giving her heavy seasonal depression.
A huge sun lamp will help. So will regular megadoses of vitamin D. But she may be like me and find that even with that, the urge to kill herself gets louder and louder every winter.
I moved back to my very culturally weird Southern birthplace a couple of years ago and that urge completely vanished.
Thank you for the information. Fortunately, we are both overcast lovers, so the SAD angle would likely not play a huge role. Growing up in Europe myself, I prefer 9 months of overcast and rain. I'm at a high risk for skin cancer, so this features into my desire to move as well.
For my wife, the primary reason is that her parents are here. She doesn't want to leave them, which I can understand, but at the same time, they are loaded and want for nothing. My parents are long gone, so I have zero attachment to the area other than my wife.
No matter how rigged the courts are, it can't be worse than spending 100% of your money taking care of the two of you. You'll still need to stay in the same city for custody, but at least you can switch to a less stressful job.
Also, you should keep your eyes peeled for remote jobs.
"...but at least you can switch to a less stressful job."
Nope, the courts will force child support and probably alimony based on the current job rather than some lower paying job one might get during/after any divorce.
At this point you're participating in your own abuse. Your relationship is unbalanced and objectively broken. If you're unwilling to entertain any realistic solutions then you're wasting everyone's time complaining about it.
You should seek out real help, either a therapist or marriage counselor. There's no actual reason for you to stay in your current broken state. Your made up reasons are equal parts bullshit and naivety.
I wasn't going to jump into this thread and I don't want to turn this into "Relationship News" but, I feel like I need to let you know.
I grew up with divorced parents who were together longer than they should've been and let me tell you, kids know. They absolutely know when their parents are together but can't stand each other and what's worse, they may assume it's their fault.
I grew up with parents who divorced when I was 18 months old when it became clear they did not love each other anymore. But they both wanted the best for me, and didn't do the petty shit I've heard about other couples where they shit-talked each other to the kid or something. They split time with me evenly.
They both eventually got re-married and are very happy and I have no regrets about how my childhood went in that regard.
Seconding. Furthermore, please don't feel like you gotta stay together "for the kid". At least ask the kid whether they care. My parents asked me. I told them I didn't care.
Looks like you are less than 10 years into the marriage. Get out ASAP. You are stuck with alimony for basically half the length of your marriage. Unless it exceeds 10 years. Then you are stuck for life.
Wow, those are some crazy laws. Child support is mandatory around here, and follows well defined rules, but spousal support ("alimony") is much less well defined and (in my limited understanding) less common and shorter lived.
Edit: "around here" being Australia and New Zealand
To be fair, I expect people to at least make it to the second sentence of an article on Hacker News before rushing to criticize people in the comments.
