What to do About my Job...

[shengmei]

Re: What to do About my Job...

fern:
i think you have solved the dilema.. very smart answers in your comments.. way to go!!

I totally agree. I believe both of you guys are actually mature enough to take the plunge.

[TBH]

Re: What to do About my Job...

Fern,
I think you are very gracious to take relationship advice from people when you asked about your job.

About your job: I agree with those who said "wait and see". You do have several months before the winter might force your hand. Telecommuting is dreamy and worth staying if you can get it.

If you do decide to look for something else near your new home, you can take your time finding the perfect situation because you already have a job. That's a great position to be in.

If you and SO haven't already hammered out all the legal and financial issues of living together, check out my review of the book Money without matrimony. Being unmarried makes things more complicated, whether you plan to get married eventually or not. My SO and I have been happily unmarried for five years and I thought all our bases were covered. This book revealed some serious holes in our planning, so I'm glad I read it.

Good luck with job, decisions, etc. You always seem so clearheaded on here. I appreciate hearing your perspective.

[shengmei]

Re: What to do About my Job...

Fern,
I think you are very gracious to take relationship advice from people when you asked about your job.

I agree.

[lynclarke]

Re: What to do About my Job...

Fern- Actually, I am just as truthful in person. I am an RN with a BA Psych and Certified Hospice RN. I have worked for 32 years as a nurse in OB/GYN,Med/Surg, Air Force Flight Nurse, ER, Home Health, and Hospice. When someone asks me about athlete's foot and it is apparent that there is an abscess on the nose, I can't discuss just athlete's foot.

My concern for you is that you are doing all the changing. I would feel a whole lot better if you were both moving into a new space and you both had to make significant changes/compromises. At this point, you are the new kid on the block and you will be trying to fit into the status quo. If it doesn't work out, you again will be the person making all the changes and the compromises. I don't see that as in your best interest. As an outsider, I wonder if you want to keep the job as a "lovey". It makes you safe, understood, appreciated, and it keeps one foot in your present community.

I think he needs to have some vested interest in this entire process. If it happens to be paying for your health care, so be it. After you move, you will need time to settle in, unpack, and get a feeling for your new environment. If you go job hunting, you will meet new people, learn where things are, and generally start to fit into your new community on your own merits. You need an identity other than your SO's SO.

(Speaking of new kid on the block, I went to 13 schools because my father was an alcoholic and everyone in my house beat up someone else- I learned survival early- fortunately they divorced when I was 14 but the beatings didn't stop. I left at 20 and never went back. You have to protect your own back). lynclarke

[Fern]

Re: What to do About my Job...

thanks again, everyone, for being so candid. I don't mind it, really. And actually, the job and move scenario are intricately linked with my relationship, so it's hard to talk about one without mentioning the other.

Lynclarke, i am aware that i'm the one making all the changes but, well, when it comes to who's moving in with whom, someone's got to do it, and his job is really better than mine in terms of growth, long-term prospects, etc.

Here's a quote that sums up my feelings on the subject:

There are some things in life, and they may be the most important things, that we cannot know by research or reflection, but only by committing ourselves. We must dare in order to know. Life is full of situations to which I can respond not with part of myself but only with commitment of my whole being."
--J.H. Oldham Life is Commitment (1953)

I've never been one to shy away from making changes if i thought it somehow would improve my life. This one's not going to be easy, but if it is true that my primary relationship is more important to me than really anything else, then i wouldn't be true to my convictions if i held back, hemmed and hawed, delayed or whatever. Remember, I'm 46 now, now 22.

For what it's worth, SO has been working very hard for months now to help me get my house looking good for its sale: scraping and painting my dining room ceiling, putting in a new bedroom door, repairing cement walls, repairing sheetrock walls, landscaping the yard, the list goes on and on. Much of the supplies he pays for and doesn't ask for reimbursement. (He also has been doing the majority of the cooking, or else takes me out.)

So the home repairs are one way he can have a 'vested interest.' During the week, he works from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and doesn't usually get home til about 7 or so cus he works out daily. So he's a hard-working man who is contributing what he can to the process. He has been clearing out closets to make room for my stuff. His spare bedroom will become my office, and he's selling a lot of old stuff, again, to make rooom for me in his life. He's letting me confiscate space to do my gardening at his yard. I don't think you could say he is not trying to accommodate me and make me comfortable in his world. If things work out, we will likely stay in his home for about 10 years til he retires at age 60 or so, then we would like to buy our 'retirement' home somewhere in mid-Atlantic states (NC, SC, VA).

Marriage, again, is something he wants. I do too, tho i am the one taking the baby steps at living together first.

[Fern]

Re: What to do About my Job...

One more thing i was going to point out is that i was planning on selling my home in a year or so ANYWAY, even before I met SO, due to the expense and maintenance issues. So the house sale is one change SO really didn't influence on his own, the wheels were in motion already. So yes i am making big changes in my life, but they are largely of my own doing and partly independent of SO.