Every week, Mallory Ortberg answers additional questions from readers, just for Slate Plus members.
Q. Absence makes the heart …: I’ve been dating the love of my life for about a year and a half. For about half of that time he’s been in grad school and the other half he’s spent looking for work in his field. Right now he has a low-paying job that keeps him at poverty level and leaves him unable to pay his credit card or student loan debts.
The problem? He just got a job offer 1,300 miles away. It’s his dream job, the pay is great, and it is quite prestigious. He does not want to leave, as he likes the area we live in and he loves me, but this offer is almost too good to be true. I have a job I love here, at the top of my chosen profession. I wake up every morning thrilled to go to work—I would probably continue to do this job even if I won the lottery tomorrow.
Should I look for jobs in his new city, where I don’t want to live and where no job will be quite as good as the one I currently have, or should I stay here and try to make long distance work? There is no plan that would put us back in the same place that doesn’t involve one of us eventually leaving a job we like. I don’t want to be alone 90 percent of the time, and I want to start a family relatively soon. Should I ask him to consider not taking the job? Or should I just accept that maybe we cannot be together? Is love just not enough?
A: Please don’t ask your boyfriend to decline a job that could break him out of the vicious cycle of working poverty, particularly if he works in a field where offers like this are few and far between. If you’re not willing to move with him and you’re not willing to date long distance, then by all means part ways but don’t ask him to consider turning down a job that could get him out of debt.
