A totally non-PC question for married/committed couples

So as Round 1 comes to a close I'm finding myself frustrated. I was admitted to Chicago (a great fit for me personally) and dinged at Stanford/Wharton. The problem is my wife is refusing to leave her job to move out to Chicago, which she equates to committing "career suicide". S/W would have worked well for her because at S we could have just stayed here in the Silicon Valley, and at W she could've transferred within her company to Philly. She works for a major defense company and they have agreed to pay for her to do a PT MBA, which is an amazing opportunity.

My problem with the whole situation is that we both want kids, and she seems to agree that she would need to stay home to raise them. So I'm having trouble rationalizing why I should slam the brakes on this opportunity at Chicago if in the next three or four years we're likely to be starting a family and her career will be taking a break anyway. So what am I supposed to do? Move out to Chicago and try to do a long distance marriage for 2 yrs? Or do I abandon the opportunity altogether even though it is something I've wanted and worked towards for a long time?

In any case, it sucks that after getting accepted at one of the best business schools in the world my wife's first reaction was "that sucks. i'm not moving there." It also didn't help that she blames me for getting dinged at S/W, as if I somehow didn't "try hard enough."

Anyone else out there facing a similar situation?

This is a difficult position for both of you. I must ask, did you discuss the possibility of you going to live in Chicago for 2 years before you applied?

My advice (as a married man)
1. She may be scared to change jobs as she may already feel "settled"
2. Why do you have to go now? Can you reapply to stanford next year?
3. Long distance marriage? What for? Would it be worth it? Stanford/Harvard/Wharton or being with my wife two years? I'll take the wife.
4. Some people find satisfaction in their jobs, obviously, and this job may be important to her. Yes, if you move to Chicago she can kiss her job goodbye.
5. Even if she takes 3-4 years off maybe she feels she can go back to her job (which is what a lot of people do)

My opinion, try hard and reapply next year. One year will not make a difference. It will be worth it in the end.

Yeah, we did discuss it a bit. We both went out to visit the campus in August, and she seemed to really like the city. But she's always had the position that if I got in that she is okay doing LDR for two yrs and just trying to visit each other one weekend a month. I just don't see that working out very well.

It always sounds good in theory, right?

No experience personally, but a friend in the military did this. They both had 5 year commitments but were 4 years apart. He was getting out and going to Fuqua, she was going to stay in and transfer to Fort Bragg, relatively close by. Although the military is usually good at making stuff like this work, especially in this day and age, long story short she got transferred, and he wouldn't leave Duke. Figuring it was no big deal, especially being military where deployments cause this to happen all the time, they tried the LDR. Well quickly it fell apart, he met another girl at school, she met another guy in the Army, bada bing bada boom they were donsies after a year...and while she is happily married to that other Army officer and they started a family, this dude is not with the fellow student and, well, does lead a good single life but still...

There is the corporate headquarters of one of the major defense contractors in Chicago, Located right in Downtown on the water.

Well have you concidered applying to Haas R3. For Work/Life balance, I would trade chicago for Haas w/ Wife. or get a divorce

This is a very difficult situation and I'm sorry to hear about it.

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but has your wife considered the possibility of a work-from-home / remote work arrangement? This may actually end up being somewhat easier than taking a transfer to the Philadelphia office, depending on the kind of work that she does. i.e. if she transfers to the Philadelphia office, she'd have to get to know a lot of new people, learn their culture/work/etc.... whereas the beauty of a remote work arrangement is that she could continue working with the same people that she is comfortable with. I doubt it would put her on a fast track promotion path... but it may be a good middle ground worth exploring.

Another idea: are there roles within her company that require significant travel (i.e. 2-4 days/week) that may help boost her career track? People can generally be based wherever they'd like for these roles, and Chicago is a great place to be for heavy travelers due to O'Hare being a hub for many airlines. You'll be so busy with school during the week anyway, that a position of this sort may help keep her busy.

probably the DC with the most household brand name as well (boeing). i would go to chicago and do the LDR. you want to go to business school (thats why you applied) and there is no sense in delaying that for a year if you already have a top admit. also, your married status provides a fair bit of motivation to "keep it going".

another way to view specifically b-school LDR is this. in reality, its a total of 4 four-month separations. first semester, second semester of each year. you can focus your internship search in the bay area and return for breaks. when viewed this way, it doesnt seem so bad right? . this is quite different than the 5 year military commitments discussed above.

personally, my s.o. and I have applied to a spattering of schools across geographical areas. we are confident of finding a reasonable geographic/career match, even if it involves a LDR from nyc-> boston.

Thanks everybody for the replies. My wife doesn't work for Boeing, but given her background i think she would stand a pretty good chance of getting a job there. That's what I keep telling her, Chicago is a huge city and there are lots of great companies out there. She would find something. But she's not having it. She's now moved for me twice already (once from our undergrad city, once when I took a much better job with a boutique consulting firm here in the Bay). She's seeing a pattern and wants to make it clear that she won't keep uprooting for me.

Anyways, we've clearly had a rough week. I just got back from the office holiday party where my wife got super drunk and kept telling everyone (who is congratulating me re: chicago) how we will be separating for two yrs etc. It was pretty embarassing. Oh well, two weeks of vacation starts tomorrow so i can hopefully think about some things.

Thanks again for all the thoughts & advice.

I might be in the minority here, and I don't want this post to offend - but as a husband and aspiring grad student, I feel I can relate to your situation.

However, I can't speak to your specific circumstances. I can say that there's no way I'd personally ever consider a LDR with my wife while I attended graduate school. My wife also works in a specific industry that's limited to certain areas of the country. This was one of the very first things I discussed with her when I decided an MBA was something I wanted to pursue. Where could she find a job she liked? Where would she happy living? I then tailored my school selections with that in mind. It sounds like you're well past that point now (congratulations on your Chicago admit - a serious accomplishment).

While from the information you've given, it seems like your spouse is being pretty close minded about find a new job in a city the size of Chicago, it also seems a bit unfair to me to uproot her a third (!) time, because you applied to a school in an area she wasn't interested in going. If she told you she was ok with it, and then changed her tune once you were admitted - I'll retract that as it changes everything.

As my wife and I plan for a move to NYC from a suburb of Dallas, it's becoming pretty clear that this is going to be a lot harder on her than it is on me. She's leaving a job she loves to be thrown into a big city she's unfamiliar with. I'll be surrounded by like-minded students and opportunities to meet new people. She has no guarantee of finding a job she'll enjoy - where as I basically show up and I'm set. She'll continue working while I (potentially) have a life-changing experience. And a few years later I'll probably uproot her again as I pursue full-time employment.

In closing, if I were you, and you couldn't convince your wife to move to Chicago (and bear in mind, you'll likely be moving again after graduation unless you decide to stay in and find a job in Chicago), I wouldn't attend. There's always next year - and there's no way I'd jeopardize my marriage over two years of schooling, when a little compromise would let me have my cake and eat it too. Maybe not what you wanted to hear, and much longer than I anticipated - but hopefully some useful perspective for you. Best of luck with your decision!

Knock her up ASAP. Problem solved.

Also not a PC solution.

Or just pay her boss off to fire her...also not the best solution, but feasible none the less.

Or just suck it up and have an LDR for two years. It is possible, having done it for one year prior to marriage, and then half the time I was stationed in California.

i agree with "suck it up".

it's two years, its not the end of the world. it's going to suck, and most of the time you'll hate the fact that it has to be this way, but for some, (and you), going to one of the best schools in the nation requires more sacrifice than just a large student loan bill.

and to echo the thoughts of what others have already said, unless you plan on living in chicago after graduation, why move here there for 2 years, just to mover her again? if she's willing to move to large hub cities (SF, NY, DC, LA) for her job, and you're only going to be in school for a temporary time, and she's going to have a tough time finding a job in chi-town, i don't get why you want to uproot her other than for convenience.

As the Marine before me said, he's done it before. I've done it before. Lots have done it before, for far less of a benefit that you are gaining. My advice: suck it up, do what you need to do, and get a badass job in a badass city where she would be more than willing to move with you.

I would personally go with Haas brother. I'm sure you can pull an admit there if you got one at Booth.

I'd recommend that you read this book:

Leadership and Self-Deception
http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-D ... 373&sr=1-1

Short and very insightful. I think you might relate to some of its contents.

So I have a somewhat similar type question. I will most likely be attending Tuck next year and my s.o. currently lives in Delaware. It is about 6 hours driving and there are no airports near Hanover. We are serious but not married. I'm wondering if I should ask him to come with me as he has a job that he can do almost anywhere. However, his whole family and all of his friends are in DE. In addition, I can't imagine wanting to come back to this area after school. Can a non-marriage LDR survive two years + ??? after?

I'm not married either but have been with my GF for nearly 5 years and we're planning on doing the LDR thing while I"m in school. She's got a great job in Minneapolis, where I plan to move back to afterwards anyway so I figure best to have her stay and keep succeeding in Minneapolis and I'll come back eventually. I'm on the road every week anyway and we were apart for a year while in college so I feel we can get it done and it's definitely possible. My advice to you, and what I'm planning on doing, is to rack up as many Frequent Flier miles as possible. I'm going to have approx 300,000 by the time I go to school with about 100,000 AMEX points that can be turned into FF Miles so hopefully that will shoulder a lot of the burden of the travel costs.

Overall, this situation is a very personal one and one you and your wife/so must make on your own. We can't accurately tell you what to do because we don't personally know your situation as clearly as you do. Yes, two years sucks. But in between then there are Xmas breaks, spring breaks and summer internships (get an internship in SF or where ever your SO is). In total, you'll probably be away from each other a total of 18 months. It can definitely be done. Think of the military families. If their relationships can survive that distance and isolation, I'm pretty sure yours can survive an MBA.

I know a number of people who did the LDR thing. It worked for them. In fact, I know some people who are doing the LDR thing after school because their wives can't find jobs in the new cities they ended up in. One guy left his wife in chicago and he's in london. They commmute back and forth hoping to eventually figure out a way for them to be in the same city -- he can't leave because of his student loans and sign on bonus repayment clause (and its a lot of $$) -- she can't come to London cause she can't find a job there right now (the markets awful), so for the time being they are making do.

To be honest, I'm not sure your 'odds' are any better if she comes with - I know a number of people who had marriages / relationships collapse and DIDNT do an LDR thing. In fact, in some respects, I think an LDR would actually have been EASIER to handle in some ways, especially in teh first year.

Two reasons really - if your wife (or hubby) has a job / life in their current city, they have something to do. Moving to a new city with no job, no friends, etc can be a bit daunting and unless they also drink the MBA koolaid, odds are they aren't going to be quite as excited to go out with your new MBA friends who talk of nothing but classes, recruiting, etc.

Second, if you are in the same city, there's an expectation "set" (e.g. being home in time for dinner or whatever) -- if you are in a different city that expectation doesn't exist. That might sound weird, but I've seen a lot of couples get really stressed out about how an MBA basically SUCKS YOU IN for the first year, and especially the first few months and the amount of time you have to dedicate to a GF/wife/etc will approach 0 early on. Not having someone's elses needs to worry about Monday through Friday would actually be a bit easier. That might sound "mean" but its not meant to.

Let me first start by saying that any answer here is going to suck for someone at some point. I'm in a 7 year relationship, 3 of those years were long distance and we're probably looking at another 2 more while I go back to school. At the end of the day, it comes down to how strong the relationship is. Even the best of relationships will wear down during an extended LDR, but if you're confident and she's confident you will make it work, then you can do it. We both agreed early in our relationship to never stand in the way of each other's careers and we'd find a way to make it work. If you don't want to take that risk, then pass on Chicago and reapply to S/W next year. Personally, I'd take Chicago knowing that my career and my relationship could be stronger coming out of the two years or I would learn that it wasn't meant to be in the end. But I roll the dice with my personal life more than I probably should

Best of luck to you in your decision either way. Like I said, any decision here is going to SUCK in some way.

By the way brother, I also went through this LDR period. However, the whole life is so different here in Saudi Arabia.

It was an arranged marriage in mid-2007. So we started knowing each other right when we got married

I lived 250 miles from her, and she had 2 more years to go in college. Every couple of weeks or so, she would either fly to me, or I would drive to her. And finally she graduated few months ago, and she lives with me now.

It wasn't that bad. But then again, life is different here. There are very strict rules on mixing the two sexes. My workplace is 100% men, and her college is 100% women. You can not bump into a person from the other sex and then fall in love with them. You would have to get out of your way and work so hard to meet someone from the other sex.

So unless you are gay, LDR is pretty much safe here in Saudi Arabia.

I know this doesn't help, but I thought I might share it.