My Bi-Coastal Marriage is Over
In May of 2008, our family decided that my husband should accept a
promising job offer in California. At that time, we were living in
Virginia and the real estate market was somewhere in the toilet. Our
plan was to live bi-coastally either until it made sense for the whole
family to move to California or until my husband could open up an
office in the DC area, which would have him home at least half of the
time.
This was not our first experience with living apart as a married couple. When we moved back to Virginia in 2003, my husband’s job was in California. For over a year, he spent only half of the month home. It was difficult but the arrangement worked for the most part. My husband was able to make at least half of the soccer games, school functions and bedtime stories. Since it worked once, we figured it could again.
After taking the job, my husband came home when he could and the girls and I spent quite a bit of time in San Francisco, not an unpleasant undertaking. There were some definite benefits to the arrangements; I got the bathroom and the remote to myself, NASCAR no longer dominated Sundays and my razor burn diminished almost entirely. I cannot tell you how many times one of my girlfriends remarked how they wished they had a similar setup on the home front.
As I recall, I was confident when he took the job. I felt as though I could totally handle being on my own here in Virginia. I’m tough; I can jump start a car, cook dinner on the grill, put air in my tires, make a cozy fire and kill a bee. And we were fine but it became more and more difficult to ignore the strain. With my husband only able to be home for about a week per month, it wasn’t long before we both realized that we might have bitten off more than we could chew…and that was a mighty frightening realization.
Of course, we worried for our kids the most. Questions like, “Should we take a loss on our VA house and move to CA even though the kids are secure in their schools and social lives here? What makes more sense, holding out for what could be a potentially huge payoff or is this arrangement too costly for our family as a unit emotionally? How long can we go on like this?” began haunting us.
The truth was that we were rather stuck in the murky waters of the decision we made. Our family managed to tread water and make the best of the situation by taking many trips to the west coast but in the end, having a cool home base in California was not as cool as having a dad at home full time. With one daughter in 9th grade and the other in 5th, we decided that now is not the time roll the dice. Now is the time to be a family.
If you know me, you have most likely been along for some portion my solo ride and I want to thank you for your help and support. I am happy to report that as of next month, my bi-coastal marriage will be over…and my husband will be working back in the DC Metro area…and living at home with his family where he belongs.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to rearrange the closets so he can have a place to put his clothes.
Kimberly lives with her family in Virginia where she writes about her daily life on her personal blog Petroville, talks photography at Joslyn Place and mixes it up with her friends around the Beltway on the Washington Times Communities. You can also find her on Twitter @Kimberle procrastinating housework.
An original DC Metro Moms post.
