Husband Refusing to Move

Hi everyone, would love advice on this! So just wanna state that my marriage has not been the smoothest but we have been making strides lately. I feel like we are actually doing fairly well now but this issue has been weighing on me for the past few months: my husband refuses to move with me and our daughter (16 months) for my medical residency. We currently live in WA and had decided that it would be okay to stay here a few more years (my residency is 3 years) but then he recently has stated that he wants to move to the East Coast. I have never wanted to live on East Coast and when I met him I let him know that I wanted to move back to California after medical school and he had agreed but changed his mind after our unexpected bundle of joy arrived. Since our daughter was born we have had a lot of incompatibility issues in terms of future plans and parenting (he doesn’t like to do child care). I have not felt very supported but I have tried to make it work for the sake of our child. I applied for programs on West Coast and was committed to ranking WA as #1 so that we could keep the family together. He says he no longer wants to be in WA and doesn’t want to be “stuck” here while I finish residency. He says that he prefers for me to go to California (where the other programs I applied to are) so that he has the freedom to move to the East Coast and then we can pick a place we both want to live when I finish residency. He also says that if I decided to stay in WA for residency, he would still move to the East Coast if given the opportunity. I also recently found out that his employer (tech company) will allow him to go into the office in a nearby city of my current top California program, while still being able to stay on his same team (no interview needed). It would essentially be really easy for him to move with us but he is refusing to because he doesn’t want to move “for another person.” I am feeling really stuck because I tried to stay in WA to keep the family together and he told me his preference is for me to go to California and he also refuses to move with us to keep the family together. Our current compromise is for him to move to somewhere that we both want to live in (such as TX) and I would join him after residency, when I start my fellowship training (2 years) but I am having a hard time trusting this plan. I worry that he will just change his mind again after I spend all the effort relocating with our daughter. Part of me is feeling like this is becoming a deal breaker but I am also trying to keep open minded. Any advice is much appreciated!

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It sounds like he already has his mind made up and his plans aren’t necessarily involving you. I’ve never encountered a problem like this but if it’s that easy for him to say he just refuses to live there and he refuses to move with you, he’s not exactly committed to the marriage or to doing what it takes for you two to stay together. Maybe he has checked out. I wouldn’t trust it easier after he changed his mind the first time.

@LeKenya i agree with you 100%! when i’ve asked him if he even wants a family, he has said “i don’t know” and says that he doesn’t prioritize family because he didn’t “choose” when it happened. i’m really trying to hold on but just feel like i am wasting my time at times because we don’t prioritize family in the same way

It sounds like you are doing all the work and comprising to make him happy and to make this relationship work when he is literally saying no I don’t want to move forward with you… like he is wanting to move to the literal opposite coast! That’s him trying to do things his way. And having zero consideration for you and your future. You are wasting your time. He clearly has no interest in being committed to you or your child. It just seems like this relationship has run its course.

I dont understand, you wanted to go there he wouldn't go so you decided to apply for where you are and he is telling to go else where..for years and he won't go with you...that to me is so weird especially when he has opportunity to work! Would you have the child woth you or would the child be with him..I wouldn't trust this..this sounds weird. Is he saying he doesn't want to be with you. I feel like as soon as you move you may not hear from him..I dono

For anyone with experience in how men behave or what their saying... dating around will give you enough insight on how men and women think. But for those who don't know or have life experience or don't research.. guys usually will tell you they don't want to be married they don't want a baby ( many don't want it, some cultures the men do but most don't) they don't want burden of kid, they don't have it in them. Was the baby an accident and you wanted baby or did the baby come as soon as you met and he said OK but after seeing baby, he's like nah I can't do this? There no attachment, I haven't heard you say, he's great dad, he loving, etc or he was great man before baby or are you guys married or was it your desire, are you 23 or 35. he is telling you he doesn't want to be part of the family he has with you and isn't man enough to say he wants to be free, but u know he's checked out and ur leaving is easier for him to leave too, to start over.we don't know if u gave him ultimatum to choose u or breakup?

@Kat so essentially i applied to both CA and WA programs to make sure i have enough to match to residency. you rank any program you interview with and i was willing to rank WA as #1, and i had a very high chance of matching there. my husband and i had originally agreed that WA was a place we would both be willing to live in for a few years but then he changed his mind in the last few months and no longer wants to live in WA for another 3 years (duration of my residency), which is why his preference is now for me to move with our daughter to California because he says if i match here he would still move out of WA (likely to east coast) if given the opportunity

@Ali yes so essentially the baby was not planned. i was 24 and studying for my boards, he was 27 and working as software engineer. we had been together for about 1.5 years at that point and had been actually planning for engagement sometime that year. when meeting, we both came from divorced parents and really valued a child being born into wedlock, so when we first found out about the pregnancy, he originally proposed going to the courthouse to get legally married a couple months before my due date. the next day he asked me to get an abortion and i say no. we actually looked at rings 10 days later on our originally ring looking appointment date. about 1 month later, after i did my board exam, he tells me that he doesn’t know if marriage is for him and asks me again if i would consider abortion and i said no. then he says he wants to be with me still but doesn’t know if marriage is for him. i then give him three option: sign away birth rights and i raise baby by myself, we coparent,

or he marries me and we raise the child together. he unhappily chose the third option and things have not been well ever since. i would not call him a great father or husband and i very much feel as though he just wants to be single. we get along really well if the baby is being cared for by someone else, otherwise 90% of our arguments involve me getting upset with him not doing his agreed share of parenting which is literally 2hours a day. he never woke up at night to help me during my schooling, even though i had to be up wayyy earlier than him. he felt that paying for stuff was doing “a lot” and said he simply did not want to wake up at night. he has said multiple times that he wasn’t to do “as little childcare as possible.”