How do I get over deep anger at my spouse over moving for his career?

But I'm SO ANGRY with him now for making me and our kid go through all of this for him alone. This is, I think, a totally normal feeling....and you have to remind yourself that you can have this feeling even though you chose this. Still -- why couldn't he ever suggest something in favor of my career to the detriment of his? You just acknowledged that you didn't have a strong career direction or drive. Who is it you're actually angry with? It sounds like you're angry with yourself, mostly, and using him as the proxy. Even if that's not 100% the case, the place to take your feelings about this is therapy. You're allowed to have these feelings and you're allowed to express them, but you have to figure out what you want. You can't turn back the clock and make it so you never met him, and you can't retcon your past so you had an equally strong career trajectory that he could have accommodated, and you can't pretend that (as you say) you'd really be fine with him giving up the TT job so that you don't have to move. So, concretely, what do you want? Work this out with a therapist. Don't blame your husband for taking you at your word 100%.

I don't think this is about the move. I think you knew what you were getting into as an academic's spouse and you understand how crucial this move is. I think you're upset because you are making a huge sacrifice, and it hasn't been acknowledged. When we do things for people we love, we do them willingly, but we want to be loved and thanked for it; it's only when our loving contributions aren't valued that they feel like a burden. I bet if he did special things for you and told everyone how lucky he felt to have you as his wife and that you're amazing and one in a million and the cornerstone of his success, you wouldn't have written this post. He can't change the moving, until he has tenure. But he CAN change how he expresses gratitude for your sacrifices. That's what I'd focus on in your communication of this problem.

you put him in a catch 22 position and now are angry. I see a lot of people saying this sort of thing in this thread, or that she made the decision willingly, but that's really ignoring the larger context, where wives are so often expected to sacrifice for their husband's careers. She's the one in the catch 22 position: make a move she doesn't want, or ruin her husband's shot at his dream career. Suppose she had said "You know what? We have a new baby, and we have a lot of support in this city, and I don't want you to take that dream job you've been offered." Now how angry and resentful is he going to be about that? Was it even a real offer? Would he actually do it, or would he say "You know what, I've been working my whole life towards this goal, and I'm taking the job regardless"? Does she really want to find out if this person she loves and trusts and has sacrificed for is "that guy"? And on the other hand, if he agrees to stay, are all his friends and family going to think of her as That Harridan Who Made Him Give Up His Dream? These aren't two perfectly logical Vulcans debating this move in a vacuum. Ruthless Bunny's advice is great.

You have a six-month-old infant and are in the midst of massive upheaval. This is basically a recipe for post-partum depression. Talk to your husband, and think seriously about seeing someone.

1. You're a new mother, and a 6-month-old is going to take a toll on you no matter what your situation. Moving while getting used to motherhood for the first time? You're a saint. 2. If you are committed to this move and being with your husband (it sounds like you are), I think you have to make some rules going forward. This is the last move that you two make based on his career alone. It is time for you to set some roots down, career-wise, and for him to make some sacrifices for you, as well. 3. I think this type of imbalance is pretty common among highly educated couples, where one of the couple provides a ton of support for the other who has a "calling" while the other has a "job." I would suggest some couples counseling to see what you two can do to work this imbalance out.

I'm frankly surprised that so many of the comments upthread emphasize that the OP had a choice all these years and that she chose to continue to move and support her husband's career trajectory. You were a willing party. I sooooo disagree. Our culture socializes and downright encourages women and men to expect that a woman's career is second to her husband's. I don't think it's fair to see the choices that women are compelled to make outside of that heavily patriarchal structure--love or no love, dream or no dream. On a more practical note (because I also agree that his offer to not take the position was not a genuine offer with no emotional strings attached), I would ask that he pay for childcare so that your career does not default to "your family." Family should not be dismissed as work or career, but it's appalling that we are for the most part are suggesting that the OP make it her "career" when that is not how she has chosen to identify herself. She wants career, friends, social circles, an identity outside of what is defaulted to her. Full childcare so that you may have the freedom (or what's left of it) to rebuild your identity and your work. That's the least that is due to you. While I'll help him in every way with his career, he has never suggested anything for my career that would be remotely adverse to his. Some comments want to emphasize that the OP did not have a clear career interest as a reason why husband would not have made this suggestion to support her instead. My response to this was so on the other end of the spectrum. My response was, "Yes, why didn't he initiate a conversation that began with, "Look, you don't seem to have a clear idea of what you'd like to do, but us moving around like this isn't going to help you identify your passion. This pattern of moving will eventually be to your detriment, even if it may financially reap benefits for my career and our family. I believe in you, too. And I believe that if we stay put and not automatically chase my dreams (because academia is just a dream until it happens), you'll be the star if we just let you." My god. Then OP may have really had a "choice" to move or not move all those years. (I say the above not because I disparage women and men who focus on family, but because it is clearly such a gendered pattern, even when women "choose" to go along with it.)

Look at it this way. He's finally in a tenured position and you'll have a permanent residence. Now you can find a more permanent job and settle down.

I read your whole post, and there is a lot of great advice other people have given. One line stood out to me SO much, and I think it's not helping to color every interaction in your life right now. We're squatting in other people's houses while we're between rentals, headed to even more temporary accommodation with an infant while we look for a permanent place, and I have no job. I unexpectedly find myself in this same position for the month of July, and it's awful. I have never been so angry at the world as being in upheaval than I have been since finding out I had to move. It doesn't matter that I'm moving to a place that's a better fit for me, the cruelty of not having my own space has made me feel so completely and utterly destabilized I can't even believe it. I was the child of academics, and I've moved consistently every few years. Never has a move hit me so hard as the one where I didn't have a place to land that felt permanent on the other end. I don't ALSO have a 6 month old, but I'm also in a weird position where I'm changing careers, and my husband is just really coming into his own in his, and it's been really hard for me to divorce my feelings of frustration at choices I made (in many cases well before I met him) while I watch him have success after success and I've had a weird string of crazy awful setbacks. You are in an incredibly hard spot, and I've had to let myself be frustrated at the fact that I feel like I have no control over my own life for a bit. You seem to be in a similar position. Do you have anyone you can talk to? Be kind to yourself. My current mantra is "this is merely temporary."

As others have noted, you really need to stop blaming your husband. He offered to stay put. I would consider, if I were you, why you rejected that offer. I don't buy your arguments that turning down the job would have meant he would have wasted his past opportunities or that the prior moves would have been worthless. Other things have happened in the years since you've been together. It doesn't all boil down to his career. You've been building a life together, starting a family. It would have been a totally valid decision for him to put aside his career goals and settle down with you in a town that you love with a community of friends that supports your family. If you had been honest with yourself and him about your true feelings over the move, then he might have decided that your family's stability and your happiness were more important than pursuing this academic dream. This is so wrong and so awful. HE had a choice to advocate for her for 8 years. Sounds like this is more a case of regret. I'm particular, regret that you never figured things out with your career or found a great permanent job. Regret that you don't have a permanent home and place that is your home. These aren't things that are his fault. Fault isn't the question here. The question is how do women, and in particular the OP, make choices in the service of others (family/husband/friends) without those choices then being used to blame them for a culture that socializes all of us to expect those choices from them (women). Maybe this isn't her husband's fault per se (I don't know him; he's probably a swell lad), but when along the way did he ever advocate for a different situation? He remained silent. Culturally speaking, it was to his benefit to accept her choices as her choices.