Dear Prudence,
I’m 30, and I have been with my husband for six years. We met in the military; his contract ended last year, and mine ends next month. I joined to help pay for my education, and my long-term plan ever since my husband and I met has been to finish my military career and go to graduate school in Alaska. My father spent years living there and used to bring us up for visits. It’s my favorite place on Earth, and it’s always been my plan to move there. I spent a summer in Anchorage in college and can’t wait to make it my home. When my husband and I got serious (he’s from the South and very close to his family), we had a long talk about the reality of living in Alaska and came to a compromise. He didn’t want to spend his whole life so far from home, so we agreed that if I were accepted to graduate school there, we’d live there for the two to three years it would take to finish my degree. I was accepted, and now he says he won’t go. I feel duped. This was his compromise, and we’ve been telling people for years that our plan was to go to grad school in Alaska. He was supportive when I applied months ago. I feel like he co-signed this plan believing it was a pipe dream, and now that it’s a reality, he’s just trying to brush me off. I have to respond to the offer in a few weeks. I love my husband, but my mother always taught me never to sideline your ambitions for a man. I don’t want to leave him over this, but I sort of feel like he played me.
—Anchorage Away