^Exactly! She is building her career by getting an advanced degree. He should also do something that will advance his career. That way when it matters more to be together in two years, they will be better positioned to achieve that.
It’s easy to advise people to live in a long-distance relationship for two years.
It’s a lot harder to do it.
My future husband and I did it once, a long time ago, for just about that length of time. It was difficult. Very difficult. And after it was over, we both made compromises and sacrifices over the years to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again.
It may very well be that this young couple will choose the option of living apart for two years. But I can sympathize with them if they make the choice to stay together even if it doesn’t optimize the development of both people’s careers.
My daughter, who will be graduating in May, is limiting her job search to the location she wants to live in (it is a big city so it should be easy to do). I wholly support this decision. If you are in a field with lots of opportunities and are looking at a location with lots of jobs then it makes sense. I am thinking she is young and should enjoy where she lives during this time. Later in life your location gets dictated by having a spouse who also needs a job in the same area, living someplace where the schools are good, having to be near aging parents, etc.
If she was looking at a location where there are few jobs or was looking for a type of career where there are very limited opportunities, I would think differently.
^^Yes. Right now they are simply hoping to find a spot near mass transit that is between school and any job. Some of the grandparents are horrified that we are “so okay” with the plan to cohabitate, especially “since you are so religious” but in all cases we made it plain that 1. it was nobody else’s business and 2. none of the parents have any objections so bark up another tree, please. We are much happier with the idea of them having each other, than either one of them having to live alone as they start out.
Yes, some ill-advised marriages may have been avoided in the past if the parties had felt free to live together and get to know one another better than marrying in haste and finding their partner to be so vastly different than the person they thought they were marrying.
My friend’s D is having this issue. They had s largely long distance courtship and then married right after med school (partly because they were so religious) and have come to realize they are virtually strangers and are having s very rocky time.
Well, I know one person who turned down a dream job to be near his SO, and shortly thereafter, she dumped him.
He ended up eventually with an almost as good job and found someone else, but I know there are regrets.
I would be really careful about taking just any job for the location, even where romance is concerned. What I mean is taking a job that is way away from what you want to do, like you have an engineering degree and end up working in retail or something like that, because there weren’t any jobs in his field in that location. I also would be careful if you have an idea of what you want to do, for example, if you are a cs graduate who had an idea of working in the financial industry and took a job for convenience doing coding for a manufacturing company, it may make it difficult to switch over to a financial company later (not impossible, but usually financial firms tend to try and find people in the tech side who have background). Another thing that can be difficult if they take a job out of their field, is that if they have to switch locations to get a job in their desired field, it also can be hard, companies tend to like to hire local if they can IME (and here, remember, I am talking someone who hasn’t worked in their field, so you are talking a low level job). So the kid in the OP’s case takes the job near the SO that isn’t related to his planned field, if in a year or two he wants to go somewhere else for basically an entry level job in his desired field, it may be harder to get than if he got a job in his field, worked for a couple of years, then switched, with experience it is a lot easier to move.
I tend to agree that weight should be put on the position versus the location for the first job, but with a big “but”…that taking a job in a place you hate may effect how well you do the job, if you mind is “I’ll hang my shingle out here for 2 years, then move on” you may lose focus. On the other hand, if the relationship is that serious, where the couple is looking towards the future, then taking the job on location could be a stronger pull, so as others have said, there is one no right answer.
And while I realize the job market is not that great,especially starting out, this likely is not the "Lady or the Tiger’ kind of thing, at that age I don’t think that making a choice one way or the other will ruin their future, it might make the path different and/or a bit harder, if he choses the job the long distance relationship might be difficult to keep, but in the end, at that age, there is room for mistakes, for different paths, too. The easiest career wise might not be the right one life wise…and one thing to contemplate, you never know, that first job for location might open up other paths others might not know. My first job, though related to my college major, was not an established field, I found a job listing in a miscellaneous book at my school’s career office, got the job, and it turned into a career (the field itself kind of ‘grew up’ as my career progressed) and was a better fit than what my major actually prepared me for…so you never know.