Austin Can Keep Itself

Thirty miles is thirty miles. Georgetown is not Austin and that’s the whole point of Georgetown. You didn’t end up here by accident.

Now, your husband’s got a job offer and that matters. I’m not going to tell you his career doesn’t count. But “it’s only 30 miles” is what people say right before they move 30 miles and find out it’s not 30 miles, it’s 45 minutes on 35 on a good day, an hour and ten on a bad one, and suddenly you’re strangers in a city that doesn’t need any more of them.

Here’s the question you two need to answer: can he commute? Because a lot of people do exactly that, every single day, and they keep their house in Georgetown and their sanity and their kids in the same school. It’s not comfortable, but neither is uprooting a family that doesn’t want to be uprooted.

Tell him you’ll talk about a commute. You won’t talk about moving. If the job requires him to be there at 7 AM five days a week and it truly cannot work, then you have a real conversation. But “he got an offer” is not the same as “we have to go.” Don’t let him skip that step.

— Vera