Moving
Nothing about moving changed my mind about the state of my marriage. Trying to figure out where to live was mostly left to me — finding info (cost of living, jobs, traffic, schooling, etc.) and then asking for input from him. Once we'd narrowed it down, researching schools was left mostly to me. Setting up a scouting trip, left mostly to me.
He did find his own job. And with that job came the demand that he move out months before I did, or the kid did. So, he flew out on his own. And I worked full-time, while taking care of the kid (age 7), and packing up the house, selling things, and prepping it for sale. He couldn't even manage to get his car shipped to him. He almost had it sent to the west coast — even though we were moving to the east coast. Had he not had me review the final contract, we would have been thousands of dollars in the hole. And he chose a company with horrible reviews. I had to do it all. During this time he was crashing in a spare room at my parents' house and working. He was supposed to be finding a place for us to live. He went through the motions, but quickly hit walls. So, that mostly fell to me and looking online (from 2300 miles away) and telling him who to contact and where to go. In the end, I found us the townhome, and set him up to go look at it.
As I got everything set, I prepared to drive the 2300 miles (after cleaning, prepping and selling the house) with my 7-year old kid and 2 cats. My mother offered to help with the drive. My sister offered. You know who didn't offer? Yep.
We went from just shy of 2000 sq ft to 950 sq ft. And winter — being cooped up. I blame that for thinking that maybe the move had changed something in our relationship, and that maybe it was a reset. Did I really believe it? Nah. The doubt never left me. But when you can't afford to live on your own salary and get a house, you can more easily swat away the concerns, and pretend that things would be better if only you commit to buying a house. Sigh. I really am that stupid.