News Flash

Once again, we interrupt this blog for a dose of real life. We are moving to the big city.

Although I am delighted, this was not my idea. In fact, when my husband first broached the subject at the beginning of summer -- a couple months before I found out about any of his extra-curricular activities -- I asked him if he was sure about it. When I moved, I was determined to make a new life for myself. I turned my back on everything, except my friends and the occasional Sunday Times, from my old life. Professionally, especially, I let it all go, because I was afraid I'd miss it too much if I kept up with anything. I was not going to get my hopes up, I told him, for a passing fancy.

My husband was serious. His business partnership had fallen apart badly -- there were lawyers involved -- over ethical differences between him and his partners. Even though he won, it cost him a lot both financially and professionally. It took him about five minutes to find a better job, but it also took him about five minutes to grow bored and restless. Without the incentive of ownership -- of feeling like he was building an empire -- he was just another salary man.

He'd also started feeling empty nest pangs -- two of his kids are in college and the third is finishing high school. It's not so much that they don't need him, it's that they don't need him the same way they used to. As they launch their adult lives with all the fits and starts of late adolescence, he had started feeling more like a bit player in their world. Being "Dad" had been the biggest part of his identity since he was the same age as his eldest, and it hasn't been easy letting go.

He decided that a change of venue would be the cure for everything that ailed him, professionally and personally. What better place to make a new start, he reasoned, than the place where I'd been so successful?

I was cautious at first, testing out the old network to see if anybody still remembered me. When I got nothing but positive reactions to my trial balloons, I updated my resume and sent it out to a couple places to test the waters. When these efforts didn't bear fruit fast enough, I decided to take the plunge. A month ago, I quit my job and started spending half my time in the big city making the rounds among prospective employers.

My gamble paid off. A couple days ago, I was offered a position by a man who supplied one of my references when I moved to the small town. He confessed that my initial e-mail, saying I was coming back, was like manna from heaven. He'd been trying to fill a senior position in his office for months, and had not been able to find anyone with the right combination of experience, contacts, and personality to make it work. After jumpstarting a stalled human resources process, he hired me at almost twice the salary I was making in my small town job. Needless to say, we're both delighted.

My husband -- who has been amazingly supportive through this whole process -- is also delighted. He's revved up his job search, and is telling anyone who'll listen about how excited he is about the opportunities for him in the big city. He's fully engaged in our house hunt. He's even started encouraging his kids to look for summer internships up there.

Though I have nothing concrete on which to base it, at times I get a nagging feeling that his enthusiasm is all an elaborate ruse to get me out of town so he can start playing around again. Every so often, he will tell me that he's thinking about moving into "a cheap little apartment" if he doesn't find something in the big city before the end of the year. We can commute on weekends "like when we were dating," he said, until he lines something up. Bachelor pad redux?

Like the President said: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well... I won't get fooled again.


The Wife Who Knows