u/Optimal-Ad-3622

First off, sorry for the long narrative, but I feel it's needed to understand my predicament.

I, 35 (m), and my partner, 39 (m), live in a rural area. My partner applied for a position last summer that would allow us to move to a bigger town, which would bring us back to the city and road systems. He was not interviewed until a week ago, and then received his job offer almost immediately. I am super excited for him and very excited about the prospect of moving back to the city and being close to family and friends again, but I now have a dilemma. I just learned today from my boss that my position is non-transferable and cannot be relocated to the city where we also have an office branch, since my position mainly involves community outreach and advocacy. I've been in this position for about 5 months. It is the first position that I've had in a while that's breathed new life into me. I haven't felt this way about a position in a long time, and it feels good to have a positive impact on the community. I am able to go home on time, spend time on hobbies, and be with my partner and dogs. We work for the same organization, and it pays well and has really good health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits, a dream job, you can say. My partner has lived in this area for about 7-8 years and lived in another rural area for about 2 years, so he's been off the grid for almost 10 years. I understand his desire to return to the road system. The winters here have also been pretty rough, especially for our dogs, since it can get to -60F with wind chill, and they can only tolerate down to -10F. We have 2 flights a day here, but we frequently cancel due to dense fog that limits visibility and/or blizzards and flooding in the fall and winter seasons. So I can see the positives for our move to the city.

As I mentioned earlier, this new position has breathed new life into me and has had a positive impact on my family life. I do genuinely love what I do for work and for the community. I've only been here 5 months as well, so I am having to build up PTO and such again since starting a new position, and just got out of probation in March. I am hesitant to restart the process with a new organization or company if I'm not able to relocate within the same organization, and as far as I can tell, there are no positions at the city office I can transfer to or one with similar pay.

A bit more context on me: I relocated from the city to this rural area almost 2 years ago, in the summer of 2024, to be with my partner, so he didn't have to move out of his apartment to a smaller one (the apartments are also provided by the employer) when his roommate left, and my partner did not want another roommate situation. When I relocated, I worked for the state, left a position I also loved, and took a field position at the rural office so we could be together. The field position demanded a lot of my time, and I worked a lot of OT, sometimes I would be at the office from 8 AM to 9 PM and work through the weekend. Just so you know, my schedule was from 8 AM to 4 PM. I had a normal 8 AM to 5 PM position in the city with fairly good pay and benefits in management. I was OK with it because the plan was to move to the city the next summer, and to me, it was worth the sacrifice. In the summer of 2025, my partner got a substantial raise, and we decided it might be worth staying a little longer, so he signed another one-year contract. Our relationship began to strain due to the long hours and stress of my job, and it was not healthy for me to continue in that position. Since we were staying, I decided to apply for a position I knew was open with his organization, my current position. I was elated when I got it, and the relief from stress has been amazing. Although I was getting substantially less, it was worth my mental health, and it still offered good pay, just not as good as my state job. When I interviewed for my current position, it was mentioned that our organization was opening a city office in Fall, and since telework was not an option, working at that location was a possibility, so since then, I thought that there was going to be an option for me to relocate to the city office.

Fast forward to the present. My partner has been stressed at work and no longer wants to stay here. The position he applied for last summer finally interviewed him and offered him a job, and he now wants to move to the city. He had not yet accepted the offer and was waiting for me to talk with my boss first, since she was on leave. Aside from loving this dream job, if I don't find a position in this organization, I will have to restart and accrue PTO from zero (he loves to take 3-4 trips a year, which I won't be able to do with him if I restart somewhere else). I had a steady job with the state, and I was there for almost 7 years, the longest I've ever been with any organization/company, and I was proud of that, and I was hoping I would be with this organization for a bit longer, if not a similar timeframe, but now it seems I have no choice but to leave it prematurely. My partner says we can stay if I want to keep my job, but in the same breath, tells me he cannot stand his work environment and wants to leave for his mental health. I'm thinking about him and my dogs, and there are definitely more positives in moving. WIBTA if I ask to stay, or am I selfish for wanting to stay with my job? I'm stumped and low-key feeling a bit depressed just thinking about it.

First off, sorry for the long narrative, but I feel it's needed to understand my predicament.

I, 35 (m), and my partner, 39 (m), live in a rural area. My partner applied for a position last summer that would allow us to move to a bigger town, which would bring us back to the city and road systems. He was not interviewed until a week ago, and then received his job offer almost immediately. I am super excited for him and very excited about the prospect of moving back to the city and being close to family and friends again, but I now have a dilemma. I just learned today from my boss that my position is non-transferable and cannot be relocated to the city where we also have an office branch, since my position mainly involves community outreach and advocacy. I've been in this position for about 5 months. It is the first position that I've had in a while that's breathed new life into me. I haven't felt this way about a position in a long time, and it feels good to have a positive impact on the community. I am able to go home on time, spend time on hobbies, and be with my partner and dogs. We work for the same organization, and it pays well and has really good health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits, a dream job, you can say. My partner has lived in this area for about 7-8 years and lived in another rural area for about 2 years, so he's been off the grid for almost 10 years. I understand his desire to return to the road system. The winters here have also been pretty rough, especially for our dogs, since it can get to -60F with wind chill, and they can only tolerate down to -10F. We have 2 flights a day here, but we frequently cancel due to dense fog that limits visibility and/or blizzards and flooding in the fall and winter seasons. So I can see the positives for our move to the city.

As I mentioned earlier, this new position has breathed new life into me and has had a positive impact on my family life. I do genuinely love what I do for work and for the community. I've only been here 5 months as well, so I am having to build up PTO and such again since starting a new position, and just got out of probation in March. I am hesitant to restart the process with a new organization or company if I'm not able to relocate within the same organization, and as far as I can tell, there are no positions at the city office I can transfer to or one with similar pay.

A bit more context on me: I relocated from the city to this rural area almost 2 years ago, in the summer of 2024, to be with my partner, so he didn't have to move out of his apartment to a smaller one (the apartments are also provided by the employer) when his roommate left, and my partner did not want another roommate situation. When I relocated, I worked for the state, left a position I also loved, and took a field position at the rural office so we could be together. The field position demanded a lot of my time, and I worked a lot of OT, sometimes I would be at the office from 8 AM to 9 PM and work through the weekend. Just so you know, my schedule was from 8 AM to 4 PM. I had a normal 8 AM to 5 PM position in the city with fairly good pay and benefits in management. I was OK with it because the plan was to move to the city the next summer, and to me, it was worth the sacrifice. In the summer of 2025, my partner got a substantial raise, and we decided it might be worth staying a little longer, so he signed another one-year contract. Our relationship began to strain due to the long hours and stress of my job, and it was not healthy for me to continue in that position. Since we were staying, I decided to apply for a position I knew was open with his organization, my current position. I was elated when I got it, and the relief from stress has been amazing. Although I was getting substantially less, it was worth my mental health, and it still offered good pay, just not as good as my state job. When I interviewed for my current position, it was mentioned that our organization was opening a city office in Fall, and since telework was not an option, working at that location was a possibility, so since then, I thought that there was going to be an option for me to relocate to the city office.

Fast forward to the present. My partner has been stressed at work and no longer wants to stay here. The position he applied for last summer finally interviewed him and offered him a job, and he now wants to move to the city. He had not yet accepted the offer and was waiting for me to talk with my boss first, since she was on leave. Aside from loving this dream job, if I don't find a position in this organization, I will have to restart and accrue PTO from zero (he loves to take 3-4 trips a year, which I won't be able to do with him if I restart somewhere else). I had a steady job with the state, and I was there for almost 7 years, the longest I've ever been with any organization/company, and I was proud of that, and I was hoping I would be with this organization for a bit longer, if not a similar timeframe, but now it seems I have no choice but to leave it prematurely. My partner says we can stay if I want to keep my job, but in the same breath, tells me he cannot stand his work environment and wants to leave. I'm thinking about him and my dogs, and there are definitely more positives in moving. WIBTA if I ask to stay, or am I selfish for wanting to stay with my job? I'm stumped and low-key feeling a bit depressed just thinking about it.