To move or not to move? Your thoughts/ suggestions please

[RNmeee]

Ok so i need some help from wonderful nurses in AN. I graduated dec 2010. Have a job in home health, but have been desparately looking for acute care settings oppotunity. So I have finally found one possible opportunity in an ICU that will require me to relocate to a small town.

I am married, but my husband wont be coming with me if i decide to go because he has a pretty good job in current state. So my dilemma is if i go i'd be gone for atleast a year or two. Pay rate in this hospital is low about $21 Living expense very high. No relocation bonus and i will ppossibly have to fly there for a second interview at my own expense.

So i cannot decide if the opportunity and pay is worth the relocation and separation from my husband for 1-2 years. Also do i need to tell them that I am married n that my hubby wont be moving with me if i take the job???

Please share some of your thoughts n suggestions. Should i go if i get hired or look for something closer or better?

Thank u all.

[westieluv]

This is just me, but I wouldn't do it. If I didn't already have a job possibly, if we were absolutely drowning financially, but otherwise, no, it's not worth it. For one thing, you said the pay is low and the COL is high, so it would definitely set you back financially, since you would have to find a place to live for yourself in the small town in addition to the cost of paying for where you and your husband currently live. Then, of course, there's the even more important consideration of what it would do to your marriage if you and your dh lived far apart for a couple of years. Assuming you love him and want to stay married, that would put a great strain on your relationship that just wouldn't remotely be worth it for me. Besides, if the goal in doing this would be to get acute care experience and then move back home and try to find something more local, what if no jobs ever presented themselves in your hometown, even in a year or two? Would you continue to live far away from your husband to work in acute care indefinitely, even if it turned into four or five years?

I have worked both inpatient acute care and home health (well, home hospice, which is similar). I see so many threads here on AN about how people are so desperate to get into acute care and I always wonder why. I guess that if you haven't ever worked acute care you would want to try it, but for me, acute care is stressful and much less desirable than being out in the field. I will never go back to acute care again unless we are starving. No autonomy, long hours on your feet, cranky supervisors, complaining co-workers, working both days every other weekend...nope, never again.

I feel for you, it must be frustrating, as it is for a lot of people right now, and only you and your husband can make a decision this big and potentially life changing, but for me? Nope, no way, not worth it.

[LizAnn]

I would not take the job.

The stress of a new job, fairly new profession, not being with your spouse...not perhaps the wisest choice. :)

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I can speak to the separation issue: my husband and I have lived 200 miles apart for 3.5 years now by choice due to a job situation. We see each other almost every weekend and for a month during the summer. We plan to do this for at least another 1.5 years.

It is hard and stressful. However, we have been married for over 31 years and we have weathered military separations before. Its not fun, but doable if you have a high level of commitment.