My husband and I have been together for 7 years, married for 4. We have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. I am a nurse and just completed my doctorate of nursing and am now a psychiatric nurse practitioner. My husband doesn’t have a degree but has worked at his employer-a unionized chemical plant- for 13 years now and has worked his way into a seniority, management position. We live in rural Indiana. He makes about 120k and as a nurse, I make 62k after 10 years of experience as nurses are paid very very low here and there are little job options for nurses anywhere near where we live. My dream job was to always be a psychiatric nurse practitioner. He loves his job and gets really good benefits, but the only downside is is that his job is regional and with his position, it’s not a position he can just go and get anywhere else.
Before I started grad school 4 years ago, I sat down with my husband and drilled into him that if I went through with the program, we would more than likely have to move in the future as there are no jobs anywhere near us in the field I was pursuing. I made sure he was well aware of this and told him if moving was not going to be an option, now was the time to say something before I wasted 4 years and 80k+ getting a degree just to not have any job options when I got out. He agreed that we would be able to move if it came to that
Well as you can guess, it’s now that time and he said moving is now an option for us. He said with his job, our low interest mortgage rate, and the kids, we cannot move. There are 0 jobs in my field anywhere near us. I have applied to the closest available jobs and they are 3+ hours away. I have also applied to telehealth jobs and all of them have said I need at least 3 years of in person experience before It will be an option to work from home. My state does not allow nurse practitioners to open their own practice either so that is also not an option. I have 91k in student loans. I feel lost as to what to do.
Edited to say he's been at his job for 13 years, not 3