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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/FirefighterEvening30 on 2023-07-31 10:00:02.

My wife and I have been married for 4 years, we live on the East-Coast. Slowly the region where we live has become essentially impossible to afford. To put another way, cost-of-living here is just crazy. With this in mind, my brother moved down South just before I got married and my parents followed him a year after.

Everything from housing to gas is cheaper there. I had always been super curious about moving there but since we both had jobs here and friends here, I never discussed the idea and kept it in my mind. Then, a year and a half ago my closest friends left with their families following the pandemic. In this last year, I have felt completely isolated. I don’t have my family around nor my friends and the bills are biting into everything I have. I can neither afford to live here nor do I want to. I leave the house for my job and while I keep in contact with my friends, my wife’s friends have essentially become my “friends”. With this in mind, I floated the idea to my wife to move about 7 months ago but she shot it down (Edit: This was when I said I want to move to Texas and really told her how badly I wanted to move). She said she had family here, friends here, her job was here etc. She even said she wanted to raise our future-kids here.

Then it dawned on me that we simply couldn’t afford kids here. I told her I needed to leave as I felt suffocated here. She said she understood and she recommended therapy and I tried it for 3 months but it didn’t help. Then we went down south two months ago for a my mom’s birthday (we stayed there for a week) and it felt like home. I didn’t want to leave and a dread sat in when I realized I had to.

At this point, just to satiate my desire, I asked my employer if there was a possibility for me to relocate to our Texas office (close to where my family lives luckily). They had no problem with it and at this point, I had my mind made up. I told my wife that I simply couldn’t take it anymore and that I had to leave. She said she won’t and I told her that she had a month to decide after which I would file for a divorce. I told her we could split the house (and we have no children) and everything else. I told her I just couldn’t live like a zombie anymore and that everyday feels worse and worse.

This, understandably, broke out into a massive fight and I ended up leaving the house. I slept in a hotel for the night. Its been 3 weeks since and I’ve found an apartment to rent that is close to my family and my job down south and I’ll use it while I look for a home (all of them are much cheaper than here).

My wife has been trying to convince me to stay but I just can’t. Moreover, I’m getting constant calls from all of her family calling me an asshole for doing this to her. With all this AITA?