Dear Sahaj: My wife and I married in the mid-2000s. I’m Asian American, she’s White, and we built a happy life on the West Coast, where my family lives and where I feel deeply rooted. Just before the pandemic, my wife – who is from the South – asked to move closer to her aging parents. Without much discussion, we bought a house in the South. At the time, I told myself, “Happy wife, happy life.”
Now, years later, I’m filled with regret that I didn’t think more carefully about the downsides. As an Asian American in the South, I often feel out of place, and I miss the belonging I had in the Bay Area. Along with regret, I feel resentment: I sacrificed a great deal to honor her desire to move, but she seems unwilling to reciprocate when it comes to my longing to return.
When I raise the issue, she says we might revisit it in 2030, after our daughter graduates high school. But that feels unbearably far away, and I fear she’ll resist even then. I’ve tried to find compromises – like more trips or a second home in the Bay Area – but the truth is we spend nearly all our time in the South. Meanwhile, I carry the financial load for a lifestyle that doesn’t feel like mine.
I feel stuck between three options: accept this life in the South, try to create a bicoastal arrangement or keep pressing for a return to the Bay Area in 2030. How do I honor my own needs without damaging my marriage further? And how can I talk with my wife in a way that moves us forward, instead of deepening resentment?
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– Lost
Lost: At this point, you aren’t compromising, you are sacrificing. A compromise requires both people to stretch toward the middle, while a sacrifice means only one person keeps stretching – losing themselves, and their needs, in the process. Your resentment makes sense, but if it’s not addressed, it will corrode your marriage. If it hasn’t already.
“Happy wife, happy life” might have felt harmless at first, but it quietly made your happiness conditional on hers. Ask yourself: Does my wife really know how miserable I am? Or am I hiding how bad it’s gotten to keep the peace? It doesn’t make you a bad partner to have changed your mind. You may have agreed to move because you understood how important it was to her, or because you genuinely thought it was temporary. You can name this while being vulnerable in order to invite empathy and not defensiveness. This can sound like: “I realize I said yes to moving because I wanted you to feel supported. I don’t regret caring for you, but I want to be honest about how I feel now. I feel isolated here, and I need to feel like where we live also nurtures me.”
Be specific about the problem so it’s something you can tackle together, by saying something like: “The move solved one need – closeness to your parents – but it created another problem – distance from the communities that make me feel alive. How do we, as a team, address both kinds of belonging?” It’s possible that your wife may not fully understand how racialized belonging operates. What she experiences as “a simple move” feels to you like “a loss of safety and identity visibility.” When you talk, describe the sensory and emotional experiences – the looks, the silences, the absence of familiar cues, the lack of cultural community – not just “I don’t fit in.”
If she continues to hold on to 2030 as the anchor, shift from “move or don’t move” to “how do we build belonging together.” Right now, you’re having the same back-and-forth focused on moving. To break that loop, you each need to name what you fear. For example, you may admit that if you stay in the South, you are worried you’ll lose yourself because of how unanchored you feel. And she may admit that if you both move, she’ll feel like she’s abandoning her parents. The very first step is to acknowledge that both fears are real.
If after continuing to broach this conversation with vulnerability, staying is necessary for now, name what you need to make it livable: regular travel to the Bay Area, virtual connections with friends and family, local Asian American networks or therapy for cultural grief. The goal is to actively build belonging rather than endure disconnection. If you are looking to create a bicoastal compromise, you’ll need structure. Could you take a month or two each year in the Bay Area? Could you redirect part of your financial load to fund that arrangement instead of a second home later? Name this as part of your wellness and identity, not luxury. And finally, if returning in 2030 is realistic, you can still create shared accountability: Explore job possibilities, schooling options or housing market research together, so the dream doesn’t feel deferred indefinitely or something that you are carrying alone.
Finally, if you realize there are deeper patterns of imbalance in the relationship, or you struggle to name disappointment, a couples therapist may be integral to helping you both give space to each of your feelings and needs while also rebuilding fairness and connection before logistics are even revisited. After all, sometimes the safest way to be fully honest is in a space where both of you feel witnessed.