Should I Leave My American Partner?

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.

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Dear James,

I’m 27 years old, I live in New York, and I’m in a healthy, loving relationship with a guy I met here. He’s caring and hardworking, and my family and friends love him for me. The problem is, I don’t know if I want to live in the United States long term. I’m from abroad—a country far enough away that my partner has never been—and I moved to the U.S. on a temporary work visa. As my relationship becomes more serious, I grapple with the thought of having to be here forever.

I never grew up thinking I’d migrate anywhere permanently. I’m very close to my family back home, and I have a comfortable, if not cushy, life there. In the U.S., I deal with the social, political, cultural, and legal hurdles of being a foreigner in a place where the current climate isn’t always the most friendly. I don’t have the financial or personal freedoms I would like. I deal with racists. I get homesick.

My partner loves his job, it pays extremely well, and it legally ties him to working within the United States. Basically, he could never move for me. But when I think about committing to him, I can’t help mourning everything I imagine I’d be giving up. Maybe I’m just being young and foolish and don’t realize that my problems are a speck in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know. Perhaps you can tell me?

Dear Reader,

As an expat, self-transplanted from England to be in America with my American wife, I feel you. This is a beautiful, crazy, wide-as-you-like country, merciless in some ways, impossibly generous in others, and for better or worse I became myself here. That’s one of the things America can do. No gains without losses, though, and I feel the pull of home too: all the occasions missed, the conversations that never happened, the hangs unhung … It’s sort of a shadow on me, my life’s dark side of the moon.

But let me ask you this: Are you thrilled to be with this guy? I mean thrilled to bits, thrilling to his touch, all of that? You say he’s caring, hardworking, your family loves him—all good stuff. Great stuff. And I don’t want to do him an injustice. But somewhere, at some level, in some layer of your being, you’ve got to be thrilled. I think perhaps if you were thrilled, you wouldn’t be asking yourself these questions.

I could be wrong, though, and the two of you might have a scorching and vibrant thing that you have modestly under-described in your letter. Whatever the case, here’s my advice: Don’t leave. America is a challenge. America is an invitation. America puts you on your mettle. Especially right now, in (to use your phrase) the “current climate” of the United States: America needs you!

Reading the news and listening to Bad Brains,

James

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