I love my husband. I do. When we met six years ago, it was as if I'd been looking for a needle in a haystack and he walked right in with a match and burned the whole thing down and then there the needle was. He is pure. He is kind. He's a dream. We met online. I found myself drowning in him with no desire to get to the surface for air. He was still finishing his education. I'd barely finished mine. Things were simple. We were in love. Even though the insanity of COVID, I could never imagine being with anyone else. That love moved me to new cities and I didn't much mind. I sought remote work and made new friends without much trouble. I found new hobbies. I was okay with it, until we got married and moved to a new town.

My husband took a job in a smallish town far far away from big cities. His salary eclipses mine threefold. He loves his work. He loves his coworkers. They all love him. He's flourishing, and I'm so happy for him, but this place has decayed me and I feel as if I'm nothing but an exterior shell full of emptiness and nothing. And I feel guilty, because I want to be happy with what we have and what we have is more than so many people could ever dream of but I am so, so, so miserable.

I gave it an earnest chance for a year and a half. The food choices here are suboptimal. I can't get ingredients for dishes I could drive 5 minutes down the street and buy in other towns. In other cities, I had a bustling group of friends. It's been two years in this new town. I've joined meetup groups. I've tried friendship apps. I've tried to get out there. And I haven't made a single friend here. Getting anything done in this town is a nightmare. I've thoroughly established that I can't trust any beauty salon here with much beyond a pedicure after my hair was butchered and turned green by a hair stylist. I have medical predispositions to life threatening medical conditions and was unable to find care here. We tried to have a kid and ended up in this IVF hellhole. My ongoing terrible experience with the healthcare system here has caused me to have to travel to a city several hundred miles away.

IVF is hell. I've spent 6 months getting poked and prodded and poking myself and getting disappointment after disappointment and I'm left here with an empty battery and the feeling my body has betrayed me by being unwilling to do what it biologically is supposed to do.

I keep having to go between this city of vapid nothingness and a larger city I don't even live in where I have healthcare, a patron saint of hair stylist with the skills of a magician, and a robust social life. Every time I'm in town, my friends want to hang out with me to the point of overstimulation. Whenever I go back home I haul the groceries I can't get back home and there's nothing for me but work, my husband, and my cat. As much as I love him, I don't like that he's the only person I interact with outside of work.

I clawed out of the trailer park on my own despite having lack of my family's financial or emotional support. I work in tech and make six figures. And I'm proud of myself. I don't need validation, but it's rather isolating to go between both these rungs on the socioeconomic ladder. Most of what family I have left hasn't risen above the chaos we went through and I walk a tight rope trying to inspire them to strive for better without shoving my success in their face. On the other hand, since I've been unable to establish any semblance of connectivity with others where I live, my only source of social interaction is through my husband, and his circle is full of people who look at me in a patronizing or confused way. He makes so much money that I shouldn't have to work. I haven't achieved the higher levels of education they have. I simply do not fit in with their housewives and lack the knowledge of social nuances they have. Every time I leave social interactions with these people, I'm simply exhausted.

In January, I finally admitted to him that I hate this place, and I feel guilty because he's so happy here and he gets paid almost twice the going rate for his line of work elsewhere and that should be enough for me to make it work but I'm falling apart and he alone is not enough to keep the pieces of me together, and it's not fair, he shouldn't be the one to hold me together, I should be able to pick myself up, but my efforts have proven futile and I can't get my shit together and I hate it here.

He made a couple phone calls and said he gets paid too much here to justify leaving. He let it slip to his boss, who immediately gave him a raise, which added insult to my injury.

I feel trapped in this place. I'm tired of trying to make the best of it. I can't find motivation to do things I used to value like work out. My only source of social interaction is now with strangers on the Internet. I hate the idea of cooking anymore; something I used to love so dearly. I've become a downer to him. And like the dream he is, he's taken on a share of the house duties while I deteriorate in this hole.

I worry I'll start to resent him for making me stay here. I'm worried he's going to get sick of me and be done with me. I'm unable to be present for him. He's so attractive to me it hurts, but I don't have it in me to find the mood for intimacy. I'm unable to kick this. And despite being resilient through much worse, I'm not doing a good job of being resilient through this. I know that if we stay here, the traveling for stupid things like groceries and healthcare will never end, and if children ever happen, they're going to go into a shitty education system.

I have trouble looking outside of myself, probably because there's needs not being met, and I know this post sounds like selfish whining, mostly because it is, but the more time goes on, the more I've lost my direction, purpose, perception of self value, and any sense of belonging. I don't know what I should do. I don't know how to dig out. I don't know anything anymore, but I know that things aren't working as they are right now.