#1: “Should I Move Across the Country For Him?”

Big Love is waiting for you behind the curtain, wherever you are.

Hello Hayes,

I saw a couple of your videos on TikTok and they were super comforting, so I thought I’d reach out to try and get some advice. I’m in a long distance relationship of two years. He’s in New York City, I’m in Colorado, we’re both finishing up graduate school. He wants to get his PhD next…only he’s unsure whether he’ll stay in NYC or move to the UK for the program. I told him that I’m ready to move in together if he decides to stay in New York, but he said that he’s not ready and doesn’t know when he will be. He also says he doesn’t want to get married or have kids and I’m still unsure of what I want for the future. 

I’m completely crushed. How do I decide if I should move there, live independently, and try to make the relationship work or if I should give up and try something different. I know it probably seems obvious what I should do, but I truly believe he’s the love of my life. It’s difficult to imagine another person existing that is more compatible. I don't want to ruin something so great but I also know that I want a partner who, if marriage is not in the cards, is at least able to offer a certain level of commitment and stability. What would you do? Thank you so much for taking the time to read this if you do. 

Love, 

Graduate Student 

Dear Graduate Student, 

Isn’t it interesting the way our brains develop stories? The way we fill in the blanks when we need to, desperate for a complete picture. For example, right now, I’m curious about your boyfriend, who we’ll call PhD Boy. Is he studying something objectively unimportant, like literature? Does he wear tweed overcoats unironically? (No judge: I would love to get my PhD in literature and I’m desperate for a Chanel tweed, which I would definitely wear ironically, but still.)  For the sake of the story, let’s give him those attributes. I imagine he takes his studies very seriously, which is his right, given all that money that goes into a degree — and just because it’s his right. I don’t know if any of this is true. It doesn’t matter either way. I just want to show you how my brain colored in between the lines you gave me. But now I leave my made up story behind, and instead, begin talking about the details you did include…because what you choose to share, even subliminally, is sometimes more telling than what you don’t. 

On “one” true love 

Let’s begin with something you said in the last paragraph: “I truly believe he’s the love of my life.” I don’t believe that. Not because I don’t believe you or in the intensity of your love, but because I don’t believe that there’s one love of anyone's life. How could I? To believe, for example, that my husband Brian is the one love of my life, and therefore, the only person I could ever love this wholly, I would be filled with existential fear every time he got on a plane, merged on the highway, or skied moguls through the trees (OK fine — I am filled with dread every time he does any of these things, but that’s a me problem). I prefer to believe that the loves of our lives are abundant, if we need them to be. Some of us are lucky, depending on how you view “luck,” to have a love that lasts a lifetime, which feels like an odd and profound thing, like an orchid that blooms after six months in dormancy. 

We got this orchard in March 2022. It “died” over the summer, and now, miraculously, it’s blooming again. (“Honey, it’s not a miracle, I’ve been taking care of it all this time,” Brian says…but I like that it feels like magic.) 

I believe this because I have to, because there’s no assurance of anything in our world. To believe that he’s the love of your life before you’ve made and acted in commitment to each other is risky, but so is believing it after you’ve checked those boxes. I can’t believe in one love of my life, because if I lost that one, god, what would I do? It keeps me up at night. But I find comfort knowing that Big Love is everywhere. 

PhD Boy might be a love of your life, maybe even a great love of your life, or a great love of your life that you spend forever with. But please know this: No matter what you decide to do, there’s an impressive cast of understudy Loves hanging behind the curtain, waiting for a chance to show you what they’ve got. 

On having agency

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. Here’s something else I noticed: 

You wrote, “I told him that I was ready to move to NYC if he decides to stay.” If he decides. Is this decision his, to be made alone in a silo? Well, sure, it’s his career, his life. But you’re his girlfriend, his girlfriend of two years no less, and I’m curious if you feel included in this impending decision. 

Long-term relationships are full of milestones, inclusive of the moment you start making decisions together. It’s actually an important milestone to look out for in a relationship, and if it doesn’t happen, it’s worth addressing. Even when the decision is really up to one person, like a woman deciding if she wants to bear or have children, the process of coming to the decision can (and I think should be) a shared experience. Has your boyfriend included you in this conversation? Not just telling you about it, but actively hearing your perspective and allowing that to influence his own? The way you write this line makes me believe that you’ve forgotten your agency, and perhaps he’s contributed to that (temporary) feeling. You are in control, and right now, my love, you have a big choice to make. 

Let’s say you move to NYC, the greatest city in all the land. Have you ever been? It’s glorious. Will you do a little visualization exercise with me? Think of a song you love, something that amps you the fuck up. Mine’s 6’s to 9’s. You’re wearing headphones and the song fills your ears and seeps into your skin. The city bumps its own soundtrack but you’re in control of what you listen to. You walk fast on the sidewalk because that’s the only way to do it, picking up the pace as the song intensifies. You bob and weave through people who don’t get the memo or stop abruptly to check directions. Don’t stop moving, you’ll figure it out. You approach the corner where you’re meeting someone, but that someone isn’t him. You have a whole life in this city now, rich with new people, opportunities, ambitions. PhD Boy is there, or he’s not. He isn’t the most important part of your picture. You didn’t move here for him, you moved here for you. 

Be honest with me, love: To the extent that any of us can really picture ourselves doing something outside of our comfort zone, can you see yourself in that scenario? I can see you there, but it doesn’t matter what I can see. What I’m trying to say is: if you can’t picture yourself building a life in New York as an individual, I wouldn’t move there for someone who isn’t even asking you to. Move for you. 

On marriage and kids 

Now for the married and kids things. Oof. Look, now that I’m a couple weeks shy of THIRTY-YEARS-OLD and am oh so wise, I can say that I don’t think marriage and kids is the right end-all-be-all goal. I was definitely obsessed with marriage and getting engaged before I got married, but now that I am, I recognize that all it really is is a piece of paper. I don’t believe the act of getting married is what makes the commitment holy, but I understand that marriage means different things to all of us. I’m not motivated by religion or duty or even promise. I didn’t vow to be married to my husband forever, though I hope I am. I vowed to do things that I think give us a fighting chance at being married forever. Things like, “I promise to tell you when things aren’t working and come up with solutions to fix them together.” (“And listen when you tell me the same yada yada yada.”) 

I don’t think you should give up what you want for someone else, but I do think it’s natural and healthy for “the things you want” to change in accordance with what your partner wants. I never wanted to leave New York City, but the more I saw how Brian wanted to, the more I listened to his dream, the more I thought, “hm, that could be interesting, I wonder what life could look like if I shifted my perspective.” I think love and long-term partnership is about being OPEN TO POSSIBILITIES OTHER THAN THE ONES WE ALWAYS IMAGINED FOR OURSELVES. It’s an adventurous way to live life, allowing yourself to be shaped by another person’s wants and desires. That flexibility will yield such a bright palette of experiences. Don’t misunderstand: Allowing someone to influence your decision-making is THE GREATEST PRIVILEGE we can give another person. I can’t understate that, my love. Do not let someone into your inner world who doesn’t also allow you in theirs. It only works if it's mutual. 

On weighing your options 

Have I said yet that you’re not asking for too much yet? You’re not asking for too much. Stability and commitment are quite literally...I don’t want to say bare minimum, because it reduces how holy those things are. Without those two characteristics, along with a few other foundational things like respect and curiosity, a long-term relationship cannot exist. The ground will crumble. 

On the matter of weighing your options, you wrote, “it may seem obvious what I should do” — but no, nothing about this is obvious. That’s the world getting in your head, along with the red-flag rhetoric that’s all over social media that I’d like to debunk with my content. “Obvious” — I hate that word, so minimizing to a person’s very real confusion or ambivalence.  Decisions about love are never obvious, and shame on anyone who makes you feel like the choice you have to make is an easy one. You have a couple of choices, all with merit. 

Here’s a little chart I made to illustrate them: 

The truth about love and life is that they always come with grief. Every choice we make moves us in one direction, and with that step comes some loss of something we thought we wanted before. We can feel grief even when we change our mind! Like you’re abandoning an early version of yourself, even though she’s no longer there. But with grief you also find love, and you’ll see that I included that reality in all the final destinations I imagine for you. That’s what I imagine for all of us. 

The final thing I’ll tell you, love, is that if you decide to “try something different,” as you so beautifully put it, it does not mean that you gave up. You seem to equate “giving up” with “trying something new,” but how could those ever be the same? Trying something new is brave and honest, the opposite of cowardice and defeat. I’m so confident in you. I see your optimism and zeal for life. I want you to be more particular with the words you use to talk about yourself. You have so much sparkle ahead. If you choose to, leaving PhD Boy to pursue something new will not be an act of defeat, it’s the greatest act of love there is. Love for yourself. 

Hayes 

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Thanks for reading Hello Hayes! Send me your advice letters at alexandrahayesrobinson@protonmail.com. I’m so grateful to all of you for reading and sharing my work. If you have any feedback on this issue, or ideas for what you’d like to see more or less of in the future, you can respond directly to this email and share with me — I will read and respond to everything. 

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Random but important questions I asked myself this week

A look inside the brain of a human called Hayes 

1. What if I’m never gonna be pretty again? 

2. Do you want to be the kind of person who finishes things, or only talks about finishing things? 

3. What would it look like if I cared 10% less about that? 

4. Will benzoyl peroxide bleach my eyebrows? (And WHY is the expensive eyebrow gel making me break out?) 

5. Do you trust your body to take care of you? (Yes.) So stfu about why it looks different! YOU TRUST IT. 

Watch me talk about these questions here.

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