Advice needed: How to navigate disability in a relationship and life
I (28F) live with visual impairment, severe enough that I can never drive. I also grew up in a small country and in the city, with my parents, whom I lived with all my life until 25 when I moved to the US for my PhD. My bf (28M) and I have been together for 6 years and everything has been great.
We recently applied for a housing project in my country, which will be completed in about 5 years (around the time I complete my PhD). I didn't think much about things until the situation of paying a downpayment for the house next year arose.
Firstly, I am unsure what job I will get when I graduate - that's 5 years later, and it's pretty much impossible to predict how the job market would be like. Secondly, I would very much prefer to stay in the US than to return back home. I grew up with so much anxiety and unhappiness living with my parents, and I need distance from them when I start my own family. However, the thing is I cannot drive, and I feel like living and working in the US may not be all that feasible (am i right?). In my home country, public transportation is great and I would not need a car. But I just don't want to be close to my family all the time, even if I have my own home. Especially when I have kids: I simply do not want them near my children. Third, my bf is set on returning to our home country to work and settle down.
I brought this up to my bf and he told me I had 2 options: 1) end the relationship, forgo the house that we applied for, and live my dreams of possibly living in the US after I graduate. This is feasible, since we have not made the downpayment due next year, or 2) make the downpayment and agree to settle down back in my home country. He also brought up my disability and said that living in the US would be impossible for me because it's so car-dependent anywhere you go, whereas this is not the case back home. I said that we could live together in the US and he could help me get around, but he claims that he will not be able to find a job where I will eventually be (he works in tech and is based in a large city in the US). It is a reasonable claim I suppose, since my future job might be in academia or industry somewhere more remote and rural.
So I don't know how to make such a decision: I can't predict the job (if any) I'll get in 5 years, but there will be much more options for me in the US because of the nature of my degree. If I do decide to return home 5 years later, it'll be extremely difficult to purchase a house (country-specific reasons) so the house we currently have on hand is extremely ideal if we were to go back. Although I want to have flexibility in terms of my future career, I don't want to give up the relationship because it's going so well.
It's already terrible living with a disability all my life, and even worse when I realise it's limiting my options, and potentially my happiness. I just don't know what to do. I have a couple of months to think about it, but it just feels like I don't have enough information to exactly know what to choose.
Posted Jul 28, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC