One Redditor walked into a moral maze that could make anyone’s stomach drop: at 25, she’s been visiting her semi-comatose boyfriend four to five times a week for two years often along icy mountain roads to sit beside the person she once planned to marry. Then an offer landed: a dream job across the country, nearly double her current salary.
When she told his mother she was considering it, the reaction was volcanic, accusations of betrayal, abandonment, and “ruining Christmas.” The poster insists she still loves him, but also wonders if she’s allowed to keep living. Want the full story and the internet’s verdict? Dive into the original saga below.
One woman faced a agonizing choice: stay near her semi-comatose boyfriend or take a life-changing job across the country
OP later updated in another post:
However painful it is, this story cuts to something real: trying to live for two people when only one of you can actively “live.” OP loves her boyfriend deeply, but his catastrophic injury has turned the relationship into one shaped by absence, risk, promise, and guilt.
OP has been with her boyfriend since age 19, they planned marriage, and then a skiing accident left him nearly comatose. She visits often, loves him, but can’t provide the daily caregiving he now needs.
She has a job that offers career growth far away, and she’s been offered a position she can’t pass up. The tension is between duty, loyalty, love, and grief on one side, and self-preservation, opportunity, and moving forward on the other.
On her side: staying feels like being frozen in grief and under an unbreakable promise. She risks giving up her whole life’s potential, ability to grow, to feel safe, to imagine another future. She fears guilt, shame, being seen as abandoning someone she once loved, or being judged by his family.
On his mother’s side: her pain is immense. It’s often a parent’s nightmare to watch a child become someone else, physically present, but not “there” in mind or reciprocity. She views OP’s move as betrayal, socially, morally, emotionally. She may feel OP is undermining their promise, giving up her part of the relationship while he cannot.
This situation exemplifies what psychologists call ambiguous loss where someone is physically present but psychologically gone, or vice versa. According to What Is Ambiguous Loss?, written by HealthCentral, such loss “torments so many; it’s not like friends send cards or flowers. People can feel very alone.”
Coupled with caregiver burnout, there is risk of OP’s emotional, physical, and mental health suffering in silence. The article Caregiver Stress and Caregiver Burnout in HelpGuide explains how unrelenting caregiving, especially with little external support and growing responsibilities, leads to exhaustion, resentment, even health decline.
Pauline Boss, PhD, pioneer of the ambiguous loss concept, said in an APA podcast: “One of the biggest errors people make is insisting on closure or expecting recovery in the traditional sense. Ambiguous loss demands that we accept that some losses are not solved; we live with them.”
That seems relevant: OP cannot wait for a recovery that may never come. The essence is not “giving up,” but redefining her commitment in realistic, sustainable terms.
Possible solutions
- Open talk with her therapist about grief, identity, guilt. Clarify what she will gain professionally/life-wise, and what she stands to lose emotionally and relationally.
- Set boundaries: what regular visitation looks like, what expectations are realistic on care, involvement vs. presence. Maybe leverage caregiving structures (hospital, his parents) more evenly to reduce emotional load.
- Reframe promises: Understand that “marriage” or “togetherness” does not always mean physical or functional presence in the way one imagines. Define what each partner can reasonably bring emotionally, practically.
- Self-care is not selfish: OP must protect her own life, mental health, opportunities. Taking the job doesn’t erase her love; it acknowledges that life includes complexity and pain.
- Honest communication with his family: Let them know she cares deeply, but cannot sacrifice everything. Sometimes explaining what she is gaining (career, safety, growth) helps others understand, even if they are still grieving.
Here’s what the community had to contribute:
These Reddit users urged her to live her life, noting her boyfriend wouldn’t want her stuck
Some emphasized there’s no “good time” to leave, with the former bluntly saying staying means sacrificing her future
This group called out the mom’s manipulation
This commenter shared a moving story of a similar situation, praising OP’s courage
These users claimed OP was not wrong
This group saw no jerks, just grief, but urged her to prioritize herself with therapy.
This isn’t a villain story; it’s a collision of grief, loyalty, and the right to a future. Most readers felt she wasn’t “abandoning” him, she was acknowledging a heartbreaking truth and choosing not to disappear with it.
What would you do: take the career lifeline now, or stay closer and hope the path reveals itself later? Where’s the line between devotion and self-sacrifice? Share your take below.
