But there are no military hospitals in New York City. So if I'm planning to spend my life with Jake (which I am), I would eventually have to say goodbye to the career I had been building here — whether it was in the next few months when he starts school, or in four years when he was done with it. Sure, we had always talked about this as a possibility, but now we had a decision to make with an immediate deadline and very real consequences. And I hadn’t quite reconciled that with my career-focused, totally autonomous, NYC-centered life plan.I was overwhelmed with so many questions: Is it wrong for me to leave my life in NYC for a boy? Does that mean I’m not a feminist? If I follow him now, would I be able to find work that challenges and satisfies me wherever we have to go later? If not, would I resent him? Blame him? Or, alternatively, were we doomed to being long-distance, so that I could stay somewhere for a job? Will I be painfully bored if we’re stationed somewhere outside of a city? Am I going to be able to make friends? What if the whole military-spouse culture is as antiquated as I think it is? Would our future marriage suffer from deployments? Was I strong enough? What about any hypothetical kids? Will they be moved around a lot? Would they have any stability? Will they be able to go to good schools?I’m 24, and suddenly I was worrying about the nuances of my entire future. Making a decision with this much weight and potential for damage wasn’t part of the plan.Unfortunately, when I went to research the answers to some of those questions — especially the career-related ones — what I found was extremely disappointing. In 2014, ABC News reported 90% of military wives were jobless or underemployed. Furthermore, the lucky 10% who can find jobs are automatically at a disadvantage, since military families can move (on average ) six to nine times over the course of a career, which doesn't give them a lot of time to establish their own careers.I was further confused when we visited the USUHS campus and sat through a truly infuriating presentation about the local Spouses Club. To my (admittedly judgmental) horror, the whole thing was a slideshow of tea parties and children, complete with the phrase “it gives us something to do while we wait for our husbands to come home.” No mention of support for women who work. No balance between domesticity and a drive to maintain independence. Just photos of wine and painting classes and toddlers running through the park. And, though I completely understand and respect women who choose that for themselves, it's not me. Thank goodness we ran into some students we knew later on, because they were able to alleviate my panic and explain that there were resources, career-driven members of the club, and overall more than what the presentation suggested.Still, between my research and the campus tour, I felt discouraged. I love Jake, and I want to be with him, but I worried his decision to become a Navy doctor was only going to be good for one of us. And he worried about it, too, going so far as to seriously consider his alternate medical school offer — an excellent civilian program where he would still get a great education.I didn't want to ask him to give up on this dream. After 10 years together, we had learned the importance of compromise, and I knew I would never forgive myself if I held him back from absolute happiness. And, despite all the negatives, I was surprised to find that I had started to feel a similar pull toward the military. It was an indescribable sense of curiosity, duty, and adventure. So, I dug a little bit deeper, hoping to find some shred of evidence that we could make this insane decision work.