My husband is thinking about taking a job overseas for a year. His boss wants to send him to a place that would not be feasible for the family to follow and besides that, anyone who has been paying attention to the news lately knows that it's really not the best time to try to sell a house.

If he gets this position then he'll move overseas temporarily, with a vacation sometime in the middle to come back and spend about a month at home.

The kids will miss him like crazy if he goes, but in my husband's line of work if he doesn't go now he'll have to go eventually.

We both figure that if he goes while the kids are as young as they are now then it won't be as traumatic. We figure our son may not even remember him ever being gone when he gets older.

What a pickle. We've both been trying to work on our marriage, but if he goes away then everything will go on pause. We won't have anything figured out, and it will be a weird sort of pseudo-separation where we're still married but we're not living together.

I can't decide whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing. I'll admit that the thought of living without him for a year is pretty appealing, just because I won't have to deal with him. On the other hand, if he isn't here and present then how can we ever get everything figured out one way or another?

Maybe the time away will reveal that we're better off apart than we are together, or maybe we'll pine over each other like mad and decide that the marriage is worth saving. I don't know. Either way, if he gets this position things are bound to get interesting.