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[denver]

Thanks for all your thoughts.  In rumpumpel's story I hear much of my own - knowledge, even sympathy by the institution, without any action.  It amazes me that our respective Universities, when threatened with departure, act hurt - as if they didn't realize the problem.  In my naive optimism, I keep hoping that if only we can reach the right person with the right message, the magic wand will be used.

Both of us will be on the market this year - but not totally optimistic.  I think there is becoming a real gap within the academy on this front.  I see scientists being recruited or at least having options, while in some other fronts, we are waiting for one of the six people who are in our specialty to die/retire. 

I do want to respond to prof_tournesol's ideas.  I believe that there is a lack of understanding of at least some fields in academia right now.  "Just make yourself indispensable" isn't always a solution - or even "be a star." As a young PhD right out of graduate school I made a situation where my institution would "hate to lose" me - and they were happy to appreciate all my efforts and seek to make a position for me - but were stopped when the administration put up a hiring freeze.  Thus, all of this institution building then was for nothing - good will is difficult to export to a new job.  Now, I try to be an adequate department citizen, but not a stellar one.  Especially as - if I may for a moment note - departments are dumping female faculty members with most of the administration and advising.  I believe that until we overturn the image that female faculty members are nurturing (and that nurturing/mentoring isn't valued) that the gender dynamic in the academy will continue apace.  (A colleague of mine recently looked at our department noting that 100% of our pre-tenture faculty were women, while 95% of full professors were male -- AND YET, the women still did most of the committee work and advising. Hum...)

Now - if I may - an manifesto!
   Like Ginsburg - I have seen some of the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness --  in my situation, it has been this two body problem.  In most cases, I watch brilliant scholars end their careers because it just isn't possible to get a job - let alone two.  (Sorry Professor_T - there is a different world out there that you aren't seeing - I went to the top grad school in my field - and there are still a paucity of jobs - even for the best.)  The choice of women to leave the academia is certainly a valid one for them (and it is ususally the women in a couple - or the non-scientist) - and often they go on to have well-paying, non-academic jobs and happy lives.  But what about the academy and the field?  It has lost a potential "star" - or more importantly an insightful scholar.  Who seems to survive is (1) the men with non-academic spouses (a secret need for the faculty wife)  and (2) the neo-liberal academics, those willing to sell out their ideas for whatever the latest fad/grant is.
I got into this "business" for ideas - and I will stick with that - and the career come hell or high-water.  My manifesto - don't quit - it just allows the corporatization of the academy continue.  I am fully convinced that I (and much of my generation) will fail - will fail to generate theoretical insight because of the timetables of publication, fail to collaborate and communicate because such is discouraged in a cutthroat world, will fail to thrive, as people, community members and scholars.  BUT, I have a fantasy - that in 2050 - people will look back on this era as the second "dark ages" and lament the minds that were lost - like many of my graduate school colleagues who have since joined the ranks of suitwearers.
Thanks for listening - and if you can (and that is a big financial and emotional if)- don't give up!

[offthemarket]

You're spending 80% of one salary on commuting - and you are maintaining two homes/apartments on two salaries.

It sounds to me that if you both lived in one place, you could maintain the same standard of living on one salary.  If it gets to be too much, one of you could become an independent scholar (aka, no job, no salary, you can do what you want) and the other one could keep their job.

You two should be on the job market across the board for a few reasons:
a - you might find a new place that is willing to make a dual hire
b - your institutions aren't going to make offers to your spouses unless they might be losing you, it seems.
c - maybe you could both gets jobs closer to one another, if not at the same place

[brad1]

I'm with those who suggest applying for any and every job. 

When I got my tenure track job two years ago, my wife was hired on in a non-tenure track position.  Basically, she's been doing a lot more teaching than I am, for significantly less money.  On the one hand, it was great that we got to live together, but on the other, she frequently felt less appreciated-- not necessarily because of anything anyone said or did (our colleagues have been, across the board, nice people), but because of the nature of her position.

This year, she went on the job market and-- as our new provost put it-- "dazzled the search committee" at a small liberal arts college.  Dazzled 'em so much that they agreed to look at my CV, and then bring me to campus.  The story ends with both of offered jobs and making quite a bit more money than we would have expected.

Granted, this is going to be a big change.  We'll be teaching quite a few classes that, while in our field, are outside of our specific areas of interest.  And I'll be doing more teaching at the new school.  But that's a compromise I'm willing to make, because I feel quite confident that such a compromise will improve my wife's career, thus improving my marriage, and thus improving my own life. 

(And thus, every time my wife asks me, "Are you sure you're happy with this situation?" I can reassure her that it's entirely selfish on my part...)

If you're both willing to accept such compromises-- like, giving up grad students and resigning yourself to teaching more freshman-level courses, for example-- then you may just get as lucky as we have.  But I wouldn't wait for your current institutions to offer you anything.  As sympathetic as others might be in this situation, ultimately it's your issue, not theirs, and nobody else is invested in making your life better.  That sounds cold, I guess, but it's true-- your department chair might nod in sympathy as you discuss your situation and say, "I really want to help you, but..."  But at the end of the day, he or she's not going to lose sleep over your finances or your relationship, the way you will. 

[tenured_feminist]

You conducted an experiment and collected the data. You gave both institutions a chance to solve the problem. Neither managed it. All that is left now is going on the market aggressively. Both of you should do it without regard to whether there are two jobs in the same place.

I landed my first job at a place that I loved and that loved me. No real opportunities came up for my partner for my entire pretenure period. The year I was up for tenure, I got a comparable job offer. My institution matched the offer for me and at the eleventh hour came up with a nice longer term package for him that looked like it would lead to a long term solution. We stayed. A few years later, that situation fell apart in May or June. In August, I got a call from a colleague at another institution. If my partner had been in a settled, long-term position, I'd have given my colleague five names of moveable people and wished him good luck. Now we both have jobs there.

Perhaps I am still not over the hurt, but really, if an institution has a good faculty member and is serious about keeping hu and if the faculty member has a competent, qualified partner, the institution is engaging in delusion bordering on insanity if it expects the faculty member to stay on the strength of a lot of talk about how much they value and love hu. My partner wanted a tenure-track job but would have settled for a long-term, stable career position. He's now an administrator and doing very well.

We would have stayed. We wanted to stay. They still talk about how much they miss me. Well . . . .

Go on the market. This fall. Full court press.