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[rambobreakfast]

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum--it could be Two Body, Grad Life, or perhaps Leaving Academe?

I am a Lecturer (ft/benefits) with an MA in a humanities field at a regional comprehensive university where my spouse is an t-t Assistant Professor. We've spent the last five years moving from VAP to VAP to secure his job. Prior to my lectureship, I worked as an academic librarian for several years (I also have the MLIS). Since arriving in our small city one year ago, no ft/permanent librarian jobs have opened in the area. Our regional comprehensive will supposedly have a position soon, and they are supposedly interested in me. There is no stated spousal hire policy here.

Prior to our knowledge of the library job, I was accepted to a PhD program at a local (within 60 miles) university. While I think I would enjoy the PhD, I am fully aware of the many problems with this path. Really, I applied out of a desperate need to feel I was advancing my career/life somehow ... and not just adjuncting in my spouse's department. Last week, my lectureship was renewed for another academic year.

Realistically, my options are:

1. Attend the PhD program, live 4/7 days apart from my spouse, lose income, gain a PhD in a rewarding but unpromising field at a mid-tier program, face the impending doom of a(nother) dual career search,

2. Keep my lectureship and be thankful I have some sort of employment for now,

3. Exercise either 1 or 2 and wait for the library job to open, with hopes that I might be hired, or

4. Leave academe altogether and totally retool in another, more flexible field (accounting? physical therapy assisting?)

I'm open to non-academic careers, but I'm hesitant to retool since I already have two Master's degrees. I'm just not sure what to do--everything seems like a zero-sum game for my relationship: I do the (interesting, fulfilling) PhD, and then we have to fight against each other in the academic job market for jobs that don't exist OR simply find ourselves in the same situation in five years that we're in now; I keep the lectureship, and we don't starve but I feel inadequate and stalled; I wait for the library job, and it doesn't materialize and I am stuck with 1 or 2 OR it does materialize and I have to quit 1 or 2 mid-year.

How do people make these decisions, especially in an economy where just "getting a job" is not usually possible?

[wanna_writemore]

Do you have the sense that the temp position you have might be renewed several more times, or is there a limit on the number of years the U can have a temp person?  As a bit of browsing around the fora will quickly indicate, suggestions or even outright promises of future tt positions (or librarian positions) generally can't be trusted, even if you trust the people making them.

Do you like the job you have, besides the all-too-common (and often justified) feeling that you aren't quite fulfilled enough?  Does it allow you to have the kind of life you want in work or family terms? Is there a way to focus on the things about it that do work? Maybe you should treat it more like a much more flexible 9-5 job, and find other things to do with your remaining time, whether those are hobbies, friends, your family, writing a novel...In other words, look at it as what you're doing now, not a holding pattern.  It sounds like you crave stability more than anything. 

The risk of leaving your current job and taking on the PhD is that you might not be able to get a ft job back, so you'll have to decide with your partner whether that's a risk you can handle financially and emotionally.

As an aside - as a commuter, and knowing lots of commuters, the idea that you can't commute to a PhD program within 60 miles sounds like an excuse.  Why not?  Most PhD programs don't require you to be on campus 40 hours a week (unless you're in a lab science).