Heartbroken

So, here I am, on the verge of accomplishing my dream of having a home of my own, what should be the happiest day of my life.  Instead, my heart feels like lead.

My Significant Other and I have been dating for many years.  Throughout the whole thing it has been a long distance relationship, which has been difficult, but we've endured.  Now, however, my SO has been interviewing for a job, one my SO calls a dream job.  The trouble is, it is on the opposite coast from me, literally across the entire country.  Further, the pay is actually quite poor, not even enough for my SO to live on.  There are hints of advancement, but nothing definite, no promises of when or even if it will come.

We've always been drawn to opposite sides.  I'm from one coast, my SO is from the other.  This job would be a return to my SO's home state and family.  On the other hand, to be together would mean that I would have to give up everything of mine.  I'd lose my home, my career, my friends.  Everything that I worked for for so long.  Nor can I just up and leave right now anyway, there are reasons why I Must stay where I am for the time being. As for my career, I would need to be re-licensed in a new state, and the laws between the two coasts are very different, making it harder for me to move between them.  And my friends are important to me.  I never really had friends before them.  And if I lost them, I'd be losing a part of myself.  I'm not good at making new ones, I only met these friends by rare chance.  I was forced to work with one of them in college, and that is how we got to know each other.  Out there, I wouldn't be able to find new ones, and I could never replace the ones I have now and all we've been through.  On the other hand, my SO has been living in the mid-west for longer than we've been dating, and thus has already been seperated from her own home and friends.  Further, neither one of us likes the other's home state.  But in my case, its possible, and we've already discussed, going over the border into one of the surrounding states.  In my SO's case, that isn't a viable option.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, thinking that this is about me expecting my SO to follow me, that is not what I'm getting at.  What I just listed was all the reasons we are torn to opposite places, the anchors on our lives.  We are both being pulled apart.

What I'm wondering is, should I leave my SO so that my SO is free to take this job?  If I'm not part of the equation, wouldn't my SO then be able to take this "dream" job without reservation?

It was a miracle that I was able to love and be loved for so long already.  But it was foolish of me to think that it would last.  Monsters don't get happy endings.