A phd fork in the road

[Morning_star]

I was hoping some of you may be able to give me a fresh perspective on my situation or some info that I may have been unable to find. 

To start, I find my self in a fork in my life. I am in my early 30s and was finally accepted to a good sociology phd program in the USA. I am not an American citizen and neither is my partner. While we plan on getting married neither of our countries has marriage equality and so we have not tied the knot officially yet. 

While I could go and sponsor him for a dependent visa it will obviously hurt his carrier path as he won't be able to work. He is an engineer just starting his professional road and will have a comfortable life in his home country (in Asia) where we live together at the moment. In addition I will also have professional possibilities here in consulting/ IT and I have no doubt that we will be happy living here. 

Pursuing a phd though was what brought me to Asia in the first place (I got my M.A. here) and it was always my goal to do research.

Looking at our options of going to the US seems grim as working visas are scarce even if he could find a company to sponsor him. Long distance also seems exceedingly difficult since we will be in opposit time zones for at least 5 years. 

I am well aware that this is something that only I can resolve. However, I would welcome any similar experiences or perspectives into my situation.

TL:DR Any other long term non US citizen couples where one of them is a phd in the US? How do you manage?