It's a tricky question. I agree that often morals involve making though choices. At the same time, those choices have to balance the magnitude of the evil, the consequences of sticking to your morals, and the consequences of just going with it.

To give a concrete example: let's say I have to choose between unemployment and working in a casino (assuming I believe casinos to be evil). I can work there and do nothing. I can work there and donate an X amount of my salary to addiction-recovery ONGs. I can refuse to work there and compromise my (hypothetical) children's well-being.

Which one of this is the "moral" choice? I can't say. And I'm willing to bet that you can make a moral argument for each one of those.

I'm with you in that sticking to your morals often involve sacrifice. But I wouldn't assume that the weights I add to each aspect of my morals are the same as everybody else's.

Participation in community at some level is necessary, and, depending on your morals, may be a moral imperative even when your morals disagree with the products of the community with which you interact. Is it easier to promote change in a community from within or from the outside?

It would be easy to read your question as "wife, deportation, debt, or all together" == nothing, and in doing so dismiss it. It is easy to see it as "you aren't even willing to sacrifice [all or most of these things] for this?" I would imagine that for most people, their loved ones trump their morals by a wide margin.

If you are asking that question without the parent as context, I would say that it seems like the only distinction between morals and preferences is one of definition.