Compromising and sacrifice in long distance relationships in professional school

[lookatbanner]

Hi SDN. I wanted to get some of your opinions on how to manage long distance relationships in professional school. How do you manage who sacrifices what, to end up together, physically with all the residency matching, moving around, etc?

So my boyfriend and I have been long distance for the last 2.5 years due to me going off to pharmacy school (I didn't get in anywhere near him when I was applying). My only options at that time during the horrible economic crisis was to get my grad degree or stay with my bf (of 1.5 years at that time) and possibly be jobless with no real career path (I had a useless undergrad degree). I regret leaving because long distance has been ridiculously hard, but I was desperate and frightened at that point in my life that I was going to go nowhere and be financially deficient for the rest of my life. I had talked to my boyfriend about it at the time and he didn't seem like he cared that much if I left.

My boyfriend is an engineer now at a big company on the west coast. He recently got accepted to University of Iowa, where I go, to for a 1 year master's degree. We had talked about this for a while now, that he could come out here for 1 year, get his advanced degree, then I would try to apply for residencies back where he was from, so we could move back there together. Of course I would be at the mercy of residency matching, but I have been working my ass off at my program the last 2.5 years and I'm hoping my stats are competitive.

Here is the problem: now that bf has gotten accepted to my school, he now is having regrets about coming. He feels that he should try and apply to better schools for the "name brand" recognition and sacrificing that for our relationship would be screwing himself up in the long run.

It hurts me that he is springing this on me now (I was kind of expecting relief, or happiness that we were going to be together finally) and I am trying really hard to understand that going to a mediocre school for a 1 year masters program might be extremely detrimental to his career. But at the same time I feel like there needs to be compromise in a relationship and maybe he just doesn't see a future for us, and that's why he is having second thoughts now? I just don't know if we can get through another 1.5 years of distance, considering he nearly broke up with me 3 days ago because "he couldn't take the distance anymore."

TL;DR My bf and I have been long distance for a while and will continue to be for another 1.5 years. Bf was trying to get into grad school at the big state university I go to, and finally did, but now feels like he should try for a better school. Alarm bells going off in my head

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[mercaptovizadeh]

Hi SDN. I wanted to get some of your opinions on how to manage long distance relationships in professional school. How do you manage who sacrifices what, to end up together, physically with all the residency matching, moving around, etc?

So my boyfriend and I have been long distance for the last 2.5 years due to me going off to pharmacy school (I didn't get in anywhere near him when I was applying). My only options at that time during the horrible economic crisis was to get my grad degree or stay with my bf (of 1.5 years at that time) and possibly be jobless with no real career path (I had a useless undergrad degree). I regret leaving because long distance has been ridiculously hard, but I was desperate and frightened at that point in my life that I was going to go nowhere and be financially deficient for the rest of my life. I had talked to my boyfriend about it at the time and he didn't seem like he cared that much if I left.

My boyfriend is an engineer now at a big company on the west coast. He recently got accepted to University of Iowa, where I go, to for a 1 year master's degree. We had talked about this for a while now, that he could come out here for 1 year, get his advanced degree, then I would try to apply for residencies back where he was from, so we could move back there together. Of course I would be at the mercy of residency matching, but I have been working my ass off at my program the last 2.5 years and I'm hoping my stats are competitive.

Here is the problem: now that bf has gotten accepted to my school, he now is having regrets about coming. He feels that he should try and apply to better schools for the "name brand" recognition and sacrificing that for our relationship would be screwing himself up in the long run.

It hurts me that he is springing this on me now (I was kind of expecting relief, or happiness that we were going to be together finally) and I am trying really hard to understand that going to a mediocre school for a 1 year masters program might be extremely detrimental to his career. But at the same time I feel like there needs to be compromise in a relationship and maybe he just doesn't see a future for us, and that's why he is having second thoughts now? I just don't know if we can get through another 1.5 years of distance, considering he nearly broke up with me 3 days ago because "he couldn't take the distance anymore."

TL;DR My bf and I have been long distance for a while and will continue to be for another 1.5 years. Bf was trying to get into grad school at the big state university I go to, and finally did, but now feels like he should try for a better school. Alarm bells going off in my head

My biggest question is why he needs a masters right now, and why he would want to quit a job he has so he can get a "mediocre" masters, only to find himself without work at the end. I think he should just stay put or enroll in a masters that will make him much more marketable, and Iowa may not be it.

 

[VenusinFurs]

Dump his ass.