Looking for advice from actual significant others...

[alethiologist]

I have also posted this in the non traditional students forum but I thought I could also do with some feedback from these forums as well.

I need help/advice/feedback/anecdotal experiences from ANYONE on this one.

Has anyone found a way to explain to their significant other why this whole thing takes so much time between attending lecture, having labs in addition to those lectures, having to commit time to things like study groups, reviews, extracurriculars (right now for me, my only extracurricular is working in a neuroscience research lab)?? I'm constantly having to turn down social events because of school (and it really feels like every single concert and party is on the weekend before a huge test).

The specifics of my situation:
I actually live with my significant other (we've been together 4 years, he works as a graphic designer), and you think that would somehow ease the situation BUT not so much. There's consistent discord over the hours I invest in school and anything school related. Admittedly, he can be pretty needy, and he tends to take the fact that school has to be a priority right now pretty personally. I've made steps like keeping a ginormous dry erase calendar in our kitchen with all my class times, appointments, lab hours, and deadlines so he's at least aware of when I might or might not have free time and my other hope was to literally show him my workload so it could help set his expectations.
I try to spend the free time I do have with him and I'll do things like stay up later than I should to spend time with him and I've even blown off crucial study time for the same reason. I also try to leave him little notes and send him texts to let him know I love him and I'm thinking of him. I definitely thank him for doing things like cooking dinner for me. Yet, when I can't go to a concert on a Monday night because I have lab it turns into a huge ordeal about how he feels like he's single and that I don't really value him etc etc.
He does say that he understands, but obviously there's a disconnect and it would appear that he only understands my situation intellectually. He still gets upset if I'm home late (as in what he considers late, probably starting at 8:30pm). He's been known to call me while I'm studying at school and lecture me about not coming home "on time". He gets upset when I'm at home studying and I'm up past 11:30pm-12am. It gets really frustrating. There's a lot of pouting and guiIt tripping which often bloom into full on fights. All of this consumes time that could spent much more productively whether I'm using it to study or we're spending quality time together.
I 'm 32 years old (as is he) and I finally have the opportunity to finish my undergrad and pursue this ginormous dream that I have, and I love him and we've talked about marriage more than once but this **** is killing me and my GPA.

Any suggestions, feedback, advice, ridicule???

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[poky]

He needs to get over himself, and you need to set expectations better. If you're not going to be able to get home till 9pm, tell him that, and then stick to it and do come home then. "My study group wasn't finished" sounds like "we were having too much fun for me to remember you were at home waiting for me", even if that's not the case. If you said you'd wrap it up by a certain time, do it.

I worked a normal full-time job while my husband was in med school, and most weeks he was home way more than I was (the actual class hours weren't very long, and he mostly studied at home by himself). Of course, most of the time he was home, he was studying, but he made time to have dinner and hang out a little most nights, and we're older (yes, older than you are) and not super-social anyway, so not going to concerts and parties wasn't even on my radar as a "problem". We'd also already been married for years, so we used our shared google calendars and we both knew to let the other one know if we'd be home later than originally planned.

He's in residency now, and tomorrow starts a month where because of my schedule and his new block's schedule, I will literally only see him for part of 4 days over the next 4 weeks.

Yes, being the SO of someone in medicine is often very much like being single. He needs to realize that's just the way it is, and that whining about it isn't going to change it, and decide if he can deal with it or not...but on the other hand, as I already said, you need to be VERY clear when you're setting expectations; don't imply you'll be home for dinner because you're feeling guilty, if you know you probably won't. He deserves to not be misled and disappointed, if you can at all manage it.

 

[smq123]

Cross posted in the non-trad forum:http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=13207682#post13207682

Please go there to comment. Closing.