Jenny18

Man, let me just say, I'm five years into it with masters done and some of PhD done (both thesis tracks, both science). It's damn hard and it's damn harder being in a relationship when you are stressed out. There is no 'nagging' or whatever if you've come home to find a sink full of dirty dishes and your sig other has been home all day. Come on people. You've been on your feet for 8 hr+ at the bench, no breaks, you're so stressed (and you'd better hope not all your weeks are like this or you are doing something wrong but SOMETIMES you will have a week like this). I see a lot posts where new grad students are like 'classes, classes' or they are in 'grad school' as econ. This is not the same as driving yourself hard doing lab research day in day out. Now, can this get out of balance? Most definitely. My partner and I just had a major fight/s this past week-I worked myself too hard coming home late each night, gone all day, he was working or not but chores weren't getting done. The dishes had been in the week for seriously a week or more, laundrey was backing up, there was stuff everywhere (ok, there is still stuff everywhere). I just had no energy and I wasn't sleeping well. Getting your PhD is great BUT not if it costs your relationship. However, this being said, there are negotiations/communications/working together. I heard some people taking the tone earlier of 'support your man'. That's great but if you're in graduate school, you also need support-this is not the 1950's. There is no silent sighing enduring woman (or man) who does the dishes each night while the other rests. I am glad we did fight actually b/c it got us talking about a chore chart where each of us switch off on different things around the house so I'm not coming home from lab and getting right to work in the house and he's not having to do all of it either. Talk! Talk! Then take action. Grad school and relationships are great! I've been so glad to come home to my partner or vise-versa and am feeling much more balanced in many ways when in this relationship. There will be some bad days/weeks (it'd best not be any longer than a week though-geez!)-that's life. Don't ignore those times-talk about them. This past week was both our faults-even though I felt out of control about my experiments and when I was or wasn't in lab, I was. I made the choice to run too many experiments at once and I wasn't the only one who paid for that (it's not worth it in retrospect, try and pace yourself as best you can!). Well, anyway, good luck!