Marriage and education.

[Zubnaya Feya]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to get your opinion on something. If I am repeating someone's post, please direct me to the post.

Has anyone been in a situation of a long-distance marriage? My fiancee and I are getting married in June and then I am starting dental school in August. We hoped she would get accepted to the same school PhD program but it didn't work out that way. At this moment she is accepted to a school 115 miles away from the school I am accepted at.

Please share some advice on how to handle such a thing. Is it possible to live together and commute? I think it is kind of crazy to commute 50-100 miles....
Let me know if you need more info.

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[Drabuisa]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to get your opinion on something. If I am repeating someone's post, please direct me to the post.

Has anyone been in a situation of a long-distance marriage? My fiancee and I are getting married in June and then I am starting dental school in August. We hoped she would get accepted to the same school PhD program but it didn't work out that way. At this moment she is accepted to a school 115 miles away from the school I am accepted at.

Please share some advice on how to handle such a thing. Is it possible to live together and commute? I think it is kind of crazy to commute 50-100 miles....
Let me know if you need more info.

I'm married with one child, but my wife lives with me. So, I have no actual experience with the whole long distance thing. What I do know is that you will not be able to commute, but I strongly believe that with both of you having such heavy schedules, you will be too busy to really sweat being far apart. I do pretty well in school and I don't study half as much as the other students because I like to spend time with my family. So you should just try to visit each other and talk to each other as much as possible... when you get down time.

 

[Saddleshoes]

Hey everyone,
At this moment she is accepted to a school 115 miles away from the school I am accepted at.

Please share some advice on how to handle such a thing. Is it possible to live together and commute? I think it is kind of crazy to commute 50-100 miles....
Let me know if you need more info.

I had classmates that did it multiple ways…

One guy had a wife that worked in the family business and made enough money to pay for his schooling. She worked four 10 hour days and then spend her 3 day weekends with him. I think both of them sacrificed their individual lives but it worked. They are still happily married last I heard.

Another guy in my class has a wife with a high power job in a fortune 500 company. They chose to “live in the middle”. He drove 50 miles to school and she drove 50 miles the opposite direction to work. Other then class I never saw this guy. The funny thing about this couple was after D-school they did the same thing. He practiced in one town and she worked in another town 70 miles away. So they bought a house in the middle. I guess they liked driving. They are also still married.

One girl in my class was married to a guy going to school in a doctorate program 150 miles away. They split their resources and both lived in dumpy apartments and ate lots of beans and rice. They traded off going to visit one another on weekends. They devote the 9-10 hour every night to talking on the phone thru the week. Their marriage broke up 1 year after they graduated their prospective programs. It seems they were working toward divergent goals.

The point of my story is…
You can make any arrangement work, but it takes sacrifice and commitment on the part of both people.

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

Thanks for your input. We are thinking about living separately and close to the schools we were accepted to. It is a 2 hour drive between schools so I think we would be able to visit each other most of the weekends. It just seems unfortunate or even scary that this is going to happen 1 month after getting married.

 

[Atticus]

Is there any possibility for your fiance to transfer PhD programs after a certain amount of time?

Also, what type of PhD program will she be involved in? Is it a program where she would be able to drive to your apartment on the weekends so that you can spend time together? Or is she going to be just as busy as you are on the weekends at her school?

Completely depending on the location of the cities (what traffic would be like, what the roads would be like a majority of the year), I would really consider living 50-60 miles away from the school. Granted this would completely suck (having to commute every day of the week), but it is a sacrifice I would make for my marriage.

However, if I lived in an area where traffic was terrible, and 50-60 miles really meant 2+ hours(on either end), I would be forced to suck it up and deal with living apart from my wife.

This is a way tough decision... I'm glad I don't have to make it.

 

[dr37]

Whatever yuu decide..bottom ine both the sides need to make some adjustments, sacrifices and compromise.. there might be tough times, but just be patient and deal with them nicely..

My sister was married in Med school..her husband and she got accepted to different residency programs..one in mid-west other in east coast..they were living miles apart at fellowship too.. now finally finally they are living like a married couple in a nice b'ful place in CA..and they say going through the tough times together has strengthened their relationship a lot..so struggle together to achieve you goals and school is just few years..this time will fly soon..so dnt worry and start following your dreams together..

I 'ld suggest staying near to your schools..as commuting daily might take a heavy toll..and D-School gives you far more reasons to worry about rather than commuting. ha ha i got bit too mushy.. good luck on your journey ahead and congrats for marriage

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

Thanks for all the input.

Her program is a PhD in History at Johns Hopkins and I got accepted into U Penn. I doubt she will be able to transfer to Penn because funding is very limited (Penn only accepted 2 students this year into their program) and funding a transfer student would be out of reach for the school.

It sounds like she would be able to come live with me after her 2nd or 3rd year in the program (when she is done with classes and TAing). Still though, 2 years is a lot. We are considering living between the two cities, but a 60 mile commute is a lot (3 hours each day, I would think). Losing 3 hours each day to commuting will most likely affect our performance in school. Besides, we don't have a car and we were planning to only buy one. Buying two cars is out of our budget.

My idea was that we live close to our universities. She will have the car and she will try to drive up to Philadelphia every weekend.

I guess our situation is not as tough as for other couples.

 

[Aceofspades]

Is there any possibility for your fiance to transfer PhD programs after a certain amount of time

Interesting that the first thought is if the wife can move to fit the husband's schedule. What about the OP transferring dental schools after a certain amount of time?

 

[Atticus]

Interesting that the first thought is if the wife can move to fit the husband's schedule. What about the OP transferring dental schools after a certain amount of time?

omg, what a weenie. I simply said that because many PhD programs are less rigorous and time consuming when comparing them to dental school. Don't get your panties in a wad.

 

[DrReo]

omg, what a weenie. I simply said that because many PhD programs are less rigorous and time consuming when comparing them to dental school. Don't get your panties in a wad.

Not the places where I summer interned during undergraduates. Although they were chemistry PhD candidates, they still worked 60-90 hours/wk in the lab...

 

[NAVY DDS 2010]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to get your opinion on something. If I am repeating someone's post, please direct me to the post.

Has anyone been in a situation of a long-distance marriage? My fiancee and I are getting married in June and then I am starting dental school in August. We hoped she would get accepted to the same school PhD program but it didn't work out that way. At this moment she is accepted to a school 115 miles away from the school I am accepted at.

Please share some advice on how to handle such a thing. Is it possible to live together and commute? I think it is kind of crazy to commute 50-100 miles....
Let me know if you need more info.

I am not going to go into whether to commute or not. All I will say is that it can be done. I know people who have done it for 4 years and actually traveled further than you would travel. But, I also know that it is a very difficult thing to do.

That said, long distance relationships can be done. They are done a lot more than you would think. My wife and I had a long distance relationship for our first 4 years. We saw each other a total of 11 months out of the 4 years with 3 months being the longest time period we were together. It was not easy. We had to work at building our relationship. We had to force ourselves to make time for each other even with the 350 miles separation the 1st year and 3000-10,000 miles separation the next 3 years. The distance will either make or break a relationship. If you put your heart into making sure the other knows how much you love them even through the miles apart, then at the end of 4 years I am pretty certain you will find your relationship stronger than it was before. You will appreciate the time together. You will know the little things that needs to be done to make the other happy.

Yes, a long distance relationship can be done. Is it for everyone? No. If you can avoid it, I would definitely recommnend it. But, if it cannot be avoided, be assured that it can be done successfully and come out with a very positive result in the end.

good luck!

 

[Tstarfish]

My husband (law school) and I (D-3) are 180 miles apart, I drive to see him every weekend because I have a roommate and he does not. It is very difficult- and not ideal- but works for the "short-term" which might end up being 3-4 years for us.

In my class we also have two other married couples that do not live together- One couple is 300 miles apart and the other is about 250 miles apart.

The bonus is that we have summers off (mostly) and school breaks-which makes things work alot better (as opposed to a professor we have that does has a cross-country marriage permanently). The extra time is what holds us together.

For us it works because we are driving distance apart- would NOT be willing to do a distance the requires a plane-

In conclusion- it can and does work- you just need to be open and honest with each other- it is very difficult and open communication is a must or else one side will get very hurt. It also needs to be "normal" you cannot obsess over the goodbyes and the fact that we only have 1.5 days together a week--you must pretend that it is normal time. ALso get a pet or a roommate- helps with the loneliness, and a webcam.

HOpe that helps!

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

It is good to hear that other people are doing this and it is working for them.
Thanks for the info!

 

[srb711]

I agree with everything NAVY DDS 2010 said. Obviously, it's not going to be easy. But if you're committed and can sacrifice during this time period, it will all work out.

My wife is in the Navy and we've spent the last year about 1,000 miles apart and the year before that about 600 miles apart. She still has 3 years of her enlistment left, and I'll be a D1 starting in June... so we still have a few years of the long distance stuff. It hasn't been easy, nor ideal, but with a little will power and stubbornness you'll make it.

 

[DudeDDS]

If you guys can make it work, then it was meant to be.
If not, then maybe it wasn't.

If you two are going to be married, you will definitely face harder challenges than this in life.

 

[HuyetKiem]

1200 miles for us. We had seen each other only on the holidays. It was hard but doable.