Marriarge in vet school??

[AniSci]

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This has probably been threaded into an American quilt by now...

But I'm a 4th year UNDERGRAD student (animal science major, headed for vet school, tho I'm a bit behind b/c I decided to start this journey a little late, so if all goes as planned I'll enter the new cycle in the fall of 2016), and I've been dating a microbiology major who will be graduating undergrad in spring 2016 (a semester after me). Then, he wants to get a Master's and PhD, so he's got more school just like me.

We've both decided that we see ourselves getting married by age 25, at the very youngest.

That would put me with two (give or take) years of vet school left, and him still in grad school as well.

I've just heard that married couples where one enters vet school are pretty much doomed for failure. But what about marrying *during* vet school, especially half-way through??

I'm just trying to get opinions/advice, for future reference lol.

 

[WildZoo]

I've just heard that married couples where one enters vet school are pretty much doomed for failure.

I'm curious where you heard that. I think there are several people around here who were already married when they entered vet school. There are also several people who got married during vet school.

No certain set of circumstances makes a relationship "doomed for failure" (people say that about long distance relationships too, but it's not necessarily true). It really depends on the strength of the relationship.

 

[AniSci]

I'm curious where you heard that. I think there are several people around here who were already married when they entered vet school. There are also several people who got married during vet school.

No certain set of circumstances makes a relationship "doomed for failure" (people say that about long distance relationships too, but it's not necessarily true). It really depends on the strength of the relationship.

All of the vet school professors who visit us to lecture/speak about vet school and how to prepare for and subsequently deal with it warn anyone married or thinking about getting married. The same goes for the animal science department professors; they're like "Don't get married."

I really appreciate the "no certain set of circumstances makes a relationship "doomed for failure"" bit; that was very true!

 

[katryn]

That bit of advice is horribly out dated. About a third of our class was married going in and another third got married during school or right after to the person they dated the whole way through. A few of us had babies too. We only had three people get divorced and from what I understand they all felt like they were in trouble regardless of vet school.

 

[Mad Jack]

If it is anything like med school, I'm going to have to agree with some of the comments above. No relationship is doomed to failure. My gf and I have been doing the distance thing with zero fights and are basically happy as ever when we talk or are together. I thought I was doomed, but it turned out to not be the case. The couples that have fallen apart were the ones that were headed that direction anyway- people with histories of cheating, couples that had been fighting for as long as they could remember, etc.

 

[dyachei]

I bet if you searched the forums, you'd find a lot of info about getting married in vet school. 😉

Vet school (and med school) are high stress and it does strain relationships. Healthy ones tend to make it

 

[Minnerbelle]

One thing to kind of keep in mind (which may or may not be an anxiety inducing thing that tears away at your relationship) is what both of you want out of your careers. If your SO is hellbent on a microbiology career in academia, and you decide to specialize and go through residency, that can be really really tough on your relationship just due to the nature of geographic restriction. At some point there may be serious discussions to be had about prioritizing career over relationship. Not something you need to decide or dwell on right away (because for both of you just starting out, your current aspirations are likely to change after the influences of your training/life circumstances), but something to keep in mind as you go along. You'll want to be open to each other about your career aspirations and how that may affect the other's or your relationship as you go along.

 

[Doktor Timo]

The "married couples are doomed" advice is a product of a particularly obnoxious attitude that is all too common in vet med, that being that everything is going to suck and you'll never be happy again once you start vet school. Don't listen to those people. If you have a healthy relationship and the two of you are committed to making a life together, go for it.

I got married right before I graduated undergrad. I'm now on the tail end of my second year and while my marriage certainly isn't perfect, any struggles that we have had were because of other issues, not vet school. And there are at least twelve or thirteen other happily married students in my class, some of whom were married coming in and some who got married over the summer after our first year.

Will it be hard to be a married vet student? Sure, because marriage is hard and vet school is hard. But if you have the right priorities you'll make it. And you might find that being married actually HELPS in some ways. I know it does for me. My wife can take care of me and feed me when I'm freaking out and she can keep things in order in our lives when I don't have time to control everything. Not to mention the extra income from having a spouse with a full-time job. Honestly, I would never want to do vet school alone now.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I think the bigger issue is the difficulty in staying in the same area. There is no guarantee that you will be going to vet school in the same area/school he goes to grad school at. Distance is what broke up many of my undergrad/vet school/residency relationships because either I was leaving or they were, or we tried LDR and it didn't work as the vast majority don't.

Since he will be graduating after you, is he willing to move wherever you go? Can he get into grad school where you will be going? Are there well-funded lab focusing on subjects he wants to pursue, pushing out publications, run by good quality PIs, etc? These are questions you need to talk about before the "when" of getting married even enters the equation.

Also....ok, so you see youeself getting marred by 25 at the youngest. That is what, 3 years from now, assuming you went to college right after high school? Are you sure you will still be with this guy in 3 years? People change a LOT in their early 20s, believe me. I wouldn't plan your life around him just yet. Focus on you. Focus on having a healthy relationship that will make it through vet school. Don't focus on getting married, or when you are getting married, or if you should get married in vet school or later. Tighten up on them reins.

 

[Minnerbelle]

If your marriage doesn't work out, then I don't think being married during vet school will have had anything to do with it. That relationship will have been doomed regardless of whether you were married or dating. I honestly wouldn't unless you are both reasonably sure your future careers are compatible with a life together. Not because marriage will fail if you do it during vet school... But because break up is so much easier without needing to go through a divorce!

Both PhD and DVM careers are long in the making and quite volatile until you've settled on a fairly set trajectory. Both of these are difficult to get through without good support, and it can be super difficult when your partner's aspirations hinders either your relationship or your own aspirations. (Says a new grad DVM with no intent on specializing, who is contemplating marriage with a productive but not too ambitious PhD who is 5 years out and is perfectly happy to plateau at a low level research faculty in academia or move to industry)

 

[HorsesRLife]

I'm in my second year and my husband and I will have been married 4 years in March. It is definitely doable. It's not easy and both sides have to make compromises... Do we get to eat dinner together every night? No. Do I get to do fun externships all summer long and not feel guilty about leaving my husband, dogs, and horses? No. But I join all the clubs I'm interested in, go to as many local wet labs and nearby clinics to get more hands on experience. Like others said, if the marriage is strong to begin with, vet school isn't a death sentence, but I've seen several marriages fail in our class. As long as your other half supports you and at least pretends to understand what you're going through that's what matters.

 

[MagicalRose]

So, my now husband moved from NY to WI with me before vet school, proposed halfway through first year, and we got married between 2nd and 3rd year of vet school. I don't like when people say stuff like 'marriages are doomed'. If the marriage is doomed, if the attitude going to it is 'doomed, sure, it will be doomed.
Vet school is hard and emotionally draining. However, being a vet is harder, and more emotional draining. If a marriage isn't going to work during vet school, it probably won't work during your future career either.
My advice: work vet school into your life, not the other way around. Trust me, you'll be a lot happier, and a much more balanced student/ vet as a result of it.

 

[that redhead]

I've just heard that married couples where one enters vet school are pretty much doomed for failure. But what about marrying *during* vet school, especially half-way through??

I'm just trying to get opinions/advice, for future reference lol.

I got married half-way through - between second and third year. We were also long distance up until this past December.

For us, it worked. We had a super-solid relationship, we knew what to expect because we'd been doing the LDR/vet school thing for two years, and we had an expected end date. I could not be happier with my relationship (especially now that we've closed the distance again!) Planning during vet school was a bear - I relied on my family and SO to do the necessary in-person stuff - but that may be because I just don't have a thing for weddings. In retrospect, I would have just done a courthouse wedding or a tiny wedding (ours was ~80 people, so smaller than that) and been done with it, but wedding planning never turns out how one expects it to.

 

[Fireflysushi]

Just wanted to add that I just got married this January which was between my fall and spring semesters of Junior year. We have been together for 9.5 years and though vet school has been a challenge, our relationship is stronger than ever. We had about 20 people get married over the past 2 summers and have only had 1 divorce, so I thnk all of the advice you are getting above is good.

 

[Fireflysushi]

I do have to add that I decided to change my name to his and it has been a booger. The sooner you do this the sooner you can start making contacts with your new name and start signing up for organizations etc. with it. I have a long road ahead of getting it changed with all of the things I have joined. Obviously a lot of people are choosing not to change their names these days, so that may not apply to you. If you get married after vet school and change your name I have heard that it is expensive to get your degree reprinted with the correct name. Just something to think about.

 

[claire42794]

.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

 

[Gemgrrrl]

I'm married, and will matriculate in August. I'm a NT student and we have children; so my husband will be staying behind with the kids while I go to vet school. I'd be a liar if I said that it wasn't daunting, and that I wasn't concerned about how it will affect our relationship. I have two friends who were married going in and divorced while in vet school, but like another poster said, both of them said that they knew there were problems before hand. On the other hand, my husband was career military and we've been through several deployments together, so I kind of feel like we know how to do the long distance thing.

I guess in the end I feel like marriage is (hopefully) a very long road, and there are going to be lots of hardships no matter how much we try to avoid them. Hard stuff is going to happen whether you both follow your dreams or not. People who are with each other all the time still deal with relationship issues, and they still get divorced. So why give up your dreams for the sake of relationship stability? If you have stability, then the distance won't matter so much. If you don't have it, then closeness won't matter anyway.

 

[claire42794]

[/QUOTE

Gosh, thank you for your uplifting correction on my mistake.

 

[KCgophervet]

Welcome to the internet, might be time to thicken up your skin a bit.

 

[twelvetigers]

Aww, I missed some butthurt. Oh well.

Just tossing in another entry for "still not divorced" after 8 years, half of which was through vet school.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Aww, I missed some butthurt. Oh well.

Just tossing in another entry for "still not divorced" after 8 years, half of which was through vet school.

And a high school sweetheart to boot right?

 

[twelvetigers]

And a high school sweetheart to boot right?

I groan internally a little bit at that label, but yep. Started dating at 17 and 16 years old and never stopped. In fact, we're on a date RIGHT NOW... not really, he is on the couch and I'm in here editing pictures of plants for a project. But I may be making him a chocolate cake later today.