off-by-one-year med couples out there?

[SBlanc]

Hey all... I am currently an MS3, and my boyfriend is an MS4. For a while he thought he would take next year off to do a master's/work part time/other so we could couples match together next year. However, that decision made him uneasy so he's currently going through with the apps and interviews. I am not sure I want to stay in state for residency (he said the only reason he would go out of state is for me, and now he's only looking at in-state programs for next year); furthermore, some of the programs he's looking at in-state don't even offer residencies in my future field... basically making it a logistical nightmare if we want to attempt to stay together for the next few years.

I'm not really soliciting advice on my particular situation, since it's impossible to convey the complexities in something as simple as a message board. I was just wondering if anyone else has dealt with/heard of similar situations where a couple was off by 1 or 2 years and they either waited for each other or didn't wait and what solutions/disasters have occurred. He says he's still trying to decide whether he wants to "commit" and drop out of the app process for this year, but for right now it seems to be full speed ahead, and it's making me ill!

Thanks...

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[chula505]

Hey all... I am currently an MS3, and my boyfriend is an MS4. For a while he thought he would take next year off to do a master's/work part time/other so we could couples match together next year. However, that decision made him uneasy so he's currently going through with the apps and interviews. I am not sure I want to stay in state for residency (he said the only reason he would go out of state is for me, and now he's only looking at in-state programs for next year); furthermore, some of the programs he's looking at in-state don't even offer residencies in my future field... basically making it a logistical nightmare if we want to attempt to stay together for the next few years.

I'm not really soliciting advice on my particular situation, since it's impossible to convey the complexities in something as simple as a message board. I was just wondering if anyone else has dealt with/heard of similar situations where a couple was off by 1 or 2 years and they either waited for each other or didn't wait and what solutions/disasters have occurred. He says he's still trying to decide whether he wants to "commit" and drop out of the app process for this year, but for right now it seems to be full speed ahead, and it's making me ill!

Thanks...

Yeah. I was in a similar situation. I had been dating this guy for 2.5 years. I am going to be graduating in may fom grad school, going to medical school and he was going to be graduating in may from undergrad, getting a job in engineering. We had talked on several occasions about trying to make the next move so that we would be together but then I would see him applying to jobs where I was definately not going to school. He ended up breaking up with me. Totally sucks.

 

[ThroughItAll]

Just wondering... how long have you two been together SBlanc?

 

[acetone]

SBlanc,

My situation is much more complex than yours but I made the decision to stick it out. My spouse is half way through her fellowship & every day now I regret sticking it out with her because i sacrificed a lot & it appears i did so for nothing. She is applying for work in places where my skills ARE NOT in demand & it is clear to me she is not considering me in all this. All communication is a complete failure & I am a complete wreck. It sounds like you're in the pivotal position I was in when I could have changed my life for the better & didn't. Don't wait for nothing because it could end up like my situation & believe me when I tell you I threw a lot away for this girl only to end up in a total nightmare! Love is not something you should have to wait for!! I'm an old fashioned romantic & have been searching for love my whole life & thought I found it with my wife. I now spend every day alone with my cats waiting for something which will obviously never happen because my spouse is married to her career so clearly I need to move on. Don't make the same mistake i did!


:|

 

[f_w]

My wife and I are 'off' by 1 year. We never allowed our relationship to have a major influence on our training and career decisions. It meant some time apart and lots of money invested in gasoline and airline tickets, but in the end we are now both in attending jobs in the same town and everything is well.

To me it sounds more like you guys haven't really sorted out what you are to each other. As long as the descriptors are in the '___friend' category, making career decisions based on the relationship is foolish. Once you have some sort of committment, the decisions should be made together.

 

[SBlanc]

Well, thought I would update on things since I started this post...

To answer someone's question, we have been together about 13 months now.

After much soul searching, he decided to withdraw his apps and not enter the match this year. He's still not sure exactly what he's going to do with the next year, but he seems intent on "committing" to our relationship I was very happy when he told me he was retracting his apps!!

Acetone - thank you for sharing your thoughts from your personal experience. I'm sorry things haven't turned out the way you thought they would, or the way they were presented to you. It sounds like you two might benefit from a nice long talk. I feel like my situation differs a bit in that my boyf and I will sort of get to make our decision together at the same time, rather than say, one of us matching somewhere first and the other one tagging along in a blah program just because it's in the same location.

Anyhow, that's our plan for now. I'm still interested to hear other comments on the matter...

 

[f_w]

After much soul searching, he decided to withdraw his apps and not enter the match this year. He's still not sure exactly what he's going to do with the next year, but he seems intent on "committing" to our relationship I was very happy when he told me he was retracting his apps!!

Wow, a little bit of nagging and silent treatment seem to go a long way.

 

[logos]

I'm a med 2 and my girlfriend of about 1.5yrs is a med 1. Not sure what were going to do if we're still togeather in a couple of years. Going to be a mess i'm sure...

 

[LanceArmstrong]

Comprimise is the name of the game. The more commitment the easier the comprimise. Unfortunately commitment needs to come first and its not something that develops easily. Both my wife and I are med students. I'm matching this year, she's matching next. Fortunately she wants to match in somthing thats not too competetive and we're flexible on location. However my rank list this year is largely shaped by how easy it would be for her to match at the same program or a program that's very closeby. This limits things somewhat. However we're lucky to be in NYC where there are hundereds of programs within an hour's drive.

 

[LRLA]

Wow - seeing this post is a bit of deja vu for me. I am in a VERY similar situation, with my fiance being a year ahead of me. She too thought about taking a year off to do a research program, but then decided that "It was a waste of time" and so she started applying. We've had more fighting during this time than we ever have before. Communication has been less than great, as she hasn't even talked to me about all these big decisions, because she knew that I wanted her to take a year off. Now, she tells me that the current plan is that she is applying now, and then after I match next year, she will attempt to transfer to where I am (but only into another PGY2 position). The whole situation has been a huge strain, because I feel like she is making all these decisions based only on what she wants, and she feels like I don't have faith that even through all this we can still end up together. Any other advice that you guys have would be great, I'm running out of ideas of what to do!

 

[f_w]

Communication.

If you can't make decisions regarding career plans and where you live together NOW, how are you going to deal with the day to day issues of marriage in the future ?
Too often this becomes an issue of trust and power, similar to the role that money plays in many relationships. As corny as it sounds, but marriage is about involving the 'we' part into every major decision. Unless you both say 'we will both go wherever we get the best training and deal with the logistics afterwards' you have to make those career decisions together.

 

[vegetables]

We were in this boat - my then-boyfriend was an MS3 scheduled to graduate in 2006 when I was an MS2. We had talked about our options but never finalized anything. (At this point we were togther about 1.5 yrs).

Then came Match Day 2005 when he realized that this time the following year that'd be him and he'd be leaving me and putting me in a REALLY stressful position of trying to go wherever he was for residency.

So he decided to take the year btwn 3rd and 4th year off and get his MPH. He did that, now we're engaged and couples matching. It was compromise on both ends (him not graduating w/ his class and paying for an extra degree, me knowing I was responsible for this!!) but it worked. Communication about where we stood certainly helped. I am sure we could have made it work if he did graduate before me, but that would have defintiely limited my residency choices. I'm glad it worked out how it did!!

 

[IceMan0824]

So he decided to take the year btwn 3rd and 4th year off and get his MPH.

What, no MBA.

 

[nightowl]

Me and my hubby are one year apart. He just started his M3 year and I'm a M2. We're not sure how the matching process is going to play out. We were wondering if some schools will do a sort of couples' match even though we're a year apart- he thought about bringing it up in his interviews to see which schools are more flexible and willing to keep couples together. I haven't taken the Step yet so I'm sure our scores will have a huge influence on our decision. We've thought that maybe applying to multiple programs in big cities would work- because I would have more options the next year. But the downside to that is we would like to start having kids during residency and with the cost of living and childcare with both of us in residency, I don't know if it would be financially doable. We're in med school in a less than desirable location (we'd like to move away for residency) but the cost of living really doesn't get much better and then we wouldn't have to spend any time apart. Neither one of us have any idea what we might want to do. At this point we're just trying to not get anxious about it or get ahead of ourselves considering it is a few years off. The most time we're willing to spend apart from each other is his internship year when I'm a M4. Good luck to other people in the same situation. I guess the best thing to do is expect it to be hard and keep the lines of communication open. Plus considering the other person and being willing to give a little. Good luck everyone

 

[EM2BE]

I completely understand. Similar situation here, but I am soon an MSII, him an MSIII. When we started dating, I already knew if it lasted it would go long distance and neither of us expected it to last even this long (around 6 mos). I know this isn't a long time, but school does make you think about every step of the way. Oddly, I may end up in his area for my 3rd year because of one of the programs in that area (I weighed everything but location in choosing an area, and it still won). Granted we don't have to worry about commitment right now, but we still think a little into the future and how difficult it will be. We both decided on the "we'll see how it goes" method. Hopefully it goes well!