Your Relationship with Your Spouse: Yoked to Excellence

Allison Yamanashi

When the good people at the Berkeley Graduate asked for an article, I was not shocked of course. It seemed like the least I could do to contribute a few of my experiences as a spouse of a graduate student. I should probably start by saying that my husband and I have a number of friends (lucky us!),both married and single,in the graduate programs at Cal. Thus,the comments I make here are informed by the anecdotes they have shared with me over the past few years in addition to my own experiences.

I’ll start with a shocking statement:graduate school is easier for the married couple. I know that the conventional thinking is that graduate students are single workaholics (and that’s half right), and I don’t really know all the reasons why being married seems to help (hopefully by the end of this, I’ll have conveyed a few of the important ones I’ve found thus far), nor is that meant to suggest that it’s some Herculean task for those of you who are single. I’ve just found that,for many of the couples we know on campus, being in a relationship prior to starting has been a boon. When my husband and I arrived here,there was a bit of culture shock. We’re from a small town in the Midwest, so Berkeley was naturally a big adjustment. It was nice for both of us to have someone familiar and ‘normal’ in the midst of the turmoil that accompanies the first few months of graduate school.

If you’ve been here very long,you know that the first 3 months are the worst. I don’t think this is specific to married couples at all,but the fine-tuning that occurs in this period precludes a steady schedule at home. My husband is in a hard science program, so he had to find a research project,and take classes,and attend a bunch of meetings at all hours just to get started. This was straining on both of us,and many meals and evenings were missed. But,looking back it seems that having a solid foundation at home that doesn’t exist for most single students really seemed to help us get through the hectic parts. And,as time came to make important decisions about his career, he had a ‘built-in’ confidant to help him sort through those issues and bounce ideas off of.

Once he found his lab and began a project,we began to settle into ‘The Routine’. This period has been is marked by long hours,unusual sleep habits,strange bouts of paper reading during dinner,and often consternation at why things were working yesterday but not today. I imagine that the time he spends in the laboratory is much akin to that you humanities graduate students would spend in the library,and the effect is much the same:a general distaste for the outdoors,willingness to eat standing up and drink lots of coffee where they’d never been much for hot beverages before,that sort of thing. Here being married offers extra challenges and along with the benefits. Everyone looks for companionship,and as a couple we already have found our other half. That saves both my husband and I fromhaving to date,which given his schedule would be difficult and I hear from many of my single graduate student friends there’s quite a problem finding time to build and nurture a relationship. That being said,since we are in a relationship already means that thereare extracurricular obligations (whether they be ‘dates’
for us, or group activities,outings and such),which we can’t just choose to ignore if it doesn’t fit into our schedule. The crucial things we’ve found here are communication and triage. His professional goals require certain things of him on a regular schedule, but so does our marriage. When we talk about what issues are important at work for him vs.activities for both of us,and come up with a plan to meet those goals. That means giving some things up from time to time,but hopefully you’ll find a balance that keeps both professional and personal life moving.

Of course, there are sometimes hiccups in graduate school, and being married doesn’t stop those, but it can help move them along. Many students go through a period of confusion and lack of direction after finishing a big project or qualifying exam. Being married helps address that from two angles. First,being married helps solidify long term goals. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to lose perspective by yourself,and I hope that my being there helps provide some grounding and objectivity about what he needs to do next. Sometimes just having someone to talk to can give you all the direction you require. The second is that I get to be a motivator directly. When he’s thinking about that perfect new approach to his project or wanting to take the afternoon off, I can gently remind him of the myriad reasons why he can and should put in those extra hours now for the payoff down the road.

The other place hitches come up is in the relationship itself. Graduate school is an incredible emotional and temporal investment (for both of us!) and in many ways I end up sharing my husband with his work in a way that I wouldn’t were he in a 9 to 5 job. Because of that,it’s all the more important to take some time out from our jobs and spend it on our marriage. Whether its getting out of town for the weekend, renting a DVD, taking a trip up to the Botanical Gardens,or going to a nice restaurant in the City,we make doing something together on a regular basis a necessity. It can be hard on the limited income of a graduate student, and its important to not add financial strain, but try to find some activities that are inexpensive and give you time to relax and be together as a couple. Living in a college town means there are lots of cheap events
going on all the time, so make an effort to take advantage of them.

The final thing to remember is,whether you’re married or single,graduate school will eventually end. My husband is closer to his thesis with each passing day,and then it will be on to the rest of our lives. But be careful;you can’t just be looking at the goal. While it’s true that there’s a lot to look forward to after this period is over,you should be working to enjoy it while you can. When we are all out of school,wealthy and living in the suburbs,we are not going to have a chance to walk around downtown street fairs every weekend,and a whole new set of problems are sure to crop up (home ownership – it ain’t no picnic). So enjoy what you can here while you’re here, and let the future stay there for now – we’ll all catch up with it soon enough.