Expectations · Moving · Sacrifice

REPOST: The Courage of Exploration

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                                                                                             written by Sarah – a current graduate wife

So there I was, sitting at a cheap, plywood table in Newcastle England, starting blankly into a MacBook, more than 3,000 miles away from where I wanted to be.

How did I get so far off course, you might ask? Well, pull up a chair and lend an ear. My story is one a graduate wife can appreciate.

Some of you might remember what it is like to have a great career. I can still hear the hum of the printing press and feel the thick tension in the air as I tried to get a newspaper out on deadline. As a reporter and editor for our local newspaper the days were 100 mile-per-hour marathons, both exhilarating and exhausting. Since I was a little girl I had dreamed of this career. Every extra-curricular activity, internship and my university education had been strategically designed to make me a super reporter.

In my early 20s, I had almost made it. I was an editor at the local paper. The job title, awards and offers proved that I had become a small town Lois Lane. But I was aiming higher.

Then I met my husband.

He was intelligent, ambitious, a Matt Damon look-alike, and I was in love. He was also applying for medical school.

After a year of dating and applying for schools, we were married. On our one month anniversary he was accepted to a medical program – out of the country. We would be moving once a year for the first four years of our marriage, or more if fellowships and residencies dictated.

Like a monkey wrench thrown into the cogs of a printing press, my dreams came to a grinding halt. For this next season of our lives it would either have to be his career or mine on the chopping block – we couldn’t do both. With a few tears, I carefully packed up our unopened wedding gifts, cleaned off my desk and moved to England. I doggedly looked for a job. Anything. Sadly, there were no jobs there in newsroom administration, especially for a transient who would stick around for less than a year. This foreigner couldn’t make headway in the reporting business either – I didn’t know a bobby from a bodge.

Do you ever feel resentment for the sacrifices you have been asked to make?

My bitter tears and empty days alone in a foreign country were poison to my budding marriage. I knew I needed to find an antidote.

A wise comedian, who also found himself 3,000 miles from where he wanted to be, once said, “There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized.” Conan O’Brien might have been speaking to graduating academics at Dartmouth, but his words resonated with me. He continues:

“I went to college with many people who prided themselves on knowing exactly who they were and exactly where they were going. At Harvard, five different guys in my class told me that they would one day be President of the United States. Four of them were later killed in motel shoot-outs. The other one briefly hosted Blues Clues, before dying senselessly in yet another motel shoot-out. Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One’s dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course.”

As a newly-minted graduate wife, change was my only constant and adaptation my only antidote.

Somewhere in that foreign London fog of change and hopelessness, I started trying new things. I explored. I blogged. I taught myself how to design a website. I adapted.

Fredrick Nietzsche famously said “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. The loneliness, the disrupted career path and the stress in my marriage almost killed me. But for those who are stuck in the middle of that mire, I promise that on the other end of your effort there is peace.

My blank stare into that MacBook on that plywood table in that cold, dreary place turned into a journey of exploration. But only because I made it so. Conan was right – there is nothing more exhilarating than having your life flipped on its head and, through your own sheer force of will, flipping it right side up again. When you finally straighten things out, your dreams might look a little different. But because you were the one to do the changing, somehow those new dreams are alright.

Sacrifice became what I made it. It was still painful, but only as painful as I would allow it to be between the bouts of blogging and exploring.

We have survived our second move now and are tripping blissfully and blindly into year three of marriage and year two of his late night, blood-shot eye studying. We have learned that those who adapt, survive. I am a survivor.

What strategies have you found successful in your transition to a graduate wife?

Marriage · Sharing 'Worlds'

REPOST: Sharing Worlds

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I studied interior design and art in undergrad.  My husband is pursing his D.Phil. in the philosophy of physics.  I like jam…good homemade jam that my lovely friend Kat makes at the beginning of summer and then gives to me all year long.  My husband likes peanut butter.  It is his staple food and he literally eats it on toast every single morning of his life.  He communicates through writing, being incredibly friendly with bullet points and annotations.  I‘d much rather show you a painting or play you a song to communicate something and I don’t even punctuate when I write.  We are opposite.  We are incredibly opposite, yet incredibly attracted to and curious about each other.

When we were dating long distance before we got engaged, I gained a new level of appreciation for the magic of Wikipedia.  Late at night as I sat curled up on the phone chatting with him, I was frequently online trying to figure out what on earth ‘quantum mechanics’ is, but better yet, all the philosophical implications that come with it.  It was a trying time in our relationship.  Many times I confessed to him that I thought I might not be the right person for him to marry since…..well, since I couldn’t help edit his papers because there were more equations in them than words.  I worried that we were just too different.  Thankfully, by the grace of God and a wise roommate, I was able to look past these fears and insecurities and began to see the beauty that is the diversity of gifts / strengths / and interests in marriage.

We’ve come a long way.  Almost every single night over dinner I hear about Einstein and Lorentz’s theories of relativity and what the true definition of a scientific explanation is.  I listen as my husband explains the quirky guy in his physics lecture or how well done the Powerpoint presentation was (since he knows my love for good design).  Because honestly if he didn’t, we’d be on different pages.  Not just different pages, different chapters.  It’s an effort.  I lose focus and start daydreaming about another cool image design for this blog and then I have to ask him to backtrack and share again.  He gets distracted when I share about my newest passion for the arts or tell him about the lecture on architecture that I just attended.  We know we are different.  As different as peanut butter and jelly…but how great we are when we share our worlds together.  What a good combination we are when we actively pursue unity and strive to share our differing worlds with the other.  I’ve seen far too many well-respected and admired marriages fall away, because ‘worlds’ weren’t shared.  One spouse had work or a dream that took so much of them that there was little energy left to share with the other about it or invite them into it.  One spouse dedicated themselves to their kids and then when they were all grown up and gone, there was such a massive gap between relating and sharing worlds with the other that they almost didn’t make it.

We aren’t perfect at this.  Heck, we’ve only been married three years, but I’m thankful we are trying.  On this graduate wife journey you almost have to.  To actively engage and share in your spouse’s world as best as you can.  So I need to mention one more thing:  backing up to the nightly dinner conversations about my husband’s day.  Before he shares his day, his reading, his world with me…he asks about mine.  He asks about how it was today with our 16 month old.  What did she learn, what did she do, how was her nap.  He asks how my time alone was, what did I get to read (if I found time), what was going on in my head and heart, what the status of the few part-time projects are that I am working on.  After all of that, then he begins to share.

It makes all the difference to me that he consciously reminds himself every day on the way home to ask about my day first, to validate my work as a wife, mother, and artist.  He knows that deep down it’s hard for me at times to be at home while he is studying, pursing his dreams.  He knows that sometimes I get cranky and sad and have pity parties because I feel like we are doing all of this for him and that my dreams are on the back-burner.  It would be incredibly hard for me to jump into, share, or even honestly care about his ‘world’ if he didn’t equally care about mine.

I know this isn’t always the case and we, like many, have learned the hard way, through tears and confusing discussions and misinterpreted emotions. I think in the end it was actually my idea that he asks about my day first and thankfully he took it to heart. We’ve learned that although we are incredibly different people, we are so much more beautiful people when we are unified together, more beautiful than we could ever be alone.  I just want to encourage you on this journey through graduate school, however distant at times you might feel from your spouse’s work, engage them.  Share your day with them and ask for them to share with you.  It’s challenging at times, but ever so enriching and fruitful.

-M.C.

In your journey, how have you and your spouse tried to “share your worlds”?

{disclaimer: So, I know peanut butter and jelly aren’t opposites per say…but I really liked the imagery and decided to go with it.}

Inspiration · Marriage

REPOST: Pockets of Time

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-written by Keeley, a current graduate wife

It was Valentine’s Day of the first year in our marriage, and we were living in Cambridge, Mass. in a little apartment halfway between Harvard and Central Square. I was scheduled to work the closing shift at Au Bon Pain, a bakery chain that’s very popular in the Northeast. Instead of having a fancy dinner, I decided we’d do a special lunch before I went in to work, composed of meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes (incidentally, the supper my mom fixed on my husband’s first visit to our home while we were dating). It wasn’t until the phone was ringing did I realize how silly I was being, calling my mom at 7:30 in the morning to ask her how to make a meatloaf. It was one of those dinners I had made about four times growing up, on those nights when my mom was coming in late from work and I had to pinch-hit, so I couldn’t remember the details but could have sworn it took 3 to 4 hours to cook. Fortunately for me, she was awake, she is ready any moment of the day to share how to make a meatloaf, and it doesn’t take nearly that long! We will never forget the Valentine’s Day morning we spent watching a movie and enjoying our home-cooked lunch before walking to work through a snowstorm.

That Valentine’s Day, and that year, will always be special to my husband and me, partly because it was our first year of marriage, but partly because we made such an effort to spend pockets of time together whenever we could. Finding these pockets is a skill which only grows more valuable as time passes and a temptation to take one another for granted subtly sets in, particularly once children arrive, so I’ve heard. I remember our Monday afternoons, especially. I had work at Au Bon Pain from 7 a.m.-3 p.m., and Jason had work at City Sports, about a block away, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. We decided to meet in the middle and spend the hour together, sitting on the grass and enjoying the occasional treat I was able to mooch from work, sometimes a scone or a “practice” sandwich I had learned to make out of the extensive lunch menu. We were creative and resourceful about our time, because for whatever reason, we felt compelled to make the most of every moment.

Our rhythm has lost some of the urgency of that first year–we’ve moved and are now in the fourth year of Jason’s PhD program and have settled into something of a routine. But I am grateful for the habits that we formed so early, particularly sharing meals together. Breakfast, dinner, and the occasional lunch will find us at the little round wooden table we found at Target the summer we were married, one or both of our cats looking on curiously. We both are great appreciators of food anyway, but it’s also a time when we are completely focused on the conversation between us, looking directly at one another as opposed to having a computer or two in the way, as is so often the case!

My work schedule is odd because I work retail, so my day off is Monday. Just this week, we packed a simple picnic lunch and found a new hiking trail that led to a small pond, where we enjoyed skipping stones and looking for frogs. I haven’t had regular Saturdays off since we first moved to Massachusetts six years ago, but it’s fun being able to have a special outing on an otherwise nondescript Monday. Because Jason is at the writing stage in his program, every day is pretty much the same–full of writing with a few breaks!

Another tradition we have is to take a day trip sometime around our anniversary. This doesn’t have to be expensive, although it will of course depend on where you live. We’ve enjoyed getting away and seeing some of the sights around where we have lived, whether it’s to the mountains or the beach, or to Amish country. A few times we’ve saved up and stayed in a bed & breakfast, but other years we’ve just taken a day off to spend together in a different setting.

One thing that I hope we never forget is the reality that we will always be busy. We will always (hopefully!) have work to do, other friendships and relationships to pursue, and chores to get done. But for us, finding a moment here and a moment there has made our marriage a lot stronger than I think it would otherwise be, and has made us a family, operating with a sense of unity and a mutual rhythm in how we live our days. I am grateful for a husband who values this as much as I do, and pray that we will continue to find ways to take advantage of these pockets of time as we grow and pass through the seasons to come in our life together.

What are some creative ways that you make the most of the time you have with your spouse? Do you have any weekly/monthly/yearly traditions that you feel have especially enriched your marriage?

Expectations · Stages of the Grad Journey

REPOST: Six Stages of the Graduate Journey: Part IV

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Check out the first installment in this series here.

Written by Laura, a current graduate wife

Recently, a group of our graduate wife friends gathered for lunch in Oxford, and of course, at some point during lunch, began to talk about the process of our husbands’ PhD programs and potential phases we would or could face during that time. As the conversation continued, excited words flying across the table, we knew we might be on to something rich, something that would be beneficial to other graduate wives outside of our intimate lunch. One of the women in that group, Laura, offered to put pen to paper, writing a four part series for The Graduate Wife, explaining those phases. We hope it is helpful for you – whatever phase your other half is currently in –  and will give you an idea of the best way to support them during that time. – Mandy and M.C.

Stage five:

THE DAWN

You can see it: the tiny glimmer of light at the end of the inky, bleak tunnel. You finally (finally!) have measurable results from the months and years you trudged through your research. Anticipation, relief, tentative signs of optimism – like daffodils or crocus muscling their way through thawing ground and announcing the arrival of spring – mark the beginning of your final stages as a grad student.  There are now a finite number of tasks to complete before graduation and you start to see the final checklist forming: finish writing a certain number of chapters, defend your dissertation, take a final examination, complete residency, do final lab write-ups or submit articles to journals for publications, whatever it takes to reach the finish line (and breathe a deep sigh of relief).

Many students gain momentum and experience a second wind in this stage, but sometimes the race to the finish line includes lingering exhaustion. In addition to completing necessary degree-related tasks, you are likely attempting to pave a path to the next stage of your career – applying for tenure-track jobs, postdoctoral fellowships, clinical placements, positions at law firms, hospitals, or your local Starbucks. That cloying sense of insecurity and self-doubt may rear its head once again as you grapple with anxiety about the unknown, and as you imagine the worst case scenario:  “Mom, I know you wanted to turn my old bedroom into a yoga studio, but……”

It might be safe to say that never before have so many elements of your future seemed quite so far out of your control.  For some this gives rise to a new degree of motivation; for others, it feels like a wet blanket of anxiety and fear.

How do you live with the uncertainty? How do you emotionally balance your excitement as you begin to see the culmination of your academic diligence with the foreboding fear that your career as an academic might be coming to a screeching halt?

  1. DON’T panic.  Plenty of grad students have tread on this steep terrain, and most would tell you that these are simply the final pains of post grad life.  You will be wanted, you are employable, you are going to make it.
  2. DO build into your life plenty of healthy distractions as you await news of interviews or potential job matches so the waiting won’t unravel your nerves.  Plan a mini-vacation, start a new physical activity (your mom seems to be really enjoying yoga, might give that a try?), or join a group of people doing something active and lively and interesting and that has nothing to do with academia.  Maybe you don’t feel up to beginning something new so close to the end of your stay, but anything to keep you physically, emotionally occupied is invaluable during the long silence.  Just step away from the computer and start doing something enjoyable – it will sustain you.
  3. DO share the process with your spouse or significant other and don’t immediately dismiss their encouragement.  They may not know the exact statistics of your program’s placement records or every detail of your field’s current available openings, but they care (heck, they made it this far too!) and want to support you.  And likely, they are waiting on pins and needles just as you are.  Determine not to fixate on the process and instead start to mend some of the distance that might have necessarily developed during the dark stages of your program; focus on celebrating even the smallest joys, and cultivating a renewed connection.
  4. DO your best during your workday, and then walk away.  Try – try! – to enjoy time with your partner, friends, or family and remember that this is the end of a long and treacherous journey; you are truly staring at the final tasks required to reach your goal. You are almost there!
  5. DO cultivate spiritual resources- prayer, mediation, involvement in a religious community; If these have ever buoyed you before, now’s the time to draw on that strength.
  6. DON’T give up – the end is in sight!

Stage Six:

COMPLETION AND EVALUATION

You’re a Master, or a Doctor, or So-and-So, Esquire.  It is finished. You have reached the summit.  Additional letters will forever accompany your name, and rightfully so; you have completed a great work.  In this stage, however, it is natural to take a look around, count the costs of having earned your new title, and ask the question, “Was it all worth it?”. Enjoy your successes, mourn any losses, and take a deep breath. Place your feet on a new path; on to the next journey…

Readers may contact Laura at LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com or check out ThinAirTutorials.wordpress.com

Expectations · Stages of the Grad Journey

REPOST: Six Stages of the Graduate Journey: Part III

thegraduatewife1 Comment

Check out the first installment in this series here.

Written by Laura, a current graduate wife

Recently, a group of our graduate wife friends gathered for lunch in Oxford, and of course, at some point during lunch, began to talk about the process of our husbands’ PhD programs and potential phases we would or could face during that time. As the conversation continued, excited words flying across the table, we knew we might be on to something rich, something that would be beneficial to other graduate wives outside of our intimate lunch. One of the women in that group, Laura, offered to put pen to paper, writing a four part series for The Graduate Wife, explaining those phases. We hope it is helpful for you – whatever phase your other half is currently in –  and will give you an idea of the best way to support them during that time. – Mandy and M.C.

Stage Four:

IT’S DARK IN HERE

After you have adjusted to the academic rigors and you finally have gained some confidence and mastery in regard to your workload, it is time to enter the phase of work that will transition you from neophite to near-graduate. It might be dissertation-or thesis-writing, doing clinical hours, collecting or analyzing research data, or working for a company doing the hands-on (but grunt) work of your chosen profession. Here is the part of the journey that is most likely to usher in a severe sense of isolation. You have had colleagues and classmates with you in the initial stages of coursework, and you have had the support of seasoned guides who have climbed this mountain before you; however, you have finally hit the treacherous trail that will lead you to the top of the mountain, but you must plod on alone.

You are asked to create something innovative or learn things that must become so habitual and natural you can perform them in your sleep, but this part of the journey must be done alone, in large part. No one can spend the seemingly endless hours of research required to set the stage for your writing or learn a whole new area of the discipline in order to set the stage for your dissertation. No one can do the clinical rounds or chip away at the incessant hours in the lab on your behalf, but they must be done.  It can get dark in this tunnel – the long hours, the challenge of mining through academic sources to find the tiniest spark of inspiration, the sense of being buried under infinite possibilities.

It can be dull, it can be monotonous, and because it is done alone and in relative darkness, it is nearly impossible to feel the passage of time or success or any markers of progress. There is no one who can tell you when you have completed enough research to begin your writing, there is no way to predict that today’s reading will ignite the spark of an idea that tomorrow becomes the next chapter of your thesis. There is no way to sense that the clinical experience or observation of tonight will be the seed that grows into passionate expertise in a certain area of your field. There is no guide; each step must be taken blindly and with seemingly impossible faith that you are indeed moving toward something, that you are progressing – it just doesn’t feel that way.

You can no longer build on the excitement and enthusiasm present at the beginning of the journey, and you can’t quite glimpse the finish line. This feels like no man’s land.

At home, this is the stage where many students find themselves so tangled internally they withdraw emotionally or mentally, and it can be a painful experience for spouses, partners, and children who stand by and see their formerly passionate and driven loved one depleted and exhausted. Many students in this stage experience depression or anxiety, a sense of doubt or a loss of motivation and direction. Partner, this is a time when you have to watch your grad student flail in the water, nearly drowning, and you cannot offer a lifeline – it can leave you feeling utterly helpless.

Here is what you must remember:  

1) This is not forever. Grad student, you may not remember why you decided to start this journey in the first place and you may be dizzy with the tasks before you, but you will get there if you keep plodding on. Partner, you may doubt that you will ever see your loving, light-hearted or impassioned spouse again, but that is not so. This is just a stage, and one of the final stages of this journey to boot, so you simply must keep putting one foot in front of the other and tread on.

2) Partner or spouse, you may not have the loving, connected, attentive man or woman you bargained for at this point, and demanding it would just lead to deeper guilt and isolation, so this is a temporary season during which you must keep your head above water and maintain your own life’s breath. Take up a new hobby, join a class, get together with friends on the weekends, take a short trip, make good friends and spend time with them, get support from others who have been in this stage before and have survived it. Be encouraged and hang in.

3) Grad student, you are almost there. You might not feel the progress, but if you are working diligently, you are moving toward the goal. Get whatever support you can – meet with fellow students in this same stage or just beyond, read blogs, run, enjoy an outing with a friend or spouse or loved one. Exercise and a good diet are helpful, spiritual resources are necessary, and don’t be afraid to allow yourself to rest when you can. You are almost there.

This is a period that requires great grace for your partner and a changing of the rules – the goals and measures of your relational connection should get smaller, and each person’s gratitude must become greater. Everything that can be celebrated should be, no matter how small the cause for celebration may seem. It’s a time when you have to will yourself to be gentle with each other, apologizing often, knowing that this is just a season. It is not a time to allow bad habits to seep in, but to allow new habits to develop which support you in this stage without worry of what others’ think or what conventional wisdom might say. Reach out to friends, invest in a solid community, and please do not focus on results in this stage; there won’t be any yet, so it’s futile. Take the long view, and don’t evaluate things too much; just keep moving and do whatever is healthy and loving and brings joy. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Then it just happens. One day, a tiny glimmer of light cracks through and you squint….yes, the summit is in sight. You are somewhere, no longer lost in the dark. You’re finally arriving at an actual, identifiable place in your program, and things are about to change. Take a breath and fill your lungs with much-needed oxygen; you’ve made it through the dark tunnel. Things are going to look up from here on out….

Readers may contact Laura at LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com or check out ThinAirTutorials.wordpress.com
Expectations · Stages of the Grad Journey

REPOST: Six Stages of the Graduate Journey: Part II

thegraduatewifeLeave a comment

Check out the first installment in this series here.

Written by Laura, a current graduate wife

Recently, a group of our graduate wife friends gathered for lunch in Oxford, and of course, at some point during lunch, began to talk about the process of our husbands’ PhD programs and potential phases we would or could face during that time. As the conversation continued, excited words flying across the table, we knew we might be on to something rich, something that would be beneficial to other graduate wives outside of our intimate lunch. One of the women in that group, Laura, offered to put pen to paper, writing a four part series for The Graduate Wife, explaining those phases. We hope it is helpful for you – whatever phase your other half is currently in –  and will give you an idea of the best way to support them during that time. – Mandy and M.C.

Stage Three:

CONSTRUCTION ZONE

It is likely late summer or early fall at this point, you have arrived at your campus – your new, if temporary, home – and in the span of just a few weeks, it seems like a wrecking ball has taken a swing at your former life, leaving you shocked and excited by the initial phases of your new life as a grad student. It’s untidy and grueling work – relocating, shaking hands multiple times a day and answering questions about where you were previously and what area of the discipline you wish to master, but it feels purposeful and powerful. It’s exciting and terrifying, and it can feel like you are cyclically overwhelmed and euphoric. For some new grad students, an immediate sense of doubt appears – Did I choose the right program? Am I cut out for this? Were my motives pure? Is this really what I want to be doing? For some, this is temporary, for others, they must spend a season grappling with these questions and weighing various opportunities.

Ah, but the glorious sense of satisfaction as you start to gain the tools necessary to make it in this treacherous journey, the sense that you have found your life’s passion, this is worth the price. You buy a load of heavy new books and eagerly crack them open, after a few rousing rounds of get-to-know-you activities at the initial orientation meetings you start to bond with classmates and colleagues, and the halls of your institution (and the stacks at your library) become like a comfortable, well-worn second home.

Emotionally it is common to feel like you are diving and crashing, cycling between overwhelm and enthusiasm. Many students experience a sense of identity-rattling insecurity and intimidation in this new academic setting because it appears that every classmate has read more, prepared more thoroughly, gained more experience; it is common to hear students report that they feel like frauds, fearing the admissions committee might have mistakenly allowed them entrance to the program. Grad students often feel they are living a lie – while pretending to feel confident – all the while fearing they will be discovered as a sham, as someone who doesn’t belong in this rigorous environment. The good news is, to a large extent this fades somewhere after the first marking period or first successful Socratic dual with that dreaded professor, when you finally receive much-needed feedback and gain a sense of your bearings.

If a grad student is married or partnered, the initial enthusiasm for this new adventure might fade as the realities of the long hours in the library or the lab are starting to set in. Relational roles have to shift, and this is not often an easy change. A partner who used to help at home is now physically absent for long stretches (and mentally absent even when they are home after the drain of the academic work has taken its toll) and the connection points you used to take for granted have sometimes disappeared – catching up while cooking dinner or folding laundry, or watching a movie after a long day, running or biking together or just doing household chores side by side. The needs of the non-student spouse can feel overwhelming to the student, and the student’s fatigue-induced emotional withdrawal can be painful and bewildering. What seemed like a joint venture now feels more like a lonely climb, and the isolation can be brutal because at this point the new environment may feel comfortable and supportive to a certain extent, but it is still new and lacks the deep roots of home and loved ones, history and shared experience; it is difficult to lean into a new support network that lacks the robustness and depth that can only be cultivated over time.

This is where a couple’s mettle is tested. How creative are you? Can you find new routines to share that don’t require long stretches of available time? Instead of a lengthy dinner conversation, can you share a single morning cup of coffee? Can you create new and meaningful rituals on less time and nearly no sleep? Partners, ask your grad student what is possible rather than demanding old routines to remain in place. Grad student, ask your partner to think of one or two ways you can show you still care – practical and specific and attainable ways – and follow through with the request. Think about each individual segment of your day, likely things that used to seem like mundane tasks, and transform them into connecting points. Infuse the mundane with meaning! Fifteen minutes of rich connection can go a long way in maintaining the cement of your relationship. Plan dates  – knowing you will have time together in the near future can sometimes help with the long days. You have to be more intentional than you were, but it is possible. You can emerge a new, sleek, refined couple if you can make it through this stage of paring-down and streamlining. It will challenge your patience, creativity, energy, and resolve at first, but your future success as a couple will in part be determined by how flexible and adaptable you can be here.

Finally, support, support, support. Each partner must be investing in some kind of support system, no matter how worn out you feel or how intimidating it might seem at such a fragile stage. Some supports can be shared – e.g. participating in a religious community, joining new friends for get-togethers – but likely each partner will also need to forge their own groups or relationships, specific to their needs. Grad students: join a study group or occasionally go to a pub with classmates. Spouses: enjoy social time with colleagues after work or join a social group (book club, running group, volunteer organization). Parents: get out there and connect with other parents and make every effort to get your kids connected to a friendly network.

Sometimes this stage involves sadness as the honeymoon period finally comes to an end and the recent losses are deeply felt – missing loved ones, old belongings, old homes, etc. Give yourself grace and permission to grieve these losses – they are valid – and then figure out what energizes you and start creating a new support system around that. Sometimes easier said than done, but it still needs doing. Draw on spiritual strength, relational resources and old friendships, hobbies and life-giving activities, both individually and as a couple.

And remember, this is part of the demolition and reconstruction zone; it will not be easy, but something beautiful and substantial can emerge, maybe you just can’t visualize it yet. This is often one of the two most painful stages of the graduate journey, but things can turn around quickly and suddenly in this stage, and it is likely that one day you will wake up and realize this new environment feels like home and this is an experience you wouldn’t trade for anything – the adventure, risk, and challenge will refine you and change the course of your life, relationships, and character in ways not possible if you miss the opportunity to take this journey. Stay the course!

Stay tuned for Stages 4-6!

Readers may contact Laura at LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com or check out ThinAirTutorials.wordpress.com

Expectations · Stages of the Grad Journey

REPOST: Six Stages of the Graduate Journey: Part I

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–written by Laura, a current graduate wife

Recently, a group of our graduate wife friends gathered for lunch in Oxford, and of course, at some point during lunch, began to talk about the process of our husbands’ PhD programs and potential phases we would or could face during that time. As the conversation continued, excited words flying across the table, we knew we might be on to something rich, something that would be beneficial to other graduate wives outside of our intimate lunch. One of the women in that group, Laura, offered to put pen to paper, writing a four part series for The Graduate Wife, explaining those phases. We hope it is helpful for you – whatever phase your other half is currently in –  and will give you an idea of the best way to support them during that time. – Mandy and M.C.

Stage One: 

CONTEMPLATION STAGE

Only those souls fueled by a passion to pursue something as valuable as greater knowledge in a particular field, those individuals driven to succeed in the pursuit of excellence and opportunity would willingly submit themselves to grueling hours of study, academic gymnastics, and personal discipline required to complete any grad program.

Yes, but let’s be honest; at this stage grad school can look kind of sexy and enticing. I mean, really, you picture yourself delving into fascinating research or meaty historical writings, prying open heavy volumes of famous theoretical musings and drinking in centuries of esoteric wisdom which ignites your imagination and your inner nerd. You can just smell the newly-sharpened pencils and freshly-brewed coffee as you daydream about what you will look like as a graduate student. What’s not enticing about joining the stream of smoky, tweedy academics who over the past centuries have wrestled with the material you are ready to savor?   Whether philosophers really do don the requisite black turtlenecks and law school students tote leather briefcases, who knows for sure, but one thing is certain: even if a program is only a few short years, it will change everything. There is no going back. It will have an impact on your finances, it will shift your relationships with immediate and extended family (you might return home with changed political loyalties causing many a tussle at thanksgiving dinner), and you will require some major shifts from your immediate family if you are partnered or a parent. Your mental and physical health will be affected, your sense of self will be forever altered, and of course you will change the trajectory of your career. But on the day you receive the acceptance email or letter, none of this is yet a reality and what you know is that you cannot imagine doing anything else. The path has opened before you, and it is beckoning you to tread on.

Stage Two:

TAKING THE LEAP

You are now surrounded by a buzz of preparation and anticipation; this stage is infused with hopefulness, eagerness, drive, motivation, fear, doubt, and passion. You’ve poured over the academic requirements, researched housing availabilities, finagled some level of financial aid, and you are weighing whether you are willing to take the risk to follow your dream with all the cost-benefit comparisons in front of you. If you are asking a partner or spouse or children to join you in this, you are all contemplating the necessary losses and pleasant expectations, fears and excitement. Some grieving may be rising to the surface as you begin to shed connections to the familiar and cut the ties to your old existence. You are dealing with the reactions, both positive and negative, of loved ones, colleagues, and friends as you share the news of your exciting adventure. They might be responding with discouragement or encouragement, and you are left to sort through the layers of emotion ricocheting around you as you finally go public with your dreams and aspirations. It may feel freeing to leave unencumbered and start fresh, or you might experience deep terror at the thought of severing the familiar moorings which tether you to your home and all the familiar comforts. You google the location of your grad program obsessively and try to piece together some picture of how life in your new hometown will be. Much like setting up base camp when you are about to begin a high elevation mountain climb, this stage requires establishing good foundations, support, and supplies.

Stay tuned for Stages 3-6!

Readers may contact Laura at LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com or check out ThinAirTutorials.wordpress.com
Dear Laura

REPOST: Dear Laura: Baffled

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Dear Laura

Dear Laura,

What if you follow your spouse to grad school to support their dream, and after years of support through school, when they struggle to find a job they say you’re putting too much pressure on them to be the one with the career and why can’t you find something and be the breadwinner?

Sincerely,

Baffled

Dear Baffled,

It was a bright, crisp winter day and as I walked through our neighborhood, I came across a towering, solid oak bookcase – free to a good home –  which seemed like it might serve as a great central piece in our teeny (think grad student budget on a diet) apartment. I briskly padded home, begged my brawny hubby to come help me, and we wrestled the monstrous piece of furniture four blocks home and then up the steep, treacherous staircase to our flat. (Can you see where this is going?)  Need I say: it didn’t fit in our place?  But how long did it take for me to come to that realization, and how many times did I (gently?) instruct my husband to try this possibility and that, and how long until we muscled the @#$% bookcase back down those steep stairs and out to the street with a “Free” sign reluctantly stuck to its solid back?   I have no idea how much time elapsed, but I know the way the story ends: though I had said nothing about not having enough money for a nice bookcases, and though in the wrestling I never mentioned that we were grown adults living in a postage-stamp-sized apartment because my husband was a graduate student, this scene closed with him yelling out “maybe you should have married a doctor or a lawyer!!!” and stomping off.  Thus began a cold silence between us that lasted well into the next day.

I was baffled. What had happened? All I did was try to fit a bookcase into our flat, and it ended in an explosion (one that has become a great joke between us, and between friends who were privy to the story), but I could not understand how it got there, because I didn’t feel it was a commentary on my husband’s success or potential; it was just a bookcase.

What I know now is that when one is married or partnered, the graduate journey is a supreme exercise in risk and vulnerability, for both spouses.  The vulnerability flows in and out of seemingly benign conversations, it creeps into moods and thoughts, it certainly shadows daily decisions and conversations of life’s challenges.  The vulnerability is sometimes painful, sometimes debilitating, and much of the time, can be terrifying.

The graduate student him or herself has chosen to take a very public risk, to invest resources and life capital into a dream, knowing that it may amount to nothing; he or she might have to bear the shame of having risked and lost, with nowhere to hide.  The student’s spouse is asked to counterintuitively place complete trust in the other person’s dream, but with no control over the journey itself; the quality of work, the decisions made every day at the office, the job interviews which form the path for future career development are completely out of the spouse’s hands.  The sacrifices are deep, the mutual support required is intense, relational and spiritual resources are often tried by fire.

And so, to answer your question:  First, let me say that I am making two assumptions. 1) I choose to believe that you are smart enough not to have said something to your husband like, “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just get a job already?”, and 2) For various reasons, I am assuming that he did not literally mean what he said. Unless he did, and then that is a different discussion. (Do let me know if I’ve assumed wrongly; this requires a different response.)

That said,  I think that the comment made by your husband is likely fueled by complete terror and exhaustion over the weight of the vulnerability mentioned earlier. His success or failure is swiftly becoming public knowledge – one must report back to family and friends how one fared in recent interviews and with various job prospects – and his worst fears are starting to become a reality; he has nothing to show for his risk, and what is worse, he feels responsible for having asked you to sacrifice to the extent that you have.  So, like the insecurity expressed in the “you should have married a doctor or a lawyer” comment I heard long ago, you may have been having a benign interaction, but the vulnerability is rising to the surface and it is threatening to swallow your husband’s sense of who he is, who he will be, and whether it all was worth the cost.

Maybe he is begging for some relief from the pressure of having to make this career a success and hold up the pillars of your family. Maybe he had a bad interaction with his advisor or heard that his colleague was just hired for the most lucrative, most highly sought after job at one of the schools with the most ivy climbing the brick and mortar. Maybe you said something that made him feel you didn’t understand his efforts. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was being whiny and immature. I don’t know; it’s all conjecture on my part. But, I can tell you that neurologically, we experience separation, rejection (including job market rejection), and exclusion in the exact same way that we experience physical pain, and that contact with a loving partner literally acts as a buffer against shock, stress, and pain. He is in pain, you are in pain.

So, hold his hand. Ask him to hold yours. Hug each other.  Hold each other. Stand together, literally and metaphorically.  It mediates distress and enlivens positive hormones, it increases one’s immune system, and cements you together.  Sit in silence or allow music to fill the background, pray if that’s a part of your lives, look each other in the eye, and prop each other up against the terror of academic uncertainty.

Then, tomorrow or next week, after you have built and re-built the foundation beneath you, then you can talk about who is going to work at Starbucks and who is going to start a pie making business. It won’t be quite so terrifying if you are facing it together; really, truly together.

Baffled, you know that the circumstances of your email and the question posted here include depth and history, to which I am not privy; do let me know if based on the limitations here you would like more discussion or if I’m way off the mark, or otherwise.  If so, maybe you should have emailed a doctor or a lawyer. :)

-Laura

Laura M. Benton, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and professional Graduate Wife (12 years, friends. Two MA’s and a PhD.)

To write with your own question for The Graduate Wife team, email TheGraduateWife@gmail.com or LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com

Dear Laura

REPOST: Dear Laura: ‘Helpless in the dark’

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Dear Laura

Readers-We are very pleased to launch our ‘Dear Laura’ advice and support column on The Graduate Wife!  If you have any questions to submit, please email us and we will ask Laura to respond.  We hope we can all benefit from some of the personal stories and advice given.  For more information on Laura click here.

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Dear Graduate Wife,

I was wondering if you have some tips for being supportive…Right now my partner is miserable and I feel like I have tried everything to make him feel better, with no luck.  Also, how can I avoid allowing his stress to get to me? After all these weeks, it is getting me down.  I don’t like the feelings of helplessness when there is nothing I can do to distract him from his stress, but I am also finding that he is miserable to be around.

 – In the Dark

Dear In the Dark,

Indeed, you have entered that time in your spouse’s program wherein dark clouds have gathered and it seems your household is craving glimmers of light and hope.  Here is a little nugget of hope: this is not forever.  Hang on to this, write it down, scribble it in Sharpie on your arm, whatever it takes to help you remember that this is just a phase.  Your partner is not forever damaged, your marriage is not crumbling – despite feelings to the contrary – and you will eventually get your loveable partner back.

That being said, let us be honest: your partner is very, very difficult to love right now and he has become quite boring at dinner, but he probably knows that he is poor company (which makes him feel guilty and like he can do nothing right, and by the way he will never be able to get a job because no one will ever like his work and he is not as smart as anyone else on the job market and why did he ever start this program anyway and….). Does this sound at all familiar?

So, here is the good and the bad news: there is nothing you can do to lead your spouse out of the dark tunnel; he has to trudge along until he finds the light at the end. Is that freeing or horrifying? Let me explain further:

Think of the last time you flew on an airplane; the flight attendant said that in case of emergency, the yellow bags will fall from the storage compartments (though they may not inflate, which I’m glad they come right out and say because if we were crashing and my bag was flat….okay, I digress). You are given in no uncertain terms a directive that is contrary to our instinct, which is why they are so careful to make it clear – in case of emergency, secure your OWN mask first, before assisting anyone else because you will be of no use to anyone else if you are deprived of oxygen.

The same principle applies here; you have to find some oxygen, some enjoyment, some satisfaction and live in it as deeply and intentionally as you can to make it to the other side of this “emergency”. Get your own oxygen flowing, and then perhaps when you have those rare opportunities to meet your husband in his struggle, you will be able to provide him with a breath of fresh air.

Some people might feel nervous about releasing the responsibility they feel for rescuing their spouse, perhaps thinking this would indicate a lack of care or concern, but in this case it is a fruitless struggle and your energy is better spent enjoying your life. Trust me, your spouse will feel relieved that he is not bringing you down and might even feel free to join you in your contentment every once in awhile.

You’ve been wanting to learn to throw pottery? Now is the time. You have been craving that decadent chocolate cake you saw in last month’s foodie catalogue? Invite some girls over and polish it off in one night (and send me some!). You have been thinking you might want to start training for a 10k or read a whole genre of books or learn photography? Today, tonight, and tomorrow. Do it.

Your spouse is having a hard time keeping his head above water; it does not help for you to jump in the water, too – you need to stay on the shore and offer lifelines until he makes it to safety.

Finally, I have never met anyone who made it through the graduate wife journey alone.  You need girlfriends. If you have to Skype with your best friend from home every week, make it happen; if you need to join some groups in your new area to meet some kindred spirits, do it.  You need to be surrounded by people who are filled with life, with whom you share laughter and tears, and you need to have enough fun for the both of you without any resentment or grudge. Did you hear me? Without any resentment or grudge. Now that is a tall order, but if you save the energy you would have been spending trying to save your spouse from this dark pit, you can channel some into disciplining yourself to stay away from resentment. Remember this: this is the hardest part of your spouse’s grad school career. It is temporary, and it is not his fault. He will be helped immensely if he can see that you are doing your best to enjoy your life. So get going and have some fun!

-Laura

Laura M. Benton, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and professional Graduate Wife (12 years, friends. Two MA’s and a PhD.)

To write with your own question for The Graduate Wife team, email TheGraduateWife@gmail.com or LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com

Dear Laura

REPOST: Dear Laura: Looking for Balance

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Dear Laura

Dear Laura,

My question is: how can I remain supportive to my husband’s journey while still pursuing mine? Our biggest challenge is that the PhD path will delay my dream to start a family. I also have a lot of fears about moving across the country and away from our family and support network while starting a family of our own. At this time, I am the primary income provider and will continue to be while my husband is in school. What advice do you have for me to remain supportive while still focusing on my dreams and needs?

Signed,

Looking for Balance

Dear Looking for Balance,

The first rule – and the last rule, and every rule in between- of the grad student life is this: to survive this adventure, you have to be willing to accept that this journey will ask you, at different times and in different ways, to let go of your expectations for how your life will be. This might sound terrifying, but it also can be the source of much freedom and adventure, depending on how you lay the foundation for its reality.

Of course I will elaborate, but if I may summarize my response simply, here it is:  you need to evaluate, with your husband, whether this is the right path for you, and evaluation involves deciding whether your individual and shared life dreams can reasonably be tended if you begin this new grad student journey.

The littlest known fact about the academic life is that a certain level of loss of control is required. Oh, but control, how we do love you! All the controllers and planners out there are sighing at the idea that they will be (or have been) stripped of this fantastic comfort, right? Well, I believe there is reason to see this as a great gift rather than a painful reality. (Fellow controllers, close the ten-point life plan doc, complete with relevant websites and google maps and read on. Trust me, I am one of you; I can see your checklists even as I write.)

I like that you used the word “balance” because indeed the open-handedness which can be so fruitful and exciting must also be tempered with a resolve to hold on to the things that are most valuable, those goals and hopes and visions for your life which you will tenaciously grasp and claim.

So, the question is, how do you sift through every life vision and expectation you have had for your next stages of life, and wrestle with deciding which ones belong in the treasure pile, and which will be laid down to rest?  Here are some practical tasks:

  1. Sit down with a good cup of coffee or tea and have a chat with your two good friends, “Expectations” and “Big Plans” (not many friends enjoy being called “big”, but in this case, it’s okay). List them, look them over, and spend some time thinking about where they have originated; are they simply born of the norms of your current culture, or family expectations? Or are they deep, heartfelt hopes and dreams?
  2. Decide which of these expectations and plans fall into the category of those which you must treasure, respect, and cultivate or which become offerings to be set aside for the sake of the academic dream.
  3. Talk to your husband about his expectations – for himself, his career, and your family. Also, share your two metaphorical baskets: the one to which holds the dreams you are firmly clinging, and the one which holds the things you are willing to offer in order to trade them for something greater – the awesome unknown.
  4. Practically and deliberately plan for how each set of dreams and goals will be achieved and honoured. When I say practical, I mean every last detail.  If you both decide you want to have a baby before grad school is completed, discuss how you will obtain medical benefits, how much money you will need saved, and how you might balance childcare needs. Email others who have had children in grad school and ask 100 questions about how to make that work. And figure out a plan.
  5. Seek to make these dreams a reality, but also review the first and last rule of the grad student journey; as it turns out, it is not only the first and last rule for this journey, but for much of life.

Sometimes being stripped clean of everything you hold tightly leaves your hands empty, wide open, and ready to receive something new and beautiful, something greater than your imagination would have allowed. In other cases, the things that are closest to our hearts are meant to be protected, cherished, and cultivated; and the most difficult part is identifying what those are, then working out – together with your husband – how to bring them to life.

Be brave enough to tell yourself the truth, and you will find the balance you are seeking. (That sounds a bit Yoda-like, I know, but try it and see what happens, and then let me know how it goes!)

-Laura

Laura M. Benton, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and professional Graduate Wife (12 years, friends. Two MA’s and a PhD.)

To write with your own question for The Graduate Wife team, email TheGraduateWife@gmail.com or LBenton.LMFT@gmail.com