BF is in a funk over a convo...

[married2school]

Hi guys!

 

My boyfriend and I have been dating since October... so... about five months. A little bit of back story - we're both first year medical students. We've got a pretty solid relationship because, whether we often like it or not, we see each other almost every day. He's 34, I'm 24. We both have met the other's family and friends. So, yeah, fairly normal relationship - besides the added stress of med school I suppose.

 

A couple of weeks ago, we were driving back from dinner, and I asked if he saw himself eventually settling down. Future plans and other friend's marriages/weddings had come up a lot in conversations that week, and I've dated someone before who I think had no interest in ever getting married to anyone. It's just something I wanted to know. I told him that's all I wanted to know, and that I didn't want the conversation to go any further than that. Unfortunately, it did. Abbreviated version - he wanted to wait until after residency to get married, I brought up that unless we did couples match we would likely be separated for residency, he sounded like he put his foot down on that idea, etc. If you don't know about "matching" and residency, you don't pick where you go. You rank and the programs rank, and there's this algorithm that decides where people go. The convo was way too deep for this stage of a relationship. Something we both acknowledged.

 

The following day when we were walking to class, he was in a funk over the entire thing. Said it had got him thinking about things he didn't want to think about. Two days later I got into the same funk. When you're in our position and you know in four years you're going to have to likely move somewhere else and you don't know where that is - you kind of have to be open to making sacrifices. I took the things he had said as being, "We'll probably have to break up in four years." So I drove over and we talked. He said that talking about those things just scared him at the moment (which I totally get), but that he didn't want to sound like he wasn't open to them in the future - if we were still together. I felt much better, and supposedly he did too. (For the record, I have no interest in eliciting some ridiculous commitment out of him. I just don't want either of us wasting our time when we are in med school because at the moment that needs to be the #1 priority.)

 

Yesterday, we had an exam. I scored higher than him, and he barely passed. It's normally either reversed, or we make the same. He was in a funk all day about it. Normally, I spend the night after big exams because it's what little free time we get, but last night he asked if I would just sleep at home. Before we went to yoga this morning, I asked if anything else was wrong besides him being bummed about the exam.... Annnnd, he brought up the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago. Said he wanted to be my friend first and foremost - and regardless of whatever happens - and my boyfriend, but that he had let my energy get to him. He tried to make it clear it's his response to me and not me, but I mean if I go places I shouldn't - it sounds like, "You're making me get bad grades."

 

I'm sort of at a loss for what to do anymore. Obviously, I'm concerned about him being happy. I hate to see him angry over a test because he's amazingly smart. But we need to put this conversation behind us. It's hard because I feel like I was doing a good job as moving past it...

 

Just not sure what to do at this point. We have a fairly open line of communication, but I'm beginning to wonder where communication has got us.... Seems like nowhere.

 

My apologies that this is long... I have a hard time giving a Reader's Digest version of anything.

[Gaeta]

One of you is going to have to initiate another kind of conversation. A conversation about doing this *one day at a time*. None of you have control over what will happen in the next 4 years. One of you could drop out of the medical program, could meet someone else, , and the list goes on. You need to take the pressure off of this *how about in 4 years* and the way to do it is to create a new conversation = new memory = new agreement.

[married2school]

I feel like we sort of already talked about just carrying about "now".... About a week ago when I got in my funk... Maybe I just need to be more clear though I guess. I don't know.

[Els]

Do you have to be married to do couples' matching for residency? Sorry, unfamiliar with the system in the US.

 

That aside, I think that there may be a need for perspective. You have been dating for 5 months and you are in a funk over what may or may not happen 4 years from now. Sure, there may be some merit to planning ahead, but at 24 and a 5 month R, there doesn't seem to be much point hypothesizing about what happens in 4 years' time. Heaps of things can happen between now and then.

 

5 years back, when I was 21 and newly in a LDR with a med school student (I'm not one myself), I made the mistake of doing the same thing as what you are doing. Wanting to 'confirm' everything about the future, right here and now. It caused a lot of trouble at the time. And looking back, now, every single big thing that we talked about previously, was pointless. There were just too many unknown factors, too many things had changed. We worked things out as and when they happened and managed to make it work (and he graduated from med school and we closed the LDR gap 3 years ago). But the solutions, circumstances, etc, were totally and completely different from when they were hypothesized at the beginning of our R.

 

I think it is a good thing to talk about the future in terms of generalities (do both of you see marriage in the future? how about children? tentative career plans? etc), but no need to plan to such detail. Strike a balance between planning and seeing where life takes you. As far as resolving this conversation, perhaps just tell him that you can put that behind you for now, and focus on school?

[Noproblem]

You want to be a successful doctor, don't fall in love until your residency years.

Simple, yet painful as it seems.

[JungleLover]

You want to be a successful doctor, don't fall in love until your residency years.

Simple, yet painful as it seems.

 

 

Agree.

 

You haven't experienced second year of medical school which is known to be the toughest. I would try not to allow things to get too heavy for now. Try not to plan your future around him at this point. If you two are still together after second year, then you can try talking about couples matching but even that is for marriage so unless you two get married before it's time to apply to your residency programs, just back off of that conversation.

 

I think you two may have enough pressure in your lives right now without leaning on the future so heavy at this point.

[married2school]

I definitely hear and agree with most everything you guys are saying. I didn't want our conversation to have went there, and I even told him I didn't want to go there - but it was sort of a slippery slope on both of our parts.

 

Just for the record, you don't have to be married to couples match. I will also say I disagree completely on love and med school. There are plenty of people in my class who are married, plenty who are engaged, and plenty who are in relationships. I've also seen my fair share of people who get married during med school to both non med students and med students. I have no doubt that it is hard, but I also don't believe it's impossible.

 

We actually just got done talking about it again. Briefly. I wrote a letter this afternoon while he was gone to a conference, and when he got back he wanted me to come over to watch one of our favorite shows. I know "letter" probably sounds weird, but sometimes I write better than I speak (and we've had a very open line of communication). It just said that I hadn't intended for anything to weight or pressure the relationship, asked what was still bothering him, and asked if we could focus on the day and the now and not who we were two weeks ago or who we would be four years from now. He really appreciated the letter. He said that in the past when things that serious have come up he's started being a dick and has pushed people away. He doesn't want to do that to me and says he needs to work through this himself. He says he sort of has this "image" of me since then that has frustrated him that he realizes is false. He also didn't like that yesterday it seemed like I was pitying him a lot because of his grade. He said he was comparing and couldn't help it, but I made it worse by not wanting to own up and be happy about my grade, but instead being very concerned about his and how he felt.

 

He actually has a life coach. He says he's been talking to her and his mom about it. (He started the life coach thing after he had a bad break up around the time his mom had breast cancer and has been doing it since.) So it makes me feel better to know he's trying to move past it. He just said it's something he has to do himself because it doesn't really have anything to do with anything I've done.

 

He said he wanted me to write down my goals though... Trying to process how to feel about that. I'm all into self-help and self-improvement, but my friend said something interesting when I told him all of this... "y'all seem to have way too much bull**** getting in the way of your relationship."

 

Ah, who knows.

[Els]

Just for the record, you don't have to be married to couples match.

 

That's what I thought. Shouldn't be an issue then.

 

I will also say I disagree completely on love and med school. There are plenty of people in my class who are married, plenty who are engaged, and plenty who are in relationships. I've also seen my fair share of people who get married during med school to both non med students and med students. I have no doubt that it is hard, but I also don't believe it's impossible.

 

Agreed.

 

He said he wanted me to write down my goals though... Trying to process how to feel about that. I'm all into self-help and self-improvement, but my friend said something interesting when I told him all of this... "y'all seem to have way too much bull**** getting in the way of your relationship."

 

Ah, who knows.

 

This bit does sound like a bit much. But, different strokes for different folks..

[JungleLover]

I will clarify:

 

Couples matching for non-married couples is quite risky. Things don't work out...

 

 

I think it is tough for a couple within the same class of medical school to actually be together by the 4th year of medical school, especially prior to encountering 2nd year. Not impossible but quite tough. Those within a specific culture tend to be most successful with this. The age gap alone is a tough one. Again, not impossible but tough.

 

I don't want to be a cloud on this but some things to just consider. Don't miss the forest for the trees. It's only been a few months and you two are speaking about couples matching and you haven't experienced 2nd year yet.

[married2school]

I realize that. And I don't know if I've been clear, but the conversation that was had wasn't one I wanted to breech either. I was just trying to ask if he saw himself being the marrying type. That's a pretty fair question I think. A simple yes or no would have been fine, and what I got was something along the lines of, "Yeah eventually of course. I think I want to wait until after residency." It was extra details that at this point in the relationship I didn't really want to know, and the conversation led to me doing the same thing to him. We both initially drew a lot of far-fetched lines and assumptions from the conversation because it freaked us out.

 

I realize it's going to get harder. My class is the guinea pigs for a new curriculum change so it's already been kind of a bumpy year - relationship or not. I will say, we don't really go to a super cut-throat school, and I do feel that helps. (State school in a fairly rural state.) I mean it's tough. But neither of us have felt our grades from before we were going out are any different than from when we started going out. There's a real sense of encouragement I think we get from our relationship. We frequently pep talk each other. We fist-bump before almost every quiz and exam or when we're having a hard day.

 

As far as age difference... this isn't the first time that either of us has been in this boat. I've dated someone 11 years older than me previously, and he has dated someone who was also 10 years younger than him. We made it clear what the issues were with those relationships and even to some extent how that related to the age differences. He has said that I'm a lot more mature than this ex. Though since I don't know her, it's possible that may not be that difficult. But he's also said that he hasn't communicated this well with a female since his girlfriend he had in high school and college. Though it's not necessarily an intentional compliment, it's promising to me that I've learned from a lot of past mistakes and am hopefully learning to be a better girlfriend because of them.