Preserving your marriage while being a good student?

[blaundee]

Do you have any tips for maintaining a healthy marriage while going through nursing school? (Assuming you already have a healthy marriage, and are dedicated to making your marriage last AND to being highly successful in school).

[edmia, BSN, RN]

This is a valid concern because nursing school does take over. I think you're at a great advantage by not having kids. Also you've done a lot of paring down to get ready for this change. My suggestion is to talk to your husband and keep the expectations low. You won't have time to text during every break or lunch. You will be processing your learning with your classmates and you need that time, it's part of the process.

Make dates to chat when you are both done with your daily responsibilities and make sure your mind is ready to focus on yourself during that time. It's a short time in the scope of your marriage, just be ready to not have time for him. He needs to be ready for that. If he expects little, then things will be smooth.

Sent from my iPhone -- blame all errors on spellcheck

[RunnerRN2015, ASN, RN]

We were probably older than you are and less concerned about togetherness and romance but I didn't do anything special other than warn my husband that there were going to be a few hard years ahead especially because I was working also. Fortunately he was independent and secure enough to allow nursing to take precedence over everything including our marriage. I get this might not be what others feel is acceptable but imo the reality is there are things that have to take a back seat and if our relationship wasn't strong enough to weather this minor blip on the radar it would have been better off if we went our separate ways. We are still together and are now able to enjoy the fruits of our labor so it was definitely worth it.

^^THIS^^. We've been married almost 25 years; I just graduated in December. We both knew it would be a rough 2 years for me (type A overachiever so working my ass off for a high GPA was the only way I would do it) so we lived by our family motto: Suck It Up, Buttercup. He knew that school was a priority for me. If I spent the weekend studying, he kept busy doing things he needed to do around the house. We're both runners so we would use our long runs or races as "date nights" on Saturday mornings and we always read the Sunday paper together. Our kids are older with their own lives so I never had any "mommy guilt". Luckily neither one of us are needy as far as relationships go; if I didn't text him all day or he never called me, it's no biggie. His job is demanding anyway so if we went all day without contact, it wasn't unusual. Two years out of 25 years together were a drop in the bucket for us. We survived just fine!

[Jules A, MSN]

I wanted to add, not necessarily to this OP but in general, that if your partner isn't relatively supportive when you are in nursing school it should raise serious red flags.

[HisKids37]

Honestly, I really rely on my husband as a big part of my sanity, so our marriage has made school easier for me. He completely supports my education, even thought it means that he is highly taxes physically and emotionally, taking over most of the homeschooling of our children while I'm at school. Nursing school is consuming and exhausting, but I really like it. I enjoy coming home to my man and telling him all the crazy things that happened that day. Of course there are times that I'm so tired that I just come home and go to bed early, or I'm grouchy, or he is from working hard at home all day, or whatever. That's just part of life, and I would imagine that by now you've weathered that kind of thing as a couple. You know what sorts of things work for you. If "I love you" texts are what you normally do, keep at it. If you're already happy together, just keep doing what you're doing and you'll be fine!