This is going to be a long one, so I will explain where I am now and tell the backstory later. I apologize in advance for some awkward phrasing, but my professional circle is small enough that I must be careful when including it in a story if I wish to remain anonymous.
I am in my first year studying to be a doctor. I have avoided buying groceries for the last two weeks by going to lunch and dinner match panels at the school, where newly matched fourth years field questions from those about to follow in their footsteps. For those without friends or family in medicine, the match is a bizarre method of job searching in which a digital algorithm decides which residency programs new doctors will train in, and for allopathic doctors in the US, it is almost the only way to start a respectable career. The most intriguing part of the match is the couples option, which allows couples to apply as a unit to better their odds of being matched in the same city. Couples can even prevent the algorithm from committing them to any location unless they would also stay together. Thinking of my empty refrigerator, I went to a dinner panel earlier tonight featuring several couples who recently matched together.
The urgency of medical training in the US and the rigid structure it imposes test the relationships of everyone who goes through it, but these students had it the worst. Many had been together two years or less, and with the upcoming match had to decide immediately whether to commit and move to a new city together or else probably be separated for 3-7 years. The people willing to talk about their experience later are those who stayed together and matched together, and these couples are inspiring examples of committed lovers who would rather forgo their careers for a year than be separated. Hearing their cute stories just made me dwell on how I once thought my SO and I were like that, but now we simply aren’t, and perhaps we never were.
I don’t know if I can even call it a relationship anymore. We talk over a glitchy, grainy video chat once or twice a week, and visit for a weekend every month or so, with two or three longer get-aways per year. Our careers have been too specialized to talk much about for a long time; me with medicine and computational biology and her with mechanical engineering. She’s gotten really into mountain biking, and I have starting bouldering and top climbing for fun; neither of us really enjoys the other’s favorite hobbies anymore. When we do see each other, we do things we can both tolerate, and the exciting part is just being together. I have been paying for all the travel, and while the relationship is more expensive than ever, I don’t have to put in as much work in as I used to, as encounters are not as frequent. Sex was always a touchy area, as my libido is much higher than hers, but over time it became progressively more humiliating as I got more and more out of practice, and now I am more apprehensive about it than excited. For a year, I have clung to the notion that it would all work out eventually when she finishes school and comes to live with me, but recently I found out that dream will not be happening in the foreseeable future.
We met under the most ideal conditions: living in the same dormitory our first semester of college. I had a couple of crushes in those months, and she was the only one to return my affections. I had significant savings, as I had worked in local sports complexes since the age of fourteen, so I pampered her more than her exes ever had. We could talk for hours because we came from very different cultures and wanted to understand each other. It was only a matter of months before we were using the L word, but I still consider it reasonable given the shear number of hours spent together. Pretty soon, those hours were cut back when I got a rare opportunity to work in a prestigious laboratory, part time during the school year and full time during the summer. Of course, I was also a full time student year round.
Even though we became constrained by professional goals, I still enjoyed every minute with her, and in within the first year of our relationship we got to the point of practically living together. Right after we realized how close we had become, things changed. First she, then I took an internship in a different state, and it sucked, but only for a few months at a time. By the time I was applying to medical school (she still had a year left in school), the score was 18 months spent together, 8 months apart. I knew that by committing to a medical school, I would be stuck for years—eight years actually, as I planned to do my PhD at the same time—meaning I would have to trust her to follow me, as I would not be able to do the same for her, at least for a very long time. She said she would, and in the end, I signed up for one full year of a LTR, after which she would graduate and come live with me. In the meantime, we would be 1000 miles apart with no direct flights. In the year that followed, we basically became vacation buddies more than serious partners. I was willing to suffer that for however long it took because I knew she would do what ever it took to get back to me for good.
I guess I was naive. For those without friends or family in engineering, the industry makes offers to colleges graduates months or even years before they finish school. Her friends were getting offers a year before graduation, and she began to get anxious about her employment prospects. I think this is what drove her to take the first offer she got, even though it was six months before graduation, and the job was in city hundreds of miles from me. Two Google searches showed it was 12 hours by car, 3 by plane, meaning the frequency of our proximity would not be changing at all. I could not believe she would choose the first person to dangle a paycheck over me. It’s not like I couldn’t provide for her: in exchange for my long commitment to the school and thanks to a Reagan-era income tax earmark, I study tuition-free with a $30K annual stipend. At the time, it was clear she was not going to change her mind, so I did my best to be okay with her decision, but in the last few months I have come to resent her.
Now she says she will work for a couple years and then come join me, but while I can nod my head, I cannot take her seriously. I still enjoy the little time we spend together, but it kills me that there is no end in sight for the unhappiness I have lived with for the last year. The score is now 21 months together, 20 months apart, and there is absolutely no specific plan for us to ever be together again like it used to be.
As a scientist, I cannot claim she has the same feelings for me as I have for her and still maintain any intellectual integrity. There is no way being separated gives her the same lack of fulfilledness as it gives me, given the choices she made. Some time ago, we talked about getting married, and though I said something diplomatic, what I thought was “how could I profess publicly my dying commitment to someone I see a few days a month and have no specific intention of spending significant time with in the next decade”. Remembering the looming match, I know even after school, I will not have complete control over where I live and work.
Hours ago, back in that dimly lit lecture hall, I listened to smiling couples describe how they worked through many uncomfortable disagreements and made compromises to ensure they would never be apart. “We love each other,” they said, “how can we be happy or work toward a new home and a new family together if we can’t stay physically together?” I asked myself the same question. I know we love each other, but given our actions, I cannot say if either of us will ever choose us over our careers. I can’t seem to rationalize working to maintain a state of indefinitely long unhappiness, and I feel like mentioning any of this to her would endanger that which I value most. If the facts are what has been historically true, that she is more interested in whatever professional opportunity presents itself than being close to me, that I cannot go to her for many years, if ever, and that I have no solutions, then what happens if she also has no ideas? I am sure she would promise to move closer to me as soon as her contract was up if I pressured her to, but if she loved me, I wouldn’t have to pressure her, and if I cannot take that promise at her word… I don’t want to think about that scenario.
TLDR; I thought my LDR had an end date, turns out it does not, at least not in the foreseeable future. I am worried that the logical course of action is to break up, but I can’t do that; I love her. At the same time, I don’t see how I can spend the rest of my youthful years unhappy and feeling alone. It’s a rock and a hard place that squeeze harder every day.
Submitted April 13, 2017 at 07:31AM by modern_epistemon http://ift.tt/2oBdGFy relationships
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