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View of the Boston skyline from the Charles River
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Prior to returning to b-school, my husband and I had been living in New Jersey where he had been completing his PhD in Chemistry. We decided that it made the most sense not to have two students in the house, so I would return to school once he had finished his degree. After getting accepted to school and beginning to plan for our role reversal, I figured that we had this whole student thing down pat. I mean, we had already had one of us working full-time and another in school full-time, so how different could it be, right? Well, not quite.
Being married, or in a relationship for that matter, definitely has its pros and cons when you are in b-school. You don’t have to worry about dating, have someone to share the load of household chores and duties with, have someone who is required (whether they want to or not!) to listen to you complain about you day, and always have a great excuse to not go out if you feel like lounging around in your pajamas on a Saturday night! On the flipside, the demands on your time – for school, extracurricular activities, and social outings – can easily make your spouse or significant other feel like they are the third wheel in their own relationship.
While these are all factors that I think all married (or serious relationship types) of my class are facing, I would argue that the small percentage of the female members (all of the wives, girlfriends, fiancées, mothers) of this group are in a unique position compared to our male counterparts. Now, I am not trying to make a statement about women in society and also realize that all relationships are different, but at least in my experience over the last two months, being a “wife” in the traditional sense has been much more challenging then it was when I was working full-time. Things like cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping have become the lowest priorities on the totem pole – but are still things that need to get done – and at least in my house, are things that are not very high on my husband’s totem pole to accomplish!
However, like I said earlier, one of the big pros of being married in b-school is that there is someone there to share the load (even if he is not interested in cleaning the bathroom), so here are a few things that I have found incredibly useful for any wives or girlfriends considering making the return to b-school:
1. Involve your spouse early: Unfortunately, my husband was out of town the first week of b-school for work in Texas, so he missed some of the early social get togethers. Although he missed the first week, he was at the first tailgate and a few other early social activities, which made it much easier for him to be a repeat attendee at other events. This made it much easier, not only to get him excited and jazzed up for future events, but now he knows (for the most part) who people are when we talk about my day or other events that he isn’t able to attend. Quickly involving your spouse in the b-school world makes it very easy for them to feel a part of the experience.
2. Find other married classmates: Don’t get me wrong, most of my married classmates and their spouses in the program love to go out and have a good time, but whether or not we want to accept it, we aren’t in college anymore, so while the occasional dance party is a blast – sometimes the lowkey get together is a better environment to socialize. Plus, even for those of us who like to socialize, yelling over music in a crowded bar is not always the best place to meet people – especially if you are the spouse and don’t know who any of these people are! Finding other classmates who are married or in relationships has been an easy way to forge friendships and provide avenues for my husband to get to know some of the other husbands and wives experiencing b-school from the outside perspective. The BC Couples Club also provides quarterly get togethers for students in relationships to provide an opportunity for the significant others to get to know one another in an environment conducive to socializing.
3. It’s all about the little things: As is the case with everyone, there are little things that drive us nuts. For me, it’s a dirty house or an unemptied dishwasher or piles of mail, but the one thing that I’ve had to do in b-school (and has been a challenge!) is to let go of some of these things. No one will die if the dishwasher has not been emptied, so there’s no sense in making a big deal out of it. It’s been important for me (while I haven’t always been successful at it), to not take my stress or frustration over these little things that I’m not able to tackle out on my husband. Instead, I’ve had to force myself to not focus on these mundane day-to-day tasks and also to communicate with my husband that these are some things where I need his help (also, not one of my strong suits).
4. Figure out early what works for you: Before b-school, I liked to use Sunday as my day to grocery shop and make a nice dinner. I quickly learned that this would no longer be possible! My husband and I decided that he would do the grocery shopping and make dinner on Sundays, ideally something that could last for the week. While this may seem too planned out, it’s been incredibly helpful in reducing my stress for the week. This has also been about making sure I am home for dinner every night and that we eat dinner together. Even though this hour could be spent reading a case or applying for jobs, it’s been important for us to make this daily “us” time just to relax and also helps me prioritize my time accordingly.
5. The Key to Everything is Balance: My husband and I are lucky in the sense that we were living and working in the area for a few months before b-school, so he has his own network of work friends that he can hang out with when I have to spend the weekend doing school work. However, as with most healthy relationships (in my opinion at least), my husband wants me to hang out with him and his friends! It’s been important for us to try to coordinate our increasingly busier social calendar to make sure that we are balancing all of our groups of friends – b-school friends, work friends, and other friends in the area. Obviously, there are some weekends where this is more challenging than others, but it’s been important for us to make sure we are spending as much time TOGETHER with our friends – so that means that we can’t do EVERYTHING.
