Dear Charlie,
My honey is earning his PhD. He is so busy at school that we barely get to spend time together. We have one day a week together, and the rest of the time he is busy. When we are together, everything is dreamy, but as soon as he leaves, I feel lonely and neglected. I won’t hear from him for 5 days at a time. I know his PhD is important, but I have needs when he's not around. I adore him and want to be with him, but its tough waiting for him each week. It will be another year before he completes his PhD. If I say anything, I might push him away even more. Growing up stinks!
-Weekend Girlfriend
Dear Weekend Girlfriend,
There are some key basics to think about here. Earning a PhD is a time consuming task, and that's an understatement. Congrats to your boyfriend for being a dedicated scholar. I think the most important elements in successful relationships, are adaptation, compromise, and communication. It’s a tricky task, though not impossible, and highly rewarding. If your guy is as wonderful as you make him sound, then you must be a good match. However, it is not a good sign if the guy you are dating only contacts you once a week. Men whom you are not romantically involved with, will disclosed to you that if they like a girl, they want to talk to her. It’s possible that you have more free time than he does, but it's also possible that this is the extent of the communication he wants to have with you. If it's hard for you to adapt to his schedule, then this relationship needs some compromise on behalf of both parties. People are entitled to be on different pages in life. The compromise of relationships is about merging lives together and trying to make each other happy. A good relationship should not be one sided. Maybe your relationship needs time. Eventually when you both become more grounded and available to each other, maybe your relationship may go to the next level. Whether or not you deem a year as being worth waiting for in the long term, is up to you. It's not very romantic to wait around for someone all the time. Then again, you might sacrifice him for someone more "perfect", only to possibly be single for another year, just looking for his replacement. By that time, he may be ready for you. I would say to ride this one out a little bit. Accept the goals that he is working towards and be supportive. In the long run, he may become a very successful person. For now, I would say to be patient and try your hardest to make this work. You need to tell him how you feel though, so that he knows. He may have no idea you are feeling this way. Don't ask him to change, but do expect compromise. He should care about your happiness. You want him to know that you miss him when he's not around. He will probably like hearing that. A lot of people break up unnecessarily on the grounds of "bad timing" just because their partner is still in school. They forget that school is temporary. They jump to the conclusion that their partner isn't right for them just because they aren't immediately on the same page. They sometimes miss the point, which is that love progresses and evolves over time with compromise and adaptation. You don't want to jump the gun, because nobody knows what the future holds. Some people insist on breaking up, only to spend the next 3 years of their life in an endless and exhausting love hunt of meaningless dates. Meanwhile, they could have been patient and worked it out with someone who actually was compatible with them, but is now engaged to someone else. Some people are just looking to fill a constant void in any way they can. Are you hoping to get married soon? Hopefully not because with this guy, it sounds like it's a ways away. Relationships are not just about what we want, they are a balance of what we want AND what our partner wants, and helping those needs work together.
If we look at dating over time, you will note how it changes as you age. The more you experiences you have, the more your romantic preferences change. As young ladies, we often have fantasies in our heads of what our perfect mate is like. We have impossibly high standards because of what we see on film and in magazines. The reality is that the majority of Ken dolls that girls drool over on film and television, are gay or tragically corrupt and not suitable, realistic partners whatsoever. We don’t know what’s real any more. We fill out a mental order form for a perfect Romeo and only accept applications for what looks like to be our exact fit. In doing this, we miss out on the best partners. I call this chasing the stars. This isn’t how life works though, and we get disappointed by the “Romeos” who fail us. The couples I know who seem happiest, say they were not the typical prototype to each other. Traditional dating periods or courtship processes in the past were often brief. Today, they can be long and grueling. Some people start their relationships long distance. Some people don't even get to pick their partner. In some countries two people are married off as strangers and are expected to copulate on the day of marriage. Sheesh! Here in America (2010), we are highly civilized and fortunate to not only have control over all of these things, but to be as picky and choosy as we want. Our current culture and all its modern technologies has taught us to multi-task in ways that aren't natural for human beings. We take a phone call while speeding down the highway and doing our makeup. We check our email while standing in line at the Post Office with two kids and a cup of coffee. We carry our Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, and blackberry with us wherever we go so that we will have every communication option in the world at our finger tips. How convenient. We can never be bored. We can never miss a call or an email. We can never be alone with ourselves without a toy. We can never go a minute without being over stimulated. Relationships are not flawless the way our technologies are. I think our demands and expectations of people are sometimes up to the standards of machinery. We take for granted the human things that matter. I am a fan of human love. I think some people would prefer a droid.
There is nothing more difficult in this world, than finding someone to share your life with. We must be willing to grow with someone. If you found a good guy, and he's wonderful, I'd say that's a find worth waiting for, even if you are slightly inconvenienced. If your schedules don’t match, or if you think a better match exists somewhere out there in the world, ride it out. Be sure that you are right about the person, before jumping the gun. People are coming from all different walks of life. The couples with the greatest longevity are the ones who kept an open mind, were grateful, patient with each other, and valued what they found (when they found each other).
Hold on steady to this guy; find ways to occupy your time when he is working toward building a future (possibly for both of you). When you are together, cherish that time together. Tell him how it makes you feel when you don't hear from him for days. You have to be somewhat bright to achieve a PhD, so I think he will appreciate your feelings and act on them. If he does not, consider ending the relationship because he's not reciprocating your feelings. It takes time to find a balance that works and to unite lives with someone. That’s what marriage is for. Life is not perfect, despite how our modern technologies fool us to think it is, and neither are we. We are just human, after all; perfectly imperfect in many ways. That is the beauty about us. Love comes in many packages. Be grateful when you find it, but beware of falsely identifying it or throwing it away.
