Thought of the day

[kiya]

(From conversation with artan_eter.)

Having a partner in grad school is like being in a poly situation in which one is a) mandated as a secondary partner and b) the primary partner is a demanding, autocratic drama queen in a perpetual state of crisis meltdown.

Comments

Hello preacher.

[suzanne.livejournal.com]

Amen!

(And hygges)

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Yep, that sounds about right.

[sigerson.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what you're talking about and--OH GOD I JUST GOT THE CRITS BACK FROM MY ADVISOR AND EVERYBODY THINKS I AM DUMB AND SHE HATES ME AND WHY CAN'T I EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH--what were you saying?

[ivy]

Hahahaha! I am kind of glad that my dating life in grad school was so mediocre... at least I don't have anyone I have to go back and apologize to now?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Having lived with a husband who was doing a part-time Ph.D. while working full-time, I sympathise!

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

THIS.

Masters, but yes, same setup.

Typical scenario: He's emerged from the office to do the necessary. I approach him as he's coming back from his bathroom break.

Me: Can I make you something to eat?

Him: I CANNOT DEAL WITH THAT RIGHT NOW AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO DISCUSS WHY I CAN'T. I JUST. . . !CAN'T! *stomps back into office*

I'm so glad I made him take the semester off when he quit his job to go work for the start-up based two states away using a new and different set of technologies for him (that closed our city's new office *the week it opened*, four months after his hire, because they "changed strategies").

[kiya]

Ah ha ha how many times have I had this conversation with artan_eter, except that he's sufficiently high-strung that the conversation continues through several iterations of explanation of what all the things are that are the reason he doesn't have time to discuss why he can't deal with that right now....

(Master's, too, but it probably should be a clinical doctorate.)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I'm an ABD. My daughters still resent those years, but it might have gotten much worse if I hadn't gotten out of academia.

[ibnfirnas.livejournal.com]

The worst part is that my grad school is leading to the church, which is just as bad.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Mmmmyeah. Poor galaneia had to suffer through nearly a decade of that...

[kiya]

I'm at roughly ten out of the last twelve years, currently. That's divided among three partners. (And two of those ten years it was two partners both in grad school, so in partner-gradschool-years I average out to approximately 'not this century'.)

I am really, really tired of it.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Yes.

In 2006, my first successful (other than primary) poly relationship was with a young woman working on a masters' at an Ivy.

She often referred to the main subject of her thesis as an abusive psychopathic primary.

So I bought her a stuffed animal and gave it that person's name, in a diminutive form.

Pugachev became Pug.