Long Distance Relationships in Law School: Get a Ring or Get Rid of it: How to Succeed and Survive in Law School Life
A good amount of law students show up with a significant other. The reality of law school is that many of us travel away from where we were living to attend school elsewhere. This creates the unfortunate conundrum of long distance relationships.
Here’s a brutally honest hot take. If you want to marry this person, stay in it. If you’re not sure, get out of it.
It’s that simple. Law school will take your time, energy, and money. You will speak less. Vacations will probably happen less often. Without a salary it’s tough to send over a lavish gift.
All this creates a strain. More so than time together is the reality that very few understand what a law student goes through. You’re operating in a universe understood by only those that are going through it or have gone through it. It’s not as simple as “my girlfriend is a high-performing consultant so she gets working hard and it will be fine.” She has no idea what it’s like. That’s not derogatory or condescending, but reality. She doesn’t understand the world where your best friends in your section are up against you on a bell curve. She doesn’t get the constant tension between maintaining your sanity by stepping back and working harder to get ahead. The constant spectre of the big law treadmill, marked by 1L grades, the job search process, clerkship applications, deciding on a firm, deciding on a job market, is just entirely foreign to almost every other industry.
Professors are teaching you to think critically and spot issues. News flash, you’ll start seeing issues everywhere. This is both wonderful that your education is working, and difficult because the other person isn’t used to your newfound pugnacious mode of analysis.
So this all comes to a decision point. Either your significant other is understanding and a life partner or not. I know several couples who have made it work. The person in law school was prepared to make career decisions with the other. They have beautiful relationships made stronger through adversity. I have been to their weddings. It is heartwarming.
The vast majority of other people end up miserable and emotionally committed, without presence, to someone in another place. They try admirably to integrate their past life with their new life. They travel away from school to be with the other people. The whole time, they have law school in the back of their minds. They wonder if their significant other’s problems are worth stressing over. After all, aren’t 1L grades the priority? Don’t seven or eight classes determine your earning potential? Do you have the ability to absorb someone else’s troubles?
Most disconcerting is the lack of presence. One of my best friends gave it a great effort. He eventually saw the writing on the wall in December of 1L. He cut it off. He met me immediately after. The kid had no real friends until he broke up with her because his emotional energy was invested elsewhere. He’s now flourishing.
Let me save you months of existential analysis. Law school will change you. It changes everyone. If you’re unequivocally prepared to change with your significant other, I am beyond happy for you. Make it work and never think twice. If you’re not sure, move on and live your life to the fullest.