69: Maintaining a Strong Relationship with a Partner in Grad School and Beyond

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Welcome, everyone. Today's topic is on maintaining a strong relationship with a partner in grad school and beyond. I want to start by saying that I've had this episode on my mind for a few weeks now, ever since it was suggested by a listener on Instagram. I've been thinking about it, and I've been reaching out to a couple of guest speakers.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Each time I've reached out, I've brought up some suggestions for topics, and I've included that one- on having a strong relationship, or strengthening your relationship, or maintaining a strong relationship. And no one signed up for that. There are other topics- other people signed up for them, but not this one. I kept wondering, why is that?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

All I could think about was the fact that it's personal. A lot of times, it's hard to share about romantic relationships as we're navigating them. It can feel very vulnerable to talk about that. It's maybe you know, part of your feeling like that's my business. Nobody else needs to know about that business.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So I kept thinking- well, I've been in a romantic relationship, in a monogamous relationship with someone for fourteen years, and it's going relatively well. Why don't I go ahead and talk about it? I'm very much a fan of destigmatizing topics, of demystifying topics. I am willing to put myself out there in some ways, if it means that I can help others. So I figured, why not?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Before I get started, I do want to remind you that when I'm talking about maintaining a strong relationship, I am referring to a romantic relationship and I am referring to monogamous relationships. I understand that for a lot of individuals, being in a monogamous relationship is not for them. Being married is not for them. And that is awesome. I think we should all pursue relationships that work best for us, that allow us to thrive.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

For me, I very much am attracted to monogamous relationships. I was that individual in my teenage years, who just was- I called myself a serial monogamist. I went from one relationship to the next to the next to the next. And I kind of just ended up with my partner- now husband- Josh. He's just been around because it's worked out. So how is it that it's worked out for us? How did we navigate grad school?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I started grad school at a relatively young age. I was 21. Then while I was in grad school, he ended up getting his Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree and we had a child together. Then when I started my first full time job, and he decided to pursue another Master's degree, we recently had a second baby. So there's been a lot that we've navigated.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And I have to admit, it has not been easy. In many ways we have grown. Now it's for the most part been relatively smooth, but there have still been bumps on the road. I want to share some of the things that we have worked on, that have helped us with strengthening our romantic relationship. I'll start with first things first. You hear this said from time to time, by anyone who's been in a long term relationship- that you need to work on your communication.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

By that I mean- your communication skills individually, but then your communication skills together as a couple. Because the way that you communicate, the way that your partner communicates, is likely very different. So you got to really get to know each other and your communication styles. For instance, I am someone who- I am an oversharer. I over communicate.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

When I get anxious, I want to kind of figure it out, sort it out. Figure out the solution to the problem or share my emotions, vent and have someone empathize with me. I very much kind of want something done now. And when I communicate, I want you to give me your attention- make eye contact and verbalize. Share words that to me, prove to me that you're listening.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Whereas with my partner, he doesn't really make eye contact. And sometimes he needs more space. Sometimes words don't come to him as quickly. Sometimes he needs more time and space to process and to gather his thoughts. So what does that mean? That means that we've had to find ways to compromise. It means we don't always talk about things right away. Sometimes, we need to take our time- which means an hour, two hours, maybe the next day- and then sorting things out.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But figuring out your communication styles. Also figure out your love languages. This is something that I learned many, many years ago. There's a thing called love languages. You can look it up. There are five of them. I can name them. There's words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, and receiving gifts. What are the things that show you and make you feel the most loved?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I'll give myself as an example. I am big on quality time. You may have a couple that you actually very much like, or you might like all of them. But what's the main one, that if you could only choose one for your partner to show you that they love and care for you, what would you prefer? For me, it would be quality time. Words of affirmation- yeah, you can say something, but then you gotta follow it up with your actions.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then physical touch. I didn't grow up with a lot of physical touch, so I don't always love to be touched. Then acts of service- that's nice, for someone to think about you and to do something while thinking about you. Like do a chore, or something to help you out- that's nice. Receiving gifts- it's nice to be thoughtful and receive a gift. That one's on the very bottom of my list, because I'm not really big on receiving gifts. It's not something I absolutely need.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But quality time is a big one for me. If I feel like we haven't spent- you know, this works also with my friendships too. Not just my romantic relationship, but platonic relationships too. If I feel that we have had a good amount of- not just time together. We could be sitting in a room working with each other all day long. If we're not spending quality time, I still don't feel close to you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So quality time is very important to me. Not just spending time together, but actually being intentional with how you use that time. For my partner, he's very big on physical touch. Physical touch is the way that he feels loved. So I have to get out of my comfort zone to try to provide that physical touch, you know, holding hands, a hug, a kiss. All of that. I know it's going to be very meaningful to him, so I go out of my way for that. He goes out of his way to make time for us to spend together.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So love languages- knowing your love language, knowing your partner's love language, and then executing that regularly will help. What else do we do when it comes to communicating? We are two very busy individuals. We have jobs. We have two kids. We've got a household that we're running. For that, we need to make sure that we stay organized. We develop a routine and a schedule.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And what are the things that we do regularly? We have weekly check ins. In those check ins, we review our schedule, our weekly commitments, what's going on with us. That's very important as a parent, to figure out- when are you going to have zoom meetings? When do you need access to a certain room or to quiet time or focus time. Tag teaming- who's gonna take the baby when? Who's going to work with homeschooling when? Who's going to do the chores and what time?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So just figuring out, doing that weekly check in. Figuring out what's on the calendar, what's coming up for that week. How you can both support each other, and making sure that you prioritize both careers, both individuals, whatever is a priority for each. And kind of doing that balancing act, and compromising when you need to. Because there might be days when both of you are busy, or both of you have things coming up, so talking about it and prioritizing. That's been helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The other thing that's been really helpful- and again, you'll notice this is gonna come up from time to time, I may mention finances and budgeting. There's a big reason why a lot of relationships don't stand the test of time and don't last. One of the main reasons has to do with differences in money- in how you manage money, what you think about money, in how you budget, what you prioritize. That's a leading cause for divorce rates, just issues with money.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

For us, what do we do to manage that? We have a monthly budgeting meeting. Every month- it's usually near the end of the month or at the beginning of the next month. We schedule some time- usually, it's a Saturday or Sunday- and we go and review our budget. What does that mean? We go in and review all of our expenses for that month and see if we were on budget. Did we go over or under what we had budgeted?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Then based on those numbers, we update the budget and estimate how much we're going to spend for the next month. We try to account for what's coming up for the next month. But also, are there things that are going to come up later in the year that we need to start saving for now? Like- now's a good time to start thinking about, there's a lot of birthdays coming up, or Christmas is going to come up. Whatever other things are going to come up, that are going to require money, then we gotta talk about it.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What else? Regular- either every night or every few nights, scheduling in quality time. That's really important. That way you don't feel like you're always just roommates, or you're just partners, like household partners. That way you feel like you are an actual couple. Alongside with that, I would recommend date nights. I haven't been very good with that. But it could be once a week. It could be once every other week. It could be monthly, but figuring out a time and making it routine and prioritizing that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

For a lot of us that are parents, we don't do it because of lack of childcare, lack of money, lack of time. It's really easy to put it to the side. Before you know it, it's been a whole year. You haven't had an official date night with your partner, and you just don't feel connected. So what do you do when you don't have time, or money, or childcare?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

One thing we do is we put the kids to bed early and have a date night at home. Whatever you need to do, prioritize that. Because if you don't, it's really easy for you to feel disconnected from your partner. The other thing I want to talk about is seeking professional help. Along the lines of destigmatizing- I know I've talked about therapy and how important therapy is for you as an individual.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Well, the same goes for therapy as a couple. I don't think we'd be together to this day if it wasn't for couples counseling. And in fact, we've done it on three different occasions with three different therapists. And currently we're not, but who knows? We might go back to it later on. If we find that there are too many issues that are coming up or new things that are coming up and we need that extra outside unbiased opinion, then we will pursue that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So what are some of the benefits of couples counseling? Like I just said, i'ts having that third party. Having an unbiased individual who can hash out scenarios with you, who can provide you with some strategies to try out, who can share their insights, who can help you identify triggers, who can help you uncover some childhood experiences that maybe you hadn't thought about before.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Who could make you aware about your differences- there could be cultural differences. There could be gender differences. There could be class differences. There could be differences in your mindset. There could be differences in how you communicate. So you see what I mean? There's so many things that come up when you are in a partnership, that it helps to have that other person there who can see you from an outsider's perspective. It's really hard to see yourself and identify your differences when you're in it. Versus someone else who doesn't know either of you very well- they can then notice different, very big differences right away.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I mentioned earlier that we've tried it out three times. Each time, very helpful. And one question that I've received from some of my close friends who have been interested in pursuing couples counseling is, how did you find a couple's counselor? How did you afford it? How did you navigate that and figure it out?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I'll talk about three different ways. The first one was actually just out of the benefits of my partner being a Marine Corps veteran. He has access to VA medical services. So when we were in LA, we actually were able to go to the Los Angeles VA Center. And we had access to a therapist there, who was willing to provide couples counseling free of costs. That was great.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

We lucked out, because that individual had experience working with Marine Corps vets and vets who had been in Iraq. My husband, my partner had to kind of navigate that and go to individual counseling to work on how to navigate and overcome PTSD. So she had that experience, and then hen she was also married to an academic. So she knew what it was like to be with an academic and at the time, I was a grad student. So that was all I was navigating, getting through grad school. That was the first time that we tried out couples counseling.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The second time was through my work at UCSB. It was during the time that I was working full time, and my partner was working on his Master's degree. I was able to get access to on campus therapists who work with faculty, staff, and graduate students who are staff members as well. We were able to see a therapist on campus who worked with us. And again, this was a benefit for staff members free of cost, so that helped us out a lot.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The third time that we tried it was actually external to services that we had access to, resources that we had access to. This was through doing a search, and we didn't have to pay for it. This was doing a search on psychologytoday.com, looking for a therapist near us, then contacting a few folks- asking them if any of them offered sliding scale fees or accepted our insurance.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That time I did not luck out because not a single therapist in the area provided the services that we needed and accepted my insurance- and we were both on my insurance at the time. So in this case, we actually were able to find someone who was local who could offer a sliding scale fee. Because of our tight budget and finances, we ended up only going once a month, and we paid $75 per session.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I want to be completely transparent about the fee, because I know that's a big thing that gets in the way of people accessing services- the fact that either they don't have insurance, or not a lot of things are covered through their insurance, or they don't have money to pay out of pocket. Nowadays, actually, it seems that there are even more options for online counseling than ever before. These options tend to be a lot more affordable, and it seems that there are a lot more either affordable or sliding scale fees available.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So if you don't have access to therapy through your job or through your school, you can try this route. What else do I want to say? Another thing to consider, again, if you have access to it, or if you have the financial means to do so, is to try out a couple's retreat. We did this once. We might even try it out again in the near future. If we can find a way to budget it in. But it was actually really helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

We attended a Couples Retreat in San Diego, and it was really interesting because it was through my husband's VA benefits. I don't remember- I don't know if there was a fee associated with it. I think we paid just for the lodging, but then everything else was free of cost. Yeah, we paid for our stay and for our meals, and it was a three day retreat. We dropped off our son with grandparents. It was our first time leaving him alone without us overnight, so it was kind of a big deal. We didn't know what to expect. We showed up and it was actually like a three day couples course.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

There were a lot of PowerPoints, a lot of exercises. We were probably the youngest couple there. Most people there were were middle aged or had been together much longer than us. And there were a lot of- like I said- a lot of exercises. One thing I remember from that was that they suggested and gave us copies of communication cards that- nowadays there are more couples cards. You could find those, you can find relationship apps. I know that I've followed the Gottman Institute, for instance.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I follow them on Instagram, and they have a lot of useful information on strengthening your relationship with a partner. To this day, there are some things that we continue to do thanks to that Couples Retreat. We have these cards, and it's kind of like a game where we just check in with each other and ask questions to one another based on what's on the cards.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

It's a nice way to kind of break the ice, and having more difficult conversations that you might not otherwise have. In fact, actually, one thing that's coming to mind that we did that I don't think we would have ever done if it wasn't for this retreat was- there was this exercise where one of you lie down, close your eyes, not move. The other individual had to pretend that you have just passed and what would you say. Or you know your partner is about to pass away, what would be your last words for them?

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The other person is supposed to just stay resting, not move, close your eyes. And you then talk to them and share your last words with them. A lot comes up. I mean, there were a lot of people in tears. A lot comes up when you're telling someone your last words. And that's nice. It's nice to know what your partner would say to you, what they really think about you. Yeah, that was really meaningful. So if you can try out a Couples Retreat, if it's something that's accessible to you, I would also recommend that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What are my takeaways? There's a lot that can be said about being in a relationship. It is hard work. It doesn't have to be too hard. You know, it shouldn't be toxic. There shouldn't be violence involved. There shouldn't be egos, either. But it does take some work to figure each other out, and to work in symbiosis. Or to work to kind of align and grow together instead of growing apart over time. So takeaways. One is it takes two to tango.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Both individuals should be willing to do the work. If someone's saying, if someone's telling you that it's just you, or you're telling your partner, it's just them- that's not true. Everybody has to work on themselves. And in fact, I recommend you working on yourself, and working as a couple. If you're interested in couples counseling, and you haven't done individual counseling, then maybe you should start by each of you going to individual counseling first. That is what we did. My partner and I, we've both gone and sought therapy on our own, and we've also sought couples therapy or couples counseling together. So do the work. Do the work individually, do the work as a group.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Second is- this one is hard. It's hard for me to say this because I have to admit, I have an ego and sometimes it comes out a little bit. But you got to leave your ego at the door. You have to acknowledge when you make a mistake. You have to be willing to provide honest, meaningful apologies and back them up with your actions.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And you don't always have to be right. Oof, my partner and I, sometimes we butt heads because we are both Virgos. We both like to be right. We both have particular ways of doing things. We can both be type A but in different ways. So we have to remind each other we don't have to always be right, we are part of the same team. That actually leads me to my next takeaway. I'm going to leave you with five takeaways. Number one, it takes two to tango. Number two, leave your egos at the door. Number three, you are a team. Don't forget this. You are a team.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Whether it's parenting, whether it's managing your finances, whether it's supporting each other's careers, remind yourself that you're part of a team. You're not in this alone, you're in this together. It's best to remind yourself that when you're in the middle of an argument or a discussion to stop the blame game if that's coming up, and to figure out ways to work best together.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Alright, takeaway number four is let go of the little things. Yes, that's right. There will be things about your partner over time, after the vanilla stage is over, after the honeymoon stage is over, after the first one to two years of being together, or sometimes even seven years. After the seven year itch, you're gonna realize there might be things that get on your last nerve about your partner or that annoy you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Or you're like, do you have to do that loud? Do you have to leave your stuff everywhere? Do you have to leave the toilet roll the wrong way? Or whatever it is- there's always some little thing. It's just figuring out the little things that bother you that are not deal breakers and letting them go. Like, okay, for me- I'm a very tidy, organized person. My partner is not.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Sometimes I just gotta take a deep breath, and just ask him in a nice way. Hey babe, when you have a chance, do you think you can clean up the stuff that you left in the bedroom? Not- did you really leave that out? Can you pick it up now? Watching your tone, but also being like, okay, this is part of how he is. And if we work together, then we can kind of sort it out. Working together means, he might say, yeah, sure. I'm busy right now, but I'll get to it tonight. And being okay with seeing the mess for the rest of the day. That's just one small example of letting go all the little things and figuring out a way to work with that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Then takeaway number five, codependence isn't cute. I know, I just said that you are a team. I know I just said that it takes two to tango. But also, it's okay to have separate interests. It's okay to have separate endeavors. It's okay to do your own thing, and to have an identity outside of your relationship. You don't want to become enmeshed. You don't want to become codependent. You want to always know that you'll be okay on your own no matter what.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That is really empowering. And I think that when you are independent, or even interdependent, you've got your own thing. It helps you feel more confident in your relationship. I don't believe in being controlling. I don't believe in needing to know where the other individual is, and micromanaging. No, you are your own self. Your partner's their own self. So respect them, respect their boundaries, respect their differences. Know when it's time to work together. Know when it's time to have your own alone time.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I think that's all I had to say about relationships. I could probably go on and on about this topic because I'm still growing in that world, or in that realm- of relationships. I'm still learning a ton, but I figured why not share what I've learned thus far in the 14 years that we've been together. If you found this helpful, let me know. Shoot me a DM over IG. Send me an email- GradSchoolFemtoring@gmail.com. I'm always curious what your thoughts are about these episodes. I'll talk to you all next time.