Balancing relationships and studying law is undoubtedly a challenging task. Needless to say, studying law will demand NOT ONLY your time, effort, and attention, but it requires love and passion to sustain and succeed in law school.
As Justice Joseph Story said “The Law is a jealous mistress and requires a long and constant courtship. It is not to be won by trifling favors, but by a lavish homage. ”
(Justice Joseph Story, US Supreme Court, 1829).
Thus, in such a case, the question really is, where do love and relationships stand during such a period or stage of life when you are studying law? For all we know, our love and relationship and life in general should not stop just because we go to law school. After all, having a strong and stable relationship will also help you stay sane during law school. Hence, finding a balance between the two is advantageous and beneficial.
With these 4 secrets to balancing relationships and studying law, succeeding in law school while nurturing your relationships is definitely possible. My husband and I made it, it’s possible! and I’m here to share with you, our 4 secrets to balancing relationships and studying law from our personal experience and perspective.
Allow me to introduce myself first shortly, I am Rai. I have been a lawyer for about eight years now, married to Kyle, a lawyer too. He is my long-term boyfriend, (12 years to be exact ), and now my husband for about five years. I’m here to share with you, how we successfully managed to study law, take the bar exam and pass the bar exam together, and ultimately thereafter, tie the knot with each other. I am hoping that, in one way or another, I will be able to help and inspire law students in their journey to becoming a lawyer while at the same time growing and nurturing their love and relationships.
So, here are our 4 secrets on how we successfully balance the study of law while nurturing our relationship too.
1. Communicate and explain to your partner your situation
Studying law is a full-time commitment, it would have your nose on the books for almost all of the available time that you have. I am not exaggerating, and others might find it scary and haunting to be surrounded by books and photocopies of the cases we need to read and digest, but that is the life of a law student. I’m sorry to sound harsh, but that’s the way it is. You can’t afford to spend the same amount of time hanging out anymore. Your partner needs to understand how precious study time is for us, law students, that even if we try to enjoy ourselves and have a good time, our insides are a mental chaos, trying our best not to freak out for not studying.
Hence, the first and most important of the 4 secrets to balancing relationships and studying law is to make your partner understand your situation fully well. I am lucky enough that Kyle is a law student too. If there is someone who understands my struggle in law school best, it is surely him. But, if your partner is not a law student, it would be best to have a heart-to-heart conversation with your partner and make sure he understands how demanding law school is, and how important it is for you to succeed in law school. If he cares about you, he will surely understand and support you throughout.
2. Combine Activities
Yes, while your partner already understands that you can no longer afford to spend the same amount of time with him anymore, he will surely appreciate every little effort from you to spend some more moments aside from the scheduled date/time together. One of our 4 secrets to balancing relationships and studying law is to “combine activities“. Given a good opportunity, try to spend time with each other doing activities that would still need to be performed even if you were not together. In our case, some of our dates during law school are usually the following:
- Dinner together. This is usually the time right after class, when we can have a few moments to breathe and forget everything about the law and the cases we studied, or the stressful events that just happen in class. You will be surprised, it will also give you a chance to replenish your energy too, just before you go back to study mode again when you come home. But please, I don’t necessarily mean going out on a date. You can both cook meals and eat together in your dorms or apartments or wherever you think best.
- Go grocery shopping together. Rather than going for a movie date, why not go grocery shopping instead, this way, you don’t just have to spend time together but you will be able to buy pieces of stuff and items that you need at the moment too.
- Exercise or Work out together. To survive law school you need to take good care of your health too. We prefer taking a walk or jogging together, but if you are a person who regularly goes to the gym, why not invite your partner too, and have a good time exercising?
- Studying together. It’s like growing your love and knowledge together. My favorite and I call it “study date” but probably not with Kyle who prefers studying alone rather than in groups. But still, we usually study together, and it saves time. We read, discussed our interpretations, and tried to answer essay questions together. Sometimes, when I was short of time to read all the assigned readings, I used to study/read his notes (Oops! Yes, I know it is not the same with reading the books and the cases personally, but still better than not reading anything at all. Plus, Kyle is talented in taking down notes 😉, lucky me!)
3. Make a schedule and be disciplined
You need to set your schedule and boundaries as clearly as possible and try to be disciplined enough to stick to it. Without clear boundaries, you might find yourself bombarded with texts and calls from your partner during crucial moments. Hence, setting boundaries ensures that your partners know what to expect and through this, he can also adjust his time while giving due consideration to your availability and convenience.
I learned this lesson early when I was still a first-year law student. Kyle and I had this petty fight, and it happened the night before our first exam in criminal law. We fought through text/messenger, and although, we settled our conflict that night, the fight still disturbed me in the sense that I was not able to study well, and I came to school the next day unprepared for the exam. As expected, I did not perform well in that exam.
It was then that I realized, that had it been that I did not text him during such time when we were supposedly studying, there could have been no fight to speak off. Remember, I did not just ruin my study time alone, but I am also responsible for texting and disturbing Kyle during crucial study time, in the same way, he is to me. I then realized too that I should set some boundaries. Study time should be study time, my relationship and my studies should have devoted time, respectively.
However, I admit it was not so easy to implement, as I have said earlier, I love “study dates” and enjoy group studies with some of my friends too, which often turns out to be chitchat time spending more time to have fun than to study. 😫 But surprisingly, Kyle is disciplined enough to implement such rules better than me. Maybe because he is not so fond of study groups that he always makes sure, by the time he goes out or joins us, he has already studied and is ready to just have fun with us. Such a strategy helped him to make sure he was able to have such quality study time and then later on be fully present and carefree when he hung out or spent time with me or our friends and family.
4. Take time for yourself
Law school is no doubt so demanding, and it can easily overwhelm us, making it so important to make time for yourself too, for your health and well-being, otherwise you risk burning out.
A little ‘me time’ won’t harm your studies and relationships, on the contrary, it will sustain you in law school and improve relationship quality too.
Finally, while the whole law school experience was rough, it was also an opportunity to make your relationship stronger than ever. My experience with Kyle is proof of this. You will go through so many trials that you have no choice but to become each other’s rock. In our case, I and Kyle became each other’s biggest support system, and our connection has always been so strong with a love that was carefully nurtured and maintained.
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Would you like to share one of your secrets with me? 😃
I’d be glad to learn them.🙂
Leave a comment below.👇
