On the Joys and Difficulties of a Long-Distance Marriage

Last year around this time Daryl was neck-deep in PhD applications. Some seminary friends of ours refer to difficult academic periods as when a diligent student's "face is turned toward Mordor."

That was definitely true for round one of applications (back in 2006). But this time, round two, was easier. Not easy, mind you, but easier. Daryl knew the ropes much better, he had some great connections with other PhD folk at our seminary, and he was admittedly a stronger scholar and thinker the second go-round. And so we sent them off. And waited. And while Daryl was technically the only one applying, I felt as though I was applying, too. After all - the fate, location, and job possibilities for our next 4-7 years of life were hanging in the balance. Where I would look for my first pastoring job depended on which program accepted him. And so we waited. And prayed. A lot.

Daryl ended up earning a great spot in two very well-respected programs, and we had a tough decision to make. I'll let him post about all of those factors someday, if he wants. But to make a long story short, he (and we) chose Vanderbilt University in Nashville. With my program unfinished in New Jersey, we made the additionally difficult decision to spend the year apart. He would begin his program and I would finish mine. This took some explaining.

But now we're three months in to the long-distance marriage, and despite the occasional raised eyebrows, we are managing quite well with a situation that's less than ideal. So for today's post, I'd like to share the three main things I've learned about being married to someone who is doing a PhD in a different state.

1. It stinks.

Daryl and I did the long-distance dating thing on a few occasions. One summer I worked in Carbondale, Colorado while he studied in Boston. For six months I lived in downtown Chicago while he lived out in Wheaton. Both of these were inconvenient and annoying, but not downright lousy. We traveled to see each other often, had memorable visits and vacations, and made the best of things.

A long-distance marriage, however, feels different. I'm not waiting to visit my boyfriend, someone of whom I am very fond. Now I'm waiting to visit my husband, the person who falls asleep with me at night, the one who knows me better than anyone else, the one who finishes my sentences and knows exactly how I like my eggs cooked. I believe now more than ever what Scripture says about a man leaving his father and mother and becoming united to his wife. We really do feel like a unit, not two separate people. And part of my unit is all the way over in middle America for 9/10ths of this year. It not only stinks, it aches. Boo.

To those who've asked if we drive back and forth, we could... if it wasn't for West Virginia. West Virginia adds a good 7 hours to what would be a 6-hour drive.

I've also found myself reverting to many of my bad habits of singleness. I keep odd hours, staying awake until 2am nearly every night. I am ridiculously disorganized with everything but the essentials (work papers, school papers, and plane tickets). I will actually go out and buy more cheap clothing to avoid doing laundry in our icky, flooded basement... I know, right? It's bad. The habits of discipline and diligence that Daryl naturally has (he eats vegetables, regularly! he exercises, regularly! he starts his papers weeks before they are due, regularly!) rub off on me when he's here, but when he's gone it's up to me, and I'm not always great at them.

2. It isn't quite as awful as I expected in many ways.

Yet, I am not in despair. I find myself much less lonely than I had anticipated. With work and school and other activities that fill my days, I don't mind coming home to a quiet house. In fact, I've begun to look forward to a few hours in the evening (or half a dozen, depending on if I do indeed stay up past 2 am...) to read, play my piano or guitar, or catch up on emails.

I've enjoyed the extra time I have to cultivate new and old friendships and to host family. For the first two weekends I was alone my parents and sister visited. I've been able to reach out to some new Princeton folks, when I probably wouldn't have had the time if Daryl was here. I've been able to volunteer a bit back at my CPE hospital, doing an overnight on-call and signing up for more. One of the random clichés I threw around back when I was single and trying to make myself feel better about being single was that single people have more time to love on other people and to serve the Lord. In a lot of ways, I'm discovering, this is actually true.

Also, Daryl is so happy with his program. It's hard for me to be grumpy about the geographical distance when I call him and he can't wait to share the new ideas he's come across and the conversations he's had and the books he's reading. And the decision been confirmed in a thousand ways that it was the right one. And doing a hard thing is always easier if you know that the hard thing is also the right thing.

3. It is much more awful than I expected in some ways.

What I really wasn't prepared for about this year was how difficult it is to go from a household of two to a household of one. All of a sudden weekly chores that once were once halved were all mine. The car (which I usually don't pay any attention to) needed its oil changed. The kitty litter needed refreshing. The closet door was broken. The trash needed to be taken out. I invited friends over for a party and didn't have the food ready when everyone arrived because I had forgotten how long it takes to prepare for a party alone! Where was my guacamole-making, bathroom-cleaning partner?

All of this was just minorly annoying and mostly manageable until last week. Last week, my beloved cat Eliot got sick. Not just sniffly-kitty sick, but death's-door sick. This is him in a healthier moment:

He suddenly went from eating like a horse to eating nothing. And drinking nothing. And not moving. And not using his litter box. And then he developed a really painful bump on his back leg. And he started turning yellow. So off to the vet we went.

Long story short, he was so sick he could have died. The vet's solution (after running very expensive tests and never figuring out exactly what was wrong) was to have me force-feed him and give him antibiotics. He's a hefty cat, so I asked why a week of malnutrition was such a big deal. Well, apparently when cats stop eating even for a couple of days, they can go into liver failure. Which (as I learned during CPE this summer) is pretty ugly and almost always fatal. The early sign of liver failure in cats? They turn yellow. Yikes.

So, according to the vet, if I force-fed him enough, he would live. If I didn't, he would die. No pressure, right? I launched into nurse mode.

Four to five times a day I would hold Eliot down and feed him watered-down prescription food through a feeding syringe. He hated this. It was like splatter painting. There was food everywhere. I eventually designated some old clothes as my "feeding clothes" so that I wouldn't have to do laundry every two days. I tried to tempt him with every cat-related snack I could think of or cook up: yogurt, wet food, dry food, chicken, salmon, meat-flavored baby food, scrambled eggs, fish sticks, you name it. No dice. He wouldn't sit anywhere but on my bed, and then he started randomly peeing all over it. The force-feedings continued. This went on and on and on.

At 4:45am on Wednesday, I was at the end of my rope. I could hardly get any food in Eliot, and he was going downhill. I was afraid to go to sleep and wake up to a dead cat. I had just worked and gone to school for a 12-hour day while running home to do cat feedings. I was exhausted. So I did something I have a really, really, really hard time doing. I asked for help.

Daryl got a desperate email around 5am saying, in essence, "Please come home. I need you." He had a paper due and three more classes to attend before Thanksgiving break. I assumed I'd see him by Friday or Saturday at the earliest, but even that would be able to keep me going. I finally fell asleep at 5:30am for a couple of fitful hours. When I woke up, I checked my email.

"I'm sorry it's been so hard," said a 6am email from Daryl. "I'll come today."

And this is why our long-distance marriage is working. Not because a PhD program trumps everything. Not because we can just barrel through this year, ignoring its difficulty. Not because we both value our schooling above each other. But because I married a man who loves me enough to drop everything and get on a plane to help me force-feed a sick cat because he knows how important that silly cat is to me.

So the distance is difficult. And not our first choice. But we're making it work, because we have to, because the Lord is gracious, and because it's worth it. And Eliot even miraculously pulled through, and is now happily eating everything in sight and acting like nothing happened. And my graduation is coming, immediately after which I will once again move in with my husband. And the long-distance portion of our lives will end. And I can't wait.