Sometimes I feel like my fiancé and I are in a constant game of “How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days”, where I’m the crazy girl who buys love ferns and he is the suave Matthew Mcconaughey who puts up with me. Only he’s been sticking around for a lot longer than 10 days. We’ve been at it for almost 5 years now and I have come to realize that my every day annoying little habits explode into major disruptions and distractions whenever Isaac is busy studying for school.

I can’t help it. When Isaac is holed up in his room studying I suddenly feel that I will DIE if I don’t tell him about the turkey sandwich I had for lunch. When my exhilarating stories about the meals I have eaten that day don’t get his attention, I will resort to singing and dancing. I’m not kidding. I get incredibly annoying, much like a 7-year old hoping to distract daddy from work by acting out. I’m not proud of my behavior, but it is what it is.

In honor of Isaac finishing his first year of business school tonight, I have come up with some DO’s and DON’Ts for when your significant other is working towards a MBA degree, or really anything important that requires concentration and silence. Sadly, they are all from personal experience, whoops 😀

DON’T:

• Say you’re lonely and pout when he is studying for an exam
• Come into his room and lay on his papers
• Belch loudly while he is on a conference call with his classmates
• Schedule a medical procedure for the same day as a career fair, and he is the only one who can take you
• Get diagnosed with a baseball sized mass on your ovary the first week of a semester, therefore pulling him away from class
• Try to talk about wedding colors while he’s studying
• Try to talk about wedding food while he’s studying
• Try to talk about our wedding while he’s studying
• Talk at all while he’s studying
• Sing loudly
• Try to start a rap battle during exam crunch time
• Keep the TV volume on 50 while he’s studying
• Remind him of how much debt we are in because of business school
• Gag and make barfing noises when rubbing his back because of all the knots
• Forget to have date nights
• Give up

DO:

• Pack his lunches
• Make him dinner
• Pretend to show interest in his bar charts and graphs
• Listen to him vent about his teachers
• Remind him how good finishing school will feel
• Rub his back
• Go out of town together whenever possible
• Let him drink as much beer as he wants when he finally gets a few days off from school
• All of the grocery shopping
• Remember that school is temporary and it will all be worth it when it’s over
• Make him laugh every morning before he leaves for work. We normally have each other in stitches by 7am. It is an amazing way to start the day.

At orientation for business school, we were wined and dined at a “red carpet weekend for incoming students” and told what to expect. The speaker dedicated part of his presentation to the spouses of those enrolled in the program. He said “this MBA program ends a lot of marriages. It breaks people up because they will become so focused and engrossed in it.”

He was right, in the 5 years that I have known Isaac I have never seen him so determined, driven, or preoccupied. He eats, sleeps, and breathes school but it is okay because sometimes I wake up at 1am to him kissing me on the forehead before he goes back to do more studying. Sometimes I come home from work at 11pm and he has a steak and potatoes waiting for me, even though he worked a 10 hour day and then went to school for another 5. Sometimes he spends his hard earned money on a vacation for us so we can reconnect. Sometimes having to miss someone is a great reminder of why you are with him in the first place.

Congratulations to Isaac on his first completed year of business school! Only one more to go. We can do this! Well, HE can do this. After all I’m not the one spending two years with my nose in a book (thank God). But I will be on the other side when he gets out, ready to cash in all of his IOU’s for rap battles, movie watching, and stories about what I’ve been eating for the past two years.