I’m a medical researcher, and I feel a sort of duty to push myself to get things done as quickly as possible, because people’s well-being rides on what I study. However, I’m also in a relationship, and I am completely head-over-heels for her.
Recently, though, while chatting with a few female fellow researchers (and close friends), I mentioned that I was planning on being in the lab all weekend, and they started talking about how being in the lab all the time would raise some questions in their minds if they were in my significant other’s position, about my commitment to our relationship, and whether my feelings for her were real or significant. I can’t bring myself to raise the issue with her, just in case it plants a seed of doubt in her mind where there was none before.
Is it wrong that I spend most of my time in the lab? She works a lot too, but she is always home at night, at least—I spend 2-4 nights on any given work week in the lab. However, our weekends are amazing, because we are truly “together” again.
But I do spend weekends in the lab sometimes, too.
It’s not that this is our life forever, if we stay together—once I accomplish a few definitive goals, my time is going to open up, and she knows that. I just don’t know if, or when, those goals will be accomplished.
I can't help but think that she deserves better, but I also feel that my first duty is to help people whose health is failing. She will survive without me; these people won't. I am duty-bound to run myself into the ground trying to find the cures for their illnesses.
Could you survive in a relationship with me? Is there a point where it’s just not worth it, no matter how strong our feelings are?