21 Sep 2020

A high school relationship is a funny ol’ thing.

At the time, it’s everything. Love is this mysterious, recently-discovered feeling that quickly climbs the ranks to the top of the emotional hierarchy. Suddenly, love begins to outrank that special feeling you get from getting your best mate out in handball or getting a 90+ mark on a math test. You’ll find that love might start to take priority over some friendships and classes. It becomes all-consuming. 

But as you enter the final years of your high school career, your emotions aren’t the only list of priorities being shuffled around. As the study load cranks up, you’ll find that you’re becoming more and more precious about how, where, and to what (or whom) your time is allocated. 

So if you find yourself in a relationship during the pointy end of high school (especially Year 12), you’ll likely find yourself in an internal battle over how much time you should dedicate to your partner.

And the worst part is that because of all the time you end up spending on study, if you throw a serious relationship into the mix you won’t really have time for anything else. Your mates, family events, sports, hobbies, weekly movie night traditions - they all just kinda fade into the background.

It’s often not that healthy and honestly, it could be a good time to put your relationship on hold for a hot minute or two.

 

Now, before you start swearing at your computer screen and asking what could I possibly know about your relationship, hear me out. 

The healthiest relationships are all about balance. Look at all of the adults you know in happy relationships. Are they spending every moment by each other’s sides? Or are they two separate, perfectly functioning individuals, who also revel in each other’s company and can operate in a team? 

And I know that it’s very achievable to juggle Year 12 with the art of not being clingy, however, successful couples still find plenty of quality time to spend with each other, whilst also balancing all of the other important aspects of life (like playing sports, Maccas runs, learning to play the banjo, etc).

This balancing act becomes pretty tricky when you’ve got to factor in the hours of study required to have a proper crack at Year 12. Between going to school, studying, hanging out with your bf/gf and napping, it’s hard to find the time for anything else. But if you’re not balancing out your lifestyle properly, what can you do?

Do ya cut down on study, in order to keep the relationship healthy whilst still having the time for all of life’s other pleasures? If you want to do well in your exams, it's probably not the way to go (that’s when the relationship is having what your mum might call a ‘negative impact on your studies’). 

What that really means is that by valuing your time spent together over studying, you’re stopping each other from realising your full potential. That’s the opposite of love - you’re supposed to help them reach their peak, not stop them from ever finding it.

But on the other hand, if you keep up the study and cut down on the relationship hours, are the two of you spending enough time together to really sustain a healthy relationship?

It’s a tricky one and I’ll tell you now that cutting down on sleep is never the answer. That’s why I honestly reckon it could be worth thinking about putting your relationship on the backburner, at least for a couple of months.

I’m not telling you to break up, not at all. But maybe commit to being a little less committed until the timing is better. You don’t want to be holding each other back during this important time of your lives, so maybe turning the dial down a notch is exactly what the two of you need.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s easier said than done. But they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder and maybe that’s exactly what you both need, without even knowing it yet.

If the two of you can come out on the other side of graduation, satisfied that you’ve done your absolute best, you’ll have each other to thank.