It’s a tale as old as time at this point, and a common trope among married women: boy meets girl, girl sacrifices career and future for boy, boy becomes high-earner (lawyer, doctor, etc.) while wife focuses on supporting him and raising the children as an investment in their shared future. Boy leaves wife and upgrades for younger model. This has happened to women even in my personal life.

I’ll be honest, this even happened to me once. I entered a new relationship, and was slowly convinced to give up all of my forward progress in order to appease my partner. I unenrolled from grad school, stopped going to the gym as much, and spend my valuable time that I had been using on my lucrative side hustle on somebody who couldn’t even do his own laundry.

I say all this to say, don’t let a relationship be an excuse to stop bettering yourself and your personal growth and earning potential. Keep your appearance up, and be maintaining your looks so that if you get out of the relationship, you’ll have an easier time finding another one. Be constantly working on your career, whether that means certifications or advanced degrees, because you don’t want to take a huge financial hit if your relationship doesn’t shake out.

If your partner has a problem with this, that’s a major red flag. My current fiancé is also in grad school and I re-enrolled recently. He motivates me towards my educational goals and is financially supporting me while I go to school. We also go to the gym together, read books together, take classes together and overall push each other to be better constantly.

Maybe he’s the love of your life and you’re together forever. Or he isn’t, and you don’t want to be rebuilding from zero after diverting all your resources and time towards another person’s success.