Hey. 🙂
I won't make fun of you. I live with my boyfriend, too, and he is incredibly supportive, but I can't lie that this exam has been a stress for us to deal with. It helps (in a way) that he works evenings and weekends, so twice a week, I get home and have 2 hours till he gets home…and one day of the weekend he's working, so again, it's time that I can study without taking the time away from him/us. But when it's the other weekend day, or an evening that he's home, it's dang hard to get the motivation to study!! As for how to take care of your relationship while studying for this exam… Does your bf understand why you are taking this exam and support you in doing it? If so, half the battle is already won. 🙂 The biggest thing I do to protect our relationship is to make sure that certain times are set aside as study-free time for us to be together. Like, this evening, he's off work, so I'm not studying this evening and it's our time together. That also makes it easier to have to study Sunday when he's off, because we both know that we'll have time together, it's just not that time! I also try to make sure that I keep up on what's going on with him enough to know if he needs my time. And even though some people will tell you not to do this, I prioritize him first. He's had some crap to deal with in his life over the past few months, and there have been times that I decide not to study during study-time because he needs my attention. I think that if he knows you're there when he needs you, and at certain planned times, it makes it a lot easier to deal with all the times you're not available. You won't be able to have lots of quality time every day, but if you honestly expect to spend the rest of your life with him, then he's more important than this exam, so don't totally forsake him for the same of the exam. At the same time, though, if he plans to spend the rest of his life with you, then he's not going to leave just because he can't have quite as much quality time with you during the time you're taking these exams.
Oh, and my parents haven't been able to pay for anything, either. So, I worked part-time through college, took some time off college to work, got back to it and finished up, and then had to get a job before thinking about the CPA exam. So, I understand that part of things too!
FAR is a beast and it's going to give you trouble, no matter how you study or what the rest of your life is like. No doubt about that. But you can pass this, too. I think that the Becker Live classes will give you an idea of how much time you need to study outside of class, so I'd just hang tight and see what they say. My study habits aren't the greatest, so I'll keep quiet so that I'm not a bad influence. 😉 But you'll be able to figure out a study schedule. Usually I can only manage 2 hours after work, if I even get that…and more often than not, I find that my mind is too tired from work to even be able to study for 2 hours. But, on the weekends, you can make up for what you can't get during the week. A lot of people aim for 20 hours of studying on the weekend. If you could do that, you could probably skip studying through the week and still make it through OK!
Oh! And I know I've already written too much… But my biggest motivation to study is simply to be done with all of this studying. Once I finish these exams, I will be done with exams, college, and studying, for the rest of my life, unless I decide to get a Master's at some point in the future. Knowing that when I pass these I will be able to come home and *not* study, and wake up Saturday morning and spend the whole weekend with my boyfriend, makes a huge difference. I also motivate myself with the fact that this will allow me to secure a job that will provide for our future. My boyfriend has a disability that makes it hard for him to work, and I hate seeing him have to go to a crappy job that is hard for him to do due to his disability. But, I know that passing this exam will help me to get a job that makes enough that he doesn't have to work. He'll always do something, since that's the type of guy that he is, but it will allow him to do something he wants to do and is able to do, instead of working a crappy job since it's the only job he can hold.
So, even though these exams do put stress on our relationship, our relationship is also my biggest motivation to get these done. 2 down, 2 to go – can't wait till they're *all* done!
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