Ready for some long stories, Lindsey?
I'd have to say that in mine and ktspktsp's situation, it's both school and work. We met while he was finishing his MA and I was in my first year of graduate school (basically, I was a year behind him). Due to his status as a foreign student, the only possibility of us staying together in the same town would be if he got a viable job in the area. And by "the area," I mean a VERY small and limited college town with few opportunities for foreigners who require a work visa in order to stay in the country. So from the beginning we knew that even if he could stay in the country and work after graduation, we'd be at least a few hours apart (if he was lucky enough to get a job nearby).
Luckily, that's what happened... so instead of us having a super-LD relationship (which in fact, I felt would not have happened at all because I would have broke it off, out of not being able to handle it), he is a few hours' drive away and we are able to visit each other on most weekends. He needed to get a good enough job that they would take care of the visa situation, and so that he could get valuable work experience on his resume.
Some of you (and my mother) might say: "Why not just get married?"... but it wasn't that easy, he really needed to get a good job, not just a local, mediocre one (and we looked into that, too), and I understood that. He also understands that I am pursuing my own vision of getting a PhD, which was a decision I needed to re-evaluate this year when he moved away (and have since decided to stay, at least for one more year while I have funding). We are also both rather young (25), and feel that we each would benefit from spending time alone and exploring our own interests before "settling down" (which we see happening in a few years). I saw so many of my friends get married in their early 20s, and while some of them are happy, many of them have sort of melded into their partners and I never got to see them as independent people.
So basically, for where each of us is at right now, being apart is something we have grudgingly chosen to do. It is the lesser of many evils, and in fact there is much good to it... but yeah, we sure are looking forward to being in the same place for an extended period of time again.
