I'm not saying that it's the norm but I had the same fears heading in as well but I haven't found it to be anywhere near that bad. Seriously, the majority of our theory subjects, as they were before our first sim stage, had heaps of study time. It was usually from 2:20 - 3:30 every day as the SSOs have gone home and the lecturers rarely took classes after 2:30 so they gave us 'private study time'. Some days even had up to 3 hours study time when there were exams on in the sim and they didn't want a lot of groups in there.
I'm sure there are others that have worked their tails off in the theory but Im just letting others know that it isn't like that for everyone. And I haven't been scraping in either, I too am looking at mid 90s for exams and not many of them have been below that.
As far as family time is concerned, you're right, as secondary carer it's no different to my last job. From the minute I walk in the door until the last one is in bed I'm on the clock and if study is needed, I do it then.
By the way, 5 break ups out of 10. That must be close to the standard divorce rate these days isn't it?
