Intensive Marriage Therapy
Don’t expect your family or your friends in other professions to understand what a struggle surviving residency really is. Understanding someone else’s experience is really difficult unless you have lived it. You and I will never fully understand what their situations are like either. Continue Reading
Because people did not understand Aaron’s schedule, surviving residency meant we had to become very protective of the time he was home. When he walked in the door, I always hung up the phone. If he was going to be home, I made every effort to have us there – without friends around. When he had vacation time, we would carefully consider if and with whom we would be willing to share that time. Most of the time, we were not willing to share his vacations – even with extended family. That was really hard for family to understand, but when we were with extended family, our kids were off playing with cousins and aunts and uncles and were still not spending time with their dad. When we would come back home from the vacation, they still felt like they had not seen him. Continue Reading
Time alone together is crucial! When we started residency, we had two small children. By the time we were finished, seven years later, we had four. Making date nights and getaways a priority was hard, but absolutely essential! Continue Reading
Most of my husband’s rotations would last for two months. Some rotations were brutal, others were more manageable. Surviving residency meant that I had to break it down and not see the whole seven years at once. During those more brutal rotations, I would continually tell myself, “You can do anything for a month. A month is only four weeks and you can do anything for a week.” All I had to do was make it to the next rotation and then I just had to make it to the next rotation. And then he would have a vacation week and we’d be okay again.Continue Reading
Aaron learned to not tell me when he thought he would be home, but instead, to tell me what he had left to do and about how long it would take him to get it done. I would then tack an extra hour and a half onto that for the unexpected emergency that would always come up and then plan on him around then. Continue Reading
Studies have shown that those in the medical field who live life with the “When this is over, then we will….” mentality are unhappy in their relationships and in their job satisfaction. Medical training is a very long process. My husband will have been in school or training for 17 years since high school before he is actually able to practice his chosen specialty. 17 years! He will be almost 40, poor guy.Continue Reading
