Medical Marriages Archives

Making Time for Your Medical Marriage

by Dr. Kim Blackham

There have been several studies done trying to understand medical marriages and relationship satisfaction. In one study, researchers found that most partners/spouses (86.8%) were happy and satisfied in their relationship.

A happy young couple relaxing together

They also found that the number one predictor of relationship satisfaction was the amount of time a couple spent together (and awake!) each day. Physician specialty, work hours, and practice setting didn’t seem to matter–just the number of nights on call per week.Continue Reading

10 More Medical Marriage Tips – Guest Post

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Guest Post by Maria Eniss

After posting Surviving Residency: The 10 Things I Learned While My Husband was a General Surgery Resident, I received an email from a friend of mine and fellow surgeon’s wife. Maria Ennis is the wife of a Critical Care/Trauma Surgeon and is the mother of five.

She was already a couple of years into residency when we met and our husbands began working together. A couple of things always impressed me about Maria. While her husband was working crazy hours, she was able to continue her work as a NICU nurse on a very part-time basis. She worked when she wanted to, yet had the flexibility to manage her family at the same time. Continue Reading

Medical Marriage Q&A: Balancing Vulnerability with Independence

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Question: We are second year medical students. First year medical school was rough–and we have lots of layers to our situation. One of them is that we have two kids under 4-years old and we live 2000 miles away from family.

My main question is how to manage a relationship (romantic/connected/sexual and being vulnerable) with my souse while being a “single mother 6 days a week, tough skinned, independent, and positive? I feel as though I’m living in two worlds.Continue Reading

To the Parents and In-Laws of Physicians in Training

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Dear Parents,
What an exciting opportunity for you to see your son or daughter progressing in his or her career as a physician! You are the ones that were there, encouraging this process for years: reading bedtime stories, attending parent-teacher conferences, helping with hours of homework and those dreaded yearly science fair projects, and teaching those all-important life skills (no red socks with the white laundry!) that formal schooling just doesn’t cover. As a mother of four, I can only imagine how rewarding it will be to see all of that hard work pay off when my own children are grown!

I want to share my thoughts with you because I know how challenging this path is for your child, and how hard it is for you as a parent to know how to help and connect with him or her in this stage of life.

I work as a marriage therapist with physician couples. The couples I work with frequently share concern over their inability to explain their particular challenges to extended family. I’m sure you, too, are struggling to understand, and, in truth, I don’t have any perfect answer. It’s really hard for any of us to know what someone else struggles with. We can imagine, but we really don’t know!Continue Reading

Don’t Fail Because You’ve Drifted Apart

by Dr. Kim Blackham

One afternoon, while my husband and I were snorkeling off a fairly remote beach in Kauai, I learned a frightening lesson about how quickly one can drift off course. As we swam through the crystal-clear water, we were captivated by the underwater world of colorful fish and vibrant coral reefs. With our heads and our minds immersed in these awe-inspiring sights and the tranquility of the ocean, we stopped paying attention to where we were physically in relation to the beach.

After about 45 minutes or snorkeling, I looked up and back to shore. I could barely see the beach!

Is a Marriage Conference Worth it? {What the Participants Say}

by Dr. Kim Blackham

I hope you had a wonderful Valentines weekend. I missed my usual Friday post because I was leading a two-day marriage conference this weekend. What a remarkable experience we had!

We tune up everything in our lives. We fertilize the lawn each spring, take the car for routine maintenance and oil changes, and get our hair cut on a regular schedule. We get yearly physicals, clean our teeth every six months, and have regular parent-teacher conferences to make sure our kids are on track. Yet most people don’t ever take the time to tune up their marriage. Continue Reading