Believe that medical marriages work – even if the chosen path is surgery.

Surviving residency with your marriage intact is possible!  I wish someone had told me that.  Okay, people did tell me that, but only people who didn’t really know.  “Oh, it will be fine.  Just think about how great it will be when he is finished.  Five years isn’t that long.”  When those comments were stacked up with the ones from those who had lived it, the “It was the worst thing we ever did for our marriage,” and “It’s not worth it” won out.  The truth is (from someone who really has lived through it), it really can work and you really can come through with a great marriage!

I honestly would not change the path we have taken.  I am so glad that my husband gets to spend each day doing what he loves. That does not have to come at the expense of your relationship.  I promise.   {Lesson 2}

 

Medical marriages, like military marriages, have unique challenges that are specific to this profession.   Don’t expect other people to understand.  They can’t.

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

Time together is worth more than anything.  Guard it, protect it, and buy it when possible.

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

Go out on a weekly date and get away alone together for as long as possible once a year.

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

Take it in bite sized pieces and expect for things to be hard.

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

Choose to not be Resentful.  Be Flexible and Understanding Instead

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