Stories of Strength Archives

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

To the Wife of the Neurosurgeon at Primary Children’s Hospital

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Today makes the five-year anniversary of this tragic experience in our family. Over the last five years, I have thought often about this woman and this letter I wrote at the time. I still feel deeply grateful.

To the Wife of the Neurosurgeon at Primary Children’s Hospital,

I have spent the last several days thinking of you almost constantly. I have wondered what you were doing Wednesday night when you got the call that your husband was coming home late again. I have wondered what you were planning for dinner and if you dished him up a plate to warm up when he got home. I have wondered if he missed one of the kids blocking three goals during soccer practice while all the other dads were there cheering for their players. I have wondered if your heart hurt when you tucked the kids into bed at night, and they asked you to send dad in when he got home to give them a kiss.

I have thought of the last several years of your life and wondered just how many plates you have prepared to be reheated and how many bedtimes you’ve done alone. How many times have you consciously smiled so your reply sounded supportive and understanding? How many times have you selfishly wished that people would just stop getting hurt – partially for themselves, but also so that you could have your husband home with the family more?Continue Reading

When Your Spouse is Addicted to Porn

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Finding out that your spouse has a porn addiction is often devastating and overwhelming. In recent studies of wives whose husbands are addicted to porn, researchers have found that woman describe their experience in the same way women describe finding out about an affair. The deceit, betrayal, secrecy, shame, and feelings of inadequacy are the same. Because of the stigma associated with pornography, the addicts, and their spouses, often suffer in silence and feel utterly hopeless and alone. One woman has courageously shared her story of struggle as she and her husband have spent years fighting his addiction. She explained to me that she wished there was someone to have told her these things when she was going through it, and she wants to offer that support and encouragement to others.

Pornography addiction is than you might think. I am certain that there are several couples that you associate with on a regular basis that struggle with pornography addiction in their relationship – you just don’t know it. PLEASE share this article. When you share this on Facebook and Twitter or pin it on Pinterest, you don’t know who you might reach. This woman’s tender message may be the sliver of hope that someone desperately needs to hear right now.

I also want to add that therapy can help! Over half of the clients I work with struggle with some form of sexual addiction. The intensive marriage therapy retreat is a powerful way to begin addressing these hurts and putting your marriage back together.

How to Help Someone Grieve: Casseroles or Kleenex?

by Dr. Kim Blackham

Three years ago last month some of our dear friends, Andrea and Tyler Gasser, lost their four month old little boy, Beckett. She went upstairs to her bedroom to wake him up from a nap only to find him unconscious. Days in the pediatric ICU did not revive him.

I remember when I received the phone call telling me that they had asked someone to bring them a pair of jammies and a blanket from home so they could wrap him up and hold him one last time before they removed life support and said good-bye. I wept for their family. My heart still hurts for them. At the time, I had a 4 week old baby boy and I grieved along with her as I could so easily imagine myself in her situation.

When these kinds of tragedies or difficulties happen, most of us do not know what to do or what to say. We don’t know how to help someone grieve. We know that our expressions of, “I’m so sorry for your loss” feel trite and even awkward, yet we care deeply and want to help. Most of the time, we just don’t know how.Continue Reading

Do Hard Things

by Dr. Kim Blackham

*This is part of our Stories of Strength series. I want to thank the generous contributor who so courageously shared her story. ~ Kim

Food and sleep…food and sleep…food and sleep. From age 17 to age 19, those were the only 2 things over which I had control in my life and the only two things in which I found comfort. I was living with my boyfriend who started out as my knight in shining armor, until he started beating me. He came to control every aspect of my life, except what I ate and when I slept. Ice cream and a warm bed – oh sweet deliverance!

Through the tender mercies of a loving Father in Heaven, my relationship with him ended after 2 years, and a new relationship with Christ began. I became reacquainted with myself and married my love the following year. New-found happiness did not heal the physical & emotional scars of abuse, and my unhealthy relationship with food continued.

At times, I still felt consumed by anger & fear.

Then, 13 years after the abuse began and 11 years after it ended, I decided that I needed to forgive. I needed to be able to forgive him, and I thought that perhaps he might need forgiveness for himself. Continue Reading