If I had known...

Hi everyone,

First of all, I am so glad I found you guys!

I was checking all over the net for resources about medical spouses and i couldn't find anything but thank the gods above that I found you guys!

First of all, I must say that from what I have read you all seem to be in agreement that things will get better but I must confess I'm not so sure.

My husband and I are newlyweds but I like the person in the last post gave up everything for him, I even moved from a different country to be with him here in medical school but it seems that medical school has made him into an entirely different person.

He used to be kind, attentive, compassionate, romantic (really romantic) and now I don't even see brief glimpses of that old person. It seems that the only thing he knows how to do is study and think about school. Look, I wasn't under any illusions about how this was going to be, I knew that it was going to be hard that time was going to be limited and that I would have to be on my own a lot. I accpeted that, heck I'm used to it but what I did not expect was the drastic changes in his personality and all we seem to do is . :argue: :argue: .

And I must confess that if I had known this would have happen if I would have come here let alone marry him but as they say once you've made your bed you have to lay in it, so I'm asking you all, for your help because I do love him.

But how did you do it?

How CAN I/WE get through the next couple of years?

What did you do when you had breaks?

How did you keep the romance in your relationships? Suggestion Please especially for him!!!

I have so many questions but i think that's enough for now..I definitely look forward to hearing from all you..medspouse :chat:

I am a newlywed too, to a first year resident. Medical school drastically changed our relationship also(we had five years together before it). I changed from being dependent on him to extremely independent. It helped me to meet new friends, try new things (I took a hand to hand combat course!), travel with friends any time I got the opportunity, and I also got a cat which helped with the loneliness.

My husband was very regimented during med school and would plan out his days so that we got a couple hours devoted to each other on the weekends. I literally saw him only on the weekends, but a few quality hours goes a long way. Most of the first two years left his weekends 'free' (meaning he didn't have to be anywhere else, though there was lots of studying). During the third and fourth years he'd occasionally have a rotation with weekend hours, but that was not the majority.

That being said, once I mastered the med school thing, residency came along and now I am once again in your shoes feeling like some evil alien came and is overtaking my husbands body. For now, I am keeping clear of him after he's put in long hours and trying not to take his moods personally. My biggest challenge now is that my friends all backed off during my wedding planning/home buying period. They also feel like they should give us newlyweds space, but I don't need them to give me space, I need my friends back. So I'm in a new house, with all the responsibility, training a new puppy, dealing with work issues, and there is no support from my husband or my friends. (Hence the long post here....)

I hope that something I said is of some help to you. Thanks for 'listening' to my own vent!

[Meenah]

Welcome. You have made the first step, you found this site. Thank you Kris!!!! Where do you live now? Where did you move from? Chances are someone here is in the same place you are. It will be OK, but it will have a lot of ups & downs. Read through the posts here, it will make you feel better and not so alone.
Luanne

[DCJenn]

Welcome-

I think the majority here will agree that there are a few keys to happiness that are required to survive the medical marriage:

1) Treasure the off times- they're few and far between.

2) Learn to like yourself and be your own best friend. You'll be spending a lot of time alone and you'll need to cultivate your own interests

3) Look for activities and groups that you have an interest in and GO and DO and whatever you do, do not think for one minute that your spouse will be able to join you. Think of them joining you as a happy and very rare treat.

4) Give yourself permission to be angry, upset, resentful, pissed off, etc. Then move on, because you absolutely cannot wallow in those feelings. We all feel them, and unless you like being miserable (and honestly sometimes it does feel good) you have to move on.

You have a long road ahead. You will get through it- come here, read and post and we have had members sit their spouses down to read posts about what life is REALLY like for the spouse. It's their dream, their career, and they need to understand what a sacrifice it can be.

Welcome aboard-

jenn

[Sheherezade]

Welcome! Sounds like you are already getting good advice ... and commiseration. That's what the iMSN is all about. Being married to medicine is its own lifestyle. The sooner you figure out how to fit your life goals into its constraints, the better off you'll be. I think you are ahead of the game. (I kept waiting for it to be OVER until 2nd year of residency! ) Come by often.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH...

I don't know what to say, thank you does not express how i felt after reading your posts.

I do believe that coming here will definitely help me to overcome the emotions that I am currently feeling and after reading the posts, especially the part that jenn wrote about giving myself permission to 'be angry upset, resentful pissed etc' I must say that i think that's been one of my biggest problems.

I always feel guilty for being upset at him, like i should be a bigger person and just accept things because it's not like he's abusing me and so many other women out there have it harder than me but no matter how hard i try i just couldn't and can't get over that guilty feeling but seeing that others have felt and do feel the way i do makes me feel a lot better. I AM NOT ALONE!!!!

Also I'm so scared do/did any of you ever feel like that? I'm scared because suppose I go through all of this with him all the lonely nights, emotional neglect etc and at the end of it he doesn't become the man I fell in love with because med school has changed him forever?

This scares me do any of you ever feel like that? Did your husbands return to their original personalities after it was all done? And did you ever just want to hit them over the heads with your purse and say who are you?

Eagerly looking foward to your posts..med spouse

[Vanquisher]

My husband never really lost his personality. That said, things have definitely changed, as he definitely doesn't have as much to give to me now, emotionally, physically, or in any way.

That said, he makes every effort to make sure that his down time is directed toward being a good husband and father. Without that, I don't think we'd make it. He has such little amounts of free time that it really has to count. I'd suggest reading some more posts on here, and familiarize yourself with what life is like and what you can do about it.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I think if you can steer your husband into doing a residency that doesn't totally suck, you might be better off. If I had to do this all over again, I really think my husban would be in a different specialty because the one he is in has really hurt our family. That's not to say that he doesn't love what he does, because he does. I just think s a family we would be happier and better off if he only liked what he did and was home more often. Now, I do have children, and that adds a whole extra can of worms on top of the one that's already open.

Brace yourself for residency...

Making the most of down time...

I do understand how important making the most of what little down time he has is important and I try to tell him that I make suggestions, I write things down I've even told him how important this is to me and yet he listens and agrees and nothing changes.

For the last couple of years, since the begining of medical school I've been trying to explain this to him and nothing seems to be working all he seems to want to do is sit on the computer and when we do spend time together it's like he's in a different world and when i confront him about this I'm given the same old tired execuse,"Med school is doing this and it's so hard to get out of this rut I just don't know how to do it." Do you know how many times I've heard that? Have your ever thought your husbands was using med school to cover up for their laxidasicalness?

And like I said in my previous posts I do believe this is directly related to his personality shift..he was never like this! Never!!! But i'm so sick of hearing the same old execuses that I'm really begining to question if med school is really the problem because if all our down time is spent arguing and me being angry and resentful BECAUSE of the arguing and lack of attention, loneliness etc how can we really expect our marriage to work?

[Vanquisher]

Hmmm. What if you plan something romantic and spontaneous for his next free time? That way you can start the shift. Don't bring up any of the negativity that you feel, and see how good it feels. Sometimes we need a push in the right direction. I know that it is asking a lot of you, but sometimes in a relationship you have to carry more than your share, and that's especially true in a medical relationship.

As Dr. Phil says, you are either contributing to the marriage or taking away from it, there is no neutral. So, my suggestion is to do something for him, and hope he reciprocates.

Your negativity may be feeding off of each other. I know we are definitely guilty of that in this house.

[DCJenn]

Another thing I will say is that he's still transitioning to medical school. You will find (at least in my experience) that the first 4 months of any of the transitions are the absolute worst. They have no confidence, they'll never admit it and they're scared. And doctors or doctors in training are the worst about sharing their fear(s). (male or female)

If I had a dollar for every "I hate this and I want to do _____" I'd be sipping drinks with umbrellas in the Caribbean.

Jenn

I definitely felt (and sometimes still feel) the way you do about the fears of supporting and giving up everything for my spouse and then not having it work out down the line. That is a completely natural fear of committment. When you think about it, you could be with someone else, but battling a different trial in that marriage. There will be trials either way, this just happens to be yours for the moment. Med school changes you as well as him. He may be thinking "What happened to the woman I fell in love with who said she would support me in this endeavor?" Or he may just be so wrapped up in school he's not thinking at all (which is how I felt my husband was). What saved us was that Sunday is the Sabbath for us and when possible we don't work that day. That meant he didn't study on Sundays either (and yes, he honored and did very well in med school). He spent a lot of that day sleeping, but we went into med school with 2 kids and came out with 4, so he managed to spend some of that day with us as well. This has also been a double-edged sword because I became VERY independent during med school and learned to like being alone (with my kids) and making all the decisions and rules, etc. That makes it hard when your spouse IS there and you aren't used to it. I've finally learned that during the week we go about our schedule not expecting dad around (he's in 5th year residency) & don't plan anything around him. Then on weekends I inform him of things that are going on with the kids or myself so he knows what our plans are and can jump in if he's able. Any weekend free-time I leave open so we can spend time with him if he's home. I also let him know the week before if I need anything from him that weekend (i.e. him to watch the kids or go to an event). There is never a honey-do list at our house because that only brought frustration/resentment when he couldn't get any of it done. I learned not to expect much from him so I was never disappointed (okay, almost never) and sometimes pleasantly surprised. Dates also became VERY important!! Once a week we had a date (usually at home since we were broke & had young kids). We tried to play board games since that forced us to interact without having to discuss stressful things & seemed to ease us back into "oh, yah...I like this person" - mode. He also learned to call me during the day since I tend to be too tired at night to be more than grumpy with him. That made me feel like I was a part of his day & he was a part of mine. Basically I spent years beating my head against a brick wall trying to change him back into what I thought he was when I married him & wondering if I was doing the right thing to stick with it. But, I didn't marry him to divorce him and I knew no one was perfect (not even me), so marriage would be hard work either way so I may as well stick with this one and learn to make myself happy instead of expecting him to do it. 14 years later we are still married and still learning to enjoy life one day at a time instead of saying "next year things will be better". I try not to worry anymore about whether or not we'll be together in another 15 years and worry about my own end of the marriage instead....even when it feels I'm the only one working on it.

As usual, I don't post for a while, then write a novel...hope I've been helpful in some way!

Sara

1. Thank you so much for your suggestions and for sharing your thoughts on the concerns that I raised. I know that they are tonnes of spouses out there who are going through the same scenarios and even in some cases worst and this has really helped to rally spirits.

2. To hlj25950 I will definitely do that and hopefully this will be the start in helping to reduce the negativity in our lives!

3. And to Sara, i thought i was the only one beating my head against a brick!!! lol Your ideas were really insightful and I will definitely be trying the one day a week idea! And the board games idea we play cards and that does help but it's the real 'attention' that I miss you know? Did you find that that got better over the years?

I hope that our marriage will last forever and if I work as hard as you guys and all the people on here seem too, I'm sure it will!

And by the way what was the worst year for many of you?

[Vanquisher]

Okay you asked for it, the worst years for me in order are:

1. This year. PGY-2

2. Last year, internship

3. Fourth year of college, applying to medical school, had a toddler, dh had full-time job. We were both in college full-time. We were WELL below poverty level.

4. Third year of college with a new born baby.

5. First year of medical school (new place. no friends)

6. Second year of medical school (still no friends, really)

7. Fourth Year of medical school, I was pregnant and very sick. Dh ws on away rotations. I had good friends though. The end of fourth year, after I had the baby was incredibly easy. Moving, match, and everything else I thought was a piece of cake compared to being pregnant.

8. Second year of college. Difficult pregnancy, I was uber-sick this time too. Bed rest. Was at home in Utah.

9. Third year of medical school. I was established in my circle of friends. I had a child who went to preschool for 3 hours a day. I was NOT pregnant.

My list is obvioulsy different from most. I have a lot of wrenches thrown in mine and was married early. But, after all that, this year is the hardest. I am in a new place with no friends. I never see my husband, ever. Weekends off are few and far between. Rotation changes in intern year made it more bearable as there were "light" months.

And by sick during pregnancy, I mean that I had hyperemesis gravidarum the entire 9 months. If you'd like to know that story, I'll share in another post. Or, you can google it.

Hey, you asked.

The worst year really varies by specialty (and then again by program). Intern year generally sucks for all (and to varying levels based on specialty), but after that it changes. I've heard that 4th year of general surgery is especially awful, 1st year of ID fellowship is awful, for us the worst year without a doubt was the 5th year of pathology - but that was b/c of political crap going on.