making marriage last through school

My dh is a 2nd year med student. One of his married peers is getting a divorce already because the strain of classes and his absence from the home due to studying are too much for his wife to handle. This is so sad to me. I have hard days every now and then, but I try to keep this whole process in perspective and r :P ealize that this is only a portion of our lives. There is a light at the end of this tunnel. Each one of you that is already on the residency/attending side of it is an inspiration to me that my marriage will survive!

Yes, just focus on the positives and the success stories (like my sister's boyfriend's parents- the dad is an orthopedic surgeon the mom a SAHM with 8 kids) and they have survived and THRIVED. Make yourself a success story too.

[DCJenn]

Welcome BearWife-

I see you're in the Caymen Islands. Jealous!!

While it's true that some people just really can't take the pressure of the medical spouse world, most can. I think you'll find here that 90% of the time we're able to keep on going by having an open mind, remembering that eventually this (whatever "this" you're going through) will be over and allowing yourself to be angry and frustrated. It happens.

Just come here and vent away. This site got me through intern year, residency, fellowship, international adoption, horrific moves, and now my husband's deployment.

Welcome.

[medpedspouse]

Bearwife!

Yes, your marriage can survive!! We are celebrating 10 years of marriage - through medschool, residency and fellowship. As you said, sometimes it has been hard. Looking back, I do not know how I got through some of those times. They were way before I found this site.
But I did...or rather, DH and I did.

What worked for us was me going to grad. school. I did not go the first year and it was hard filling in my spare time since I had to be quiet in our little apartment (since DH was studying), did not have many friends (new in town) and just really wished to be with my new husband. Once I enrolled in school, I did not have time to think about those things. We both studied together. I made friends (classmates) that not only filled my time with study sessions/group projects but also gave me a break from the world of medicine. Grad school is not for everyone, so I am not advocating that such is the answer. Just sharing how we got to where we are. I have realized, from talking to my medical spouse friends, that in order to make the process bearable it helps to have your own life outside of medicine and all its drama...errr I mean glory.

You mentioned that your DH is in his 2nd year. Were you together during the first?

[MissCrabette]

Hi Bearwife!

It's good to see a fellow islander. We're on Saba right now and my DH is in his first semester. I don't have any answers for you about making it last. We'd been together for over four years before we married this past May and we still find that it takes some work to adjust to this life.

There are not many students with families here and the few that we know all have very different approaches to balancing family and school. It seems that some completely dedicate themselves to school and barely see the family. Some are the exact opposite and study only after they have spent time with their family. We're trying to find that balance right now and I find that there's a fine line between being studious and putting your family in second place. :huh:

Welcome to the forum! I'm really looking forward to getting to know you.

I felt resentful and just plain old ornery a lot of the time in residency (med school was a breeze in my opinion in terms of time spent studying, etc.) However, I tried to keep the positives in mind, such as the fact that he got 4 weeks of vacation per year in residency [most regular jobs don't offer that much] and that he really wanted to be with me as much as possible but had to study, work, be on call, etc. One thing that really helped was that I truly knew that DH wanted to be with me as much as possible, and didn't want to be at the hospital all the time.

The other thing that helped a lot is that when DH wasn't studying or at the hospital, etc. he was with me. He did not have a "boys night out" or hang out with his buddies (unless it included me). With the exception of one sport, he didn't have any outside hobbies--so that the little time in residency he did have once studying, work and call were done he spent with me. This made me feel a lot better in general.

The same thing is true now, since he's still working resident hours/bad call schedules as an attending. The little time he does have is spent with me, and this makes me know that our marriage is his number one priority.

[MDPhDWife]

I can't say that I have much advice to offer you other than try your best to keep your marriage in perspective. It is very scary looking at the divorce rates especially during residency.

I used to (and sometimes still do) get what I call my "chicken little syndrome" and think the sky is falling when I thought about the future for us. I found that I need to remind myself to enjoy this time I have now and make it quality instead of wasting it worrying about something I can't really do anything about at the moment.

Do your best to focus on the positive and stick around here. There seems to be a lot of support and success stories.

thanks for all the positive thoughts. for those who asked, we had been married 8 months when DH got accepted to school and 12 months when we actually moved out of the country for him to attend. He is very good at spending his free time with me. I am a bartender on our little island paradise. So I have a group of friends from work and a place to escape to 6 days a week. I am very thankful for that. I know we will get through this. I also have those "chicken little" days, but overall I realized that I am blessed to have a wonderful husband who is following his dream after he got shot down from ALL the U.S. schools. I admire him for sticking with it. I am excited to be a part of this forum. I think it is going to be a great place to spend some time!

[GrayMatterWife]

My PGY2 DH spent 9 years in med school as an MD-PhD candidate (that is, he was among those semi-professional students affectionately referred to as "MudFuds"--how awful is that?). Then he went into neurosurgery (7 year residency). We got married exactly 1 week to the day before he started medical school.

Sometimes people ask us how we made it. I guess I can understand the question: a lot of our MD-PhD friends got divorced. Only half-joking, we always say the same thing: set very low expectations, so you can be thrilled when they are exceeded. Hey, it's worked for us. What we mean is: stop stressing over it. Have fun. Don't hold grudges. Don't resent him. Live for the little things. Try and have as much sex as possible . Understand that no marriage is ideal and that no spouse is always going to be your answer to emotional completeness and fulfillment. If that's expected, you're doomed when you're married to the hospital.

Kidding aside, I think it's all about attitude. Don't approach medical school as something you just have to suffer or survive. Four years (or 9 years in our case) is too long a period for you to just "tolerate," biding your time until the pain is over. A lot of resentment and "you OWE me!!" can build up over four (or more!) years. I would try to avoid this because no amount of money he makes (plastic surgeon...) or time he has (derm...) will ever fix that kind of resentment.

In the meantime, while he's in school, make your life happen! Don't wait for him to finally "be there." You'll be waiting a long time, and when he finally does show up (as an attending...imagine that day!), he'll probably get paged back to the hospital, anyway, because some idiot intern made the same mistake that he made when he was an intern. Anyhow, go to grad school or have a family or pour yourself into that book you've always wanted to write or whatever. He's out there pursuing his dream; you should use this time to do the same. Always remember: regardless of what the hospital "says" or how he may (albeit unintentionally) make you feel: your time is just as valuable as his. Being supportive does not require that his training steal 4 years away from your life. While you dream about the future and how life will be post-residency, be sure to live now. His medical school years are years of your life, too! You just have to find a way to get that to happen in the confines of the practical limitations of one spouse being in med school.

[spotty_dog]

Kidding aside, I think it's all about attitude. Don't approach medical school as something you just have to suffer or survive. Four years (or 9 years in our case) is too long a period for you to just "tolerate," biding your time until the pain is over. A lot of resentment and "you OWE me!!" can build up over four (or more!) years.

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more.

[GrayMatterWife]

I can't say that I have much advice to offer you other than try your best to keep your marriage in perspective. It is very scary looking at the divorce rates especially during residency.

I used to (and sometimes still do) get what I call my "chicken little syndrome" and think the sky is falling when I thought about the future for us. I found that I need to remind myself to enjoy this time I have now and make it quality instead of wasting it worrying about something I can't really do anything about at the moment.

Do your best to focus on the positive and stick around here. There seems to be a lot of support and success stories.

MD/PhD Wife: I hear you; I've been there. The sky is not falling, although it really feels like it sometimes. Sometimes it feels so real that you swear some piece of smog-ladden goop just feel in your hair.

The darkest days for me were when my DH's friends from his original med school class were all graduating (5 years before my DH). We went to their graduation--I don't advise this. Even for an optimist, it's a hard thing to see.

I think the darkest day for my DH was when he showed up to one of his 4th year medical student rotations to discover that some total bozo who was in his original medical school class was now his attending...and was giving him his class grade! I think he and my DH had really had words at some point and my DH pretty much called him an idiot. (Ooops.)

If it's encouraging: most of the MD/PhDs marriages I know that survived medical school intact have no problem surviving residency. By that time, you know what you're doing, plus you've come to peace with the reality that there's no big "cha-ching!" when it's all over (how many MD-PhDs do you know who go into private practice plastics? Very few...they go into crappily paying academic jobs!...but they get protected lab time...).

[MDPhDWife]

Gray Matter, WOW you have lots of wisdom I hope to have when my DH is a PGY2. I was ROFL b/c I hadn't heard anyone refer to MD/PhD's as "MudPhud's" since an episode of ER in like it's first or second season! Whenever I'd drop that line I'd always get a confused look!!!

I don't know how the MD/PhD program works where you are, but whenever we see one of DH's old med school classmates working, I remind DH that he may be an attending, but he's buried under thousands of dollars of med school debt. The MD/PhD program here pays all our tuition and gives DH a monthly stipend that we live off of. We've even managed in the recent years to adjust our lifestyle so that I can stay at home with our DD's. So I agree that the 9 years is long, but without the debt it helps.

DH had always talked about going into neurosurgery, but now we're trying to stay on the "ROAD" (my new favorite acronym ) so he'll have to live vicariously through your DH and McDreamy.

[SuzySunshine]

Also being a neurosurgery wife (one of the highest divorce specialties) I agree with GrayMatter on pretty much everything. We didn't do the MD/PhD but we did an extended med school so DH could do extra research, you have to enjoy your life not what you expect it to be. Make your own friends, make your own plans and enjoy the time you do have together. Don't compare your life to anyone else's - I know that's hard but DH and I have been together since undergrad and we've been together for 10 years, married for 5.

YOU have to live YOUR life - what others do and say will always have some bearing but you have to be true to each other - its a long road, hang in there!

I agree with the others. A marriage can definitely thrive through the med school years and beyond! My DH and I began dating when we were both undergrads, dated all the way through M1 and M2, and married a couple of rotations into M3. We're in M4 now, so we survived the dreaded surgical rotation, OB/Gyn call, and a six week-long away rotation that left us 2,500 miles apart, not to mention his incessant studying for Step1 in the final months leading up to the wedding.

Although being married to a med student sometimes is frustrating, I try to keep things in perspective. He is doing what he enjoys, he'll make a brilliant doc one day soon, and he hates his schedule as much as I do! Plus, medicine is his passion, and I think I would be an awful wife if I couldn't support him through his training because I was too preoccupied with how much I hate the stress and separation.

To help myself get through this, I spend as much time with him as possible. When he has to be up at 4 a.m., I get up, too, at least to see him off at the door with a kiss. Sometimes I even manage to drag myself out of bed in time to shower and have a cup of coffee with him. Then, when he goes to bed before the sun is down, I lie with him for an hour or two until he falls asleep. Having even a little bit of time together helps. Also, I keep myself busy by working fulltime in a job I enjoy and by using the days that he's on call to run errands, work on my hobbies, catch up with friends (even if it's just writing E-mails to them), or drive home to see my family. Most importantly, I try not to let myself get too down. I have a wonderful, hardworking husband, the training years are only temporary, and I can put my time away from him to good use. What's there to be upset about?! It also helps to come onto forums like this one, where everyone is going through just about the same thing and can completely relate to what you’re going through.

Just hang in there! You guys can do this!

Oh, and I guess that the use of the term "MudPhud" depends on where you live. I work with MudPhuds who refer to themselves that way! It's funny because DH and I refer to PhDs as "Phuds" and have ever since college, but we always get blank stares if we use the term around anyone else, so I thought it was pretty cool when I was suddenly around people who actually understand what we mean!