Building a successful relationship with a medical student is not easy. Medical students work long hours, learn intensely detailed subject matter, adhere to very irregular schedules, and contend with life and death issues on a regular basis. They bring their pressures, insecurities, and fears into the relationship and often have little energy to invest in romance. We, their loving, fantastic partners, have our own lives and pressures and must balance the realities of our own lives with reality that our partners need us for emotional support. How do we do it? One of the best ways to find success (be it a relationship or a skill) is to look at others’ success. Medical couples that build healthy, happy relationships share some compelling habits and behaviors. INTENTIONALITY Successful medical couples understand they will not find time and energy for their relationships. They’re unlikely to wake up and realize they have a few extra hours to invest in one another. Understanding that, successful medical couples approach their relationships with intentionality – they consciously think about and plan how they’re going to make the relationship work and how they’re going to find time to spend together. Approaching your relationship with intentionality is a constant task- it happens before, during, and after time spent with your partner. It means sitting down, looking at both of your schedules, and deciding to take a coffee break together in the middle of the day. It means making a point to leave work early so you can eat dinner together on the only night you both have free. Intentionality is itself not the action that creates relationship happiness. It’s a decision made collectively by both parties that even though you’re working 15-hour shifts at the hospital, that you’re going to sit and talk about your day for ten minutes before going to bed. The concept of intentionality is so powerful that even if you don’t get to spend as much time with your partner as you’d like, you’ll still be happier relationship than if you did not attempt to plan that time. One study indicated that physicians’ wives “were powerfully affected by their perception that their husbands made work sacrifices for the sake of the family”, that is, the perception of sacrifice for the relationship had a direct impact on physicians’ wives’ happiness (yes, it’s a very gendered study). The study went on to note that “how a busy physician communicates with his wife about the impact of his work on their life appears to have a particularly important effect on his wife’s level of marital satisfaction.” This idea is extraordinarily powerful – a busy physician who expresses an intention to spend time with (in this case) his wife, even if they don’t spend time together, yields greater happiness than those couples that spend the same amount of time together but don’t mention the wish that it couple be different.(1) Intention matters because expressing and planning out that desire to be together indicates commitment in spite of frustrating circumstances. MUTUAL CAREER SUPPORT Another common trait in successful medical relationships is mutual career support. Many forces in a medical couple’s life invite the couple to focus exclusively or primarily on the medical partner. Medical students are regularly lauded by friends and strangers alike for their dedication to such a noble, prestigious field. Parents who have paid for their children to get this far emphasize the student’s school work as the top priority. Medical school demands that students adhere to its strict requirements, rigid time schedule, and extensive requirements. With all of those external pressures, it can be easy for a household to fall, even subconsciously, into treating the medical partner’s work, time, and energy as inherently more important. But studies show that one of the top factors in predicting positive marital adjustment for medical couples is supporting each other’s careers. There are a number of reasons for this. First, medical spouses are, as a group, shown to be happier if they engage in work outside the home. That work provides individual fulfillment, stimulation, money, and social supports. Those spouses who gave up work outside the home in deference to their medical spouse were the most likely to be unhappy.(2) Showing mutual support, particularly support for the medical student’s partner, may serve as a salve to the partner, who frequently revolves life decisions around the medical student’s requirements. Much like intentionality, mutual career support re-introduces a sense of equal partnership that counteracts American culture and medical school’s insistence that medical students should be viewed as a family’s primary concern. CREATING A SENSE OF “US” Once couples intentionally make the time to spend together and commit to supporting one another, they foster a feeling of “us-ness.” Couples that developed the sense of “us” “were better equipped to navigate the challenges of a dual career lifestyle as well as make time to nurture their relationship.”(3) Creating a sense of “us” means a few things. Both partners are indicating to one another that they are in this together and are committed to finding a time between this exam and that clinical rotation, to get ice cream. They show that they are equal partners in this relationship and they support one another’s career ambitions. Medical school can drive a wedge between couples with its power to sap the student of time, energy, and money. Developing a sense of unity enables couples to view medical school as both the common goal and common relationship obstacle. Mutual support helps medical students’ partners feel that, with equal levels of support, it’s easier to face the hurdles of medical school because they, too, are being supported and feel that level of support. It also helps couples feel that when they make it through medical school, that they did it together and that it is their accomplishment. Overcoming a challenging period in a person’s life can draw a couple together if the couple approaches it feeling like they are supporting one another, planning for upcoming challenges (such as a difficult rotation or studying for Step 1), and communicating their wish that they will always strive for better. (1) Sotile, Wayne M., and Mary O. Sotile. "Physicians' Wives Evaluate Their Marriages, Their Husbands, and Life in Medicine: Results of the AMA-Alliance Medical Marriage Survey." Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 68, no. 1 (2004): 39-59. doi:10.1521/bumc.68.1.39.27730. (2) Perlman, R. L., Ross, P. T., & Lypson, M. L. (2015). Understanding the Medical Marriage. Academic Medicine, 90(1), 63-68. doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000000449 (3) Fider, C. O., Fox, C. A., & Wilson, C. M. (2014). Physicians in Dual-Career Marriages: Nurturing Their Relationships. The Family Journal, 22(4), 364-370. doi:10.1177/1066480714547699 Source
