Becoming a Doctor's Wife: Expectations Can Ruin Lives

To begin our medical school journey, I have a vivid memory of a conversation that ROCKED MY WORLD. I had returned from work after a long week of transition to a new job, and Curtis had just started medical school. He had just begun and he already felt behind.

How is this possible you may be asking? Well… this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout medical school, clinicals, residency, and into becoming an Attending Physician. The weight of responsibility for future patients, current case loads, and the possibility of undiagnosed complications to come is a burden that only some are capable of carrying. Physicians, the really good ones, take their job seriously and the severity of their responsibility of their patients seeps into every fiber of their being. Over time, like most professions, one can establish boundaries for their own sanity, yet, this is a skill that takes time. We were not there yet.

I had asked Curtis what he wanted to do that particular evening. He simply told me he needed to study. I pushed further and asked if he could give me a quick overview of what that looked like and when I could expect to spend time with him. (At this point in our marriage, we had been husband and wife for 1 year and been together as a couple for 6 years. I feel this is important to note, because the rawness that we hold in our deep conversations has developed through time and we do not hold it lightly.) Both of us were feeling overwhelmed. Our conversation continued for well over two hours. If you remember anything from this article remember this: EXPECTATIONS CAN RUIN LIVES.

This phrase has been with me for years while working in the social work field, and rings true in my own personal relationships. The expectations you hold for outside sources can control you and can quite literally ruin your relationships. This is what was happening in our first fight in Missouri. Curtis had the expectation that he would dive into his education with minimal implication on our marriage and the time set aside for it; while I expected to be entertained and live life the way we had for the past year, in our honeymoon state. We had been told by our pre-marriage counselors, “In marriage you will need to take turns.” This did not become clear to me until this moment.

It was my husband’s turn. This became gut-wrenchingly clear.

You may be wondering how our fight ended. Curtis told me that studying would need to take priority, and I hated this answer. I fought back about the priorities of our house and how our marriage came first. He agreed. However, this needed to look differently than I was used to.

You see, I grew up in a household where my parents spent as much time together as possible, the love they shared was abundantly clear by the time that they shared with one another. Like most newlyweds, my family’s dynamic was woven into my expectations for my own marriage. We, however, had been brought into a dynamic that neither one of our families had endured. We were stepping into a new reality of Curtis’s nose constantly being in a book, on his laptop, in a lab, or group studying and this would be like none of our other friends and family had ever seen. Our marriage would be a priority, but TIME would be spent intentionally with quality versus quantity.

Imagine that you have a bank. You invest money into your bank to reap the rewards of your hard work and also the savings that acquire overtime. Most families are allotted an abundance of time, and this is the currency that is invested into their “family bank” as you will. This abundance seems normal in the sense that most families spend all of their holidays, weekends, evenings, and spare time together. Our circumstances of taking Curtis’s education seriously led us to create a new currency, in which we invested “quality time,” versus an “abundance of time.” Almost all of my husband’s spare time was spent studying, to one day in the far off future save patients’ lives. It was not uncommon for him to study 8, 10, 12 hours a day. Yet, we still invested in our “family bank”.

One of my dearest friends reminded me of this reality years after leaving Missouri. She reminded me that we always ate dinner together, even if that meant leaving friends’ homes, study times, or meeting at a predestined location. Dinner was a priority, because we were a priority. If you know of someone on this journey, know that 1 in 4 physicians are or will be divorced. The expectation that education comes first, will ruin marriages when both parties are not in agreement. Prioritizing your marriage and the foundation on which your union is built should always come first; yet that does not mean you have to spend every waking moment together.

So many people told us before we began this journey that we needed to set everything aside and prioritize Curtis’s education. We did this, but on our own terms. Everyone was telling us to compartmentalize our marriage so that Curtis could succeed. People give advice like it is candy; however you know your marriage better than anyone, so choose wisely. ROOT YOUR MARRIAGE IN TRUTH and more importantly, IN CHRIST.

An image of what should've been our first fight in MO.

This hard conversation became a cornerstone to our time in Missouri, and for the long days ahead of us. Having hard conversations are needed. They are uncomfortable and bring about a lot of anxiety, but they build your relationship up if you let them. This particular glimpse into our marriage and our journey to becoming a physician’s family now allows for us to not create boxes of time spent together, but to intentionally discuss our expectations for our day to day lives.

While in Missouri there was a group of med-school wives that gathered together weekly to discuss books, updates in life, and for community. I joined this group with high hopes of making lasting friendships; however I was quickly disappointed. I participated in the group for multiple weeks and would always come home DRAINED. Why?! The time spent together was not encouraging and definitely not uplifting. This time was supposed to be a reflection of support for one another as med-school wives but more times than not it turned out to be a downpour of unmet expectations creating sadness in these women’s lives. They spent this time complaining of their husband’s poor time management without creating a master plan of how to help their household thrive in the chaos. Needless to say, I left the group and never returned.

I bring this up because, if you have read any of my previous articles you know this is not my jam. If I can encourage anyone on this journey, know this - surround yourself with a TRIBE of STRONG SUPPORTERS. Do not stay part of toxic groups that are constantly thriving on chaos and complaining. Gather around people that build you up, even if they are not directly in your situation. If you allow your heart to be hardened by your circumstances, how will that not creep into your marriage, your family, your relationships?

At this point in our journey, God had shut all the doors and shipped me to Missouri (the heart of America), stopped all the clocks and allowed time to stand still, created space for hard conversations for my husband and I, and now made me say “no” to friendships I desperately needed. If you know me, you know that I am not one to say “no” to much of anything. Little did I know, I was about to be hit with a reality check of how God uses you in spaces you do not care to be in. As a social worker, I knew I could get a job anywhere, but that seemed unlikely in Missouri. Yet, God opened doors. He opened one door, closed it and then He opened another.

Until next time, Jordi