The Top Things Physician Couples Can Do to Improve Their Relationships

By: Sarah Epstein, LMFT

Sarah is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and physician spouse who works with physicians and physician couples to build and repair their relationships and address burnout. Learn more here.

I work with many physicians and physician couples in my practice and have seen firsthand the unique pressures of a life in medicine. If your partner is a doctor, your life looks a little different. If you are the wife or husband of a doctor, the demands on your time, the trajectory of your professional and financial life, and the time you spend together all follow a slightly different rhythm than your friends. But there are things that every medical couple can do now to improve their relationship.

1)      Acknowledge the past: If you and your partner got together before or during medical training, it has inevitably taken its toll. The long hours, rigid requirements, and single-minded focus of medical training can wreak havoc on a relationship. Some couples come out of training determined to put it all behind them and move forward with no further comment. This won’t work. The arguments, resentments, and hurts from the training years will leak into ongoing conversations and decisions unless they’re truly processed and sorted through.

2)      Set Joint Priorities: While medical training demands that trainees adhere to its demands, attendinghood allows couples to make meaningful decisions together about what they want for their joint life. It means creating a shared vision for their collective future. What feels important? Does the couple want to purchase property? Travel? Have kids? Take up scuba diving? This means having radically honest conversations around priorities and values.

3)      Clarify domestic responsibilities: Many of my physician couples share that one of the biggest resentments is lopsided domestic labor by the non-physician spouse. While this can be fine if it’s agreed upon, resentment grows when one person becomes the default. These roles should thus be set up with intention. For more help on this matter, I highly recommend the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky.

4)       Be willing to revisit old agreements: Physician couples should be willing to re-examine things that aren’t working. A job turned out to be a bad fit? Household labor is feeling too lopsided? Communication quality has eroded over time? Be willing to try new things, even if new choices are a radical departure from your norms as a couple.

While all of these tips will improve your relationship dramatically, any one of them will help you and your doctor spouse on a better path.

Want more? Read Sarah’s book Here or work with her.