A resource for overcoming disappointment as a doctor’s wife
by Sara Payne, Master Certified Life Coach
I still remember how I felt in the months right after my husband checked off his final residency requirements. We had just moved to Arizona after an intense three year surgical residency at the Yale-New Haven hospital.
While our growing family was still 12 hours from the mountains of Utah where we both grew up, it felt so close to home compared to East Coast living in Connecticut.
I was so full of hope and excitement.
All those years of training and scrimping and saving and putting the kids to bed by myself–all of that was about to be worth it.
So, so worth it.
He was a real deal doctor. I couldn’t wait to start creating the life I’d been dreaming of for almost a decade.
It involved fancy vacations to Europe and a pristine custom home with the gym of my dreams and the amazing landscaped backyard with a pool– perfect for hosting neighborhood parties.
And don’t forget the humanitarian vacations with the whole family where the kids would learn how to give back to those less fortunate than them— I felt so noble and altruistic just thinking about it.
But after several months of my husband being on the job, it became clear that my dreams were a loooonng way from being realized.
The salary and bonus structure weren’t what we hoped they would be. And the student loan payments were now out of deferment and seemed daunting to say the least; it was six figure debt that felt impossible to overcome.
Once the math was done and the student loan payments were made, we had LESS money to spend each month than we’d had as residents.
Less!!
At the rate we were able to pay off the loans, we would both be 65+ years old before that balance reached $0. I felt completely deflated, and there was no reason to believe it would get better soon.
I remember that both our ancient laptop AND our 2002 Toyota Corolla were literally being held together with duct tape.
One night I said to my husband through tears, “We did all that for THIS?!”
There seemed to be no answer to the question, “How are we ever going to get ahead?”
Not long after this tearful conversation, I first found the tools that life coaches use to help their clients.
As I sat on the couch and folded what must have been the 50th pair of socks, I listened to a life coach teach me on her weekly podcast. I remember thinking, “She’s explaining my problems better than I can. She gets me.”
Not long after that day, I hired her. She helped me cure the resentment in my marriage and create the life I dreamed about as a resident’s wife.
My life has never been the same.
After working with her, I felt a deep pull to help others the way she had so profoundly helped me.
I no longer resented my husband or his career; I stopped blaming his job for controlling our life.
I was the patient mother I wanted to be.
I was able to live effortlessly at my ideal weight after struggling for decades to lose the last 15lbs (and gain it back again, over and over and over).
I felt closer and more connected to my husband than ever.
So I became a life coach myself and have specialized in helping the spouses of physicians cure resentment in their marriages ever since.
That is precisely why I started my own podcast, The Doctors’ Wife.
It wasn’t always my plan to start a podcast. I set out looking for resources for physician families. I scoured the internet in pursuit of resources and couldn’t find a single podcast specifically for us and our mental and emotional health.
It was then I knew I was the one who had to bring it into existence.
You have a unique set of challenges that not everyone understands.
And maybe, like me, you don’t feel like there’s a place where you can talk about it because everyone says, “How hard can your life be—aren’t you married to a doctor?”
I’m sure you’ve noticed that there isn’t exactly a line of people eager to hear about the challenges of being married to a doctor. But you do have challenges.
That’s why I created this podcast for you. I know the life you are living because I have lived it, too. I understand, in a very personal way, the struggles that a demanding job brings to physician families and medical marriages.
I’m here to tell you that you CAN have a resentment-free marriage. You don’t have to live forever as the backup dancer to your spouse’s career.
There is room for what you want, too. The tools I teach on The Doctors’ Wife Podcast will literally transform every relationship you have–your marriage, your parenthood, and most importantly, the relationship you have with yourself.
Click here to listen now.
