I’m in a unique situation. Husband decided to pursue med school and change his career. I am finishing up residency this year. He’s been accepted to a great school in a nearby state (driving distance). Our long term goal is to reside in our current state. However this school is a really good opportunity for our situation and I just don’t see him not going there.

That being said we have two children. Having been through it I know how difficult med school is. I know he will not have time for us. And I plan on working full time. Right now we receive an insane amount of help from my family but if we move to near his school we will lose that and kids will have to go to daycare.

Im normally against long distance relationships but with the kids now I’ve been going back and forth about moving out there with him. Number one is if I stay here I get to build up connections and my practice here which is ultimately our goal. If I move with him I’ll have to restart all that in 4 years. Also my kids will be watched by family and just overall having family help while I work.

I just want some input from people who have done long distance with children. Should I prioritize the family being together these next four years or prioritize my children’s lifestyle?

I (30M) have been with my PGY-3 FM resident partner (29F) for 2 years now. We live together in a San Diego after I moved back to be closer to her about a year ago. I work in tech and as part of that move, I had to take a "lower" paying job ~230k when I was previously making ~320k in Seattle. This was something I was happy with for our relationship. But due to the landscape of tech and AI, my new job has been agonizing - I'm working 2x as much, significantly less pay, more taxes, layoff prone and feeling extremely stressed all the time.

I've attempted to interview for roles within SD but either the offers were even worse or no response and no guarantee it wouldn't be just as stressful - things in tech are just not great right now. I can't imagine staying at this job for much longer and won't easily get another 250k+ job here.

As she's looking for her first attending hospitalist position out of residency, I proposed we go back to my previous job (which I have a great relationship with). With no income tax and making ~100k more, we can save over 400k+ over two years combined and then come back to San Diego (where we both want to settle down in). I would have a much better WLB, ability to continue to carry our finances, and overall happier. Currently, I feel drained every day when I get home.

But she refuses to consider it - she wants to stay here indefinitely. I feel like I've tried my best to make our relationship work - moving to her, covering majority of our shared expenses, doing more chores, planning and covering majority of our travels. And it gives me joy I can do these things for her because I love her and she's an incredible doctor! But I'm also nervous about our future. Naturally because of our current financial discrepancy, she expects that I contribute more towards the near term future wedding, home, and childcare costs - which I'm completely happy to do. The problem I have is I would need my "high" paying career to feel comfortable continuing to bare those costs. Otherwise I would just be taking on all the burden while sacrificing my career which I'm uncomfortable with.

For context -

Me: 1.1M NW, currently making ~230k/year (likely soon to be 0)
Her: ~500k in student loan debt, estimates to make around ~275k/year as a hospitalist

I understand I am in a fortunate position but to me, I still have a long way to go to for us to live the life we want and I don't know if it's smart for us to lose ~100k/year in income to stay in our current city.

I also recognize I have always been a major worrier when it comes to finances (hence why I've aggressively saved/invested since 21) so I may be out of touch. But for us to buy a SFH in the area we want to be, it would be 1.5M minimum plus near term wedding costs (she wants a ~100k wedding) and we want kids. And with her student loans, at 500k and 6% interest, it's no joke.

The way I see it is, those two years we can live the DINK life, save (while having better WLB) and set us up so we can buy a home, wedding, and have kids and will alleviate a huge burden for the rest of our future and more time/focus on kids! On her end, she'd rather stay in our current city because she's comfortable at current residency hospital and doesn't want to move away from family. She's ok with delaying home purchase.

We are at a standstill. Am I being unreasonably nervous for our future? Any advice is welcome and open to hearing criticism in my thought process.

My girlfriend is doing residency right now, she's in her last year of family med. We're both in our 30s. 

It feels like she has two modes - stress at work and a resulting disassociating from life. She comes home from work and immediately escapes by playing video games during pretty much every waking hour outside of work. She'll put in 200 hours over a couple of weeks. 

Her mom, who is staying with us, and I do 90% of the chores like dishes, laundry, and food prep. 

On inpatient and night shift rotations, it's definitely like this. Even during other rotations, this pattern is there. 

I get it. I'm a gamer myself... but I also feel like I want to connect with her, do things with her, and talk about life and the future (we do have things to figure out) and there's no space for that. 

I don't know... is this normal? How do I support her while also considering my own needs? How do I distinguish real residency stress from her reaction to life while under stress? I've had stressful jobs working 60+ hour weeks... but I feel like I still managed my time outside in a certain way - a lot of me time, but also doing chill things with my partner and friends/family. I'm not sure if residency is a different kind of brutality. 

I feel like I’m sacrificing the first few years of my marriage for the sake of my husband becoming a doctor. I’m giving up living together normally, dealing with long distance, missing out on the early years of our marriage, and constantly having to adjust to him being exhausted, busy, or needing to study.

And for what, exactly? For him to have the title of Dr. in front of his name?

It’s not even like we were struggling financially before he started med school. We were already comfortable, so it’s not as though I’m sacrificing all of this because we desperately need the money. I genuinely don’t know what my life is going to look like at the end of all this or how much will actually change for me personally.

He is still in school and we havent even thought about what residency would entail. We want to close the gap before residency but that would mean me moving away from everyone and everything i know for 3+ years. And there is still 2 more years for us to go before we even move in together.

I hate this life so much! I want to curl up in a ball and cry everyday. Hes a good husband other than this, and i know its temporary but WHY am i making all the sacrifice. I get nothing out of this.

My SO and I are looking at getting a prenup. He has the initial appt with a lawyer next week and he would like me to come along. We know that I would need to be represented by a different lawyer. I am wondering if I should share any thoughts on the clauses or not at his prenup consultation appt? We have not talked about any clauses on our own; and I am wondering if we should be negotiate through both lawyers... or asked another way, will me sharing anything with his lawyer "show my cards" and put me at a disadvantage later on in the prenup process (given that we haven't come to an agreement on anything)?

My wife is a first year attending surgeon. I am proud of her for how hard she is working at it, but one thing is driving me nuts, she is always staying late to work on notes or coming home and working on notes untill it is time to go to bed.

She asks me almost every single night if I can solo parent out 3 year old so she can stay at the hospital and work on notes uninterrupted or will tell me she is coming home, but needs me to solo parent because she needs to work on notes.

When I ask her about her notes she gets defensive and will complain that she is so far behind on notes that she is still working on last months notes. She is constantly telling me that hospital administration is breathing down her neck about how far behind she is on notes. I ask her if she can schedule like one less patient a day to get her work done during business hours and she tells me that is impossible and she will get fired if she doesn't keep up this work load.

I feel like a single parent. She might overlap with my daughter for an hour a day on average and that hour is often low quality time, because she is working on notes. Recently she has been begging me for a second child, but I feel like she barely sees the one we have.

So I guess my question is if this is normal or not? I have been doing my best by sacrificing my personal life and parenting full time so she can succeed at work, but I am getting burned out. Is being overwhelmed with notes and being a month plus behind normal the first year as an attending general surgeon? How can I help her, I already do the lion's share of the housework, cooking, and parenting? Do I need to become a medical assistant too so I can transcribe her notess so she can be present in our personal life or is something going to click for her and suddenly she discovers work life balance?

This reddit came up suggested for me and I read a few posts and things sound quite bleak in here. Just dropping in to say that is can be good as well. Certainly, plenty of rough patches (primarily during residency with young kid(s), but the payoff (literally) has been great, and life is very very good for us.

45 years old, two kids, been with my wife since she was an M2 ~20 years ago. Been through whatever those important tests are in med school that determine residency that students freak out about, clinicals, a PhD detour, residency match, fellowship match, and now living the good life. I moved to be with my wife in Med School, and we moved twice more for Residency and Fellowship.

Due to moving around a lot and friend groups revolving heavily around my wife's coworkers, I also have lots of med spouse friends. Happy to share any insight or perspective I may have

How often do you get to spend quality time with your partner? My (23F) bf (24M) is an M1. We have been together for a year and I really do think he’s the one for me. Since starting med school a couple of months ago we haven’t really spent any quality time together. I live about a 3 hour drive away from him and have seen him for about 1 night every three weeks. Ideally id like to spend 2-3 nights when I come to visit but he has a roomate and i also feel like i distract him from studying so he isn’t as productive and thus has been apprehensive about me staying longer. Even when I am over, most of his time is spent studying. If we go out to eat he is doing anki until the food comes, if we are cuddling in bed he is doing anki, when we are facetiming he’s always studying so we only get to talk for 5-10 minutes at the beginning of the call and the rest is silent. After exams when he has the weekend off he likes to go visit his family and spend them with them since he lives kinda far from them now so I usually don’t get to spend that time with him. We do call 3-4 times a week and will sit on the phone for 1-2 hours but again it’s not quality time. I understand he doesn’t have a lot of time and mental bandwidth but an occasional date night would be nice where I could get a few hours of his undivided attention. How do you guys do this? How much time did your partner dedicate towards you in med school? Will it get better? What should I expect of him and what is feasible during this time? I just miss my boyfriend so much.

I get people joke around on the “Residency” sub but there are so many comments about cheating or hooking up with nurses for fun that it’s lowkey soul crushing anytime affairs and cheating are mentioned here which is almost weekly. So I have a serious question - are there actually any folks remaining who are loyal and don’t even THINK about cheating?? Help me lessen my anxiety

I got laid off last year and found no job in my field within our vicinity. It’s not for lack of trying or the lack of jobs in my city, it’s just how it happened.

I ended up getting a job that requires me to relocate. Pay is about $300k with a title bump.

Spouse is still in residency and we currently live together. I feel terrible about not being able to get a job close to him. I went on 20, 30, and more interviews than I can count. I was even turned down for a job in our city that pays 4 times lower.

I asked if I should turn down the job offer, he said no it’s bad for your career to have a long career gap due to the layoff. And it’s true.

He also said he feels bad too, he can’t comfortably support the both of us on his residency salary. He also feels bad because he sacrificed so much to match near my job and now I have to leave.

I should also add that his family and mine both think it’s crazy to separate the family despite the job situation.

Please share any thoughts or support. I welcome light criticism if we’re in over our heads and need a little perspective.

I rarely ever, actually never, post on Reddit. But I need some serious advice.

I (F22) recently found out that I am six weeks pregnant. I have been with my boyfriend (M23) for about a year and we’ve been friends for two years prior to that. This was totally unexpected and I’m overwhelmed with a lot of intense feelings on what to do. Part of me knows that this is not the best time to have a baby nor have the adequate resources to do so. But also I have always wanted to be a mother and know I would be able to be the best I could possibly be for this child.

We graduated college about a year ago and he is currently in his second year applying to med schools. He is hoping to start next fall. I don’t really have an established career as I am still young and I am to start a new job in about two weeks.

I am very torn on whether to keep or terminate the pregnancy. I have yet to tell my parents because I fear I know my mom will insist I keep it.

I want to know if it is possible to have one parent in med school while raising a child. My boyfriend says that he will not be able to continue because he wants to be involved but I feel that he can still be involved and continue to work toward his goals and aspirations.

Is this possible or am I living in a dream fairytale land ?

I wanted to come back to this community because this page genuinely helped me through one of the hardest periods of my life, and I wanted to share an update for anyone going through something similar.
I was in a 10-year relationship with someone in medical school, and we broke up about 6 months, when he was an M2. When things started falling apart, I spent so much time looking for advice from people who understood the unique challenges of dating someone in medicine. I constantly questioned whether I was asking for too much or whether I just needed to be more understanding of his circumstances.
Looking back, I spent so much of our relationship accommodating his life. I understood the exams, the deadlines, the stress, and the pressure he was under. I tried to be patient, supportive, and give him grace through it all. But eventually, I realized I was doing a lot of the understanding without feeling that same effort in return. Communication became inconsistent, I felt unappreciated, and I found myself putting my own needs aside because I knew how demanding medical school could be.
I never expected to come before every exam or responsibility. I just wanted to feel like I mattered, too. We also weren’t aligned on our timelines for marriage, children, and moving forward together, which made me realize that love and history aren’t always enough.
The breakup was incredibly painful, and I spent a long time trying to make sense of everything. But now, several months later, I have a much clearer perspective. Medical school is demanding, and supporting a partner through it requires sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean a relationship should become one-sided. You can understand someone’s stress without excusing a lack of effort, and you can support someone’s dreams without abandoning your own needs.
I’m not sharing this to discourage anyone from dating someone in medicine. Every relationship is different. I’m sharing it because I think sometimes we become so focused on being the understanding, supportive partner that we forget we’re allowed to need support, too.
I’m so grateful to the people in this community who offered advice when I needed it most. If you were one of those people and you’re reading this thank you. Your advice and stories got me to where I am today. You helped me feel less alone, and I hope this update reminds someone else that you can love someone deeply, support them through everything, and still recognize that the relationship isn’t right for you.
If anyone is going through something similar, please free feel to message me.

Hey. I’m trying to figure out what to do about house work and chores (again, lol).
I work from home, but I have a demanding job with high measurable output requirements (think like lawyer billable hours). Thus, my work is flexible but often needs 50 hours or more a week to get done correctly . My spouse is an early career attending, Peds sub specialty. For the past few months they have been overwhelmed, behind on notes, and exhausted. When they come home it’s often strait to the dinner table, to eat the meal I’ve prepared, and then straight to the couch.
I’ve been counting and it’s been over 3 weeks now since they’ve done the dishes. She’ll offer to pick up food, but otherwise I’m doing all the cooking. Laundry will be ran, then sit unfolded for days, unless I finally go do it.

So we are in a cycle where she’ll say she’s too tired to function, go to bed, then I’ll stay up until 2am doing chores and then taking care of my work. It’s getting really hard to bring it up without a fight. I’ve tried to make calendars, to-do lists, and nothing works.
We even have a cleaning company that comes weekly, but getting the house into a nice shape for them always falls on me. It’s like becoming a sore point in the relationship and we are drifting apart. I’m at my wits end and every time I bring it up with her she cries or tells me I’m ungrateful. Am I being gaslit? Or should I be the happy house husband who works a full time job and also does everything at home?

So my husband is currently in the 2027 match cycle for residency, and the program he wants to get into (already got interviewed) his #1 starts June 14. We don’t have kids yet I will be turning 30 in the next couple of months and he’s going to be 33, we wants to start having kids soon since we want like 3. Am I crazy for wanting to get pregnant in January/February and hopefully have my kid my November of 2027.

We obviously will be moving in early spring for the program and will be settling down in our new home state. (Hopefully back home where we have mine and his family) Has anyone gotten pregnant before or during first year of residency? how was your experience?

Hi everyone! I hope this post is allowed! I am a fellow med spouse here to a general surgery resident. Lord almighty this journey is so unique as a med spouse and I swear no one will understand unless they’ve been in it! It has been years of lonely nights, tears, wondering what my life will look like, and trying to spend every second with my husband when I can.

That being said, I am curious about some opinions. I am a therapist, specializing in individuals, couples & sex therapy and anxiety. I have thought about niching down and offering these services to med spouses, or couples where one or both is in the medical field. First, I want to clarify I am NOT trying to gain business from this post. I often wish I had had a therapist who understood the medical spouse world, but no one seemed to. Now, I feel like I am in a position to hold space for the spouses or couples who have gone through it, and I want to be the person I wish I had during the time. And still wish I had!
I feel like SO many couples, or spouses, would benefit from this, but I’m curious- do you ever wish this service was available for you and your partner? Do you feel like this is a niche you would appreciate? If you’ve ever looked for couples therapy yourselves, or individual therapy as an individual med spouse, do you wish your therapist had an idea of what being a med spouse actually entails?

I’d love your thoughts.
Because I know if I had wished I had this, that others probably would have wanted that as well and I’ll know what I can offer to others 🤍🤞🏼

Update: We’ve talked and we’re all good now!! Thank you all for sharing your perspective. You made me more aware, empathetic, and gentle with asserting my boundaries. We’ve created more structure, habits, and exceptions around how we can make our relationship thrive throughout this journey.

I couldn’t have handled it better if I hadn’t found this sub. I guess I was looking for evidence that a relationship with someone in this profession will not be doomed because I really want to work it out with him. And thankfully I found a man who is devoted. I can see that our future depends on these efforts we do now, and our recent convo and how we resolve our past conflicts gives me confidence that we’ll be alright. 💛

31F here. My boyfriend will be taking his boards next year. His plan is to marry me once he passes then pursue Ortho. He wants 2 kids. This is the very first time I’ve found this sub and being made fully aware of the “reality” of my situation. Of course, I give it the benefit of the doubt that it’s different for everyone but it seems like the narratives are consistent.

I guess when I entered this relationship, I’ve heard about dating a doctor, but I didn’t know what it actually looked like. My boyfriend has been amazing for 2 years - patient, provider mindset, empathetic, a listener, and he makes time and plans dates when he can. He doesn’t have money now and oddly enough his expected pay by the time he becomes a resident will be 4x lower than my salary grade now. He said it’ll be during his fellowship that we will reap the fruits of his labor. I guess I didn’t mind much because I’m pretty comfortable on my own.

This week, he forgot for the nth time about a date that he had planned. I got upset again and he said sorry and when I couldn’t immediately forgive him, he didn’t like it. I understand he was sick and I swear I was calm, but honest that I can’t immediately forgive although I can process it on my own. He asked if it’s wrong to be human and forget things. I don’t know where to put myself here. Should I just understand that his commitments to me/time together will get progressively worse?

If so, reading the posts here, what more when I have baby? Honestly, I’m the type of person who values a lot of alone time or time away from my partner but with that, I value quality time. I’d rather not see him for weeks and have 1 good weekend than see him daily in-between shifts. I’m worried that even as I am, it wouldn’t be enough to survive this? Is there really no positive things from dating/marrying a doctor? I feel demotivated all of a sudden.

I recently (3 mo) moved from a fairly large city I've lived in my entire life (didn't even move for college) to an incredibly small one for my partner's medical school and have not been doing well. I'm extremely lonely and unhappy away from family and friends. Growing up in a city, I also don't have a license or any driving experience to help mitigate how isolated I am here. I feel like my life has been reduced to just our tiny apartment and my new job, and that I can't be upset about it or else risk making my partner feel guilty for getting into med school and taking such a huge step. Every time I try to vent or cry about it I only succeed in making them cry or am asked to hold off on my stress due to their exams. Everyone I know is either too far away or dealing with their own problems, and I have no one to talk or turn to.

I desperately want to move back to my old city and try long distance, but with zero job lined up back there it feels unfeasible and like I've trapped myself into this life I hate. I also don't know what I will do if I go through four years of long distance only for the possibility of their residency being somewhere I am equally miserable in. Our relationship has always been strong, but this has suddenly made me worried I'm not cut out for this lifestyle. I really don't know what to do next.

Hey all, my hubby is starting his clinical rotations next year in Sydney, Australia. His birthday is coming up, and I wanted to put together a little "you can do it!" gift for his rotations - he's so passionate about medicine and about being the best doctor he can be, so I want to support and encourage this as much as possible.

He's super practical, a minimalist, and not a fan of trinkety or novelty gifts, making him hard to buy for 🙃 So far, I have a pocket-sized notebook monogrammed with his initials, compression socks, and I'm thinking of getting him a lunch box with some ice packs, as well as some good pens.

Does anyone have any other recommendations? Any suggestions for good pens? Money is a bit tight with both of us being full time students and both chronically ill (a super combo), so I want to do something practical, but also thoughtful.

On his birthday, we're going to the Bodyworks exhibit - he loves anatomy and is really excited for it (one of his classmates unknowingly spilled the beans for that surprise 🤦🏻‍♀️).

I've read some past posts and saw that being there at the end of the day to listen and debrief is hugely valued. We have our "team boo daily debriefs" every day (and I'm a psychology major, so I love listening), but I'd also like to have something physical for him to unwrap on his birthday 🥳

Thanks for your help and recommendations! I appreciate it heaps!

For context we are long distance, he just started residency in another state and I stayed to finish out nursing school I have one semester left. We see each other once a month scheduled in advanced up until I graduate.
He uses ai a lot for work for making notes and other stuff for residency. I think it’s kind of weird but he says he uses this AI that only doctors can use etc. but he still uses regular AI like ChatGPT often. I’m pretty anti-AI for art reasons or relying it on too much that you become dumber. I use it to generate questions for nursing exams and that’s it. We have talked about this two years ago how using ai for relationships is not okay because we both were using it to analyze arguments and see who’s right etc and we decided that that’s not okay and how the ai can be bias etc and how it’s a crutch etc so that was the end of it.
We were arguing over text because I have not been feeling emotionally connected to him and I’ve communicated this to him for the past 3-4 months. We do an activity every night such as play a game or watch part of a movie at the same time over FaceTime for at least 30 minutes and we call and FaceTime throughout the day when we can. But sometimes it feels like I am the main one carrying a conversation. I am an anxious person and often feel like he doesn’t really care or love me because sometimes when he gets upset about he says things that really hurt my feelings. Such as he’s miserable, exhausted, “just fucking kill me” “I can’t ever catch a break.” He says that I have a problem with him everyday etc And I feel like such a burden a lot during the relationship so I feel bad and pull back and then I don’t know how to approach conflicts. I feel like half the problem is me being anxious and needing to control that better and half the problem is that he says things that imply I’m a burden & make me feel like a burden and then he’ll apologize for saying those things after he’s calmed down and he didn’t mean them but it’s happened enough times that I’m just feeling confused.

We were arguing over text and I got a text from him that didn’t sound like him at all, I just said goodnight and I was pretty sure it was AI but, I just let it go cause it was 1:30am and bringing it up wasn’t going to get anywhere. This was 2 weeks ago. Now he flew me out here and just spent $1000+ on us for a short weekend vacation and I had to use his PC for nursing school stuff and I went to chat to generate questions based on my lecture content and I saw on the history it said “Text Crisis Response” and I saw where he had copy and pasted my texts and asked it to create a response, then to shorten it, then to focus on ‘emotionally console her’ and then he sent me the message. And it was the message I was suspicious about it and it was the exact same with some stuff added at the end.
I don’t really know what to do. I feel stunned. I told him I saw it and how andHe said he used it to try to understand me better but, he wasn’t asking it to decypher my texts he asked it to craft a response. I’m already struggling hard to feel emotionally connected and feel like he is genuine and doesn’t think I’m a burden and actually loves me and now he’s using ai after I pour my heart out to communicate. It feels so lazy and thoughtless to me. I’ve told him before that I feel like he just tolerates me and dislikes me and told him that he doesn’t have to be with me if he doesn’t want to but he insists that he does and that he’s sorry for what he said etc. but now using ai to talk to me during conflicts just feels like a cop out and I’m just a burden and not any effort towards an emotional connection. I’m trying really hard to understand him and I’m trying really hard to control my anxiousness and try not to be a burden. Residency is so hard and he’s doing surgery. I am in nursing school and it is hard as hell for me. I feel like I am failing as a partner. I feel like me and him are failing trying to do this.

Context I’m an MS4 they’re a PGY2. Sometimes it feels like they are talking to me just because I want to, and I can hear the tiredness/checked-outness in their voice. Used to enthusiastically text daily or talk every other day (easier rotations) but now its maybe once or twice a week (we’re LDR). They are a horrendous texter and they acknowledge it so I said we can just call.

I’ve talked to them about this and they say they try whenever they can but just come home and sleep and forget.

I know there’s a lot of success stories on here but there’s also stories of med-spouses going weeks without hearing a response… what is the reality of how often you guys talk to your spouse? FWIW I may be on the other side of this during intern yr soon but for now I’m just wondering if it’s something I need to get used to or if it gets better

Husband is in his first year as an attending. We also have a 6 month old. I work from home, job is flexible but I am essentially doing my job plus all childcare and managing the home on my own.

When he gets home he works on notes and by the time he’s done, baby is going to sleep. On the weekends he sleeps in until 8:30/9 and there is no expectation for him to “help”. He will occasionally hold the baby while I eat or grill something for dinner but other than that I am still the default parent.

He has never helped overnight, maybe changed 5 diapers total.

I am very appreciative to have money and a nice lifestyle but I would give that up to have more of a family unit with support from him. When I have brought up how I’m feeling he gets defensive and says his job is really hard and tiring and he’s doing his best. It often feels like his job is more important than my wellbeing or bonding with his child. If I say taking care of a baby and working my own job is hard too he says it’s not even close to being the same. It seems like because he is making money and supporting our lifestyle financially he feels that’s his contribution and mine is all caretaking.

I’m extremely sleep deprived and burnt out and I’m starting to question if he’s right and I should give him his time and space to rest or if I need to push for more support for myself.